Useless! - March 23rd, 2002 - Drew Cosner
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot.
Button mashing doesn't work on finals.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Well, I don't know about all of you crazy people out there in reader land, but I'm at last enjoying a much-needed spring break. After what I swear felt like weeks of exams, reports, and homework assignments, I can finally spend time making erotic artwork out of jellybeans and toothpicks without feeling guilty about the class work I should be doing. Oh, and just to qualify: contrary to what my opening sentence may have led you to believe, I really don't care if you're on spring break yet or not. Please stop confusing my efforts to write conversational-sounding prose with an interest or concern for yourself and your activities. It's really irritating.
At any rate, it occured to me that I'm long overdue for a javascript-based gadget or something of that nature, like I used to make. Unfortuantely, since changing majors about 2 years ago, I haven't done a lick of programming. If I tried something like that now, I'd probably manage to make a gadget that worked perfectly on my system, while causing everyone else's to dispense ice cubes out of the CD tray. So I guess you're just going to have to cope with my usual brand of insipid, wholly textual DA-makin'.
| For the obligatory reticent badass, he sure was a pansie |
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Drew -
Most useless character? Kimahri. He sucked bad. Unless you spent an extra few
hours with him on Auron's grid, he was pathetic. Maybe if you could have used
his blue magic at any time, he would have been all right, but as it stands,
Wakka, Tidus, and Auron were a lot stronger, and Lulu and Yuna had their
magic, and Rikku had her steal. Kimahri was just a waste of space. They only
stuck him in to hit the 7 character rule that has plagued most RPGs as of
late. And except for that one scene which was obligatory minimal development,
he had no character.
Peace,
Ray Stryker...visited in one night, unexpectedly, by relatives and friends
from three different states...
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Kimahri was, far and away, the most popular nominee. For good reason, too. Whereas every other character had his or her own unique area of the sphere board to traverse, Kimahri just sort of bumbled along through everyone else's fields of specialty, becoming an inept Jack-of-all-trades and wasting key spheres that could be better spent in the process. It's just a good thing Square had the foresight to make the only battle you were required to use him in really easy.
And now for the second-most popular nominee. Or nominees, as the case may be, since two characters more or less tied.
| Death to Cozy |
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Death to Cozy,
Can I just say Raiden and be done with it?
-Hojo
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Yes, please do. I'm tired of looking imcompetent when I blithely respond to emotional, mutli-paragraph affairs with one sentence apologizing for having nothing interesting to say. Which, due to the nature of today's topic, I do quite a bit today. Although, hey, that I can tell you the nature of today's column by the second letter proves that I do bother myself to shuffle letters around for the sake of fluidity. Or, less impressively, that I can forsee future events.
And the co-second-placer is:
| Mork and Yorda |
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Heya Drew,
Yorda from ICO is by far the most useless character around. She always ignores what I say, opting to wander around and play with birds all day instead. Then she gets in trouble with those damn shadow monsters and who does she expect to save her? Me. Like I don't have more important things to do then fight back a bunch of demons. Cursed woman.
-CTZanderman
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Yeah, I appreciate the fact that Yorda was supposed to be naive and sheltered, but she always came across as more of an airhead to me, as well.
| They say the best things in life are free. Liers. |
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I saw an amusing signature once at a message board:
"In Hyrule, you get what you pay for, and Deku Nuts are free."
How very true.
-El Cid
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That is truly remarkable wit, although nominating inanimate objects for a category like "most useless" strikes me as a bit strange. Like if the car from Blade won best supporting actor like I keep saying it should but nobody agrees with me so why should I let you get away with nominating an inanimate object and kiss my ass Academy of Motion Pictures.
It's okay, though, because I wanted to post one of the 5 letters that wasn't nomiating either Yorda or Kimahri.
| Inept kobun |
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I always thought Servbot #5 (AKA Strange) from The
Misadventures of Tron Bonne was pretty useless.
I mean, his initial attack and speed stats are an
anemic 2, and they're pretty much static throughout
the game, fighting's out. He seems to be pretty smart
since his Brains level can go up to four, but it
doesn't make him any more useful. After you spend your
precious time sending him to random squares on the map
grid to raise his IQ, does he use his newfound talent
to appraise items or develop new weapons and armor for
the Gustaff? No. He just hangs around the cafe begging
Tron not to send him to the torture room. Hey lazy
ass, since you're in the cafe all the time, would it
kill you to help #21 in the kitchen? It ain't easy
feeding 38 hungry Kobun in under a minute.
I swear, #11 may be the Failure, but at least he tries
to better himself. The only thing Strange is good for
is testing out the Torture Room. I guess Tron had a
little too much "juice", "pop", or "whatever the hell
replaces alcohol during translation" when building
this one.
Torgo, "What the hell is this!? I ordered the Curry
Rice, bitch!"
