Pointless characters.

[Darkshot77]

We have all seen them, whether it be in a fighter a platformer or an RPG, there are the characters that are just not used as much. In fighters they are called low tier (Roll), everywhere else they are called worthless. Examples include Toad from Mario Brothers 2, Cait Sith from FFVII, and Mewtwo in SSBM. But why is this?

Sometimes it is just bad stigma, characters are looked at judged and not given a chance, and they become forgotten, but they actually have usefulness. A few Examples:

Toad-He really was too fast for his own good, If you were used to his speed then he was ok, but most kids couldn't control him.

Relm from FFVI- Her sketch ability is very very bad. It tends to bug the game, and just isn't that effective in battle. But with a closer look, she has the highest magic power in the game, and becomes an excellent caster.

Quina from FFIX- Quina is looked down about because it is fairly annoying and in battle the forks deal random damage and are unreliable. But Quina still has its niche, Mighty Guard, Auto-life, Bad Breath, and Vanish all have their usefulness in certain situations.

In other cases it is because they are completely overshadowed by other characters. Here is one common example:

Cait Sith: I have always tried to give Cait Sith a chance, mostly because the mog looks cool. But in many ways I see him overshadowed by the other characters. He just isnt as strong as some characters and does not has the magic ability as others. I tried to make him utility with manipulate and enemy skill, but I could do the same thing with Tifa, Barret, or Cid. What really hinders him is that his limits suck. The dice is random and seems risky to spend your limit bar for it. And slots are the same way, sure you could get the combination that kills all enemies, but, that's a one in a million chance. And the rest of the results are OK at best, or you could completely whiff. So in every way other characters can do the same thing, but better.

So this thread is about the characters that deservedly or otherwise get the hate. So lets point out the wastes of space, or lets set the record straight on those that unfairly are placed in this category.

Personal challenge: Prove to me Cait Sith is useful.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

[YOUTUBE]9Hg3Qg4R_mA[/YOUTUBE]

Possibly the most pointless unloackable character ever in a video game, Fred Durst was a secret character on WWF Smackdown! Just Bring It, the 3rd game in the franchise and the first on a 2nd generation console.

Limp Bizkit did the entrance music for the Undertaker at this point, and the song "Rollin'" was used on the game. I have no idea why anyone thought it was cool or useful to have Durst as an unlockable character, he added nothing to the game. I was a massive Bizkit fan at that point and even I thought it was a waste of time!

I think he had some sort of weird spinning neckbreaker as a finishing move. The only reason I can see why he was on the game was that it was a condition of "Rollin'" being used as Takers music on there, as Kid Rock never allowed "American Bad Ass" to be used on Smackdown! Know Your Role. Maybe Fred wanted to be on the game and would only allow his song to be used if he was?

Still, it was pointless, did anyone really play as him?!

 

[Dagger Dias]

everywhere else they are called worthless. Examples include Toad from Mario Brothers 2, Cait Sith from FFVII, and Mewtwo in SSBM.

None of those guys are worthless. Toad had his useful moments in Mario 2. If you wanted to get through a level that required more running and less jumping, Toad's the man for the job. This is also the first time I have ever heard anyone call Mewtwo useless. He just had a complicated learning curve, and Lucario from Brawl plays identical to him so I guess Lucario is useless too? As for Cait Sith.... He and Yuffie emerged as the better magic users after Aeris dies. His limit break may be useless, but he's actually top tier as far as spellcasting potential, oddly.

Quina from FFIX- Quina is looked down about because it is fairly annoying and in battle the forks deal random damage and are unreliable. But Quina still has its niche, Mighty Guard, Auto-life, Bad Breath, and Vanish all have their usefulness in certain situations.

Quina's spoons were weird weapons. They actually would deal damage that decreased as the enemy's Health went closer to zero, in order to make it easier for him to eat them. Quina was an extremely frustrating character to unlock abilities for, and most of them were not worth it when you could just as easily have Garnet/Eiko cast defensive ones or Vivi cast offensive ones. Quina was more or less in the same boat as red mages. Average at everything.... and very annoying.

Cait Sith: I have always tried to give Cait Sith a chance, mostly because the mog looks cool. But in many ways I see him overshadowed by the other characters. He just isnt as strong as some characters and does not has the magic ability as others. I tried to make him utility with manipulate and enemy skill, but I could do the same thing with Tifa, Barret, or Cid. What really hinders him is that his limits suck. The dice is random and seems risky to spend your limit bar for it. And slots are the same way, sure you could get the combination that kills all enemies, but, that's a one in a million chance. And the rest of the results are OK at best, or you could completely whiff. So in every way other characters can do the same thing, but better.

I already touched on this. Yes, his limits absolutely suck. Also the fact that any character can use any materia. However if you go by base potential, he does end up alongside Tifa and Yuffie in the top tier for spellcasters by the end of the game. (I disregarded Aeris for obvious reasons) Some characters such as Cait Sith just need to be set up correctly to become more useful. Now, when you go by limits instead of base potential then sure he is severely overshadowed. Dice is too random and slots is worthless unless you get lucky.



Now for my own submissions of useless characters.... I already mentioned Quina of Final Fantasy 9, so here come a few others:


Ernest from Star Ocean 2.
You had to go through a LONG string of sidequests to recruit him, and in the end all you get is a character who sucks at pretty much everything. Opera should have just left him stranded when they got separated. He has my vote for the most uesless and worthless character because if you had to go through so much frustration to unlock someone, they had better be good at SOMETHING.... but Ernest has average health and below average abilities. He is easily missable without a walkthrough too. Talk about pointless.


