[General Discussion] Most worthless party members ever!

One of the most useless characters I can recall was Malak from Final Fantasy Tactics. He was the brother of Rafa, and one of the Heaven/Hell Knights. The pair is forced upon your party halfway through the game though neither one is especially worth anything in battle. Their "special" ability was horrible, as it was completely random and would often inflict damage on your own team as often as the enemy.

However, Malak is inherently worse than Rafa. Rafa had a naturally low Brave level, making her very good at the "Move/Find" skill; she was able to locate rare objects better than any character in the game if you spent some time Chickening her into a stronger coward.

Malak, however, wasn't nearly as useful for anything like that. He was just an inferior fighter on pretty much all accounts.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Except that I think 50% of the FFIX roster can be safely discarded as useless and unnecessary. Quina, Freya, Amarant and Eiko were relatively pointless in the grand scheme of the game. Eiko fulfilled the role of Summoner, which is obligatory in a sense, but plotwise, she was still superfluous. But having a summoner was never a crucial element of success in FFIX.
On the same note, at no point were Amarant, Freya or Quina necessary for anything; Steiner, Vivi, Garnet and Zidane could carry you through every single scenario.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I still break out StarOcean 2 from time to time. As the years progress, I find myself liking the spellcasters less and less. Even though I've got pretty much all the awesome gear and all my abilities maxed to 10, the spellcasters just don't have the raw force and staying power that the combat-oriented characters do.

Unfortunately, I didn't use any FAQs or guides when I played through, so I missed out on several characters. I didn't recruit Opera, Ernest and Ashton. I also chose Claude off the bat, denying myself the opportunity to recruit Dias. I feel foolish now, but I worked pretty hard to get all the powerful weapons and I don't have the heart to begin anew.

Still, I can attest to Chisato being pretty fucking awesome. She is fast, fast, fast. Her Killer Moves are particularly harsh. Flamethrower is beastly; Rising Dragon is even nastier; Preparation is downright lethal as tons of bombs drop from the sky. Her normal attacks aren't the strongest but she moves around the battlefield like a bolt. If anyone is going to get to the enemy first, it's Chisato.

Right now, my party consists of: Claude/Bowman/Chisato/Celine. I missed out on Ashton, else he'd replace Celine. Bowman's Explosion Pills are ungodly destructive. I've always wanted to try Precis but you can't have Bowman if you take her, and who wouldn't want Bowman? Celine is the last party member because she's got the best assortment of combat spells. Her destructive power isn't quite as strong as Leon's but she's far more versatile.

I didn't think that Noel sucked as much as he didn't seem to fill a particularly useful niche. His combat skills are okay but he requires knuckle weapons and is prone to heavy hits. His Killer Moves didn't impress me that much. His non-combat abilities also didn't seem to be of much use. He's an animal wrangler, so I suppose his "Come On Bunny" ability is well-honed but who needs that once you can fly?

Honestly, I found Lena to be the least useful. Healing is nice but I get by without it during most combats.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Dagobert

Aeris, she was seriously useless.

Not only was she weak, she really didn't have a huge role in FVII, or had a role that was some how important to the storyline.

Okay. You've either never played through FFVII, or you're trying to be a snarky troll and failing miserably. Everybody in this thread knows that neither of those statements are even close to being true. It's not even opinion; it's intrinsic fact.

If your goal is to rankle the fanboys, knock it off. You're not doing it nearly cleverly enough and all you'll get it the Square-pegs incessantly repeating their chants of "NO U RONG NU-UH GOD U SO RONG!"

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?