Suikoden Yaoi Duo Knights and Arbitrary Characters Who Align with Them:
Kwanda: 2/10
Milich Oppenheimer: 5/10
Alen: 6/10
Grenseal: 5/10
Kasim: 2/10
Sonia: 6/10
Mikolotov: 3/10
Camus: 5/10
Georg Prime-2: 4/10
well that was boring
Oh well, gonna post FFX/FE9 character thoughts for fun since I recently beat those. What do you mean we did these almost two years ago what are you talking about.
Tidus: Haste is pretty cool, though the rest of the package isn't much, outside of the speed. Still, Haste is worth a 7/10.
Auron: His niche against randomsmashing is the most replaceable even ignoring Kimahri's existance, go Piercing being not terribly painful to customize. Against bosses he fairs better since breaks are harder to replace but they're laggy and he doesn't get faster. Not what I'd call *bad*, per se, but did feel like the least impressive member of the non-Kimahri cast. 4/10.
Rikku: Use is one of those things that seems like it should be more useful than it ends up in practice. Aside from being what may as well be your only source of MT healing (but but PRAY), it also gets those shiny White Magic buffs, so you've got those getting tossed out at cast-best speed with a quick action. In theory. In practice it basically ends up all about the Al Bhed Potions since the buff items are kind of a pain to get in bulk and Use is the most spareable skillset anyways. Still, something to be said for tossing out ABP spam off that speed. 5/10.
Wakka: I didn't get as much mileage out of the statushax as some, but still, best overall stat spread for randomsmashing, the resident evadewhore randoms say lol to the rest of the cast more often than not and he's got better strength than Tidus for a sizeable chunk of the game so he deals with wolves fine as well. Against bosses he's a little less solid but still best physical offense in practice and statushax is still an option against the odd boss, never mind that Attack Reels hurts if you care enough to grab it. 7/10.
Lulu: Lulu is so dang swingy on usefulness until late in her grid section, at which point she becomes quite good, but still, there's a pretty sizeable section of game where she's bad at things outside her randomsmashing focus, though unlike Auron she's not really at much risk of failing to oneshot enemies in her niche ever. 5/10.
Yuna: 10/10, nothing really needs to be said.
Kimahri: As far as I see it, the hornless wonder's got two real options open to him and they're both pretty solid. The one I went for basically had him being Tidus with a larger MP pool to play with, so as a personal experience thing a 7/10 would work. Pretty swingy though, I could see anywhere from a 1 to 7-8 fitting for him. Weird.
Ike(9): Stat spread turns out exceptional, but the beginning could use a little work. I'm not as big on the FE9 monosword hate as some people and the promotion didn't feel that late to me (go playstyle differences or something), so an 8/10 works.
Mist(9): Project healer, except BEXP exists so you can just BEXP her up to Lv10, blow a master seal on her, and enjoy your 8 move healer with Canto, which frankly strikes me as more useful than anything you can do with her main competition, and hey if you're willing to invest more she gets hax offense. 6/10.
Reyson(9): Needs boots/knight ring pretty badly, but is probably the best candidate for them anyways. 9/10, only real thing holding him back from a perfect score is needing to wait a few turns to transform.
Elincia(9): Her staff rank lets her hang back and play healer with physic staves, that's more than can be said for *some* of the lategame trash you get. 3/10.
Titania(9): Dominates the earlygame, only really falls off when other people start catching up to her in weapon ranks and start being able to pull out silvers, which takes a while because FE9 weapon levels are dumb, and even after that she's still solid. 9/10.
Oscar(9): So you have a reasonably tanky mounted unit in a game where mounted units are inherently dominant, give him solid offense and have him support with the main character. Who gives him obscene evasion. Then you give him more supports which make his evasion even more obscene. Oh and there's also an accessory that boosts speed growth and cavaliers can use it to pretty crazy effect too. What the christ, Intelligent Systems. 9.5/10.
Kieran(9): Rounding out the dominant mounted trio, we have this guy. Offense/durability combo is p. cool. 9/10.
Makalov(9): The worst unpromoted cavalier. Oh no. 7/10.
Geoffrey(9): Reasonably solid filler. 5/10.
Gatrie(9): I don't particularly *want* to give him a worse score than what I game Gilliam but *ugh*. Armor knights run counter to my biases to begin with and FE9 makes their issues worse with its wide open maps and lack of narrow chokepoints and generally greater emphasis on mobility, never mind that the cavaliers do the tanking job about as well anyways. In the meanwhile enemies actually have stats now and his speed is terrible. Screw it, worse score than Gilliam he gets. 2.5/10.
Brom(9): Is better than Gatrie for reasons that have been stated, but still, the bias is against armor knights and I just can't bring myself to agree that it's two whole points worth of difference. 3.5/10.
Nephenee(9): Outside of the weapon rank (E in Lances at that point? Really, Nephenee?) the start's pretty solid for what it is and she does bring a pretty reasonable offense/durability combo and is the earliest person who can potentially benefit from the Vantage/Wrath combo. 7/10.
Devdan: You could use him I guess but why. 3/10.
