25. Celes Chere (Final Fantasy VI)
FF6 is one of the better FF games in terms of overall story and whatnot, and it has a LARGE playable cast. However, unlike FF4, in which most of the cast is just fodder that winds up "dying" halfway through, and the "main" party is still exceptionally bland in terms of Cecil/Rosa, FF6's playable cast is much more interesting. Yes, they have quite a few bland additions, but the main cast of Edgar/Locke/Celes/Terra are all amazing. Celes winds up being my favorite because she's the most complex character in the game, in my opinion. Yes, I like Edgar because he's a hilarious pervert, and yes I like Terra surprisingly well for a main character, due to her backstory, but Celes is where it's at. She works for the bad guys, but she's also been altered by the bad guys and trained to use magic, and when she (like Leo) finds fault with their methods, she fights against them and gets captured, only to be rescued by her thie-treasure hunter in shining armor. So Celes is still a strong general with magical abilities, but she's also female, which opens up a lot of options for character development for her. She falls in love with Locke (he rescued her, after all), but can't have him because he's still pining after his own lost love. And she has to go out of character to pretend to be an opera singer in order to trick Setzer into giving up his airship. Really, for the first half of the game, she's intriguing to say the least.
Then the second half comes along. Kefka destroys everything and the entire group is split apart. So who takes on the mantle of main character? Terra, the main character from the first half of the game? Nah, she's too busy trying to be human. One of the guys? Nope, they've got their own s*** to deal with. Instead, it's Celes, who lives all by herself on an island in the middle of the ocean. She's lonely, all her friends are gone, and even her savior/surrogate father is dead. She has nothing to live for, so she goes to the highest point on the island and casts herself off. That's right, Celes actually attempts suicide during the course of FF6, and to me, I feel like that's a strong choice from the writers. I'm not condoning suicide in any way, I think it's a stupid way to go out, but it is fascinating that FF6 tackles that issue by having Celes reach the bottom of a pit she can't find a way out of, and that's her reaction. Not just emo moaning like later FF characters, not a completely tacked on "I'm gonna get out of this for me!" positive solution. They actually showed some realism with her character. And she survives anyway, and does get over her depression, and leads the charge in rescuing her friends. It's a very unique storyline, and I'm impressed that the writers were willing to tell it.