Wild ARMs: XF
Aw man, XF. I did enjoy XF but I have some serious plot complaints about it. I do appreciate that it TRIED and hence was even worthy of nitpicking. Anyway, since this is rank-the-characters, there is the somewhat subjective question of when I blame a character for a stupid plot point they're involved in. Sometimes the issue is just too minor and it's easy to shrug off, or seems to be in error, and that's fine; other times I feel the character is acting bizarrely / stupidly and hte plot doesn't seem to realize that, and that's where I'll ding 'em. But this is not exactly a science as to when I'm willing to excuse someone for being involved in a silly / stupid plot. (See: Game Arts games, which often have great characters involved in dumb plots.)
Clarissa - 6/10. Clarissa infuriated me quite a bit, but she was also likable in spite of that. Her decision to participate in Elesius's troubles was reasonably well done I thought, and gave me some respect for her as far as wandering do-gooder. The fact that she apparently wasn't drilled more on how to impersonate Alexia is troubling but I blame a combination of the plot and Labby for that. Anyway, there's a bunch of plots she's involved in that don't make tons of sense, but I can't really finger Clarissa directly on them. I do think they took Clarissa's Mary Sueness a little far in the later chapters but oh well, there's something of an excuse to make the main character important. It's too bad, because I thought the idea of impersonating a princess who's supposed to have kewl powers would be interesting - hey, let's see how by trickery or cleverness we can solve problems meant for an actual Princess Medium! Alas. (Also, on a setting note. The designers totally fail by calling the spirit-talking "Princess Medium." There is nothing established in-game about a situation similar to Falena, where it's really a "Queendom." They call it the Kingdom of Elesius and everything. So... this means that the super-valuable princesses are being MARRIED AWAY and NOT BECOMING QUEEN. Okay that would just be silly, but the game doesn't go into it and doesn't care much aside from "respect the fantasy trope of the wise king, evil cousellor, and damsel in distress.")
Felius - 3/10. I agree with super - I potentially like this trope but they don't do much interesting with it. I do like that Clarissa encourages Felius to find desires of his own, but he never actually DOES. So he's a one note character- whatever Clarissa says yawn. The dimensional nonsense isn't done tremendously well either.
Labyrintha - 8/10. Ah, one of the saving graces of the cast. I liked Labby, she pulled off the advisor role well and her morality was basically correct - she abandoned a cushy post to fight, and fight cleverly, and I respect that. I also liked that she was at least one Elesian commoner in the party - it's a bunch of foreigners and children of Important People otherwise, and she actually brings their concerns at least somewhat up. Two complaints - one, the Chapter 2 prison deal. I thought she had something more of a plan to argue her case with EISEN by staying behind, but I guess it was just tiredness or something, and both she & Charlton came off kind of lame in their conversation - that was not her best presentation of what the rebels were up to. Two, the game at times was either implying that Labby likes playing dress-up, or that she is a creepy older lesbian stalker of Clarissa. If it was the first, the humor was a miss.
Tony - DNR. The plot around him was cute and well-done though.
Ragnar - 2/10. I *think* I see what they were going for with Ragnar, but man, the dialogue was a total miss at conveying it. Nobody talks like that with "Hi I'm here to destroy you all. Er, so I can save you all? Maybe?" Basically large streams of nonsense that need to be tossed out. Anyway, the Black ARMs plotline was done *idiotically* and Ragnar is required to be a total idiot for that plot to even vaguely work (stomp off and don't explain, but lots of people are at fault here). The Hrathnir bit tied into the nonsense that was Ragnar's philosophy. Ragnar vs. Chelle was actually the only scenes were Ragnar even began to work a little. Meh. At least the cooking was good camp.
Levin - 7/10. The other strong member of the cast. Spiky-haired RPG hero but he worked. Involved in some plot points which if taken seriously would imply he has the intelligence of canned tuna, but that happens to everyone, so I'm more inclined to write that off as poor plotting. What made him as far as I'm concerned was that after the very very ridiculous Chapter 2 capital drama, Levin saves the day for the party AND still serves Clarissa. I was fully expecting some silly "you betrayed me!' dialogue where he'd run off alone and we'd have to save him or something, but no, Levin says the right thing - that he was serving the PERSON and the CAUSE, not just "royal authority" or something. A distinction too often missed. (Also one that the game has no excuse for at the end of the capital sequence - been over it in chat, but the actions Charlton takes in the capital are so blatantly evil that no sane patriot would ever support the government, and Eisen, who is portrayed as a good guy, should surely have revolted against even Hrathnir had he made such wannabe-genocidal actions.)
Alexia - 3/10. Man what a disappointment. First off she should have been dead had I been writing the plotline. But given that she isn't, they picked Warrior Princess #73 from central casting and didn't really do anything further.
Katrina - 2/10. The realization that we were meant to take the fact that Katrina doesn't know fear seriously was slow yet horrible. Yes yes it's an RPG and cinematic madness is quite different from real madness, but even given cinematic madness... seriously W. T. F. For an extreme example, smart autists may not have the same sense of empathy as "normal" people but they certainly intellectually understand such concepts. So I was never sold on this idea. And her dialogue is written like... actually I will delete what I wrote here. We're very clearly not supposed to think Katrina is stupid yet that's how she comes off for her age. I guess I do like the fact that she gives Alexia's ARM to Labby in the escape and encourages Labby to continue on, but meh. Her later plot has its moments but I guess Edna gets "credit" for that.
