Top 10 Worst JRPG Party Members - Part 3 

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I laughed SO HARD at "Chrono Cross : Half the cast". This is so true. You spend a good chunck of your time trying to obtain every characters, and most looks and plays as joke characters.

" has tales of symphonia on the list." me; oh boy here comes regal " it's sheena." we may need to fight.

"If they ever make a BoF 6..." Me: "But isn't there?" "...and mobile garbage doesn't count" Sir, you just earned a sub.

"Worst JRPG Character List" Half the list: "He/she is not bad"

>Sheena >Bad >"She has no niche" Actually... If you get the proper equipment... Sheena is the strongest anti-mage in the game. With the right set up she alone gts her elemental resistances to "null" with fire getting absorbed. I mean, spec her towards Int where you can but her summons are just to make sure she can do her damage as a tank/support.

I'm going to have to disagree, Bowser is amazing. I'd point fingers at Mallow as "the worst" but that's mainly because I don't have the magic vulnerabilities of every enemy memorized

Completely disagree with bowser in super Mario rpg. That title definitely goes to mallow. As soon as peach comes around he never makes it back into my party. Also the main character in secret of mana. There are no bad characters. If your playing single player most likely your playing as him and casting magic from the other 2. 95 percent of the game I play as him with only switching to the other 2 except during status effects or death

Well I always use Sheena, mainly for the status effects and her awesome Compound Unison Attacks with Lloyd, which are very powerful. Also elemental cards, which go a long way in boss battles against spirits. And the summons, which not only can heal you instantly and boost your stats, but can also destroy bosses, depending on the summon.

"Half the cast of Chrono Cross". Yeah .... that sounds about right unfortunately ....

Bowser is only bad at the end. When you first get him he is amazing. He is really strong for a decent period of time

Like this page and what I do here? Consider supporting me on patreon! www.patreon.com/davidvinc [0:33] - 10) Lilka - Wild Arms 2 [1:26] - 9) Melody - Nostalgia [2:24] - 8) The Boy - Secret of Mana [3:27] - 7) Sheena - Tales of Symphonia [4:29] - 6) Bowser - Super Mario RPG [5:31] - 5) Margarite - Shadow Hearts [6:35] - 4) Half the Cast - Chrono Cross [7:43] - 3) Jean - Breath of Fire 2 [8:48] - 2) Ramus - Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete [9:42] - 1) The Five Squirell Squad - Suikoden 2

Now do a list on the Top 10 *BEST* JRPG Party Members! Eventually.

I agree with most of this list, except Sheena. WTH man, in thinking you simply did not know how to use her.

Damn I thought the Suikuden series would escape this list, but it's hard to argue with the Squirrel Squad.

I have a feeling Bowser is not gonna be one people agree with. Mario, Peach and Bowser is a really common end team for that game. He just does great physical damage. Whenever I've played the game, once I had Bowser and Peach, I'd never change the team ever again.

You nailed it with the acsersion that there are MANY dubious characters in Chrono Cross. Overtly the game is fantastic and most of it is enjoyable if not fun but when it comes to the usefulness of your party members....wow...how about the guy that looks like a mushroom and helps run the shop in Termina? With some of these choices in the game it just makes you wonder what they were thinking. Suikoden did a much better job at varying and validating so many characters IMO

I literally just found your channel through the first two parts and you like immediately uploaded part 3. Is this fate? Idk maybe

A thing you forgot to mention with Bowser: He has the worst equipment draw of anyone in the game, and his strongest weapon is the weakest strongest weapon in the game

I found Zhuzhen to be worse than Margarete in Shadow Hearts. His physical attacks are worthless, and his spells are only middling at best. Marge might not be anything special, especially in comparison to Kieth and Halley, but at least you don't need to constantly keep her magic topped off to be of any use in dungeons like you do for the old guy. Concerning Chrono Cross...only HALF the cast sucks? More like about 80% of them. Anyone who isn't Serge, Kid, Glenn, Guile, Karsh, Marcy, and Fargo isn't worth your time. And about Ramus, he might not be anything good, but he at least LEAVES the party just when he starts to top off. Nash, however, doesn't. He is a terrible combatant all around with only some weak lightning spells and a bunch of status effects that don't work and that you will never use. And on top of that, he is FUCKING ANNOYING, never shuts up about how he is the greatest thing since sliced bread despite his skills never backing it up. Oh, and it turns out I was wrong about him not leaving your party; he does leave at one point...to outright BETRAY you. And what does your numbnut party do when they meet him again? Wag their fingers at him for being a naughty boy and let him back in. Fuck him, he's such an awful character that I can't even play Lunar again because of him.

