Characters page for Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, with characters from Final Fantasy VII through Final Fantasy IX.
Return to the main Character page here.
See also:
- Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia I To III
- Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia IV To VI
- Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia X To XII
- Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia XIII To XV
- Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia Spinoff Games
Beware: Late Arrival Spoilers are untagged for their respective games.
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Introduced in Final Fantasy VII
Cloud Strife
Cloud Strife
Alternate Skin
A young man who is a former member of SOLDIER. In pursuing his nemesis, Sephiroth, and attempting to protect his world, he learns the truth of his own past. He often claims to be "not interested" - a notion that is reinforced by his detached demeanor. It is a mask that breaks only when he is overcome by motion sickness.
Voiced by: Takahiro Sakurai
Recruited in Chapter 1 of the main story. Cloud is discovered as the fledgling party is on the path to close their first Torsion, joining the group after Tifa asks him to. While aloof as always, he is nonetheless dedicated to the party's cause.
- Balance Buff: One of the most notable reworks due to the fact that Cloud suffered greatly from being one of the first Lv. 60 awakened characters. As a result, both of his skills not only have increased potencies, but now have a self-BRV-gain/battery based on his attack on top of overflow, especially for his Cross Slash Extend having only 2 BRV hits beforehand. His crystal level 54 and 58 passives also become updated to standard invisible buff passives, as his prior ones were very situational, niche, and quite subpar.
- Bash Brothers: Cloud and Zack finally get this dynamic that they've wanted all along, fighting alongside each other as equals. Later, even Kadaj is added to the mix, with Kadaj calling Cloud his "brother" because of their connection to JENOVA but eventually Cloud calls him a brother in return.
- Berserk Button: Cloud gets overly aggressive towards the copies of Dark Manikins after the party finds them impersonating Tidus and Jecht to break their wills, and takes the lead in taking them down. He later tells the party about the "calamity" from his world and how they must be infected by Jenova cells, and that Sephiroth is likely behind it.
- Birds of a Feather: Actually sympathizes with Faris over the Wholesome Crossdresser thing and assures her that there's no need to hide who she is among this group. (Granted, his stint in a dress was much less permanent than being raised as a man.)
- Critical Hit Class: One of the earliest characters who solely focuses a lot on critical hits; his passives either increase his crit damage, makes him remove a buff off of a target with a critical hit landed (his Warrior of Illusions 15CP passive), and he even gets a rare crit rate up buff from his 35CP passive as well. Taken further once his EX+ was released, along with his Lv. 65 Additional Ability, Critical Crush.
- Death from Above: Meteor Rain.
- Disc-One Nuke:
- Using the code that comes packaged with first-run copies of Dissidia Final Fantasy NT awards you with a free Buster Sword ver. NT weapon for Cloud, which grants a slight boost to two of Cloud's core Skills. Even if you don't draw something else for him with the free Gems handed out by clearing Chapter 1, the fact that you can start him with a strong weapon easily makes him a party mainstay in early game. Thus, unlike most party members, Cloud has one of the few with the most amount of gold weapon passives in the game.
- Come the introduction of the CHAOS Difficulty Cloud is one of the first characters to receive their Realized EX Weapon (along with Vincent). With his high attack, non-elemental damage, coupled with moves that can give a guaranteed Stun or a guaranteed launch, Cloud is perfect for the early CHAOS missions and carries many players until more Realized characters become available.
- Glass Cannon: While he hits pretty decently and harder as he gets more changes while having a hefty amount of Max BRV at 4/5 (along with having currently, 2-3 different hefty Max BRV Up buffs he can give himself), one of Cloud's glaring weaknesses is his average Speed at 3/5, meaning his turn rate isn't going to be as decent on its own without specific party-wide buffs, making him a Mighty Glacier as well. That, and his HP and Defense on its own are pretty poor.
- Launcher Move: Finishing Touch launches enemies into the air. Its 35CP passive gives Cloud three hefty self-buffs in the form of a Max BRV Up, Physical Attack Up, and Crit Rate Up. His new crystal level 58 passive gives him invisible buff boosts whenever he launches his target, also enforcing his focus on this.
- Mr. Exposition: His friends from home actually name this as one of his talents and task him with explaining things to Cait Sith. Rather than using a fade-to-black as usual, Cloud's narration becomes a "the story so far" recap, complete with the art stills from the game's original opening titles.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Cloud nearly loses all progress the party was making with trying to convince Kadaj that he doesn't need JENOVA. When Sephiroth and Weiss are manipulating Kadaj over to their side, Cloud calls Kadaj's desire to meet JENOVA "nonsense," offending Kadaj. If it wasn't for Seymour convincing Kadaj to trick Sephiroth into revealing Kadaj is only a tool for him, Kadaj might not have been willing to hear out the party again. Later, after they defeat Weiss, Cloud apologizes and Kadaj finally acknowledges that his "mother" can never come to this world after all.
- Three-Strike Combo: His iconic Cross-Slash, which even has a chance to paralyze the target for one turn. The chances increase further with his 15CP passive, and when his reworked Cross Slash Extend is powered up to its + version, with further reworks making the effect guaranteed and applying it to all enemies.
- Wolverine Publicity: The app icon tends to feature his portrait more often than not, and the majority of the "Novice" missions are about powering him up.
- You Remind Me of X: Zell and Irvine both remark on how similar Cloud is to Squall upon seeing his blunt, antisocial behavior.
Tifa Lockhart
Tifa Lockhart
Alternate Skin 1
Alternate Skin 2
A master of martial arts and a member of the anti-Shinra resistance group AVALANCHE. In inviting her childhood friend, Cloud, to join the resistance to save the planet, she learns to face her past and come to terms with her feelings. In her spare time, she runs the bar 7th Heaven and is an excellent cook.
Voiced by: Ayumi Itou
Recruited in Chapter 1. Tifa joins the party early on in their journey, and her caring attitude combined with her levelheadedness keeps them all focused on the mission.
- Balance Buff: Receives a notable one on Barret's Lost Chapter, where her skill 1 now functions as a standard overflowing BRV+HP with its conditional removed, and now gains more effective enhanced BRV and HP attacks. This overall greatly solves Tifa's issues with longevity and makes her more effective against nearly any type of enemy (as she was plagued with being one of the earlier designed characters).
- The release of her LD weapon reworks her again, turning her into a ungodly damage monster with lots of free turns and free skills, and her LD Ability is infamous for being one of the most damaging abilities in the game so far, even beating out Kuja's LD Ability, dishing out damage on par with Finishing Bursts!
- Birds of a Feather: Invoked with her Force Ability, Glitter Strike, which pairs her up with Rem, both being childhood friend love interests of their game's respective protagonists.
- Canon Immigrant: Her LD Ability, Meteor Crusher, was actually a move imported from her appearance in Dissidia 012 and is not a Limit Break from VII directly, although it seems thematically based on a few of her other unused Limit Breaks, specifically Meteor Drive and Meteor Strike.
- Critical Hit Class: Her unique buff Fever Time doubles as both a Critical Hit Rate Up and a Critical Damage Up, which greatly increases her damage output (post-rework especially).
- Glass Cannon: Has a 4/5 in Attack, Speed and Max BRV along with a 3/5 in Initial BRV, but a poor 2/5 HP and Defense. Nonetheless, she has some of the hardest hitting power in the game (particularly against skeletons) along with her Zangan Way buff giving her increased turn rate that allows her to steal turns very effectively.
- High-Class Call Girl: Tifa's second alternate costume has her in the disguise she wore in order to infiltrate the brothel at the Honey Bee Inn; a flirty, deep blue short dress with matching high heels.
- Kiai: The literal name of her Battle Cry in Japanese. With her 35CP, it grants her some solid buffs, including a unique framed buff called Zangan Way (raises Attack and lowers action delay).
- Launcher Move: Her EX ability, Dolphin Blow. It becomes Dolphin Blow Combo when the EX+ version is fully max limit-broken, where she'll do her Beat Rush into an HP attack beforehand to delay the target, then finish with the Dolphin Blow itself. Each HP damage portion also converts 50% of HP damage done into BRV.
- Only Sane Man: At times. As mentioned, she often has to remind everyone that they have a mission to accomplish, but she isn't so serious all of the time. She often also tells the others to mind their manners when they encounter a new party member who might be seen as "unusual" or if someone like Vaan asks inappropriate questions about a woman's age.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Her LD Skill, Meteor Crusher, has her let out several numerous hard hitting punches worthy of Star Platinum or The World.
- The Reliable One: As always. She strikes a careful balance between easygoing and keeping everyone focused on the mission when need be.
- Situational Sword: An extremely downplayed and ultimately minor example: Tifa deals extra damage to skeleton-type enemies, but Tifa herself is powerful enough to work in basically any party composition. Basically, Tifa realized that just about everything has a skeleton anyway, and her damage output matches that.
- Spam Attack:
- Her signature Beat Rush, which also inflicts an Attack Down debuff. Her enhanced BRV Attack post-rework even reuses its animation. Her LD Ability Meteor Crusher deals six HP attacks, each for massive damage. The rework that comes with her LD also turns both Beat Rush and Battle Cry into a 2-hit BRV+HP attack repeated 3 times, with Beat Rush upgrading into the + version when Breaking or hitting a broken enemy that doubles the number of executions to 6, making it only slightly weaker than the LD itself. Her Burst takes this to yet another level by allowing her to follow up all her attacks with Waterkick and Somersault while the Burst buff is active, adding another 6 HP dumps worth of damage to her already massive damage potential and making her the undisputed queen of single target damage.
- Shoryuken: Again, her EX, Dolphin Blow.
- Team Mom: She's usually the first to scold someone if they're being rude to another party member for whatever reason.
Yuffie Kisaragi
Yuffie Kisaragi
Alternate Skin
A young ninja obsessed with money who is always in pursuit of more materia. While her behavior may be juvenile at times, it never diminishes her determination to restore her conquered homeland as she joins Cloud for the showdown against Sephiroth.
Voiced by: Yumi Kakazu
Recruited in Chapter 3 of the main story after trying to steal the party's gear. After they chase her down and Tifa gives her a good scolding, she joins the party.
- Butt-Monkey: Yuffie in particular is a common butt of jokes and others' snark. Community-wise before her rework due to her 35CP weapon and Lv. 60 Awakening, Yuffie was also the center of several memes due to being a very niche character to make use of in certain fights.
- Dishing Out Dirt: With her Burst buff active, her HP+ attack becomes Landscaper, which consists of her punching the ground and creating a shockwave that deals multiple BRV+HP attacks to all enemies. However, this does Non-Elemental damage rather than Earth damage.
