- Vote from 0-10, use 5 as an average, decimals are okay. - Don't be lame and use alts or anything like that. - Only vote if you've played enough of the respective game to have a good feel for the character. This if of course subjective for the character so you'll have to use your own judgment. But if you played fifteen minutes of the game once, you probably don't know the character well enough. - Nominations are closed until further notice.
Let me start by saying he's not as bad as people make him out to be. Sure he's the least engaging MC in any mainline Final Fantasy, but when every other MC is a Chosen One, soldier trained from a young age, dark knight, genetic experiment/hybrid, star athlete, womanizing thief, or what-have-you of course a poor orphan boy that's not special in.any other way is going to seem pretty weak in comparison.
That said, he's not nearly as bad as people make him out to be. He's still below average, but he's not terrible really. Not even the worst party member in his game (Yo Penelo). Peeps tend to be harsh on him for a plethora of reasons such as:
1) He contributes nothing to the story. This is not true. He brings the party together. He keeps the party together. He drives the story briefly until Ashe joins for good. Then after that he fades into the background - never a good spot for the MC to be.
2) He's boring. Well gosh, not every MC can be a Chosen One, soldier trained from a young age, dark knight, genetic experiment/hybrid, star athlete, or a womanizing thief, and being any of those things would not have worked for the kind of story FF12 was going for. Unfortunate, but Vaan had to be a nobody special to fit into Ivalice's atmosphere.
3) He has cardboard cut-out abs. Alright there's no defending this one.
4) He's so clueless. He's a young boy who lives in an underground slum with other poor people and interacts almost exclusively with kids even younger than himself. Of course he's not going to be up-to-date on any social faux pas like asking an older woman her age or speaking (too much) when not spoken to. Sure, he's awkward but I can't fault him for that.
5) ... FFXII sucks.... No u.
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I've come to the realization that I need a sig.
It's funny because it's true though. I totally would've said all those things if i was fully breaking the guy down.
Just my way of saying thanks for the cheat sheet!
... and that I don't particularly agree with your defenses-- though I will say for the "he's boring" thing it has nothing to do with his not being a chosen one or anything like that-- that's why "he doesn't do anything/is clueless." It's all about his personality for why he's boring. Terra's more boring than him though so it's not like he even claims the "most boring main" title.
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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!
Didn't finish FFXII, but it's just part of the short list of Killer7, TWEWY, and Okami for games I was loving and for some reason stopped playing.
I like nobody characters like Vaan, though usually for the reason that they come out of nowhere and change the world. I hear he doesn't quite do that though!
I'll throw him a 6/10 for at least not being cliche, for at least what I've seen.
Though honestly if his personality was more commanding he might actually seem like he does stuff too. Like I see what you mean by "he holds the party together" (at the beginning, anyway) but he never really feels like he does that so it might as well just be plot glue that does it.
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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!
For only playing FFTA2, not FFXII, I don't know the parts of him that suck, but see his awesomeness from FFTA2...
But hearing enough about him... and seeing his pic from XII (aka, shirtless with his fake abs), he loses a lot of points, but not completely bad still...
2) He's boring. Well gosh, not every MC can be a Chosen One, soldier trained from a young age, dark knight, genetic experiment/hybrid, star athlete, or a womanizing thief, and being any of those things would not have worked for the kind of story FF12 was going for. Unfortunate, but Vaan had to be a nobody special to fit into Ivalice's atmosphere.
The problem here is that you listed several different things that made those people awesome main characters. He didn't have to be any of those, he could have been something else and still be awesome. Look at Hope in FFXIII, he was just an annoying kid for the first half of the game, and then he developed into a pretty decent character who I honestly loved having in my party (I didn't actually use him to fight, but I liked his interactions with the others). This never happened with Vaan. The game started and he was just there, Balthier was the cool guy in the party. The game progressed and you find out Ashe is the one who really matters, and she's an incredibly strong character to boot.
Vaan is just... there. It's not the fact that he wasn't anyone special, it's that he never says or does anything to make him likable, and in my opinion just him being there to drive the story makes the game worse. I really liked FFXII, and I honestly feel that if the plot were modified to remove Vaan and Penelo, leaving more time to develop the rest of the cast... it would be one of my favourites in the series.
I've never played FF12, so this is based PURELY on Dissidia. Count it or not, I don't mind either way.
5/10. Hes really nothing more than Onion Knight in Cycle 012, complete with similar interactions with Terra. Also quirky to play as, but at the same time, not really hateable at all.
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A staple formula for FF villains: "They only do this, but lets kill them anyway!!!"
Really, really bad. On paper, he doesn't seem like he would be so bad. There's a lot of potential there for him to be an engaging Vyse/Aladdin hybrid rip-off, but he ends up just sucking instead. Imagine if Luke Skywalker remained in "whiny brat mode" for the entire original SW trilogy instead of just the first half of A New Hope. He never saved Leia, he never became a Jedi or a member of the rebel alliance; Instead, he just watched Han do all those things.That's Vaan. Vaan is like if Aladdin met Princess Jasmine and the genie, and Jaffar, but instead of undergoing some character development chose to just remain a dumb thief instead. You keep thinking this kid is going to contribute something to the story, but he ends up just tagging along and playing second fiddle to the rest of the cast for the entirety of the game. Add to this a really terrible character design and subtract any endearing character traits and you have this stinker.
As you can see there was no new final fantasy character topic put up last night. I had some girlfriend problems... So no worries I'll be back on track tonight until...
Monday night I'm starting at a new position at my job. It's more hours and I have to go in at 9:00pm central. So either somebody else will need to take the reins OR I can continue hosting with the topic going up at 8:00pm central instead of 11:00pm central. Will not hurt my feelings either way so speak up if you don't care or if you want this thing for the last 15 characters.
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When you've got a pretty-boy monkey on your back constantly calling you a puppet, you hardly want to seem like you're happy to be used. - DSakaCharanJ