Jean is amazing if you use his shaman transformation. He becomes very fast, strong, and has a one-shot, kill-all-enemies attack that in my experience has a high success rate.

BOWSER? That's just disrespectful lol

Having played Shadow Hearts many times, I'd argue that Zhuzhen is the worst party member than Margarete, gameplay wise. He has the second worst HP (barely a few points higher than the worst at Level 50) and Strength, the worst physical defense and speed, average INT (barely much higher than Margarete and Keith), and his abilities are both MP costly and quickly overshadowed by other party members who can do the same but are also more durable and faster than him. Margarete has a lot more HP and Agility than Zhuzhen, and she works better as a mixed physical/special attacker than Zhuzhen can, due to his terrible attack power and MP costly spells. She even has an attack command that either deals decent damage or has a surprisingly good chance of inflicting Instant Death, which no one else but Yuri can do.

Square sure did Kimahri dirty in Bevelle. It's one of the best grinding spots until just before the ending and he leaves the party... Shame, his Fire Breath / Slayer combo is super overpowered until then...

Sheena? She ain't that bad.

" all she can do is add debuffs and elemental powers to your weapons making every attack do extra because you chose the enemies weakness but shes worthless"

Imo Karol of Vesperia could be in this list, he tries to be a Healer Warrior but fails in both

6:35 I have been thinking tgis throughout all your vids on this! You really hit it right on the head well done!

Honestly i would say mallow being worse than bowser for super mario rpg. Peach almost makes mallow pointless

I never thought about "The Boy" from SOM that way but your 100% right! "Missed Opportunity" about sums it. -EDIT- On second thought, given the broader ambitions of the game originally (look up its developement history) there may actually have been a unique system or ability for the Hero, or a mid-way buff that was ditched.

I get great use out of Sheena, it depends on how you develop her tech's and also her Ex-Skill slots which can help her go to Overlimit faster, longer and more consistently, also some of her later tech's are very useful for instance moves such as Demon Seal, Cyclone seal, and Force Seal. She also can revive party members while having better HP and Defense then Raine even if its just one person at a time, she can also lower enemy stats. Also her character story I felt was really good.

In defense of Randi (the boy) from secret of mana: I always ended up playing him BECAUSE he didn't use magic. So I'd set up spells with Popoi (the sprite) and Primm (the girl) and while they were prepping their magic attacks I'd dish out damage with Randi. I feel that's the reason the designers made him like that. If the game didn't stop time while a spell was cast, he'd be really useful as he could dish out damage in the meantime. But you're right, some enhancements would be nice.

If you want a Fire Emblem character for a list. Karla from FE7 would be a good candidate. You have to recruit her in a specific way, she joins you very very late, she is a swordmaster (aka one of the worst classes in the series), and despite her joining late in the game, her base stats are WORSE than her brother’s. (And he joins you earlier).

Lmaooooo dude I lost it when he got to Chrono Cross!

Yeah, Square dropped the ball hard on Bowser. He's a summoner. Which is weird. All of his techs suck though, I do not know why. Also he cannot breath fire... Also Poshul is the BEST Chrono Cross character and I will fight anybody on that. >:V

This series of videos ROCKS. You're breakin' my heart with some of these entries though. Why do you want to hurt me so much?

Bowser is pretty good in the Armageddon romhack at least. The entire party is well rebalanced.