- Fuuma Shuriken: Her weapons of choice are giant shurikens (when they aren't feather fans or paper cranes).
- Hero Worship: When she meets Shadow, and later Faris, Yuffie gushes over how cool they are.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Yuffie's unique ability to reverse inflicted debuffs back on the enemy can lead to some devastating results, although probably none as potent as the Dullahan from Mog's character event, who's HP Poison effect is so strong that when thrown back kills Dullahan in just a few turns. As a result, many bosses are made immune to their own debuffs, and Dullahan was released later as a Global exclusive boss with a patched immunity to its own HP Poison.
- Hypocritical Humor: When she finds an already-looted mansion, she complains about thieves and scolds Sabin and Shadow for having a thief as a friend when they suggest it's Locke.
- Improbable Weapon User: Though she uses Throwing weapons, some of her special weapons can be a bit weird, such as her fan or paper crane. Otherwise, she's shown in art with her Cross Shuriken.
- Intangible Theft:
- Yuffie can steal BRV with Snatch (which everyone else more or less does with a standard BRV attack, she can just copy the enemy's current BRV value). This is later upgraded to allow Yuffie to also steal up to two buffs from an enemy as well, similar to Balthier's unique gimmick.
- The trope is oddly reversed with her second ability "I don't need this," which lets her return debuffs she and the party are currently inflicted with to enemies.
- Kame Hame Hadoken: Her Burst finisher is her strongest Limit Break from her original game, which is a massive beam that hits all enemies.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: Her LD Ability grants a buff and debuff that both scale based on how many debuffs are currently stacked on the enemy.
- Not Me This Time: When the party comes across bombs with face scribbles on them, everyone is quick to blame Yuffie for the prank, to her frustration. It isn't until they meet Palom that they realize she isn't the culprit.
- "Not So Different" Remark:
- The party compares her to Cater, in that they can both be annoying tomboys, which annoys them both at first and they start fighting until they realize they do have a lot in common and put a positive spin on it, becoming friends.
- Steiner compares her to Palom in that they're both mischievous pranksters, which just infuriates Yuffie.
- Right Behind You: Yuffie contemplates stealing Alisaie's grimoire, wondering how valuable it is since she carries it everywhere, right when Alisaie comes up behind her.
- Status Effects: Yuffie is all about debuffing the enemy and using that momentum to her advantage. Her "I don't need this~" ability loads the enemy with eight generic debuffs, on top of any other debuffs the enemy has placed on her.
Vincent Valentine
Vincent Valentine
Alternate Skin
A gunslinger and former Turk under Shinra. He was unethically experimented on, granting him eternal youth and the ability to shapeshift. Tormented by the mistakes of his past, he locks himself within a coffin for almost thirty years until being awakened by Cloud and setting out to tie up loose ends.
Voiced by: Shogo Suzuki
Recruited in Chapter 7 of the main story. Vincent is first encountered as an enemy, working with Kefka for unknown reasons and summoned by Spiritus rather than Materia. After a few more encounters and even fights against him, Vincent joins up to help the party and atone for his mistakes.
- Acceptable Breaks from Canon: Normally to use Beast Flare, Livewire, and Nightmare, he would transform himself into Galian Beast, Death Gigas, and Hellmasker respectfully, in Opera Omnia he can use the attacks as himself although as "Shots". Strangely his LD Ability, Satan Slam Shot, does see him summoning the form of Chaos unlike the others.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: His alternate costume has him don what he wore while a member of the Turks; a sharp black suit similiar to Reno and Rude.
- Commonality Connection:
- After Fang tells the others that she was kept in sleep for many years where she (and Vanille) didn't age, Vincent points out that he was under a similar circumstance, and they both talk about how they are chronologically Older Than They Look.
- With his Force Partner, Prompto. Aside from both being firearm specialists, both have been experimented on against their wills; Vincent by Dr. Hojo, and Prompto being created as a magitek being by Verstael Besithia. Both also end up facing their experimenters in their side-stories after they bond their souls with world-destroying bodies; Vincent stopping Hojo after fusing with Omega (using Weiss's body) in Dirge of Cerberus, and Prompto (with Aranea's help) slaying Verstael after he bonds his soul with the Immortalis in Episode: Prompto.
- Fragile Speedster: Low health but high speed coupled with low delay attacks; this can actually hurt him in more difficult fights since he doesn't have a large number of attack uses, meaning its easy to burn him out quickly.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Vincent opens a Torsion to allow the party to escape having to fight Kefka and Cloud of Darkness simultaneously ... only for Kefka and CoD to simply follow the heroes and attack them anyway. Vincent feels so bad for screwing up that he joins the party after previously being so vehemently against it.
- Kick Them While They Are Down:
- Vincent is primarily an enabler with his niche yet powerful debuffs, allowing him to hit high numbers. Post-rework with his EX+ weapon being one of the first ones in the history of the game, he at least has better longevity and increased BRV hits + overflow to add to his issues of helping his longevity. Against anything that can counter his debuffs however, Vincent's numbers will falter.
- This is the mechanic behind his LD Special Effect, Power of Chaos; if the enemy has 2 or more debuffs after he attacks, Vincent will follow up with Chaos Saber Shot.
- Playing with Fire: Deadly Beast Flare, which damages enemies and gives him a fire enchant Status Buff and lowers enemy resistances with a fire imperil.
- Shock and Awe: Livewire Shot, which does the same as Deadly Beast Flare but with lightning damage.
- Summon Bigger Fish: For his LD Ability, Satan Slam Shot, Vincent summons the spirit of his most powerful transformation, Chaos.
- Super Mode: His Burst Finisher has him outright transform into Chaos rather than just channeling its power as he did for his LD. However, while his LD summons the version of Chaos from Final Fantasy VII, for his Burst he transforms into the version from Dirge of Cerberus.
- Willing Channeler: Rather than transforming into his various beasts, he instead channels their powers through his gun. The only exception is Chaos, who is used as a form of Summon Magic instead for his LD ability, Satan Slam Shot (and its follow-up attack, Chaos Saber Shot).
- You Shall Not Pass!: While it does lead to his Nice Job Breaking It, Hero, Vincent does attempt to hold off the likes of Kefka and Cloud of Darkness on his own. He doesn't succeed, but to survive fighting against two forces of mass destruction like them is something worth noting.
Aerith Gainsborough
Aerith Gainsborough
Alternate Skin 1
Alternate Skin 2
A descendant of the Ancients who possesses the ability to communicate with the Planet. In an effort to discover her destiny, she accompanies Cloud in his pursuit of Sephiroth, ultimately fulfilling her duty as an Ancient and saving the world.
Voiced by: Maaya Sakamoto
Recruited in her event, "Inheriting the Past". Aerith is encountered being pursued by the likes of Kefka and Kuja, who want her in their clutches because she is an Ancient. When the party rescues her, she still tries to escape in order to not endanger the party, but she eventually relents and joins.
- Advertised Extra: Her initial event had a unique structure where she received five cutscenes, alternating with battles (as opposed to the scene-battle-scene-battle-battle-scene structure of all other recruitment events) and revolved around her ability to sense the distortions in the world's fabric, as well as alluding to the discrepency between her memory and her friends'. Since becoming a permanent party member, however, she hasn't had more prominence than anyone else and her Cetra abilities have rarely come up—she didn't even have a large role in the chapter where Sephiroth was making Jenova clones.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Aerith cites this reason as to why she chooses to help Kuja when he goes through another Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum in Arc 2 Chapter 3, remembering how he helped her against Kefka back in her character event.
- Caring Gardener: Just like in her home game, Aerith adores flowers; it even is the subject of her Intersecting Wills missions being a veritable Continuity Porn of every meaningful flower in the Final Fantasy seies and Aerith's mission to share them with all her new friends. She also responds strongly to Squall's dream to fill the world with flowers (even though Squall admits he wasn't serious when he said that). Once again becomes a plot point during the start of Act 4, in which Aerith wants to use the power of everyone's wills in order to restore the world's dying flowers.
- Combat Medic: Her EX+ turns her into this, providing hefty boosts to the party's ATK and Max BRV, and also capable of dishing out very high damage herself with just her HP attacks. Her Burst buff also lets her become a more literal example of this, granting her an overhead buff that functions as a secondary source of HP damage via keeping track of HP recovered by the party up to 200k points, and like Garnet's overhead, it gains a stack for every party or enemy turn and once at max stacks, it triggers an extra HP attack based on the overhead's current value on all enemies and resets the stacks back to minimum afterwards.
- Damsel in Distress: Aerith is introduced this way in her event, being pursued by both Kefka and Kuja and Kefka's Magitek armors for her status as one of the Ancients. As an Ancient who can communicate with the Planet, questions are raised as to why they want her even though she isn't on her home world anymore. It turns out being an Ancient lets her sense the location of the Torsions.
- This happens again in Act 4, Chapter 4, Part 2 when Sephiroth strikes her down, forcing Cloud to fend off nearby enemies while the others get her away to heal her.
- Innocent Flower Girl: Her Intersecting Wills focuses on this, with Aerith going out to get flowers (while under "protection" by the Turks) to cheer up the party.
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies: She makes several attempts to get "lost" so that the others won't have to deal with their enemies' pursuit of her.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Aerith gets her dress from the Final Fantasy VII Remake as her second alternate costume.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter:
- Her Force is the first one that doesn't deal any damage on use, but in exchange it's instant, heals and batteries the party and starts with a higher damage multiplier than other Forces, and her Burst buff has no set duration, instead making it so that if the someone in the party takes HP damage when under 50% HP, the buff is consumed to fully heal and revive the party.
- Her Burst Effect has no turn counter, so theoretically it can last for the entire fight even if used on Turn 1. However, like Eald'narche's Exoplates or Caius's Heart of Chaos it will trigger a recovery if hit below a certain HP threshold and be dispelled, only in Aerith's case that being a party-wide cause and effect.
- The strength of her Burst follow-up attack is based on the total party healing from the point of her Burst Effect's activation to a cap of 200,000 HP healed in total.
- The Medic: Notable for being the first person in the game able to revive fallen allies with Prayer of the Cetra. Her Healing Wind is also one of the strongest healing skills in the game, capable of fully healing the party with ease.
- No-Sell:
- Her LD buff makes the party immune to debuffs and the debuff she inflicts with her LD followup prevents the enemy from buffing themselves.
- Her Burst grants herself a four-turn gold-framed buff that blocks all incoming BRV and HP Damage to the party.
- Unexplained Recovery: In-universe, Aerith wonders how she could possibly be alive, well aware that Sephiroth should have killed her. This leads her to believe that she was Resurrected for a Job, and keeps quiet about it to the rest of the party, though Vincent and Sephiroth seem to remember.
