Overrated Game characters

[Armadillo-002]

This post may upset some of you and I apologize for this, but in the matter of disscussing games, what character do you feel is vastly overrated in any game and brings to the point of annoynece for you as gamers.

No disrespect but mine is Cloud and Sephiroth from FF7 (Sorry FF/7 fans).

 

[Connavar]

Mario !

Master Chief !


Mario was great back in the day but he is useless these days. Let him die in peace.

 

[Overread]

oh boy - you just opened a big can of worms and no mistake

As for character problems - keeping in the thread of FF games, my only problem (with the exception of the false game (FFX-2)) is that in the latest game the characters had no indeviduality as players in the game - anyone could be the mage, the gunner, which is not toooo bad, but it means that your characteres lose a dimension of thier realism. Though I prefered the licence board to the sphere system as you could actually see where you were going and plan ahead, it was just a little too open for its own good.

who is the master chief chap anyways (a halo thingy me thinks)
and as for mario - poor mario he has been done to death and beyond I agree

 

[Talysia]

Lol, well, as a FFVII fan (and FF in general), I have to disagree about the whole Cloud/Sephiroth thing (although for me, that's hardly surprising). To be honest, I've always found Mario a little overrated, even though he's such a famous character. (quick edit - looks like I'm not the only one!)

I'm sure there are others, but my brain isn't working quite at full power right now.

 

[Connavar]

Master Chief is a big gimmick. One-dimensional and uninteresting.

He is only about some uber armour.

Which is why i dont see the hype of Halo. Even FPS i want a hero and a story.

Not a robot in a armour.

 

[WriterDoug]

This is a dangerous thread, but if I must--

I have to go with Sephiroth even though he was a wonderful villain. My reason for this choice is because he is perhaps the single most imitated or cosplayed videogame character out there, and his overall appearance is actually not that unique or unusual. Sephiroth, while a rich character mentally and emotionally, is physically pretty much the poster child of the cyberpunk fantasy-anime baddie that we see all over Japan during the day and age. This is not necessarily a bad thing, seeing as they may have "broken the mould" with this guy. Just take a look at how popular it is now to feature a bad guy with long flowing, silvery hair. This has become SUCH a cliché that Square may have even shot themselves in the foot, seeing as they chose not to go there again with any of their more recent villains by using the aforementioned long, flowing silvery hair, hence risk taking away some of the spotlight from (arguably) their best villain to date.

Scanning through the harddrive that is my brain, the only immediate predecessor with a close candidate hairstyle that crosses my mind would have to be Kuja from FFIX, but I generally excuse this seeing as this game was intended to be a tribute to the entire final fantasy series. Any person would be hard-pressed to argue that Kuja is not simply a swirling mix of Kefka's flamboyance and lunacy with the cool and almost erotic appeal or "badassery" that is Sephiroth.



Cheers,
WD

 

[Thadlerian]

Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII. She has to be saved, how many times, five or so? Utterly helpless and useless.

 

[WriterDoug]

Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII. She has to be saved, how many times, five or so? Utterly helpless and useless.

Ahahaha . . . God, I love her.

To quote Edge from a translation of Final Fantasy IV from the Japanese version:

Cheers,
WD

 

[Durandal]

Yeah, this thread's just going to agitate people.

Anyway, these sorts of questions are so subjective and arbitrary. Especially this one -- we're evaluating characters, not games. So a lot of the response will be driven by a different question entirely -- "How important is story in your games?" Or maybe, "What characters symbolize games you like?"

So. To respond. As to the characters that I've seen mentioned, I agree that Mario's overplayed. I like Master Chief, though I think he's far from the most interesting character in the Halo games. Of course, I love the Halo games, and I've been a Bungie fan since looong before Halo, all of which is bound to affect the way I respond to the characters.

Can't comment much on the Final Fantasy characters people have mentioned, as I have a strong aversion to all things Final Fantasy (which generally makes me something of a pariah among gamers ).

I'll bring up the potentially dangerous topic of Link -- my Zelda history is spotty at best (I've played the original LoZ on the NES and Wind Waker on the GC) but I've always been a bit baffled by the extent to which people adore and embrace that character. I mean, he doesn't even talk, right?

Same goes for Samus Aran -- people just fawn over that character. I'm not sure why. I think the bottom line is you'll like characters from games you like, and dislike characters from games you dislike. It really doesn't have anything to do with the characters themselves. I mean, both Master Chief and Samus Aran are essentially suits of armor. Whether you like one or the other better likely depends on whether you like Halo or Metroid better.

 

[Cayal]

No disrespect but mine is Cloud and Sephiroth from FF7 (Sorry FF/7 fans).