Ramus was useful and is mandatory, better than nothing but yeah when he's about to leave he's horrible

Trying to come up with party members from the "Golden Sun" series to nominate for this list: - Ivan in his default wind adept was always a chore trying to keep alive throughout the game with his HP and Def being so low; and his psynergy kit being on the "Meh" side - Piers from Golden Sun: The Lost Age was okay up until the later half when the team reunites. Your earth adapts, plus Mia and Jenna make his healing kit obsolete and by then you have more tanky-bruisers he can be swapped out for. That is unless you REALLY need single target water physical psynergy... just be mindful of his low PP pool - Sadly, I don't own a 3DS to have played Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Who did everyone pick to permanently bench and why?

Just want to say I wholeheartedly agree with you on Sheena being garbage. Even worse that you're forced to use her when fighting the summons.

Jean might be the worst frog in the history of RPGs

Sheena being on this list is infuriating. She can't be "the worst" if she's useful in her mandatory boss battles unlike another character in the same game

Chrono Cross: Half the Cast... that was great!

Ramus doesnt deserve that hate. Hes not with us that long and serves an important narrative function. (But in combat, he is objectively terrible but thats also intentional and completely in character for him!)

You're so right about Lilka. I like her as as a character, but Tim outclass her in battle. Please keep them coming!

Well, Ramus is clearly meant to be a temporary party member. His stats are really great for Lv 1. The problem is that they never really grow. By the time Alex is Lv 10, Ramus is basically a distraction for enemies and not much more. It's really just a nuisance that you have to take him through the sewers as he adds almost nothing to your battle strength. Long story short: Lv 1 Ramus is awesome. Lv 5 Ramus is okay. Lv 10 Ramus is just short of a hindrance. And he luckily realizes his worthlessness and leaves your party after that.

Lilka? Seriously? Mystic and Dualcast alone put her above Kanon and Marivel (and arguably Tim) in terms of usefulness. You mentioned her not having any multi-target healing or offensive spell, which is pretty much false since she has access to Mystic+Life Orb (or Big Berry) for multi-target healing. Her dualcast makes her offensive spell the strongest out of the mages in the party. Sure it's not multi-target, but almost all of the bosses and superbosses in the game are single target anyway so it doesn't matter much (and technically she has Extend for multi-target casting). Not to mention that she's the sturdiest and fastest of the mages in your party. You mentioned Tim as the party healer, but he has the lowest HP (and Def iirc) in the party, so you need to babysit him a bit compared to Lilka (he's still super useful though, Hi-Combine and First Aid are genuinely great). I seriously think you missed the mark here.

To add another, Darius from Vandal Hearts. He's the last character that officially joins, but honestly, he's more of a hindrance than anything. Sure, he's got mobility, but so do Kira and Diego if you promote either of them to Hawk Knight. There are so many enemies late-game that use bows that he'll go down the first time he gets hit. And even if you do manage to avoid that and hit somebody with him, his damage isn't all that great either. You can also make him an archer, apparently, but then he's far and away the least useful in that class. You don't really need a party of four archers, after all. He is good for grabbing items, at least.

Randi from Secret of Mana did have a distinct feature... Popoi and Primm where glass cannons with their stats relying on magic while Randi's evasive and defensive stats where ridiculously high. At least in the remade iteration.

It’s a real shame that they didn’t add special attacks for the Boy in Secret of Mana with the 3D remake.

You should do a series based on characters your wish wouldn't leave your party. Start with Dekar from Lufia 2!

Sheena? how dare you! Bowser? HOW DARE YOU!

Loving this series!

Chrono Cross is probably my most favorite game, but even I agree that it could have used a smaller and more focused selection of playable characters

still waiting for a list of Radiata Stories characters on the top of the dumpster heap.