Hrathnir - 5/10. I liked some of his dialogue, like his conversation with Katrina about why she's unfit to take the throne (nice contrast with Edna's explanation, too). The time travel plot was idiotic but I blame the plot writers for that, not him. On the other hand I feel that the game kind of "lets him off the hook" about why the hell his royal council is so evil. Edna's got an excuse, it's a different system, but presumably Hrathnir must have appointed Charlton at one point? And that he wasn't taken sick entirely suddenly? He's also disturbingly blase about politics, saying the equivalent of "I do what I think is right and will probably fail and die" to Ragnar. Uh, dude, this is kind of YOUR JOB to get the politics right. Glad you're admitting flaws but it sounded like you did well enough with Eisen before so why are you falling apart now? Oh, well.
Edna - 8/10. Awesome. The plot folks let her get out of danger in lame ways rather than awesome ways, which is too bad ("look over there! Now I run off in my carriage along the rocky road despite just talking with you 2 seconds ago! Oh no the girl with the gun has blown away my wheels!") but in general served her purpose very well. I was pissed off at her own ending too, as the geography and timeline make *no* sense at all, but oh well. I'd have written it so she gets away with her fortune because she's a damn cockroach in game that doesn't get caught when she damn well should have, so she might as well keep that attribute all the way to the end.
Samille, El Jackson, Asgard - DNR.
Rupert - 7/10. Also pretty good. Canny, clever, ruthless, your eyes to the bad guys. Owns Clarissa repeatedly. In no way should have been appointed head of the Martial Guard but hey, he'll take it! (That more reflects badly on Charlton.)
Eisen - 5/10. Uh. I liked his Chapter 1 plot with wasting time at the COuncil Meetings! I don't mind the idea of his character, either. Unfortunately the late Chapter 2 plot slightly sours me on liking him too much, and then he's mind controlled, and then there's the utterly idiotic second fight with the Royal Knights which lowers their stock some more though I guess that's also just another excuse for a fight. Meh. Coulda been better, definitely.
Chelle - 5/10. RAGNAR BLITZ LEBRETT! Was persistent pest but never had quite enough presence.
Piedras - 5/10. Existed.
Charlton - 3/10. I'm sorry, Charlton's motive just utterly clashed with the reality of the game, and getting owned by Edna + own plans was about the fittest possible death for him. Anyway, let's see. The Martial Guard is a law unto itself that is basically a bunch of armed bandits extorting from civilians and killing your own people. This is actually not entirely uncommon! This is what happens when you have petty rulers who are more concerned with settling petty scores and stashing money in their Swiss Bank accounts, etc. I would have had no problem at all dealing with a pathetic Robert Mugabe type looting their own country and extracting bribes and "taxes" all the way down. But noooo. Charlton is apparently a patriot who believes in Law & Order? Whut? Then starting up something like the Martial Guard to LOOT YOUR OWN COUNTRY is about the worst possible way to do it! You already had law & order! Alternatively, they could have made the Martial Guard the equivalent of Hitler / Mussolini's Blackshirts / Brownshirts and have had them a semi-organized paramilitary terror force whose job was to settle scores and intimidate political opponents. That's a way to make a chaotic group serve a order objective. Except they didn't! There were no Jews / socialists the government hated and hence a reason for the Martial Guard to exist. So what's the deal? I mean, it's been done a zillion times before. But if Charlton wanted to militarize the country because war is awesome... then START A WAR! A *foreign* war! That way your troops are looting and pillaging somewhere else, and the burst of patriotic fervor will unify Elesius like you want! ...sigh. If anyone bears blame for the Chapter 2 nuttiness it's also Charlton - again, if we're supposed to respect Charlton as merely someone with a different vision for Elesius, why is he trying to blow up the *entire* capital?! I love England so much I will blow up London? ...sigh. This wasn't "get rid of Shell 7 where all the people we don't care about live." Generally unimpressed with his other plans as well, though that was partially intended I guess. Just... the motive is important here, and the clash here was *extreme*.
Weisheit - 5/10. Creepy at first when he's the Merchant of Death. Pathetic later. But I guess that was part of the plan. Gets a point for not wanting to blow up the world after all.
Fear Clymsian - 5/10 - Dialogue at the end is generic "HAHAHA DOOOOOOM" heard a zillion times before. But does get serious credit for one scene (shared with K?), the battle where all the Martial Guard are confused and sent into paranoid darkness because it's fun and delicious delicious fear. That was pretty badass.
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BONUS - TEAM FORTRESS II!!!
So chat was mentioning TF7 awhile back, which of course brought to mind a different TF-number. Actually the casts fits pretty well...
SOLDIER- Cloud /10, obvious, also both jump into the air and rain explosive destruction on their enemies.
Medic - Aeris /10, heals buddies then limits and either makes them invincible or fills up their own limit gauges for constant crits.
Sniper - Vincent /10, hangs in the back row with a 255% accuracy weapon called the Sniper and should be equipped with Deathblow.
Spy - Yuffie / 10, also pretty obvious, has silly sneaky tricks and then plonks you in the head.
Demoman + Heavy - Barret / 10, he's pretty much both, shoots a big machine gun / has a boxing glove weapon / blows stuff up.
Engineer- Cid /10, this one is also obvious, though the Engineer is too polite here.
In the stretch category..
Pyro - (Red) 13/10?! Is Red, starts with Fire materia, is (potentially?!) non-human? Talks too much though.
Scout - Tifa /10? Well Tifa is portrayed as mobile but comparatively frail in some of the FF7 stuff.
Announcer - Cait Sith / 10? Reeve sits in Shinra HQ the entire game and remotely controls both sides for his own amusement. I guess.