You just made the list.

Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII. She has to be saved, how many times, five or so? Utterly helpless and useless.

She is the reason I beat the game. Her invincible moon was brilliant.

 

[Armadillo-002]

As a subjective topic as it is meant to be and not upsetting people (too much), Durandel you have got the gest for this topic, we're evaluating game characters and not the games itself, each franchise are respected as they are established. The reason why I think Cloud and Sephiroth are overrated is because the characters are too similar, (In terms of being confused and erratic) I could be wrong in my own evaluation, feel free to disagree with me.

 

[Cayal]

Sephiroth pretty much knew what he was doing.
Cloud stole an identity.

I don't see a similarity.

 

[McMurphy]

This post may upset some of you and I apologize for this, but in the matter of disscussing games, what character do you feel is vastly overrated in any game and brings to the point of annoynece for you as gamers.

No disrespect but mine is Cloud and Sephiroth from FF7 (Sorry FF/7 fans).

My main issue with the Cloud character deals more with his appears after the Final Fantasy VII. His character seems less developed in, for example, the latest Final Fantasy film......settling for being just a silent, cold character rather than the sharp tongued renegade he once was as he first rolled his motorcycle down those steps so long ago.

 

[Armadillo-002]

Sephiroth got confused as to who he was when he found out about his past and then went beserk, while Cloud was ashamed of his failure and tried to hide it, deluding himself he was something else when he wasn't, the part with Tifa and Cloud when he was in a coma and trying to unravel his state of mind the same as sephiroth. As for advent children, AWESOME CGI but a little let down for the final fight between the two about 8 mins in total and this supposed to be the climate between the two.

so both were confused and lost as they did not know what they were. And then you know the rest as the paths the two took.

 

[Cayal]

My main issue with the Cloud character deals more with his appears after the Final Fantasy VII. His character seems less developed in, for example, the latest Final Fantasy film......settling for being just a silent, cold character rather than the sharp tongued renegade he once was as he first rolled his motorcycle down those steps so long ago.

I never saw him as a sharped tongue renegade. It's been awhile since I watch Advent Children, but wasn't he feeling guilty about Geo-stigma?

 

[Talysia]

I always thought that in Advent Children, Cloud was feeling guilty about not being able to save Aeris once the Sephiroth/Meteor incident was over, but I agree - the Advent Children Cloud was too much like Squall for my tastes. I preferred the FFVII Cloud.

 

[WriterDoug]

Well, if you guys recall - Final Fantasy VII (the videogame) did not exactly have a happy ending. I think there were still far too many loose ends for any of the characters to be "happy" with Cloud definitely being no exception. He was still pretty screwed up over the whole Aeris thing, and yes as you indicated, he was quite ashamed or afraid to tell anyone of the geostigma because he knew he was dying. Cloud never really wanted to burden anyone, and that has always been his most consistent character trait. In my opinion, we got the same Cloud in Advent Children that we got in FFVII, but perhaps one that had warmed up a bit since then because these FF games tend to show the leading male characters some epiphany, and they all become sappy puddles of heroism and love after the world is miraculously saved. Neverless, he was simply depressed. His life completely sucks. I am not even entirely convinced he's straight, after how easily he manages to ignore Tifa's overwhelming sexuality. Who would do such a thing!?



Cheers,
WD

PS: It does not qualify to meet the demands of this topic regarding overrated characters, but how about least plausible characters? I happen to like Squall, but can someone please explain to me how he randomly goes from thinking Rinoa is a whiny, little bitch to completely falling in love with her between the very end of disc 2 and the very beginning of disc 3?

 

[Talysia]

That's a good point about Cloud, WD - It's been a while since I played the game in depth, so perhaps relying on my memories wasn't the best thing to do. I really must watch Advent Children again, too.

I wondered that myself about Squall, too. When I played the game, I kept thinking that his sudden change of heart towards her was perhaps not in character. (Again, though, it's been a long time since I played it.)

 

[Cayal]

I like Squall simply for when he tells his teacher to go talk to a wall.

 

[McMurphy]

I don't believe Cloud was ever a happy guy, and was clearly disenchanted with the world and his life upon our first introduction to him. In Final Fantasy VII, he a mouth on him (although the English translation in the game was a bit more loose than the chapters that would follow), and he had no mouth at all in the Advent Children. I like the Squall comparison. Spot on.

Role playing games do seem to not represent women well, because the trend of amazingly annoying love interests pop up far too often in central storylines. I don't know if anyone else has played Sony's "Legend of Dragoon," but Dart's girlfriend is particularly dying for the entire second half of the game.

Just as a footnote, please keep curt language out of the discussions since this forum is open to all ages.