I agree but disagree with you about Jean from BoF2. He’s useless in his base form but becomes amazing in the late game when you can upgrade him to his Mohawk form using the shaman fuse. His special command chop does 999 damage. I always had him, fused Sten, and fused Katt in my party late game. Though I agree Nina or bow or Rand were better options over him in his base form.

thank you for including Ramus :p

Elliot Craig - The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. I understand he has some uses but within combat I could never get him to suit my playstyle.

everyone in Mario RPG is pretty equally viable, and I often end up with my final party being Mario, Peach & Bowser... Sheena is my favorite character in Symphonia & never leaves my party from the moment she joins Jean is meant to use the French pronunciation btw like how you'd say Jean-Luc minus the Luc. Just wanted to point that out is all. Carry on. ( also they still need to make BoF 5...and that dumpster fire on PS2 doesn't count )

I internally raged seeing Lilka from WA2, but it makes total sense. At least she gets some use in endgame? 😂

Lol, the squirrels, I'd forgotten about them, the magical creatures that (I think) Cornelio the maestro gets to join you are just as bad in Suikoden V.

sry but sheena is a VERY required charcter, shes actually better then zelos late game, i literally nvr use zelos

3:07 i been saying dat for years , Duran from Trails of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 3) is pretty much Randi(the Boy) , but with Weapon Enchantments, Healing on Light side. only good thing bout Randi that his Weapon EXP doubles and has the highest HP, Strength, Vitality (and i think Agility). pretty much, with help from the Girl(Primm) Weapon Echant spells, Randi does do alot of damage. but He's boring after awhile lol. and the Sprite(Popoi) has high Magic Power but Lowest Magic Defense.... the heck? (remembering at my PSVita version of this game, i got all 3 to LV99 , by defeating lots of Griffon Claws in PureLands).

Oh, brother... I swear, most of this list boils down to "butbut they don't get screen-clearing nukes and they let enemies get tuuuurns! *periods of crying and whining* And here's facts that prove I didn't do one bit of research and just upchucked a video! Praise me!" #8) ...really? "Oh, he doesn't have any magic, so he's trash"? And what happens when your glass cannons run out of MP? He can't be affected by MP drain, either. They don't have as high physical stats as the Boy does, that's the tradeoff for them having magic! Good grief, dude, do you not understand how an RPG works? #5) "Her final attack isn't even water-elemental!" Uhm... Bazooka IS water elemental. Methinks someone didn't do research again and maybe should have played and/or beaten the games he's griping about, hmm? But of course, by all means, keep talking about things you think you know everything about. Margarete is actually a really good character- she may not be the be-all end-all of water elemental attacks, but that's because she's built as a spy, not as a mage. Her skills are all good ways of dealing non-elemental damage- and if the enemies are fire-elemental, then you can spend the handful of MP needed for Aqua Edge and have Yuri beat the crap out of them. #4) And yet that's half the fun of the game. If a party member is hurting somewhere, give them elements and other party members that can cover said weakness. Play around with your party members, sheesh! #3) Jean's just unfortunate to end up on the bench because your first two spare party slots are always going to be Katt (speed) and Nina (black magic), with a number of people rotating through the fourth slot until you find Bleu. You might need to grind up Sten and Rand for their solo storyline battles, but Jean gets no such luck, so there's no real reason to use him unless you don't like Sten much- and even then, he's your freshwater transportation for the second big chunk of the game. And you don't think status magic is worth it? ...that explains *so* much. #2) ...dude. Ramus doesn't suck, you just don't know how to use him in a battle. He's a starter tank to use until Alex gets his feet under him as one and you get more party members. And no, he doesn't get more stats beyond Lv. 12- if you're having to grind up for the Sewer Dragon fight past 12, *you're* doing something absolutely wrong, not the game. And how can you call him spoiled when he actively goes out and works for what he wants? No, spoiled would have been if he screwed up and threw a fit demanding Alex and Luna fix his mistakes without his help!

For Jean...his Shaman transformation can clear whole screens so...he does have that going for him.

