Overrated Game characters

[Talysia]

I always thought that in Advent Children, Cloud was feeling guilty about not being able to save Aeris once the Sephiroth/Meteor incident was over, but I agree - the Advent Children Cloud was too much like Squall for my tastes. I preferred the FFVII Cloud.

[WriterDoug]

Well, if you guys recall - Final Fantasy VII (the videogame) did not exactly have a happy ending. I think there were still far too many loose ends for any of the characters to be "happy" with Cloud definitely being no exception. He was still pretty screwed up over the whole Aeris thing, and yes as you indicated, he was quite ashamed or afraid to tell anyone of the geostigma because he knew he was dying. Cloud never really wanted to burden anyone, and that has always been his most consistent character trait. In my opinion, we got the same Cloud in Advent Children that we got in FFVII, but perhaps one that had warmed up a bit since then because these FF games tend to show the leading male characters some epiphany, and they all become sappy puddles of heroism and love after the world is miraculously saved. Neverless, he was simply depressed. His life completely sucks. I am not even entirely convinced he's straight, after how easily he manages to ignore Tifa's overwhelming sexuality. Who would do such a thing!?



Cheers,
WD

PS: It does not qualify to meet the demands of this topic regarding overrated characters, but how about least plausible characters? I happen to like Squall, but can someone please explain to me how he randomly goes from thinking Rinoa is a whiny, little bitch to completely falling in love with her between the very end of disc 2 and the very beginning of disc 3?

[Talysia]

That's a good point about Cloud, WD - It's been a while since I played the game in depth, so perhaps relying on my memories wasn't the best thing to do. I really must watch Advent Children again, too.

I wondered that myself about Squall, too. When I played the game, I kept thinking that his sudden change of heart towards her was perhaps not in character. (Again, though, it's been a long time since I played it.)

[Cayal]

I like Squall simply for when he tells his teacher to go talk to a wall.

[McMurphy]

I don't believe Cloud was ever a happy guy, and was clearly disenchanted with the world and his life upon our first introduction to him. In Final Fantasy VII, he a mouth on him (although the English translation in the game was a bit more loose than the chapters that would follow), and he had no mouth at all in the Advent Children. I like the Squall comparison. Spot on.

Role playing games do seem to not represent women well, because the trend of amazingly annoying love interests pop up far too often in central storylines. I don't know if anyone else has played Sony's "Legend of Dragoon," but Dart's girlfriend is particularly dying for the entire second half of the game.

Just as a footnote, please keep curt language out of the discussions since this forum is open to all ages.

[Talysia]

Wow, that's a blast from the past. I remember playing Legend of Dragoon ages ago, and you're right, Dart's girlfriend (whose name completely escapes me right now) was missing for the second half, and I have to say she annoyed for the first half of the game. She struck me as a weak character, there only to be rescued on several occasions. That's a very overrated game stereotype, in my opinion. Her replacement was a far better character.

[Cayal]

Shana was her name. And wasn't the whole second part about her?

[Talysia]

Shana - that's right. I don't remember very much else about the storyline, though.

[McMurphy]

It was also irritating that the storyline matched Dart and Shana up so quickly. Shana's replacement was a bit more interesting. She was the head strong princess, right?

Another annoying addition to a great franchise was Pecker in the Jak series (also by Sony). Pecker had some funny moments in his first couple scenes (Jak II), but, by the third chapter, he rivaled Robin Williams in annoyance.

[Overread]

what about all those additional characters that they suddenly threw into the Spyro games? I onlyplayed a few, and whilst two of them were not bad, several were just thier for the minigames -!

[Quokka]

Probably Sonic for me, at least with Mario he started out as just another character and then became hugely popular, now he's been around so long you can kind of understand why Nintendo want to use him as some sort of talisman but with Sonic it kind of feels like they've always been pushing to make him the Sega mascot.

One good game, ok very good game, that worked great as a platform and didn't really transfer all that well to 3D environments. Just my two cents and to be honest its being offered without playing most of the Sonic games .

[Cayal]

Quokka just made the list.

You don't knock Sonic (and to be fair, all his 'bad' games are rated as that. I don't think that can be called over-rated. Just over-used).

[Joel007]

I've always thought Solid Snake was a bit overrated, then again I haven't played any of the games after MGS on the PS1.
I agree that Master Chef is far too simple a character to be at the centre of the Halo games.
And Gordon Freeman is exactly as Zero Punctuation describes him. An emotionally oblivious mute.

[Lucien21]

The idea behind most FPS characters is that you are supposed to project yourself as the character hence they normally make them simple or overuse the Amnesia subplot. I never got the fact they hyped up the Master Chief as some paragon of character development.

3rd person games are more likely to have decent characters.

Most overrated...

Sonic is pretty rubbish (Never got into the Megadrive games)
Certainly the chick who snuffed it in Final Fantasy VII has been over hyped
Master Chief is WAAAAAY overrated.

[Overread]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

Certainly the chick who snuffed it in Final Fantasy VII has been over hyped.

speaking as a non-player of FFVII I have to say this is one of the most widly spread spoilers ever -- but I think you are going to be in trouble - have you seen FFVII fans and what they do to people who comment like this? I mean its horriffic -- I'll say something nice about you at the funeral == that is if there is anything left of you