Cid Highwind
Cid Highwind
A former pilot who was to become the first astronaut as part of Shinra's space program. His dreams of space are put on hold after a failed launch. Spending his days lost and unfulfilled, his interest is piqued by Cloud's party and their antagonism toward Shinra, and he soon joins their cause.
Voiced by: Kazuhiro Yamaji
Recruited in his event, "Space Dreams". The party finds Cid scavenging for spare parts to build an airship, but he immediately joins them upon learning of different worlds and the possibility that he could travel to one of them.
- Blow You Away: Primarily deals wind damage with much of his kit.
- Commonality Connection: He has one with the pilots of the heroes, that being Balthier, Sazh and Setzer and to a lesser degree, Vaan.
- Confirmed Bachelor: After witnessing his rough personality, Galuf, Yang, Sazh, and even Jecht wonder what Cid's kids could be like... until Cid confirms he doesn't have any and doesn't want them, even calling himself a bachelor. This subsequently leads to them pressing him about any special women in his life.
- Jumped at the Call: Cid Highwind joins the party without even being asked once he learns that there are other worlds and that Squall and Irvine have been to space before he has. When Irvine tells him that people can live on a space station in his world, Cid immediately expresses a desire to see their world.
- Life Drain: After using Dragon Dive, he is able to restore his own HP by damaging opponents with his Dragon ability.
- Macross Missile Massacre: His LD ability allows him to call the Highwind to bombard the enemy with missiles and grants him an overhead buff that gains a stack up to 3 after his turn, at which point it'll trigger a powerful followup attack almost as strong as the LD itself after an ally's turn.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: His EX Ability, Big Brawl, when fully realized, deals thirteen HP attacks distributed among all enemies, and if there's only one enemy, they receive the full brunt of his attacks. His EX rework lets it deal full damage to all enemies, grealty increases its overall damage potential.
- One-Steve Limit: Discussed in his Lost Chapter, when several other people note that they also know someone named Cid in their worlds who is good with airships. Cid just chalks it up to coincidence and says he'd like to meet them to see if they live up to the name. Discussed further in Arc 2 Chapter 3, when Maria says she knows someone with the same surname as him and Kain, Highwind, who is furthermore a Dragoon. So far, though, this Cid is the only playable one (at least until Cid Raines joins him).
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Just like his original counterpart, he has a very...colorful language censored with Symbol Swearing.
Barret Wallace
Barret Wallace
Leader of the anti-Shinra organization AVALANCHE. Adores his daughter Marlene. The prosthesis on his right arm can be outfitted with various weaponry to suit the occasion. Burning for revenge against Shinra when he first meets Cloud and the others, he has a change of heart during the course of their journey.
Voiced by: Masahiro Kobayashi
Recruited in his event, "Right Arm With a Mission." Barret finds himself lost and loses his temper snapping at the adventuring party, being fought before being recuited since some of the people who don't know him assume he's an enemy.
- Angrish: One of his stock voice clips has Barret verbally fuming in anger, which is often recycled whenever he is upset, confused, or just plain mad (which happens a lot).
- Arch-Enemy: Fighting alongside the Turks is one thing, which Barret eventually does. When he meets Rufus in this world, however, he wants nothing to do with the president of Shinra and he is the one who tells Ramza what Rufus and the Turks have done to the world and people like Shelke.
- Arm Cannon: Barret's weapons are specialized machine gun arms, which only he can use. They are capable of firing bullets, energy blasts, and grenades.
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: Invoked when Cater calls Barret out after he yells at them while gesticulating with his gun arm, pointing out on how dangerous that is.
- Dismissing a Compliment: He tries to brush off Edgar and Snow's admiration of his gun-arm and determined spirit and tells Galuf that he's just clashing each other like always when caught chasing the kids in a game of tag.
- Energy Ball: His classic Big Shot (Heavy Shot in Japanese) Limit Break shows Barret charging a large ball of fiery plasma which he fires at the enemy. The attack animation actually uses the exact same effects as it did in the original Final Fantasy VII game, and it grants a Physical Attack Up to each party member.
- Friend to All Children: He plays tag with Eiko, Relm, and Krile during one Lost Chapter scene, and Palom takes a shine to him and his gun-arm in another. Galuf compliments him on being good with kids.
- Gatling Good: All of Barret's arm cannons are gatling/machine guns.
- Going Through the Motions: Dramatically thrusting out one's right hand is a stock animation for all characters, but it gets Barret into trouble because his is a gun.
- Grenade Launcher: One of Barret's attacks is Grenade Bomb, which hits all enemies for area of effect BRV+HP damage and grants the unique buff [AVALANCHE].
- Hair-Trigger Temper: He's not happy to find himself lost in the world of Opera Omnia, and the first people he runs into are a group of Hot-Blooded warriors (Cater, Fujin, and Steiner) who immediately mistrust him, which turns his innocuous attempt to ask for information into a yelling match that doesn't end until they get into a fight. Tifa arrives once they're through and explains who he is. After realizing he's lost he loses his temper, then proceeds to get even angrier when the adventuring party mistakes him for an enemy due to his demeanor and gun arm. When Tifa finally vouches for him, she points out Barret's penchant for losing his composure.
- Heroic Build: Barret is quite top-heavy when it comes to his build; after fighting the adventuring party and calling Sabin a "Bear" Cater is quick to point out both the muscle men in fact look like bears.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: After Edgar and Snow compliment Barret's heroic vigor, Barret is quick to dismiss the compliments saying he's done nothing to deserve them. This is immediately proceeded by him insinuating his signature gun-arm acts as a reminder to the time he failed to save a friend.
- I'm Standing Right Here: After Tifa confirms Barret is a friend of theirs, she talks about his bad temper, causing Barret to have this exact reaction since he's only standing a couple feet away.
- Kill Sat: His EX ability, where he even forms a targeting reticle during the animation.
- More Dakka: His appropriately named LD Skill, Maximum Fury, hits the enemy for ten group enemy hits, plus an addition four hit plus HP attack if his satellite buff is active.
- My Greatest Failure: After Palom, Edgar, and Snow compliment Barret's gun-arm, he explains he doesn't see it that way. For him it's a grim reminder of the time he couldn't protect someone the time he couldn't save his best friend Dyne, Marlene's father.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Sazh invokes this trope by name after learning that Barret's concerned about his daughter Marlene, since he himself is worried for his son Dajh.
- Papa Wolf: One of the first things he asks about once he's calmed down is the whereabouts of Marlene, afraid for her safety.
Cait Sith
Cait Sith
A self-styled fortune-telling machine in the shape of a black cat. Riding atop a fat moogle stuffed animal, he half-forces his way into Cloud's party. Though his behavior is usually comical, his comments at times show a concern for others. After coming to terms with the danger facing the planet, he fights to the end alongside his true comrades.
Voiced by: Hideo Ishikawa
The party comes across Cait Sith in the Interlude chapter of the main story, spotting him exchanging information with Vayne. While some are hesitant to let him join and judge him at first because of that, and bewildered by the fact that a talking stuffed moogle joined Cloud's party in his world, Cloud and Tifa insist that he is trustworthy.
- Balance Buff: Via the 6th Lv. 70 Awakening Batch in JP that introduced his EX+ with Balthier's, Cait Sith gains buffs on his Toy Soldier Extend which no longer needs to hit its 100% of Max BRV and beyond HP conditional (as it does its HP Attack animation no matter what) along with Moogle Dance Extend having increased base uses allowing him to buff the party more often. His BRV Attack+ buffed by Cheerful Gift also now does 2-hits (making it shave more effectively on its own), and his EX+ covering his lack of an HP Attack+.
- Combat Medic: Cheerful Gift also heals the target party member's BRV and HP via regen.
- Critical Hit Class: His LD turns him into this; it grants the entire party a 100% critical hit chance, as well as boosts HP Damage, BRV Regen on critical hits, and his own critical hit damage by 50%.
- Easily Forgiven: After everyone learns that he was sharing intelligence with Vayne, Cloud just asks that he only work with them from now on, and they all accept Cait Sith's assurance that he will; Cait Sith realizes that Vayne listened in on him while he was with the heroes and proves the said assurance by calling his deal with Vayne off in his face.
- Fortune Teller: Just like in VII, he introduces himself as a fortune-telling machine. He gives fortunes on two separate occasions, first to the Warrior of Light and then to Edge. The first one is a standard, vague fortune that no one views as an answer, the second is also thought to be crock (but turns out to be Foreshadowing), and the third is an ominous warning that the Warrior will find what he seeks but lose something dear. Edge's fortune, however, reveals that his soulmate is "right around the corner" - and, coincidentally, Rydia's character event came out around that time. Lilisette wonders if the future is the business of Cait Siths in all worlds, like the Cait Sith she knows. He tries again in Act 4 to cheer up Aerith, only to tell her that her luck is 'middling' and that her fortune is basically "work hard if you want good stuff to happen", everyone rolls their eyes but Aerith at least appreciates the sentiment (even Cait seems unhappy with the fortune and offers to give her another one, which she declines).
- The Gambler: Much like in his home game, though only reserved for his EX Ability. However, instead of it being a Death or Glory Attack, the only RNG to worry about is the potency of the attack via the indicator on the 5 dice; either the attack hits very hard or lacks in firepower.
- Improbable Weapon User: Just like in his home game, megaphones. For his EX weapon, it's a trumpet instead.
- The Mole: Cloud and Vincent vouch for his skills to be able to infiltrate enemy territory to gather information. At around the start of the Interlude, he remains in contact with Vayne even after being accepted into the party, via a communicator hidden in his body. However, he swears off the connection right in Vayne's face after he shows up with Garland, because he doesn't want to destroy the world like they do while also realizing he was duped by Vayne eavesdropping on him during a vital moment.
- Odd Friendship: With Princess Ashe. The two of them are seen together fairly frequently in cutscenes, and usually when not with his comrades from his own world Cait Sith tends to hang out with the cast of XII in general and offers insight into Vayne just as much as they do, due to working with him at one point.
- Status Buff: Moogle Dance grants Cheerful Gift to the party, which restores HP, BRV, and raises attack. Both his Toy Soldier and Moogle Dance get enhanced to + versions when the party has a total of 3 buffs on them or more, allowing him to stack on tons of other offensive buffs to the party. His EX+ when limit broken a few notches also allows Cait and the whole party to end up with these buffs right off the bat when a quest starts.
