Final Fantasy 4 (Advance):
Cecil: 9/10. Doesn't have a ton of damage lategame, but has everything else. He fits what you need from a game like FF4 perfectly, which is a lot of durability and some support.
Kain: 4.5/10. Kain's always competent, he's got a good stat spread and useful equips... till the very end. Fuck the Holy Lance. -2 if we're counting 4a, he's probably up there for worst option you can take in the final dungeon. His Avenger build is very good on damage and Cecil shouldn't use it (no cover!) which is his saving grace for the midgame.
Rydia: 8/10 .What others said. No real MP concerns either. She is kind of bad early on and struggles in a few boss fights, but it's not enough to ding her score.
Tellah: 6/10. He's kinda bad until he gets his spells back, but look the fuck out afterward. He is near total dead weight in Zot, but the earlier boss ass kicking is too good.
Edward-C: 0.5/10. Okay, no. He is Rydia without magic. That is beyond awful.
Rosa: 7/10. She's very useful for bosses and is surprisingly okay at physicals. Holy is nice offense but it's awfully late.
Yang-C: 5/10. He's pretty competent, high HP and can always hit an elemental weakness. Status claws are okay but Edge gets much more use out of them. The Hell Claw's status is kinda shitty, Fairie claw has a nice species weakness but lowers accuracy, which makes the speed boost a eh tradeoff. Catclaw is great but is awfully late unless you get lucky on a drop.
Palom-C: 5.5 Yay offense! Less yay is the HP.
Porom-C: 2.5/10. Really bad in practice, she's Rosa with 2/3ds the HP. You only really use healing on bosses in FF4 (and certain dangerous randoms, but that's after she leaves), and the ones during her arc tend to get Tellah'ed pretty badly. Most of her use comes from holy arrow physicals being fairly competent on Mt ordeals.
Cid-C: 3/10. Slow and less durable than you'd expect due to no shields. Gaia hammer is a fantastic weapon that Cid does not get to use for long enough; you get it at the very tail end of his last dungeon. Cid's something of a weird case on equips as well. In spite of using heavy armor, he gets no real use from them in the main game. He's best off running the Kenpo Ki/Headband for the stats, even ignoring the metallic cave.
Edge: 5/10. The fact that most of his use until the Moon relies on estortic strategies like Catclaws and hitting species weakness says it all about how bad Edge is at first otherwise He has the *same HP* as Cid did when he first joined and his defense is a liability until Genji Armor. That said he's got use, and his offense jumps ahead of Kain's in the final dungeon because the Holy Spear is such shit. -1 for 4a, he faces a lot of competition for spots.
FuSoYa: 5/10. Yeah, competent. Not much to say, skillset's awesome and you make full use of it (Reflect's great for Bahamut, the magic's good for the four fiends revisited). He's dead weight for the CPU core, but so it goes.
It's a game where everyone has some use outside of Edward.
Edward-A: 4/10. Awesome at randomslaying in the lunar ruins. Totally worthless on Zeromus thanks to the HP. He seriously breaks a couple of fights just due to his weapon hitting weakness on dragons/undead.
Yang-A: 8/10. Stupid durable, hits a ton of weaknesses. He can slap on a thunderclaw and hit weakness on machines, which lets him deal with evilmasks. This totally makes Cid obsolete, as that is the special effect of his weapon.
Palom-A: 7/10. His int's high enough to get away with spamming Quake. Black magic also does horrible things to the lunar ruins.
Porom-A: 2/10. I don't see a reason to use her. She's a little faster than Rosa and has better spirit, but that HP. No.
Cid-A: 1.5/10. *Awful*. Slowest PC in the game by a mile, his weapon's one trait is totally replaced by the Thunder claw. His aftergame gear is pretty junky too. He's durable which is worth something, but... yeah. I've used him and he's notably worse than the mighty Kain.
Final Fantasy 4: The After Years:
Ceodore: 8/10. Nice mix of skillset and status.
Biggs: N/A
Wedge: N/A
Cecil-T: 4/10. Bad for half the final chapter, inferior to Kain/Cedore/Golbez once he's unzombied. Cover's much less useful in this game as well.
Rosa-T: 8/10. See Ciatokins, but with a note that really need white magic in this game!
Cid-T: 1/10. In the running for worst non joke PC in the game. Holy shit. Axes are a terrible weapon class in this game, he's slower than fuck and he tops out at Dragoon armor.
Kain-T: 7.5/10. Ceo gets a few equips he doesn't and has a slightly better skillset. Otherwise, yeah. Very good PC in this game. I blame Scar.
Rydia-T: 8/10. Still kicks ass.
Luca: 3.5/10. She's done in by how awful axes are.
Calca: 0/10. Absolutely worthless .
Brina: 0/10. See above. You're better off killing them and letting Rydia/Luca get the EXP.
Yang-T: 8/10. Claw user.
Ursula: 8.5/10. Half a point for specializing more in speed than STR. Both her and Yang are seriously nuts.
Palom-T: See Porom.
Leonora: 3.5/10. White mage with Osmose is something, but her spells are way way *WAY* too late.
Porom-T: Pass, I didn't use either of the twins.
Edward-T: 5/10. Has uses! HP is still bad, so eh.
Harley: 0/10. I think she's worse than Edward in 4o. He at least was a warm body at his point. Harley isn't even that.
Edge-T: 8/10.
Gekkou: 4/10. I think he's the best of the axe users in the game. Just... axes are shit and he's competing with Edge and Yang for armor.
Izayoi: 1/10. Awful.
Tsukinowa: 1/10. Get some HP.
Zangetsu: 3/10. He's Kain with ninja armor. It's.... um. Mostly bad, but he's better than the superscrub ninjas.
Golbez: 8.5/10. I find him kind of eh in the second half; no status magic's a downer on a black mage and his INT's only okay. Still, he carries your team at the start of the final arc and he's a durable black mage.
`FuSoYa-T: NA