Sailor Chibi Moon from Sailor Moon: Another Story should be on the list :D

Uhm........ Sheena was literally used for stagger exploit and last second revive. Also you only really used stat enhancing summons (Efreet/Origin) + Celsius to cheese large enemy parties. Also Power Seal + element exploit + Stagger???? That's one of the strongest ability combos in the game with Lloyd and Regal who can consistently apply stagger (like sword rain and auto combos). She fills the niche of as I'd describe a stat booster especially when kept as AI (so you as the player can fill the niche of primary physical damage and properly combo) But, I will say. Alone she does really poorly outside of stagger increase / back dash spam. Great list overrall though! I will say I was surprised to see Sheena at all mentioned over someone like Regal/Zelos who can definitely be outperformed until proper ex'spheres are equipped (for this particular game)

If you give Bowser the work pants, he can single-handedly defeat everyone in Booster's Tower, Marrymore, the sea, and the sunken ship. Nobody in that section can take more than 1 hp from him. It especially makes the Johnny fight easier, since you just have to let Mario die, then Bowser can fight Johnny himself. That entire section is so much less stressful.

About Jean, i recall him having a very good alternate form using one of those elemental orbs or something.

I'm still waiting for Sazh, Kimahri, and a bunch of Xenoblade X characters to make the list.

Sorry bro, half this list is inaccurate!

Dude, Shaman transformed Jean wrecks the last dungeon. His main ability kills every enemy except bosses, making that long, arduous walk down a lot less painful.

After you said chrono cross , you could have just sighed and said moving on .

Question on what time you upload

I'll always have a soft spot for Jean, because when all my other party members were dead, I rolled the dice with him to just do one last vanilla attack and that's how I killed the last boss. Though to be fair, it was in his transformed state.

My six-year-old niece would disagree with you on Bowser 😂 She’s going through an everything Bowser phase: I’ve had to concoct an all-encompassing Bowser mythos.

nice lists so far and i agree with all of them. would love to hear your thoughts on more games like Final fantasy, tales of..., Legend of the heroes and so on.

I had a feeling Luccia will be there from Chrono Cross. But personally, I love her 😂😂

Man that shot at Bowser hurt a bit. Hes my absolute favorite character, I guess being a Mario fan and finally after all the time I get to have Bowser on my side. If I'm not grinding I prefer to take him.

Do you have a best of list as well? I def love these vids, but every time you show some great games, I wanna see your best lists too! Also, would be great to see some Shining Force I and II stuff. Great work bud!

Characters who specialize in status magic 🤝 Characters who get outclassed by other party members: Sitting on the airship for the whole adventure

These videos keep me alive

"He's a stupid fat frog who can't do anything right." Mean! XD

I liked bowser. Mallow seemed too weak, and while Geno is good, I just thought he was very squishy and had a habit of going splat every turn

Tolten from Lost Odyssey is awful. He joins in halfway through, and his stats are terrible, with the exception of his Magic Defense, which is just ok. His damage is low, and even though he has some tanky abilities, his stats don’t back that up. His stats don’t back anything up. His only use is to teach Kaim and Seth a few melee abilities, which they really don’t need considering how strong their basic attacks are. I never got any use out of Tolten.

Nice video, thanks for sharing. On Chrono Cross I'm surprised you didn't mention the two worst characters in the game: Sneff, who has the physical stats of a magical character and the magical stats of a physical character.. and the useless HP Shuffle tech. But even he is better than Pip, who is supposed to be good, but his 'evolution' mechanic is glitched and doesn't fully work, so he's stuck with the base stats and tiny elemental grid of his baby form, far worse than any other character.