- Support Party Member: Due to his aforementioned Moogle Dance, and with his BRV Attack+ (enhanced by Cheerful Gift) turns Cait Sith into a powerful BRV battery. Cait Sith himself rocks an impressive 5/5 Max BRV stat with a 4/5 in Attack and Initial BRV, and an average 3/5 Speed and HP stat (but with 2/5 Defense). Despite his numbers, his Toy Soldier pre-rework was his main source of shaving and damage while being plagued with fairly average potencies, meaning Cait Sith would need to be decked out with plenty of attack artifacts if one needed to maximize damage on him. His LD buff gives him an unique effect that allows the party to gain up to 18% of their max BRV for every BRV hit they deal on top of the normal BRV damage gain, making it an useful way to bypass high BRV damage reductions.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Cait Sith's presence implies that Reeve is around somewhere with a remote control, but so far he hasn't appeared in the flesh... though this sparks the debates again about how autonomous Cait Sith is. However, when Barret sees him, he begins to ask a question about Cait Sith that is highly implied to be about Reeve, but Cait Sith simply tells him not to worry about it.
Zack Fair
Zack Fair
Alternate Skin 1
Alternate Skin 2
Shinra SOLDIER 1st Class. Upbeat and brimming with vitality, he dreams of becoming a hero, but is caught up in a certain incident with his friend Cloud while on a mission. It is during their life-or-death escape from this plight that Zack makes up his mind to become a mercenary.
Voiced by: Kenichi Suzumura
Recruited in his event ("Shining in, Someday") when the party encounters him during a relentless rainstorm. Cloud and Tifa are shocked to see him, even a little unnerved, but they don't say why - hinting that they remember he should be dead. Nonetheless, they are happy to see him, and he brings unending cheer to the party.
- Barrier Warrior: Only via his EX Ability's unique buff, and only applied to himself on top of his aggro mechanic. The shield is actually potent enough to actually completely negate damage below 150% of Zack's current Initial BRV (compare to Warrior of Light's shields which will decrease their durability from any attack that lands on them), though if the damage is high enough to bypass the value, it'll damage Zack normally. The downside of it is that it's still possible to dispel the shield through other means, or should a powerful attack manage to inflict a BRV break on Zack. It also lasts a short duration for around 4 turns without the use of Rush Assault Extend to increase its duration before another EX recast pops up.
- Best Friend: He is this towards Cloud.
- Color-Coded Armies: Zack's first alternate outfit is his purple Second-Class SOLDIER uniform from the Crisis Core game. His default outfit is his navy-blue First-Class SOLDIER uniform that he is more usually seen wearing.
- Determinator: Like Basch, his Burst buff gives him the ability to draw all AoE HP damage to himself on top of making him unkillable for as long as the buff is in effect. This is further emphasized with his Burst animation, where his attack is interrupted by gunfire from an unseen source that he partially blocks which also reduces his current HP to half, but he still manages to pull himself up and deliver one final slash as everything fades to static.
- Draw Aggro: Chain Slash forces the attacked enemy to target him, while his EX ability does this to all targets at once (which makes his job much easier as opposed to needing to provoke targets one by one). Zack specializes in attacking enemies that are targeting him, in that his damage gets boosted under that condition: Chain Slash triggers a second time if an enemy is targetting him, and starting from his Force update, Rush Assault is also followed by a single Chain Slash under the same condition.
- Gone Horribly Right: Played for laughs. In his LC, he gets into a squat contest with Tidus and Seifer as a way to get warm on a snowy mountain. They got warm, but they wore themselves out.
- Lightning Bruiser: Once again, Zack is considered an offensive tank, and along with all of the generic and framed buffs he is capable of giving himself he is capable of hitting enemies hard with a high turn rate (via his unique Turn Rate Up/Low Action Delay buff from Chain Slash). He rocks a base 4/5 in Attack and Speed with 5/5 in HP and Defense. However, he suffers from a poor Initial BRV of 2/5 (important considering his BRV Barrier's form of scaling) and a Max BRV base of 1/5. Even then, Zack has no self attack up buffs meaning he'll greatly benefit from supports that can enhance his damage.
- Mythology Gag: Zack's reveal trailer has him and a knocked out Cloud facing Manikins of Laguna and King in a Battle in the Rain, simulating the battle in his death scene in Crisis Core.
- The Pollyanna: He guides the group through unrelenting rain, telling the party to keep their heads up, and insists that the sun will come out, and is proven right shortly after. He even has a positive influence on Cloud, getting him to pump his fist into the air and give a motivational "Move out!" to the rest of the party, to the shock of the others.
- After he gets his painful memories back, he shows hints of becoming a Stepford Smiler for a bit until a pep talk from Cloud makes him realize he's truly happy to get the opportunity to be with Cloud and Aerith again.
- Sword and Fist: Rush Assault includes punches and kicks along with a sword slash, though his weapon is a BFS.
- Unexplained Recovery: From Cloud and Tifa's point of view, but as Zack himself seems to have no memory of his death it is more likely that he comes from a time before it happens. It later turns out that Zack was revived by the gods and simply didn't have his memories of his own death, which he eventually gets back from his Dark Manikin.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Develops this relationship with Seifer, though Krile observes that it's an act on Zack's part to keep Seifer from feeling alone, and that he really does care for Seifer.
- Walking Swimsuit Scene: His second buyable costume with the release of his BT+ weapon is his swimsuit from Crisis Core, wearing nothing but a pair of swimming trunks.
Jessie Rasberry
Jessie Rasberry
An engineer with the anti-Shinra organization AVALANCHE. From making explosives to fake IDs, her skills cover a wide range of applications. She has a careless side and sometimes doesn't come through when it counts. After Cloud rescued her during the bombing mission on Mako Reactor 1, she developed a liking for the mercenary—feelings she made no effort to hide.
Voiced by: Satomi Moriya
Recruited in her event, "Sloppy Provisioner." When Maria, Rinoa, and Guy find their way blocked by a boulder, Jessie shows up and offers to blow it up and clear the way for them (to Maria's delight). As they talk, Maria and the others realize she may be from Cloud's world, and that she seems to hate Shinra — which may be an issue since Reno and Rude are in the party. Before they can fetch the others, monsters attack, but Cloud shows up in time to rescue them. Reno and Rude do as well, throwing Jessie for a loop, but they explain the situation and she joins the party to help save the world.
- Canon Immigrant: Jessie has never been a playable character in the FFVII franchise, so her moveset for DFFOO had to be cobbled together from scratch based on being a weapons and explosives expert for Avalanche along with a handful of her cutscene appearances.
- The Cavalry: Invoked with Uprising, in which Jessie gives the signal before summoning suppressing fire from behind her.
- Commonality Connection:
- With her Force partner, Maria, both were the token female members of their resistance groups (Jessie in Avalanche, and Maria with the Wild Rose), and both are explosives experts.
- As a Force partner with Edgar is for a similar reason; Jessie being with Avalanche and Edgar with the Returners. Both also have very deep pockets when it comes to weapons, with Edgar having his various tools while Jessie being a Walking Armory of firearms and explosives. Jessie and Edgar are also both extremely flirty.
- Extra Turn: All her abilities either delay the enemy or manipulate the party's turn order: her first base skill delays a single enemy by 3 turns, her second base skill moves a single party member's turn after her, her EX skill moves both party members' turns after her and both her Force and LD skills delay all enemies by 2 turns, with her LD skill additionally allowing her to move her next turn after the turn of another party member, including her own, letting her spam it if necessary.
- La Résistance: Along with Barret and Tifa (and to a lesser extend, Cloud), Jessie is a part of Avalanche. In fact, her entire Lost Chapter almost exclusively revolves around this fact.
- More Dakka: Her second skill and her EX skill involve her riddling her enemies with a large number of bullets.
- Mythology Gag: Her first skill references the opening cutscene of both versions of her original game where she knocks out a Shinra trooper with a single kick and the name her EX skill and the buff it grants reference her aspirations of becoming an actor as revealed in Remake.
- The Scrounger: While she can hold her own in a fight with the likes of Barret and Cloud, her specialty is working behind the scenes to get what Avalanche needs to actually get the job done, such as supplying fake IDs, hacking locked doors, and supplying the munitions and explosives for the mission.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: One cutscene has her discussing with other rebels such as Lilisette, Snow, Locke, Paine, and Ashe about whether or not Avalanche is really making a difference against a juggernaut like Shinra. She is well aware in the grand scheme of things the acts of rebellion and destruction are next to nothing against a mega-corporation, although the others reassure her she is still fighting the good fight and that if it's a cause she believes in, she should stick it through until the end.
- Tempting Fate: Jessie shows concern that the whole rebellion is not really making a difference against a superpower like Shinra in the end, although when pressed by the party she admits she does still wholeheartedly believe in their cause to save the world. As a result, they assure her she should continue doing what she believes in, even to the bitter end ... not knowing Jessie is doomed to die when the Sector 7 plate is dropped on Midgar.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: Her LD and FR skills have her throw grenades to blow up her enemies, with her first base skill also tossing one at the targetted enemy after the kick, and her Burst buff grants her an overhead effect that stores BRV damage done by the party up to 5 times her maximum BRV, which she can then consume to power her special HP+ attack to deal massive HP damage to all enemies.
- Unflinching Walk: For her FR Attack Jessie and Maria will combine their love of explosives together, only for Jessie to turn and walk away with a nonchalant shrug as the boom goes off behind her.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Neither Cloud, Barret, nor Tifa express any shock at seeing Jessie alive, just some momentary surprise about her being in this world. Jessie's just surprised they're working alongside the Turks. Unusually for this point in the story, Jessie seems to lack her memories, too.
- Walking Armory: Jessie is absolutely loaded with weapons; including assault rifles, a pistol, a shotgun, along with grenades and various explosives. She even has a flamethrower when she takes part in Edgar's Force attack.
Reno
Reno
A prominent member of the Turks, the Investigation Sector of Shinra's General Affairs Department. Despite his easygoing attitude toward work, he has accomplished countless missions with his longtime partner, Rude. Like a true professional, he thoroughly separates his personal and private life and refuses work when not on the clock.
Voiced by: Keiji Fujiwara
Recruited in his event, "The Redheaded Turk." Reno and Rude are summoned by Materia together while in the midst of a mission, and while both of them are doubtful about being in a different world, they decide to split up to investigate and Reno meets the party first. After Cloud introduces him to the others, he keeps Reno with them to keep an eye on the Turk.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Reno's Force Ability is one of the very first that provides a sizable boost during the enemy's turn as opposed to the party's, giving a +20% when attacked by the enemy with an additional +30% boost if said attack includes physical BRV hits. The issue lies in Reno's Electroprod ability, which inflicts the unique Numb debuff which delays an enemy 2-turns if they attack with a physical BRV hit, making it counterintuative to his Force effect.note
- Flat-Earth Atheist: At first, he refuses to believe he was summoned by a goddess to another world - at least until he comes face to face with Zack.
