Dragon Warrior/Quest 4:
Solo/Sofia: 8/10. Textbook well balanced character.
Ragnar: 5/10. Tanks well, but nothing else and its not needed as much.
Healie: DNR. Vital for finishing Ragnar's quest at a reasonable level but around too short to care otherwise.
Alena: 8/10. Hits hard and fast, but I do feel before the Stilletto Earrings, she wasn't THAT impressive, and there's a decent amount of time before those open up. Extra point for not really losing any potential with the AI on.
Cristo/Kyril: 6/10. Good healer with AI off, but with AI on he's practically worthless, so penalizing.
Brey/Borya: 5/10. Good moves for bosses, but felt kind of meaningless against like everything else.
Torneko Taloon: 2/10. Ragnar with gimmicky stuff and worse everything else to the point where its totally not worth it...at all...
Mara/Maya: 4/10. On paper, she should be really good, but Dragon Quest 4 hates Magic with it having lower accuracy than physicals, and bosses resisting it and all that. So we're left with an OCCASIONAL useful character whose a deadweight everywhere else.
Nara/Meena: 4/10. Worse than Cristo, but guess she deserves credit as an extra healing battery out of battle.
Orin/Oojam: DNR. See Healie.
Doran/Sparkie: 2/10. Actual permanent character, but a really crappy one.
SaGa Frontier Monsters:
Cotton: 5/10. Gets a point for being an early recruit for Red making him not to have to solo that early stuff (and thus not have to rely on Alkaiser, letting him gain stat boosts earlier), but otherwise meh.
King Sei: 3/10. Usable in Riki's quest, but not really that good. In other quests, gimps you out of an awesome sword.
Kylin: 6/10. Monster whose strong out of the gate *AND* has a bunch of unique shit? Yay!
Red Turnip: 1/10. Monster that joins late, with a non-stellar form and basically replaces someone whose notably better? Uh, yeah, game worst character in running!
Slime: 1/10. Awful in every regard. yes, early recruit potentially, but there are so many other generic characters available at the time, I have to question why you'd put SLIME in over all of them.
Suzaku: 2/10. If he was reasonably obtainable earlier, he'd be better I guess, but as it stands, just kind of a waste of time.
Thunder: 6/10. Part of why Slime is worthless. Thunder is easier to recruit than Slime, and takes literally one battle to become a rather strong early game character in the Trisaur form (which is pretty absurd for early game.) He's a good Jeigan as a result.
BONUS ROUND - RATE THAT WEAPON:
Mega Man 3:
Gemini Laser: 4/10. Some neat gimmick uses, but not much else.
Hard Knuckle: 6/10. Go to "Power" weapon, and tends to do good damage to like every boss.
Magnet Missile: 7/10. Decent Tracking weapon that doesn't have any real notable failings.
Mega Buster: 5/10. Mega Buster/10.
Needle Cannon: 2/10. Being able to fire only 3 at a time of this makes you question why it exists when the Mega Buster is basically the same with slightly less vertical, but infinite ammo.
Rush Coil: 6/10. Good utility.
Rush Jet: 9/10. It being nerfed in MM4 was so justified given how wrong it was in this game.
Rush Marine: 3/10. Good in Gemini Man's stage, but like never else. Rush Jet obsoletes it to boot if yo get that first.
Search Snake: 3/10. Yeah, no, it just kind of sucks. More respect for it than Needle Cannon cause at least it has theoretical gimmick uses.
Shadow Blade: 7/10. Metal Blade hit with a massive nerf stick...and its still good!
Spark Shock: 2/10. Crappy status weapon.
Top Spin: 6/10. Has some neat gimmick uses, but you really need to use it right for it to have any sort of genuine worth.
