Mother 3:
Lucas: 8/10. Ness-lite, so he's your durable healer with decent physicals, and a trump-card damage move. Gets an extra point simply for carrying 45% of the team's weight.
Flint: 5/10. Technically a solo character who hits hard, but there is a brief moment he's comparable to Duster I believe...except Duster has like only one tool, so he's worse than normal. Yeah, kind of definitively average.
Duster: 4/10. So here's a character whose entire skillset is given to you from the outset...sadly the skill-set is limited and really needed to be expandable.
Kumatora: 8/10. For the most part, takes the positive aspects of Paula and Poo and marries them together, making her overall better than both. She carries another 45% of the team's weight as a result. Yes, Lucas + Kumatora are only 90% of the team's worth, that's because warm bodies and item slots have to count for SOMETHING (and...Duster does have stat downs, I guess)
Salsa: 0.5/10. When you're practically a solo PC and demonstrably awful, and need to rely on a random acting NPC to do anything, you KNOW you suck. Damage anemic, skill-set sucks, can't take hits...this is exactly how NOT to do a Monkey PC.
Boney: 2/10. Fast and has a lot of item slots due to less equipment! And his worth ends there; bad at damage, no variety whatsoever, kind of frail, a complete and total waste of a dog PC. Feels like he was intended to be a temp that somehow got stuck being a permanent PC because they were too lazy to think of a 4th legitimate character.
Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria:
Alicia: 7.5/10. Heal, good attacks, and no real glaring flaws, I hesitate to say "MVP" but she's solid in her own right.
Rufus: 7/10. Only reliable 60 Energy Soul Crush PC without using Heat Up, and some good moves, but he takes some time to get going. Once he gets going, he's arguable for MVP, and easily the best archer in the aftergame due to nothing but unique oves.
Dylan: 6/10. Service-able Heavy Warrior, the main thing they have are weapons that allow them to hit extremely hard on Soul Crushes, and his normals are good enough as well. Also a nice perk of anything he learns benefits another good PC later in the game.
Lezard: 1/10. He's a Mage, and not a particularly good one. The one fight he joins with SUPER EQUIPS, he still really sucks.
Arngrim: 4/10. Hybrid of a Heavy Warrior and a Light Warrior, didn't really work out as expected. He's not bad, but not really stand out either.
Leone: 3/10. Light Warrior who misses out on some key moves like Holy Smite, on top of low health. Her only saving graces are early development for Hrist on skills, and a high hit count Soul Crush for Light Warriors.
Brahms: 6/10. Thanks to parasitic healing, keeping him at full health is easier than most so Adamantine and Paper Tiger work better on him, inheritting Dylan's skills means he won't be behind on them despite joining late, and he really lacks any sort of flaws. However, his joining late means I can only give him so high.
Hrist: 5.5/10. Kind of like Brahms, only prepping her is harder because Leone sucks while Dylan does not, and she's a temp in the main game and misses out the early parts of the SG. Once she gets her good stuff, she's quite good, and she's got one of the best weapons in the SG through Gungnir, which on top of being gotten early, you can get multiple of too boot allowing for that 300% Attack seal stone to be used with her. Still, limited usage means I can only give her so high, alas. Unique weapon allows for flexibility in usage too since she never competes for stuff unlike...
Lenneth: 5.5/10. This character here! On paper, she's better than Hrist, but a number of minor little flaws like no Leone skill thing, competes for weapons, Levantine gotten notably later than Gungnir, etc. means I give her the same.
Silmeria: 2/10. So what we have is a character who joins late, with no skills learned, and doesn't have any real unique features whatsoever other than being able to equip a select few weapons (like Rangrid's Blade), which don't amount for much. Worse yet, she competes with the STRONGEST CLASS OF EINHERJAR BY FAR. They really dropped the ball on this character.
Freya: 5/10. Like the Valkyrie, but gotten later with limited skills, IIRC. She's by no means bad and definitely good enough to justify a party slot, but "late in SG" only goes so far for me. I was tempted to DNR her until I realized I gave Hrist and Lenneth legitimate scores based on that partially.
Archers: 7/10. The best Einherjar Class, easily. They have everything you could want, and in effect, are your best source of magic damage before the SG's Levantine (and maybe Gungnir.)
Heavy Warriors: 5/10. The HP is nice, and the Soul Crush damage they can dish is great too, but that's really all they have.
Light Warriors: 4/10. Honestly, their ability to build up combos never really found useful to me. They compete with Alicia quite directly and she alone is enough to fill that niche, where as Heavy Warriors have an entire stretch where you don't have Dylan, and Archers compare laterally to Rufus, so using both makes a lot of sense.
Mages: 2/10. The only thing they have going for them is those that learn Tidal Wave and Maleficent Harm can get 60 Energy on a Soul Crush which is a feat in this game, meaning they can...fill that slot when you lose Rufus briefly if you want to one round things and rely on Soul Crushes? I guess they have some menu spells too. Yeah, I'm reaching and I could be argued to dock them another point, Mages suck this game.
Write-Ins!
Phyress: 8/10. Joins stupidly good out of the gate thanks to Flame Shot and Psychosoma; she stops being stand out after a point due to most archers being capable of what she has, but she's easily the best short-term archer and definitely a good one long term.
Valkyrie: 4/10. On paper, she should be really good, but she's behind on her attacks and gotten at the VERY END OF THE SERAPHIC GATE. Also, she competes directly with Lenneth for weapons in the SG and Lenneth is overall better due to relying on only one element, thus doesn't need to use two seal stones to boost herself. Arguably games best Mage, but probably better off going with Rufus there.