- Hidden Depths: After meeting Zack, it's implied he regrets being unable to save him, and wonders if his being in this new world would allow him to make up for his failure.
- Innocently Insensitive: At the behest of Cissnei, Reno takes some of the other party members through a mock Turks initiation, mostly just to get them off his back about it. Shelke eventually approaches Reno begging him to stop, pointing out making a "joke" out of the personal sacrifices she had to make as part of underground SOLDIER was making her uncomfortable.
- Lawman Baton: Uses batons in battle, although for some reason they are classified as daggers, allowing him to equip other daggers as well.
- No-Sell: Pyramid inflicts a special debuff of that same name that completely negates the enemy's next attack (with the exception of Lufenia orb attacks), both by nullifying any BRV and HP dealt by the attack as well as any debuffs they might inflict with the attack. It is special in that it has no duration, but is dispelled the moment it negates an enemy action (including a counterattack), although won't be used up if the enemy misses the entire party or is stunned.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Cloud explains to the others that this is what Reno is; while he's part of the enemy faction, he won't bother them unless he's getting paid to do it.
- Punch-Clock Hero: Has shades of this as well; during his Intersecting Wills chapter when Kefka suddenly appears to lay waste to everything, Reno actually attempts to brush the psychopathic clown off that he's "off the clock" right now and not interested in fighting. Reno only acquiesces when it becomes obvious Kefka has no intention of just letting him walk away unscathed.note
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: He is the Red Oni while Rude is the Blue Oni.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He and Rude immediately resolve to find a way back home after being summoned (before Tseng finds out they're gone). Also, right after meeting the party, they get ambushed by a monster and Onion Knight tells Reno to stay put until they can talk, but the latter just turns around and walks away until they catch up with him later.
- Shock and Awe: All of his abilities do lightning damage, but he mixes in some utility and powerful debuffs as well.
- Static Stun Gun: Elecroprod works like this, inflicting the unique debuff called Numb that causes enemies to be automatically delayed if they attack with melee damage
- Those Two Guys: Along with Rude. They're even the first characters summoned by the gods in a pair, with their events consecutive to one another.
- Violation of Common Sense: His special burst HP+ attack is the first skill in the game that delays the entire player party on use: while normally this would be a severe handicap that would greatly reduce its usefulness despite its power, being delayed is something that only benefits characters with a Counter-Attack, and since the attack also inflicts his Pyramid debuff on all enemies, it also serves as an easy way to safely build up his Force Time, which has its highest damage % increases come from enemies taking turns and attacking the party with physical attacks.
Rude
Rude
A member of the Turks, the Investigation Sector of Shinra's General Affairs Department, who causes trouble for Cloud and his friends. Similar to his partner, Reno, he has a strong sense of professionalism. Though a tough-looking man of few words, he is compassionate when it comes to his allies.
Voiced by: Taiten Kusunoki
Recruited in his event, "The Terse Turk." Rude and Reno are summoned by Materia together while in the midst of a mission, and while both of them are doubtful about being in a different world, they decide to split up to investigate. Rude joins the party some time after Reno but after encountering Tifa, Vincent, and Aerith, he engages the party in combat, presumably because he is still under orders to capture Aerith and defeat AVALANCHE. After his defeat, Aerith tells him of their situation and invites him to the party.
- Combat Medic: All of his skills have him dealing damage and healing the party at the same time.
- Cool Shades: He wears these all time, they're even his 15 CP armor. During his character event he even borrows tools from Vaan for the sole purpose to repairing his sunglasses (Vaan had assumed Rude needed them to upkeep his weapons).
- Defeat Means Friendship: Unlike Reno, the party has to fight him soon after meeting him. After they beat him, Aerith invites him to stick with the group.
- Flat-Earth Atheist: Much like Reno, he has difficulty accepting where he is at first, and is surprised that the others seemed to have accepted their situation so easily.
- Friendly Enemy: After joining the group, he's basically this. Barret is still hesitant to trust him, but Rude tells him that since he was summoned as well, they'll need his help so they can all go home.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: His fighting style.
- Hidden Depths: Like Reno, he takes his summoning as a way for him to atone for something that happened in the past. It's possible he is referring to the Sector 7 incident and his role in it.
- Innocently Insensitive: On the receiving end, the other party members complain of some creepy guy skulking around and being suspicious ... turns out it was Rude the entire time. Reno just tells Rude if he wants people to stop thinking he's creepy, then stop acting creepy.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Rather than Cloud explaining this to the others like he did with Reno, it's Tifa, Vincent, and Aerith who tell the others that Rude is this when he's on the job. Otherwise, he's not that bad.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: He is the Blue Oni while Reno is the Red Oni.
- Those Two Guys: With Reno.
Cissnei
Cissnei
Alternate Skin
A lifelong member of the Turks, raised in a training facility and recruited at a young age. Trifles with foes using agile movements and a giant shuriken. Able to calmly execute solo missions, even her colleagues Reno and Rude recognize her expert abilities. She is able to sympathize with Zack, whom she met while on a security detail.
Voiced by: Asumi Nakata
Originated in Crisis Core
First appears in Act 3, Chapter 7 Part 1, but isn't recruited to the party until Part 2. Summoned by Materia, she is brought to the world in the midst of Kefka's assault on the gods' realm, and finds her Turk comrades just as they are facing both Sephiroth and Vayne. After escaping with them, Reno and Rude exhibit their surprise upon seeing her here just as Zack comes to find them with his light compass. She officially joins the party in Part 2 after being introduced to the Onion Knight and the others.
- Acceptable Breaks from Canon:
- Zack's DMV ability learned from Cissnei in Crisis Core is called Lucky Star, but it gets named as Fortune Star for this game. However, Zack renames all of his DMV abilities as adaptations of moves from other characters (for example, Cloud's Meteo Rain is known as Meteor Shots when it's Zack's ability), so "Fortune Star" is the never-before-seen name of Cissnei's original ability.
- Aside from Fortune Star/Lucky Star, every one of Cissnei's attacks are created specifically for Opera Omnia. She was not actually playable in Crisis Core, and while she could attack in Before Crisis, she did not have any named attacks to base her moveset on.
- Birds of a Feather: Zack likens her to Shelke, and both he and Vincent agree that Cissnei and Shelke would get along well and make great partners on missions together due to their skills in reconnaissance. Cissnei and Shelke are both open to the idea and look forward to the possibility.
- Commonality Connection: Aside from the obvious that both of them use throwing weapons, with Cissnei even using a handful of chakrams like Fujin does; both of them also grew up with a very authoritarian background. Fujin had a militaristic father, while Cissnei was raised from a young age from an orphanage to join the Turks. Both also have strong bonds with their little groups; Cissnei with Reno, Rude, and Tseng with the Turks, and Fujin along with Seifer and Raijin with the Disciplinary Committee.
- Consummate Professional: Tifa and the others show some hesitation when first meeting her, but Cissnei explains she is between jobs at the moment so they have nothing to worry about with her. Zack is quick to support her, however, since she never acted in opposition to him.
- Critical Hit Class: Similar to its usage as one of Zack's DMV abilities from Crisis Core (where it is called Lucky Star), Cissnei's Fortune Star increases her own critical hit rate and damage while boosting the party's attack and max BRV.
- Flechette Storm: Besieged and its upgraded forms appear as this, but it's taken to the extreme in her Force Attack with Fujin, in which both of them launch a barrage of shuriken at the enemy.
- Fuuma Shuriken: Like Yuffie, her weapons of choice are all oversized throwing stars.
- Making a Splash: Her Burst Finisher, Dragon Rise, has her forming a giant orb of water around before launching a Flechette Storm of miniature shuriken, and then finishing the attack with one, massive Fuuma Shuriken made of water. In spite of the animation, the attack is non-elemental like most Bursts.
- My Greatest Failure: She apologizes to Zack after expressing she felt she didn't do enough to protect him and mentions she and the Turks owe a debt to him. Because of that, they will stick with the party.
- Spam Attack: How her follow-up attack Besiege and its variants basically work. She just launches a bunch of large shurikens at the enemy party, with her Burst buff allowing it to trigger twice in a row and preventing its stacks from being reduced to ensure it's always doing maximum number of HP dumps.
- Support Party Member: Cissnei's actual on-turn damage is rather unremarkable; her real power comes from her off-turn damage coupled with her average to decent party auras. As a Friend Unit, the best way to play her is to usually use her c65 buff then follow-up with keeping her LD buff active until her time expires.
- Walking Swimsuit Scene: Like Zack, her alternate costume is her swimsuit from the Beach Episode of Crisis Core.
- Weak, but Skilled: Her base skills are rather weak. It's her off-turn damage, specifically when she has her one-turn LD buff on to prevent her overhead stacks from going down, where she is at her best. This allows her to follow up party attacks with her own that can deal up to 6 BRV hits and 3 HP hits with BRV Gain based off 20% of the damage dealt from her final HP attack. If she's combined with characters who get a lot of free turns, she can add hundreds of thousands of points of HP damage to each of their attacks.
- You Shall Not Pass!: Cissnei of all people pulls this on Sephiroth while out on a scouting mission with the other Turks and Edge so they can escape. It's right when Sephiroth is working on powering up and absorbing the silt from the dark crystal. She is saved by the timely arrival of Kadaj, who holds off Sephiroth in her stead so they can all make a run for it.
Shelke Rui
Shelke
Alternate Skin
A member of the Tsviets, an elite unit within Deepground, a shadowy organization constructed by Shinra. Repeated experiments on her halted her growth and stripped her of emotion. She has the special ability to dive into networks to retrieve information.
Voiced by: Fumiko Orikasa
Originated in Dirge of Cerberus
Recruited by Spiritus in her event, "Shelke the Transparent." Using Spiritus's help, she uses her unique Synaptic Net Dive ability to connect with Vincent - and to her dismay, she learns that none of them remember her, as Spiritus said. Instead of joining them, she decides to help Vincent and the others get their memories back a different way, by joining up with Onion Knight and his party.
- Barrier Warrior: Delta Arts grants the Phenomena Dispersion buff, which is a BRV shield that protects her from an amount of BRV damage equal to 100% of the damage done with the skill, allowing her BRV shield to easily protect her from 6 digits worth of BRV damage. Her overhead buff also prevents her current BRV from dropping below 30% of her maximum BRV, essentially making her immune to breaks.
- Commonality Connection: She connects with the Farron sisters, Lenna, and Faris over their closeness as sisters, and they talk about how Shelke has a sister back home who worried about her through the various experiments done on Shelke. Serah encourages Shelke to be honest with her feelings toward her sister when Shelke says that she struggled to understand and connect to her.