Tauroneo(9): Ew. 2/10.
Boyd(9): Brings offense. Not a fan of the shaky speed though, or the defenses for that matter, for all that the HP can probably keep him out of too much trouble. 7/10.
Mordecai(9): augh 0 starting transform gauge why. You could Demi Band him but you don't get that until Muarim joins and Muarim's better anyways so who cares? Still, I've found Smite to be occasionally useful. 2.5/10.
Muarim(9): Well chances are if you're going to be fielding a tiger it's him. Still not very fond overall. 3.5/10.
Largo: Boyd with worse defenses and supports barely worth caring about. Aww yeah. 3/10.
Giffca(9): Well I guess he's a useful crutch against Ashnard if you got a sucky Ike. 5/10.
Mia(9): Oh FE9 swordmasters. They don't dodge particularly well since FE9 hates giving people luck stats and it's harder to make up for that with supports now, enemies have better defensive stats than they used to so their low strength tends to bite them, weapon weight is mitigated by strength and in order to do damage they have to use heavier weapons, so the stereotypical swordmaster is getting hosed since enemies are actually having stats and they get to face the choice between not doubling or not doing damage. And meanwhile lances and axes look better now since the people who use those tend to have better strength and end up more able to match swordmaster speed as a result, to say nothing of the cavaliers and their bloody ability to abuse the Knight Ward. And Mia is pretty much the stereotypical FE swordmaster, having to deal with the harsh reality of being in a game that hates her statbuild. Still, she can get by, but only just. 4/10.
Zihark(9): Slightly better overall than Mia, but worse potential skill combos there, and I don't think the better base is quite enough to warrant a better score, ultimately. I'd care more about the Earth affinity if his supports didn't depend on people whom one really shouldn't depend on being fielded. 4/10.
Stefan(9): Well if you're going to field a swordmaster in FE9, it's probably this guy. 6/10.
Lucia(9): lulz. 1/10.
Naesala(9): Well I guess he's a useful crutch against Ashnard if you got a sucky Ike. 5/10.
Shinon(9): Ugh, no. Can fuck up chipping in the earlygame because of that crit bonus, is terrible when he rejoins, and isn't even good once he gets levels under his belt. I don't want to say EXP thief but with his needing all that EXP to go from a completely terrible unit to a merely bad unit, it's tempting. 0/10.
Rolf(9): Meanwhile he goes from suck to okay for an archer, but you probably have better uses for your BEXP and Astrid joins a few chapters later so why care? 2/10.
Lethe(9): Has some okay utility in the middle parts and doesn't take forever to be able to do anything besides shove people if not given the Demi Band. 4/10.
Astrid(9): Paragon/Knight Ward/Actually ends up pretty good/Is a FE9 cav. 8/10.
Ranulf(9): Lethe when you stopped having a reason to use Lethe five chapters ago. 2/10.
Marcia(9): Start is kind of shaky but can't argue with those results. 7.5/10.
Jill(9): Marcia trading some speed for some concrete durability. Probably a lateral move, all things considered. 7.5/10.
Janaff(9): lawl. 2/10.
Tanith(9): Solid enough filler, point for Marcia/Oscar supports. 6/10.
Ulki(9): lawl. 2/10.
Haar(9): Solid enough filler, though a bit less solid than others. 4/10.
Tibarn(9): Well I guess he's a useful crutch against Ashnard if you got a sucky Ike. 5/10.
Soren(9): Mages in FE9 have a whole host of issues. Soren's in the running for best one and he's only adequate. The power disparity between weapons and tomes is larger than it is in the GBA games and enemy resistance tends to be better, and due to how forging works, tomes just get left further in the hole. Meanwhile, Soren's speed is shaky and his strength sucks, so he's likely going to need to rely on forges to do what others can. I don't have a whole lot of respect for the unreliable Adept procs and the weakness hitting against laguz is a pretty small boon. Still, he can contribute some pretty nice chip damage in the worst case scenario, and after promotion he can serve as a backup healer. 5/10.
Illyana(9): Hey look it's Soren without the things that make Soren adequate. 2/10.
Tormod(9): Cerelity solves one of the problems mages have, but he comes in underleveled, his base speed is basically Soren's except Tormod joins six levels higher than Soren did and his growth there is not notably better, and he's worse at the whole chip thing anyways. 4/10.
Calill(9): Would unquestionably be the best mage if she had the decency to use staves. Unfortuantely she does not. Still, solid stats and okay weapon levels. 5/10.
Bastian(9): No. 1/10.
Ena(9): I guess she can be used as a crutch or something. 2/10.
Nasir(9): Ditto. 2/10.
Rhys(9): Fails forever and ever at having any sort of offensive worth and unlike Mist doesn't get a pony on promotion. Useable enough, I suppose, but there's too much you'd need to keep from looking at him funny for my liking. 3/10.
Volke(9): Costs 50 gold every time he does his thing I so don't care. Not a whole lot of call for thief utility anyways but it is there and basically how I spammed physic staves at endgame. 4/10.
Sothe(9): No. 1/10.