Peco from Breath of Fire 3
He was useful a grand total of ONCE, when he had to kick a rock into a window below you. Granted he might just be in the same boat as Cait Sith where I did not set him up correctly, but I never liked using him and find a character to be pointless when you only use them ONE TIME in the entire game, and it isn't a battle. Garr was a better attacker and Nina/Momo had better abilities.


Mogu from Breath of Fire 1
Same as Peco. Only used once or twice the entire game, when you have to use him to dig into a tower and to enter some of the places where Karn learns abilities. He's worthless in battle though, defense so low that most enemies one shot kill him, and his attacks are average at best. Also, unlike Gobi he cannot find a use in merging with Karn.

There's plenty more characters who suck, but these guys came to mind first. I might come back into this thread and add a few more later.

 

[Hardcore Heathen]

Ooh Nice Thread. Just Trying to think of one.

Right i got one
PETE. Canis Canem Edit (Bully)
Now im not Saying Pointless as in A Really Shit Character, hes well thought out. But The Story just does not need a Nerd who Helps this tough boy.
ROMEO. Halo 3: ODST
He Adds fuck all to the game and does nothing of note or Importance.
Ill try and think of a few more.

 

[Wade's Public Transit Bomb]

Personal challenge: Prove to me Cait Sith is useful.

Hey, there always needs to be someone who gets the shit luck of getting hit with a KO.. And in my experiences, it has never been someone I hate but the game forced him into the party.

Tails in Sonic 2 was pretty useless. But I have ranted enough about that in the Tourny.


The only one coming to mind Kaepora Gaebora, the Owl in Ocarina of Time. Sure, he has his uses as being a short cut at random locations. But for the most part, he just prattles on and on.. And if you aren't paying attention, he will prattle on and on and on some more. Anything he says might of been useful if it wasn't crammed into a shit load of text that no one really wants to read.

 

[Moxi Mayhem]

Kurtis Stryker from Mortal Kombat 3: He added absolutely nothing to the story and he wasn't even unlockable. Boon and Tobias have a habit of just randomly throwing things into the series that raise eyebrows, but I can't think of any more-deserving character that was supposed to be in the forefront and didn't offer anything to the table. His move set was really lackluster to boot. Useless.

 

[Wolf Pac]

Dr. Boskovonich from Tekken or whatever his name was. Whenever you tried fighting with the guy, he just kept falling down by himself, how can anybody fight & win with this guy I will never know. He should've just stayed a character in storyline only.

 

[tweedledee49]

the green and red training dummies you unlocked SvR...i think it ws 2010...seriously who the hell wants to play as these 2 ass clowns? other superstars could've been added in, instead oh these 2

 

[JWGunslinger]

There were several fighters that were included in the UFC Undisputed 2010 roster that I was seriously pissed made it on when there were many other fighters who deserved to be in it that were not. The first obvious character would be the unlock able Shaquille Oneal, he's slow as crap and really does not deserve to be in the game because he trains MMA;if you want to throw in a bonus fighter use a retired legend or something. For instance on the Playstation version you could unlock legends like Dan Severn, Jens Pulver and Royce Gracie, those make sense but lets leave Shaq on basketball video games.

Here are the regular roster characters that I don't believe deserved to be included
Eddie Sanchez
Justin McCully
Mostapha Al Turk
James Wilks
Frank Trigg
Caol Uno
The only one who doesn't suck in the game is Wilks, and for some reason they made his character so good it was unrealistic,when he only had one fight in the the UFC when the game released.

 

[Skairipa Matrix]

theres quite a few but in smackdown vs raw 2011 i found the hurricane to be very pointless as he wasnt a playable charecter and you couldnt even have him manage you like u can do with paul bearer and hornswogle (speaking of hornswogle hes pretty useless on the games as well they need to take him off the games or just make him a playable person) hurricane only showed up during the christian RTWM once or twice and did NOTHING! oh and he made a few apperances in reys RTWM in a stupid storyline he could have easily been a playable person i dont get why he wasnt but was still in the game

 

[Sheamus' Suntan]

theres quite a few but in smackdown vs raw 2011 i found the hurricane to be very pointless as he wasnt a playable charecter and you couldnt even have him manage you like u can do with paul bearer and hornswogle (speaking of hornswogle hes pretty useless on the games as well they need to take him off the games or just make him a playable person) hurricane only showed up during the christian RTWM once or twice and did NOTHING! oh and he made a few apperances in reys RTWM in a stupid storyline he could have easily been a playable person i dont get why he wasnt but was still in the game

Note how they put him in and all of his creative elements so that you could CREATE HIM AS A PLAYABLE CHARACTER?

To be honest, I think they had planned to use Hurricane as playable but then Shane Helms went off on a tirade about WWE before the game came out so they probably axed him, but cutting him from the storylines in the RTW would have meant reworking the stories, so they left him in there. Laziness. FTW.

Ok useless characters;

Here is the thing.
I think everyone is put into a game for...some reason. It makes sense. No-one is "useless", they either aid with the storyline (ESPECIALLY in now-a-days games) or they're pivotal to storylines.

Cait Sith for instance in FF7. I'll use your example.
Cait Sith is a useful character for storyline progression and does get fleshed out a bit. Initially he starts off as a spy for the group as they attempt to get hold of the Black Materia before Sephiroth. Cait Sith, because of being a robot is the only one of the group who can extract the materia at the temple of the ancients and he does so, and thus getting crushed by the temple when it collapses.
He then gets rebuilt and "regenerated", as he is a robot, and rejoins the party in order to help save the world - as he wants to be different from all of the "toys" that are of similar design.

So...Cait Sith actually has a storyline purpose which is why he's there more. I think the issue with him is more how he's introduced. I think he's introduced in a light that makes him seem a bit like a joke, and that's probably WHY he's so disliked.

Cait's magic stat is up there with Aeris and Yuffie and IS worth having on a team despite the blatantly rubbish Limit.