- Dual Wielding: She uses twin sabers as her weapons, connected to each other by a cable in the hilts; they are of the Unique weapon category and therefore can only be used by Shelke.
- Dude, Not Funny!: While Reno wasn't trying to be humorous, he was making light of what the Turks actually do as to not risk making the curious party members uncomfortable about it, however in doing so Shelke chastises him about turning the work of the Turks and Underground SOLDIER into a "joke", begging him to stop.
- Extra Turn: Her "Shelke The Transparent" overhead buff grants her an automatic extra turn both whenever she gets a normal turn as well as when any enemy gets a turn: when combined with her Additional Ability and her LD ability to bypass the normal "no multiple extra turns in a row unless all the extra turns are granted at the same time" restriction, she can easily take tens of turns in a row, although she'll lose all outside non-aura buffs whenever she uses her LD as described below.
- Heel–Face Turn: Invoked; Shelke admits to the group she used to be Vincent's enemy before he and his friends saved her and showed her she had more choices in life.
- Have We Met?: Like several others, she comes from a point in time when her friends don't know about her yet, which is a point of frustration for Shelke because she attributes her current personality to Vincent and friends.
- Laser Blade: Her EX weapons the EM Spears have the appearance of orange energy blades, and one of the blades of her LD weapon the Úzy Kop’ja has a blue energy blade.
- Me's a Crowd: Transparent has her splitting into three of herself to barrage the enemy with spindle strikes.
- Older Than They Look: Edgar refers to her as a "young lady," but she tells him looks can be deceiving.
- Power-Strain Blackout: With the aid of Spiritus, Shelke can utilize the Synaptic Net Dive to locate Vincent and the others, however doing so puts a massive strain on herself. While she doesn't outright blackout, she does collapse in front of Spiritus after using it.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Countertek as her eyes glowing red while surrounded in a network aura, recharging the uses of all of her abilities, maxing out her Special Effect, and giving her a full EX Gauge. While Shelke is not currently a bad guy, she did used to be in Dirge of Cerberus.
- Reset Button: Her Countertek ability is essentially this - using it removes buffs from all the enemies and restores her to the same state she started the battle in, meaning she restores her HP to full, removes any debuffs on her and restores all her ability uses (except the LD) back to full, and as a bonus, it also fills up her EX gauge and grants her a large amount of BRV. However, this also means that she loses any non-aura buffs from other characters and her Phenomena Dispersion buff, which can lower her damage output in a party that relies heavily on them until she's granted them again.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Eiko, Relm, and Porom approach Shelke and ask her about if she's similar to Porom in that her memories don't match her visible age. Shelke was about to tell them about all the experiments done on her, but decides not to tell them something that could scare them and just rolls with it.
- Taking the Bullet: She takes an attack meant for Celes, which illustrates how much she has changed. Shelke even says that the "old her" wouldn't have done that.
- Techno Wizard: Just like in Dirge of Cerberus, she can even access the Synaptic Net Dive (with Spiritus's help) in order to project a hologram of herself to Vincent and the rest of the FFVII crew, however doing so causes considerable strain.
- Tsundere: Actually shows shades of this when it comes to her "friendship" with Vincent Valentine and his friends. She is saddened that they have lost all their memories of her and will stop at nothing to get them back ... but it's not like she actually cares! She's only doing so because she owes them, that's all!
- Wall Jump: Delta Arts has her leaping back onto the battle barrier wall to launch herself at the enemy.
Angeal Hewley
Angeal Hewley
A SOLDIER 1st Class at the Shinra Company who often works with Zack. He has a stoic personality, but takes good care of people and has a wide circle of friends. He values having honor and dreams, and often tells Zack about them. During his assignments, he is confronted with the harsh reality of his own birth.
Voiced by: Kazuhiko Inoue
With the shut-down of the game, this character was only released on the Japanese Server. It was never made available on the Global Server.
Recruited in Act 4, Chapter 8, Part 1 of the main story. When he arrives in the world, he is shocked to find Sephiroth in a villainous role, and initially thinks he fell victim to the same cellular degradation as Genesis. When Cloud and Sephiroth himself convince him otherwise, though, Angeal becomes dedicated to fighting alongside his protege Zack and the new bearer of the Buster Sword, Cloud.
- Best Friend: He states that Sephiroth and Genesis were his, so he is especially perturbed by the fact that even Sephiroth is an enemy now.
- Commonality Connection: With his Force Partner, Dorgann. Both are part of the 'old guard'; Angeal with Sephiroth and Genesis, and Dorgann with the Warriors of Dawn. Both also pass the torch to the next generation of heroes, Angeal to Zack, and Dorgann to his son, Bartz.
- Good Wings, Evil Wings: Angeal has two white, angelic wings on the right side of his body that appear during his LD and Burst attack, in contrast of Sephiroth's black wings.
- Launcher Move: Heavy Rush is a flurry of punches that will launch the enemy into the air.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Has a unique overhead called "Dreams and Honor" which increases in value as Angeal uses his skills or Breaks an enemy with his LD buff active, up to a cap of 200% of his Max HP, although the overhead value is reduced whenever Angeal takes HP Damage. This value, in turn, is treated as bonus damage for the entire party, increasing a team's damage potential. With Angeal's Burst Effect the upper limit for his overhead is increased to the hard cap of 999,999.
- Mentor Archetype: Now that he sees Cloud wields the Buster Sword, he takes Cloud under his wing just like he once did for Zack.
- One-Handed Zweihänder: Has no problem wielding that massive Buster Sword one-handed, in fact during his EX, SOLDIER's Pride, Angeal will Dual Wield the Buster Sword and his greatsword at the same time.
- Passing the Torch: For his Burst Finisher he'll start by attacking the enemy, before passing his signature Buster Sword to Zack to take up the fight as he walks away. Of course once the Finisher ends, Angeal is back on the field to continue the battle.
- Shockwave Stomp: While his "Meaning of Humanity" buff is active from his S1 or S2, Angeal will follow any of his own turns with a Shockwave attack on the enemy he was targeting.
- Sword Beam: During his Force Attack, he and Dorgann will launch a sword beam combo at the enemy.
- Sword and Fist: True to his character, he hates using his Buster Sword because he is concerned about damaging it, so many of Angeal's abilities involve punches, kicks, and the use of a different greatsword. That being said, Angeal will break tradition and use his coveted Buster Sword for his EX, LD, FR, and Burst Finisher.
Rufus Shinra
Rufus Shinra
Alternate Skin
The son of President Shinra, who heads the giant Shinra Company. He is full of ambition and has a high sense of pride. He can be ruthless towards those who are not capable. He has different beliefs from his father and believes that people should be ruled by fear.
Voiced by: Tōru Ōkawa
With the shut-down of the game, this character was only released on the Japanese Server. It was never made available on the Global Server.
Recruited in Act 4, Chapter 7, Part 1 of the main story when he discovers Ramza and Agrias separated from everyone else in the party. He joins forces with them in order to find out about the world, hiring them to be his bodyguards until he can reunite with the Turks and find out what Sephiroth is up to.
- Affectionate Nickname: Just like in Final Fantasy VII Remake, he affectionately shortens his dog's nickname to "D."
- Alternate Continuity: His skillset comes from Final Fantasy VII Remake, as his original fight from FFVII really didn't see him having much of anything aside from the use of his Shotgun and the ability to dodge some attacks (the fight in the original game was really more against the helicopter and then reducing his health to trigger a scripted event).
- Coin-Targeting Trickshot: For his LD and Burst Finisher, Rufus tosses a handful of coins into the air before shooting them expertly with his shotgun, also hitting the enemy along the way.
- Commonality Connection: With his Force Partner, Balthier. Both lived in the shadows of their fathers, President Shinra and Doctor Cid. Both also are also quite arrogant and not above using controversial or illegal means to get what they want, what with Shinra being the CEO of the most powerful company in the world, and Balthier being a Sky Pirate not afraid to break the rules.
- Right-Hand Attack Dog: With his S2 and EX he calls his attack dog, Darkstar, to stand at his side. Darkstar will preemptively attack before Rufus uses an ability with a Corkscrew attack, as well as attack as part of Rufus's S2, EX, or his Burst Finisher.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Rufus is a firearms specialist, and all of his weapons are referred to as shotguns.
- Spam Attack: With his D-Link overhead active, Rufus's companion Darkstar will attack any enemy before his own attack with Corkscrew.
- Too Many Belts: For his alternate costume he gets his Final Fantasy VII Remake makeover, where his Badass Longcoat gets upgraded with a number of extra belts and straps.
Sephiroth
Sephiroth
Alternate Skin 1
Alternate Skin 2
A legendary SOLDIER operative known for numerous heroic feats. Though once a popular figure, after learning the nature of his birth and coming into contact with Jenova, he changes drastically, developing an unbridled hatred for the world and everything in it. Acting on behalf of Jenova, he works to lead the planet to ruin.
Voiced by: Toshiyuki Morikawa
Recruited in his event, "One-Winged Angel". Though the party fought Sephiroth previously, they encounter him again and everyone gets surrounded by Manikins soon after. He joins the party to help them fight the Manikins and so he can learn more about Mog's motives, though like the other villains he doesn't travel with them and only wishes to be called upon for use in battle.
- Aloof Ally: He only volunteers his dimensional coordinates to Mog to be summoned just so he can find out what Mog's deal is.
- Artifact of Doom: For his EX Ability he wields the Black Materia to summon a Meteor.
- BFS: Wields his famous 7-9 ft long katanas, easily giving him the longest weapons in the game.
- Blade Spam: Both of his abilities result in this.
- Blunt "Yes": When Kefka asks if he's too annoying for the others to even talk to, Sephiroth just tells him yes and walks away.
- Calling Card: Should he be felled in combat, he'll teleport away and leave behind his signature katana.
- Colony Drop: Summons Meteor as part of his EX Ability, Black Materia.
- Compelling Voice: Similar to when Sephiroth forced Cloud to hand him the Black Materia, he gets Cloud to hand over the light compass in Act 3, Chapter 7, using it for his own ends.
- Enemy Mine: Sephiroth joins the party for this reason as they face off against several Manikins.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He's still the same genocidal maniac as usual, but even he wants nothing to do with Kefka.
- Feather Motif: During his intro or if he is defeated and is forced to teleport away, Sephiroth will spread his one wing and leave behind a few black feathers.
- Godhood Seeker: Act 2 Chapter 7 sees Sephiroth successfully usurp the Goddess Materia's throne and temporarily become a Godlike figure over the Crystal of Light. From there, his plan was to destroy the World of Respite and everyone in it to go out into the stars and infect other worlds like Jenova wanted. However, his power is limited due to the laws of godhood in this world (which is why he creates copies of Dark Manikins to break the party's will), and the warriors of Materia still allow her presence to remain in the world even while incapacitated. By the end of the chapter Sephiroth has been booted from the throne of godhood and Materia returned to her rightful place.