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This topic doesn't leave me very much room for response, I must say.
| Laki-ng Lester |
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Lakilester from Paper Mario gets my vote for most useless character from
the last few years. Granted, his out-of-battle ability is essential to
progress through some areas, but so is everyone else's. And you get him
last, so his ability is around for the least amount of time and is thus
less used. Heck, you get him so late that most of your other party members
should already have their second power-up when you do, and so he'll need
more catching up even though a power-up lies handily nearby.
But what I'm mainly talking about are his in-battle capabilities. All of
the other characters have a well-defined niche they fulfill in battle - Bow
is the best character to use against enemies with zero defense, Parakarry
against fliers, and so on. Even Goombario has a use besides tattling,
because his basic attack counts as a jump to enemies you have to knock over
with one. But Lakilester has no niche and doesn't really shine in any
area. Paper Mario seems to be all about using the right character in the
right situations, and with no situations in which he's best, Lakilester is
never needed. One can completely ignore him and his lackluster skills in
all of the battles and have no problems in any of them. And because Paper
Mario uses a two-character party, using him implies that you're not using
the best character for the situation.
(Biran voice) Useless! Useless!
And let's not even go into his personal life. "Spike"? What the hell?
- Epinephrine
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Yes, Lakilester was indeed rather useless. Now quick, look the other way and pretend to be distracted as I head straight to the next letter without so much as a competent segue.
| Aika: cool in theory. (Slight SoA spoilers.) |
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O lord of venomous sarcasm,
It's awfully hard to top the likes of Malak and Chu-Chu in
considering the lowest of the low, but among recent games there
are a few (un)worthy competitors. So, without further ado:
1. Badrach (Valkyrie Profile). He's weak, he's inaccurate, he
can't fill the combo meter worth dirt. He's by far the weakest
of the archer-type characters, worse even than the mopey,
puberty-deprived Llewellyn. And the worst sin of all...in order
to get him, you must sit through a long-winded, overdramatic,
snail-paced, and totally irrelevant cutscene featuring *hands
down* the most *obnoxious* voice actor in a game already
littered with mediocre voice talent.
2. Almost any character from Saga Frontier II (Saga Frontier
II). Mostly because you never have any of them long enough to
build them up at all. One, two, *maybe* three scenarios, then
*piff*, they're gone forever. This is especially vexing with
characters who do not start as total weaklings. (Oh Eleanor,
beautiful goddess of hot fiery death, why did they take you away
so soon?)
3. Aika (Skies of Arcadia). Don't get me wrong, I like Aika
the character--it's Aika the combatant who frosts my shorts.
She gets my personal vote, largely because of her tantalising
but ultimately fruitless brushes with not-uselessness. She's
halfway decent at the start of the game. She enjoys a brief
period of supreme usefulness as soon as she can do first-turn
Lambda Bursts. Then Lambda Burst becomes worthless, and it's
all over--her physical attack can't begin to compare with Vyse,
Drachma, Gilder, or Enrique; her magic attack can't begin to
compare with Fina; her S-Moves are beyond worthless, except
maybe for Delta Shield, which is still inferior to Gilder's Aura
of Denial. ("Aura of Denial" is a far cooler name, to boot).
And Omega Psyclone is *so* not worth 4 moonberries, I cannot
express it in words. By the end of the game, the only remotely
helpful thing you can have her do is use items, and except in a
few boss battles, in-battle item use is not much called for in
Skies of Arcadia. Naturally, dropping her from the party is
never an option. Blech. Just...blech.
Well, I've vented my spleen for the day. With that outpouring
of bile, I wish you good day.
MtWS
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Cool.
| Cats with bronchitis |
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Alf.
~Ian P.
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Hey man, when you got Alf past level 20, he starts to get some crazy-good magic attacks. You just didn't play the game enough.
| Tripping. (Small MGS2 spoilers.) |
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Cozy -
I'm nominating Emma Emmerich from Metal Gear Solid 2. For the short time
you have to drag her around, all she does is drastically decrease your
speed, open doors directly in front of guards, and generally get you killed.
I managed to find one "positive" use for her: I can speed up my arrival at
the level restart screen by blasting her in the face with a Stinger after
she attracts the attention of three guards by TRIPPING OVER MY FOOT.
I just needed to get that off my chest.
- An'Desha - currently being prevented from completing MGS2 by a lack of
clothing, some very frightening comments from the Colonel, and a dancing
Mei Ling. At least the last one isn't so scary...
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I've never been a fan of the whole "drag some other idiot around" mechanic in video games, ICO excluded, so yeah, I empathize with your pain.
Closing Comments:
Well, that was an exercise in futility. Hopefully this topic will provide for a little more interaction on my part. Probably not, but I may as well try. So here it is: what is your best vacation/video game story? Personally, I'd have to go with the time school was unexpectedly closed due to snow for 5 straight days, allowing me to play Sonic 2 almost non-stop. Or, just so that this isn't such an exclusive topic, what is your favorite video game memory? The time your parents brought home Zelda 3? The day FFVII finally hit shelves? Do tell.
-Drew Cozner, blah blah blah. Blah.
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