So gonna bring up some controversy here and talk about Jeff in Earthbound. Yeah he can do 2000 damage or so to a single target even bosses in a game where 900 damage is pretty much the best you will do but that comes at some pretty high costs. Jeff relies on items. And really only has 3 good tools out of all the ones he has. So lets start with the plus' for him. His best weapon in fact is the best weapon overall in the game that just makes him your party's main physical attack and is also at least difficult to get, you just have to be level 50 to repair it and find the parts for it in a sewer. Granted you have to be a bit after the game's 1/2 point to get this, but funny enough you can get this set up easily before even his lower level version of it. No I'm not talking about the Gaia Beam, we talking about heavy bazooka, a free super bomb thrower is the best physical option in the game and is nearly busted. The neutralizer is another one of his only good tools but only because the shield killer misses and only targets 1, now don't get me wrong, removing shields is great, I'm not really saying Jeff is truly bad like some of these others on these lists (I mean this person put Jean on here from BoF2, yeah he has huge down sides but at the same time the frog uses holy weapons and magic like angel), just saying he is the weakest in his party. So now the bad. Jeff is slow, he ends up as the slowest character once Ness reaches end game and Jeff was already semi slow, which isn't good when his 2000 damage attack is based off his speed stat, which doesn't come up often cause most bosses just don't have a super speed stat, but vs the ones that do and you see just how big of a weak point low speed is. Yeah Ness' nuke is based off speed as well but that miss rate is divided by 5 vs Jeff which doesn't have that to his bottle rocket fomula. And by end game that miss rate isn't an issue for Ness really. but the formula for Jeff's bottle rockets makes it so he has to be a lot faster to get all of the damage from them and if the enemy is faster than him at all they won't hit. Yeah the Lucky Rabbit's foot body armor charm makes all of Jeff's issues with missing go away, but really why give that to Jeff when you have Ness or Paula who can make use of it more? Really the reason why Jeff's downsides don't show up easily is because the guy has great support. Ness is a white mage with the best status affect in the game (paralysis is broken in EB at only 8 pp and works on a surprising amount of foes/bosses) who also can tank for days + throw out screen nukes now n then who end game wise unlocks god status and becomes one of the most broken characters ever in an RPG with every stat including his one weakness of speed getting a major boost (he gains 20 for speed, in a game where 50 is seen as fast). Paula is a super speedy black mage who gives up crowd control psi at the end game but keeps her best single target psi intact and builds up best support shield in the game (really PK starstorm nuking your team is a low worry when Paula can just slap up a psychic shield on your group before the enemy can react). Poo ends up even faster than Paula but is a red mage with another fine set of shields but can end game be like Ness and just press a screen nuke button but has far less pp to abuse it with or be like Paula and single target spell foes but has a lower level to abuse with. Really with support like those 3 it is pretty easy to miss when one might be weaker. But trust me, if you take all 4 by themselves you will find really fast that Jeff has the hardest time handling things on his own.

As soon as you said "half the cast" I knew it was gonna be chrono cross.

I think someone worth talking about is Aquila from DQ9: Virtually worthless by the time you get him. You've pretty much entirely completed the game, save for the abundant number of grottos, and have party members who are probably leagues ahead of him, with better vocations. Kinda sad, considering he's your master.

Lilka is mostly good, she has Mystic which lets her use items on the entire team while her Magic is potent while she can also lower or raise stats. Tim's magic is SINGLE TARGET save for the later spells which requires level 50, which if I recall right is near the end of the game. Tim's major redeeming factor is actually First Aid letting him heal everyone first... but due to how late he joins and his low max health he'll often quickly be killed. Tim has a short window... but when they start to excel you hit enemies which will kill Tim.

>bowser >bad You wanna fucking go?! No one messes with the koopa king!

I would still put Jean in my party back in the day because I thought his attack animation was hilarious. To this day, I will happily use useless characters in battle if they look cool. ;)

When you fuse one of the shamans with Jean, he's my personal favorite side character. Pretty sure he has some of the best stats and an instant kill on all. Give it a try. :)

"Bowser offers nothing unique." (While the video plays him inflicting a double debuff status effect only he can throw out.) Right. I think you just don't like hi defense characters.

Love the videos. You're sleeping on Jean, tho. Holy Shaman transformation and his Holy imbued rapier make him a beast of a front row fighter and tank.

Ooo a new vid while im catching up, how fun 😁

Woah woah woah.... i think you never played Sheena right. She can be a total combo beast! And i always loved LloydxSheena ;p

I just love your reaction on twitch you like getting ready for a different kind of show then u play the game lol

A Counter to you saying Bowser is useless: 1) He hits like a Truck as you said. 2) Shared FP Pool, he deals great physical damage without needing FP at all, freeing up your FP pool for Mario and your third character. I honestly don't think Mario RPG has a useless character.

I thought of the Squirrels before knowing they would be on the list, what a surprise when they actually were.