- HP to One: Invoked in reference to his home game; Sephiroth has an enemy exclusive ability called Heartless Angel which lowers the entire party's Brave to 1, as opposed to HP (even when they have 0 BRV, it will still bring them to 1 BRV). His EX Ability Black Materia, which can be used by the player, sets all enemy BRV to 0 (though unlike the boss version, it can deal undivided HP damage to all foes). His Burst effect also sets all enemies' BRV to 1 for every action taken by anyone, letting the party effectively break them over and over again for as long as Sephiroth's Burst effect lasts.
- It's Personal: In Act 2, Chapter 7, Sephiroth invokes this, not on Cloud, but on Zack of all people. He straight up mocks Zack for his death, blames him for "failing SOLDIER", and calls him the true monster. It may be the game's version of depicting the sorrow and melancholy Sephiroth felt, only this time he takes it out visibly and spitefully at Zack, who in his eyes failed to save Angeal and failed in saving him.
- Katanas Are Just Better: His signature weapons are great katanas.
- Mighty Glacier: Sephiroth is powerful, with 5/5 in both Attack and Max BRV with 4/5 in Initial BRV and Defense, along with decent BRV damage potencies. However, he is literally the slowest character in the game until he builds up Jenova stacks. Even then, it comes fairly average at best as the Jenova buff subtly slows down enemies. Not to mention, his base HP is also a 1/5, meaning he can be prone to getting one-shotted by vicious bosses that can store a huge amount of BRV, making his EX ability practically a necessity against any enemy targets with too high of a defense.
- No-Sell: After the events of Act 2, Chapter 7, Spiritus tries to lock him away between dimensions like the party temporarily did to Kefka. However, Sephiroth upset the balance of power between the worlds and crystals too much, allowing him to simply teleport away.
- One-Winged Angel: The trope namer himself does it after stealing Cloud's light compass to find the silt from the dark crystal, facing off against Cloud, Zack, and Kadaj in his Safer Sephiroth form in Act 3, Chapter 7 part 2 and again in Act 3 finale.
- Pretender Diss: He easily dismisses Kadaj as a mere puppet that tries to be like him.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Should he be felled in combat Sephiroth won't faint like everyone else, but instead uses the last of his power to teleport away, leaving his katana as a villainous Calling Card. He can, however, still be revived through healing abilities and return to the fight. Though, defeating his Manikins has them do the generic fainting animation like everyone else's Manikins if they don't just fade away after defeat.
- Sword Beam: His Fervent Blow and standard HP attack both do this. His BRV Attack+ enhanced from his Jenova buff when awakened reuses the same Fervent Blow animation, as Fervent Blow Extend turns into a double BRV+HP Attack sequence. He eventually also has extra hits and overflow on his HP Attack+ from his EX+ weapon passive, practically making all of his sword beams hit multiple times.
- Token Evil Teammate: He is no less genocidal as he usually is.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: His alternate costume is from the cinematic "final battle" of VII, which is simply him without a shirt on.
Kadaj
Kadaj
Leader of three brothers targeting Cloud from a certain point in time. Wields a two-bladed sword dubbed Sōba. Cooly brutal with a juvenile intellect and mercurial emotions, he is obsessed with Jenova and has a deep connection to Sephiroth.
Voiced by: Showtaro Morikubo
Originated in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Recruited in his event, "Mother Fixation." First appears before Sephiroth who laughs off his existence while Kadaj panics that both of them should not be able to exist at the same time. Is then found by Cloud, Zack, and Vincent, with Kadaj recognizing Cloud as his "brother" and begging for them to join forces to destroy Sephiroth together. Cloud refuses, and Reno and Rude soon show up, knowing who Kadaj is and that he is searching for his "Mother", Jenova's head. In spite of this and his personal distrust, Cloud decides to allow Kadaj to join the party so that Kadaj can search for his "family".
- Abusive Parents: How the rest of the party eventually boils down Kadaj's relationship with his "Mother" JENOVA. Kadaj has never even met her before, therefore has never known her love and acceptance, however if the two ever do meet then JENOVA will simply use Kadaj to further her own monstrous goals with no regard to him whatsoever. Calling JENOVA an abusive mother is a massive oversimplification of the situation, but it's the best way the party can understand how Kadaj views her.
- Aloof Ally: Despite joining the party, he is not too keen on being social with them. He openly insults Zack for being a SOLDIER lap dog and for wasting his time since he isn't his commanding officer. Zack attempts to bridge the gap by pointing out he is/was Cloud's commanding officer, and since Kadaj calls Cloud his "brother" he could join him under Zack, to which Kadaj just storms off confused and annoyed. Slowly, Kadaj comes around and once he realizes JENOVA doesn't exist in this world learns to openly accept the others as his allies.
- Ambiguously Evil: The VII cast save for Sephiroth and the Turks don't remember who he is, but they have a bad feeling about him due to his resemblance to Sephiroth and latent memories of Advent Children, so they don't trust him. On his end, Kadaj claims that his only interest is killing Sephiroth to prove himself to "Mother", and as far as he's concerned Cloud is his brother and they should be allies against Sephiroth. Beyond that, Kadaj is still an unpleasant person and generally shady, but he has yet to act in a way that could be perceived as directly antagonistic to the heroes (at least until Weiss arrives).
- Beam Spam: His only attack where he doesn't use his katana, Volley has Kadaj launching several energy blasts at his opponents doing split damage.
- Big Damn Heroes: Twice in Act 3, Chapter 7 part 2. The first time, it is to save Cissnei as she prepares to face off against Sephiroth, and the second time is at the climax of the chapter just as Zack and Cloud prepare to fight Sephiroth when he goes One-Winged Angel.
- Blade Spam: Like Sephiroth; Mayhem, Divinity, and Burial Hour all involve Kadaj slashing his sword at the enemy several times in quick succession.
- Character Development: Kadaj gets one of the strongest redemptions in all of DFFOO (up there with Kuja, although his started more strongly in FFIX and the original Dissidia). In Advent Children Kadaj was laser-focused on his reunion with JENOVA in order to bring Sephiroth back into the world, and only gets a sort-of Death Equals Redemption at the end after Aerith cures his Geostigma. In DFFOO he openly sees Cloud as one of his 'brothers', eventually allowing Zack close to him as well, and finds himself wanting to protect and befriend Aerith. Come Act 4, Chapter 4, Part 2 not only does Kadaj come to terms with the fact he cannot have his reunion with his 'Mother', but he finally opens up to the hero party and starts to consider them as his allies, and gives Aerith a genuine apology for hurting her, things he would never have done before his growth. He states he will put his obsession behind him and start living for himself. This development just keeps going during his Intersecting Wills, where he learns about friends considering themselves 'family' with no blood relations, and how to form bonds with those he is not telepathically linked to.
- Commonality Connection:
- The group attempts to find common ground with Kadaj in regards with his obsession with his 'Mother'; Lilisette points out how she travelled through time to save her parents, although Kadaj dismisses her since her mother is still alive. Hope and Rydia point out how much they loved their mothers but still lost them, but Kadaj argues that at least their mothers were loved, while everyone blindly considers JENOVA as an enemy. Garnet then brings up how her mother Queen Brahne was a despot who pulled the world into war, yet still loved Garnet all the same in her own way. Lulu and Rosa, mothers themselves, simply tell Kadaj they are not trying to tell him that his love for his 'mother' is wrong, but that they are all there for him should he need it. Even Firion and Guy, orphans who were adopted by Maria and Leon's family, try to let Kadaj know he doesn't need to be alone.
- With his Force Partner, Xande; both are warriors of darkness that were betrayed by powerful people in their lives, Xande by his teacher Noah who gifted him mortality against his will, and Kadaj by Sephiroth, not only in DFFOO but in general only saw Kadaj as a tool for his own goals. Both also are used by feminine monsters who want nothing more than to destroy, Xande being used by the Cloud of Darkness, and Kadaj being manipulated by JENOVA.
- His Intersecting Wills chapter has him trying to resolve non-blood familial ties and how they could be as strong as his own with his brothers, whom he shares a telepathic connection with. As such, he has his brotherhood compared with the bonds between Firion and Guy, as well as the companionship shared by Class Zero.
- Continuity Nod: Several references are made in regard to Kadaj's brothers, Loz and Yazoo (hinting they may arrive in the World of Respite as well, someday).
- Critical Existence Failure: His concern upon meeting Sephiroth for the first time; both of them are not supposed to be able to exist at the same time, since he and his brothers are essentially fragments of Sephiroth's psyche manifested into physical forms, and he was ultimately the Remnant that was manifested into a new body for Sephiroth. He thus worries that the longer Sephiroth exists, the greater the chance that Kadaj himself may start breaking down into nothingness. This is something Zack and him actually discuss, since Zack is no stranger to seeing clones made with Jenova cells disintegrate over time. Eventually Sephiroth comes to the conclusion that the reason Kadaj and himself can exist at the same time is that that, combined with Kadaj's missing brothers, they can finally resurrect "Mother", JENOVA.
- Enemy Mine: Tries to evoke this on Cloud against Sephiroth, however having no idea who Kadaj is Cloud decides to turn him down allowing Sephiroth time to teleport away.
- His relationship with the party is solidified as this later, however. Kadaj says that as long as Sephiroth is their enemy he will help them take him down, which he does at the end of Chapter 3.
- Face–Heel Turn: In Sephiroth's IW chapter, Kadaj officially turns on the party in order to join forces with Sephiroth after the latter comes up with the theory the reason both of them can survive at the same time is because Kadaj's presence can resurrect their "Mother". The party begs Kadaj to reconsider, asking him to think about Zack and Aerith, but Kadaj stands firm that nothing is more important than reviving "Mother". Eventually, after realizing that Sephiroth just wants to use him as a tool and that it is impossible to reunite with JENOVA, he sides with the party again, likely for good this time.
- Innocently Insensitive: During his Intersecting Wills he insults both Firon and Guy's adopted brotherhood as well as Class Zero's camaraderie, stating that what they have isn't really a "family", its just a group of people who live together. At first, Zell and Prishe are mortified at how rude Kadaj is being, before realizing he isn't being malicious on purpose, he just doesn't understand brothers who don't have a natural bond like the telepathic one he has with his own brothers. He does, however, eventually learn better and how to form bonds without being in each other's heads, something he is thankful for so he can get closer with Cloud whom he also sees as a 'brother'.
