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Final Fantasy games like to irritate you by introducing exceptionally cool characters, perhaps even sticking them in the player-controlled party for a while. Then they're yanked away by some plot device or an untimely demise. And you'll never get them back. You'll just spend the rest of the game wishing you could play as a nerd revolutionary or a besuited corporate thug instead of some annoying robot cat riding a stuffed moogle. We're here today to recognize these underused and often underappreciated supporting characters from the Final Fantasy series. We're also here to spoil a bunch of story twists along the way, so be warned.
10) LeBlanc from Final Fantasy X-2
It's best to see Final Fantasy X-2 as one enormous joke on anyone who took Final Fantasy X too seriously. The original Final Fantasy X ends on a somber note, with chickeny-haired jock Tidus and willowy summoner Yuna separated forever. And then Final Fantasy X-2 comes along and blows everything up. Yuna trades her priestess robes for shorts and pistols, the gentle tropical-fantasy theme of Final Fantasy X is replaced by glitzy J-pop, and the whole story exists just to undo Final Fantasy X's ending. It also keeps the game's controllable party to three members: Yuna, Rikku, and the goth islander Paine. All of them can switch to a wide assortment of costumes and specialized jobs, but it's strange that there's no one else to join them.
The most obvious candidate is LeBlanc, the pink-clad rival of Yuna's girl group. She's the same sort of duplicitous and vain thief who's shown up in all sorts of anime since Time Bokan, but she also seems like she's just waiting to fight alongside the heroes. That never happens, and LeBlanc is there mostly for show. And for a massage minigame that's only one of Final Fantasy X-2's many ridiculous moments. Of course, the character that everyone wanted to play in Final Fantasy X was Jecht, Tidus' jerkass father. That was difficult for the game to manage, seeing as how Jecht was a giant sea slug throughout Final Fantasy X. Perhaps X-2 could've revived him, but the game's silly enough as it is.
9) Nora from Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XIII is a wonderful, wonderful game (just ask Rob), but it has its weaknesses. For example, the first act makes some missteps when it introduces a ragtag bunch of revolutionaries fighting a military regime in the floating city of Cocoon. The rebels are led by an insufferable tough-guy moron named Snow, who attempts to rally some of the oppressed denizens of Cocoon. Among the citizens who take up arms and fight beside snow is a woman named Nora, who's joining the cause mostly to protect her son. She dies, though not before inflicting the line "moms are tough" multiple times on the audience.
Despite that, Nora is a lot more interesting in concept than most of the game's actual characters. Final Fantasies typically focus on young and untested heroes, so it'd be a refreshing break to feature a nearly middle-aged woman forced by necessity to join a violent rebellion. Instead, the player gets Snow, who inexplicably survives the same bridge collapse that kills Nora. The player also recruits Nora's son Hope, who never really escapes the embarrassing baggage of his name. At least players can relate to the main character, Lightning. That's because she tries to ditch Hope and punches Snow in the face whenever she gets the chance.
8) Golbez from Final Fantasy IV
The Final Fantasy series is likened to Star Wars a lot: there's rebellion against an empire, there's sweeping pathos/bathos, and there's usually a cameo appearance by two guys named Biggs and Wedge. But games can get away with things that movies can't. For example, Star Wars couldn't turn Darth Vader instantly good and have him fighting alongside the rebels at the drop of a hat, could it? But Final Fantasy IV could've pulled that off with its Vader stand-in, Golbez. Too bad it didn't.
Here's the deal: the dark-armored Golbez is the main antagonist for much of Final Fantasy IV, terrorizing heroic knight Cecil with powerful magic and oppressive theme music. Then it's revealed that Golbez is (surprise) Cecil's twin brother. Plot-twisted over to the side of good, Golbez and the blob-like sorcerer FuSoYa head off to confront the game's real last-minute boss: a moon-dwelling monstrosity named Zeromus.
Cecil and his companions pick their way through lunar caverns and arrive at Zeromus' lair just in time to see Golbez and FuSoYa get themselves wrecked. And so the game never lets Golbez join the party, even though he has an in-battle sprite like the rest of the characters. He's not even playable in later versions of Final Fantasy IV, which lets Cecil take a customized party into the last dungeon. Yes, he can't bring Golbez, but can bring the worthless bard.
7) Older Laguna, Kiros and Ward from Final Fantasy VIII
Here's how Final Fantasy VIII works: for most of the game, you control a young douche named Squall and his less douchey friends at Final Fantasy High School. At certain points, you'll play through strange flashbacks showing the exploits of a soldier named Laguna, the knife-fighting expert Kiros and the harpoon-chucking Ward. Much later in the game, Laguna and company show up, all a bit older, and their connection to Squall's side of the story is revealed. And then everyone bands together to take down the game's bizarrely explained villain.
Well, that's what SHOULD happen. But Laguna, Kiros, and Ward don't join up, even though the player's already controlled them. The game sticks with Squall and his band of magic teenagers, but Laguna, Kiros, and Ward would bring an older perspective and some neat gameplay additions. Alas, Laguna's not a teenager, and so he's outside of the Final Fantasy demographic.
6) Jessie from Final Fantasy VII
As we mentioned above, it's a long-standing Final Fantasy tradition to feature two supporting characters named Biggs and Wedge. It started with Final Fantasy VI, in which Biggs and Wedge are two soldiers vaporized by an ice-encased monster. Final Fantasy VII opens with hero Cloud joining the eco-revolutionary group Avalanche, which includes members named Wedge and Biggs. Astute fans expected the pair to die quickly. And they do.
But there's a third disposable member of the Avalanche brigade: Jessie, an electronics expert who isn't part of any Final Fantasy running gag. She flirts with Cloud, helps bomb several corporate power stations, and dies alongside Biggs and Wedge in a shootout with the all-controlling Shinra Electric Company's security forces. Cloud lives, as does his childhood friend Tifa and the painfully stereotyped resistance leader Barret. But Jessie buys it, and in her dying breaths she points out two things: 1) Avalanche members are terrorists who probably deserve to be killed and 2) Cloud's an asshole, but women like him anyway.
Unlike Biggs and Wedge, Jessie's name didn't appear in Final Fantasy VIII or X or XII (she appears in Kingdom Hearts II, which is almost more of an insult than being forgotten). It would've been thoughtful of Final Fantasy VII to let her in the player's controllable party, perhaps delaying her inevitable demise a little. Then again, the game already had another sacrificial woman lined up with Aerith. And it already had more than enough female characters to flirt with Cloud for no good reason.
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