- Interface Screw: When Kadaj uses his EX Ability Divinity, the screen is filtered in green static for a moment, similar to the visual effect used in Advent Children. The effect is used against during his Burst Finisher.
- Momma's Boy: As is obvious from the name of his event and that a good number of his battle quotes involve his crying after his Mother, he has a serious case of this. A variation of this also functions as his main gameplay mechanic: his fixation on a single thing over everything else takes the form of a stacking debuff that gains more stacks as long as he keeps attacking the same enemy, and if he switches targets, the stacks drop back to 1, although he can thankfully gain maximum stacks instantly and thus switch targets with no penalty by using his LD or Awakening Ability and his Burst buff removes this restriction entirely.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Is a bit too clingy with Cloud, eventually having to be asked to go do his own thing and try and make friends with the other party members so Cloud can have some time to think. While Kadaj feels bad about being a burden on his "brother", he does get better and learns to give Cloud his personal space to sort things out.
- "Not So Different" Remark: On the receiving end by Seymour of all people, when the latter realizes just how genuine Kadaj is about the need for love and approval from his 'mother'. Seymour shares that there was a time not long ago he was just as obsessive in regards to his love for his mother (who allowed herself to be turned into the Dark Aeon, Anima), and while Kadaj initially believes Seymour is openly mocking him, he assures Kadaj he is being genuine and even gives him some uncharacteristically good advice that Kadaj should live for himself.
- Oddly Shaped Sword: Uses katanas that have two blades parallel on the same hilt. They are classified as part of the Unique category (meaning only Kadaj can use them) as opposed to the Short Sword category.
- Plaguemaster: A minor form of this: a number of his attacks use the corrupted Lifestream, taking the form of black mist, to attack the enemy, and he's the first character in the game with access to unique golden debuffs that can't be dispelled by any means.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Kadaj is a deeply troubled child in a young man's body, created as a remnant of Sephiroth with the sole purpose of bringing him back. His emotions are mercurial and he has the single-minded devotion to reunite with his "mother," a genocidal space alien. The party recognizes that he is someone they can help, who just needs friends and family to watch out for him. Zack, Aerith, Cloud, Barret, Rosa, Lulu, and several others recognize that he really is just like a child and help him realize that there is more to life than reuniting with a mother who just can't love him.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Kadaj is a remnant of Sephiroth's will, basically a "larval" version of Sephiroth himself, as such with enough JENOVA cells Kadaj could literally turn into a new Sephiroth. This doesn't come into play in the story itself, as the real Sephiroth seems to have no desire to have a second version of himself, however this can be seen in Kadaj's EX and Burst Finisher, in which he seems to call on Sephiroth's cruelty for powerful attacks.
- Spam Attack: With maximum Fixation stacks, Kadaj's attacks are followed up with Geophagy which deals multiple HP dumps worth of damage to the target, and with his Burst buff active, Geophagy triggers after every party turn when targetting an enemy with maximum Fixation stacks as well as triggering a second time after Kadaj's own turn, and his Fixation stacks don't go down when changing targets, allowing it to trigger after every party turn without targetting restrictions.
- You Remind Me of X:
- Saves Aerith from a group of enemies in a cutscene because she reminds him of his "Mother", being an allusion to the end of Advent Children.
- Weiss later thinks that Kadaj's fixation on reuniting with his "mother" reminds him of someone else, which he later remembers to be Nero.
- Younger Than They Look: Played with, Kadaj may have been made in Sephiorth's image and appears as an adult, but in reality he's not very old and does not have much of a sense of himself outside of his "mission" to reunite with JENOVA. Aerith realizes this and refers to Kadaj as a 'good kid', which makes him recoil and ask her not to call him that.
Weiss
Weiss the Immaculate
Alternate Skin
Weiss the Immaculate, leader of the Deepground SOLDIERs. Overpowered his comrades in arms, all enhanced via illicit research, and rules with absolute charisma. Possesses the same abilities as the Tsviets beneath him and thus commands overwhelming combat prowess.
Voiced by: Joji Nakata
Originated in Dirge of Cerberus
Encountered by the party in Act 4, Chapter 4 Part 1. Summoned without his memories intact, Weiss is approached by the team of Sephiroth, Kadaj, and Seymour. Intending to use Weiss for his own ends, Sephiroth entices him to join them, intentionally withholding his memories, though Weiss is suspicious of his new allies from the start.
- Big Brother Instinct: One of his few redeemable traits is that he was apparently a good older brother to Nero in his original world.
- Blood Knight: When the party defeats him after he tries to Net Dive into the world's core, Weiss is actually elated. In this world, with all of its warriors, it makes him realize that there may be others who can match him in power and skill because he was already one of the strongest fighters in his own world as emperor of Deepground.
- Dual Wielding: He dual wields twin swords and occasionally gunblades.
- Divide and Conquer: When Sephiroth attempts to manipulate Weiss into joining their cause, Weiss uses it as an opportunity to sow discord in Sephiroth's ranks by playing to Kadaj's blind desire to be reunited with his 'mother', as well as pointing out the obvious fact Sephiroth and Kadaj have no respect for Seymour, and plants the seed of doubt that Seymour will actually get what he wants from this alliance. It works, and by the end Sephiroth has lost all of his allies.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He feels like he had someone who understood him and cared for him in his original world but as he had lost his memories, he cannot remember. Eventually he remembers his brother Nero and acknowledges that he can't be at his strongest without Nero at his side.
- Living Emotional Crutch: There are shades that his brother Nero was one to him.
- No-Sell: His Burst buff grants the party complete debuff immunity, including debuffs that're stated to be guaranteed.note
- No Shirt, Long Jacket: His alternate skin has him assume his appearance from FFVII Remake, wearing a white coat over his bare torso.
- Not Brainwashed: This Weiss is the real deal, not Dr. Hojo controlling his brain, to which he actually comments about when he first arrives in the world how he is thankful to have his freedom and has no desire to be used again. This actually makes Vincent and Shelke consider him even more dangerous than the Weiss they knew, because they don't know what he's truly like without Hojo's influence.
- Pet the Dog: Instead of killing Kadaj after the latter outlived his usefulness (see below), he simply knocks him out and leave him to the heroes. Shelke actually wonders if it is a Pet the Dog or not, and this seems further called into question when he has Sephiroth bring Kadaj back so that his will can help Weiss Net Dive into the core of the world.
- Another one is when he steps in to save Shelke from being killed by Sephiroth. It was to gain his memories yes, but he had no reason to do it.
- The Social Darwinist: Weiss states outright he will never work under someone unless they are stronger than him.
- Spam Attack: His EX buff allows him to use an extra attack before any party member's attack that deals single target BRV+HP damage with splash damage on other enemies, with the attack being used a second time after his own turn, and his Burst buff allows the party to deal extra HP damage based on 10% of the damage done with each of their HP dumps if they're doing maximum HP damage, and unlike other characters with this effect like Leo, the extra damage also scales with Force Time.
- Speed Blitz: His EX skill has him zip around his opponents while simultaneously showering them with bullets.
- Summon Bigger Fish: For his Burst Finisher he summons Omega, the ultimate doomsday Weapon of the FFVII world, and fuses himself to it.
- Swiss-Army Weapon: Weiss's weapons are swords with guns affixed to the blunt edge, so that he can use them to slice as well as shoot. Like Lightning's foldable gunblades they are considered Short Swords by category and not Unique weapons.
- Sword Beam: His first base skill has him shoot one from each of his swords at the enemy, and his Force skill involves a stronger cross slash beam while Caius incapacitates the enemy.
- Techno Wizard: Just like Shelke, Weiss can access the Synaptic Net Dive although with significantly more skill and precision. While the Net doesn't really exist in DFFOO (although can still be accessed with enough willpower), Weiss can use this same power to instead burrow straight into the lifeforce of the world and potentially steal the powers of Spiritus and Materia from the source (as opposed to trying to take it from Warrior of Light and Garland, which had been unsuccessful up until that point). While Weiss is powerful, without his brother he's not quite strong enough to actually break the reigns of the gods on his own.
- Victory Is Boring: He is finally free after being under the servitude of Shinra in his original world. But he is not happy anyway because Nero is not here.
- Villain Protagonist: Weiss's debut chapter mostly follows his attempts to turn Kadaj and Seymour against Sephiroth, while also figuring out Sephiroth's motives and gaining back his memories. Whenever the party (led by Vincent and Shelke) confronts him, rather than Weiss himself being the boss battle it is Vincent and his allies the player must face.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: His doesn't wear a shirt in his default appearance, only pants and shoes.
- Walking Spoiler: His presence is a big one for Dirge of Cerberus, not to mention his Burst Finisher is Omega, who's very existence was a big lore twist for that game. In fact, during his announcement on the Global Stream the hosts even comment that they couldn't really say much of anything about his alternate costume without revealing a major spoiler.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: In spite of only just arriving in the world of DFFOO and not having his memories, he is quick to match wits with the likes of Sephiroth and his groupies when they demand access to his power. He is quick to plant seeds of doubt in Seymour, manipulates Kadaj based on his obsession, and quickly surmises that Sephiroth is the one holding his missing memories hostage through context clues of the rogue hero showing no fear in facing him, in spite everyone else doing so (meaning Sephiorth was clearly comfortable in an advantage only he knew about). While Sephiroth surely had his own plans and contingencies in place, Weiss shows there was a reason he was the emperor of Deepground SOLDIER.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Toys with Kadaj's desires for awhile while waiting for the perfect opportunity to be able to get the drop on Sephiroth to reclaim his stolen memories, even offering to allow Kadaj to use his powers first in order to meet his mother, JENOVA. Once Weiss's memories have been returned, he mercilessly cuts Kadaj down and leaves him for the heroes to recover, 'returning' Kadaj to them since Weiss no longer has any need for him.
Introduced in Final Fantasy VIII
Squall Leonhart
Squall Leonhart
Alternate Skin 1
Alternate Skin 2
A SeeD cadet training to be a mercenary at Balamb Garden. He was a lone wolf, who shunned away others, until his encounter with Rinoa helped him gradually open up and ultimately embark on a journey to defeat the evil sorceress.
Voiced by: Hideo Ishikawa
Recruited in his event, "A Lion's Heart". The party finds Squall clearing out monsters on his own, having been hired by the Returners. He's initially skeptical about trusting Mog, but joins the party regardless since he was hired to do so.
- Area of Effect: All of his skills, including his BRV+ and HP+ attacks, either hit all enemies or deal partial or full HP damage to other targets.
- Balance Buff: Squall gains a brand new framed buff that automatically causes his skills to remain at their + versions with enhanced BRV and HP Attacks, allowing him to work better with BRV batteries (since his abilities have a conditional normally that requires him to be at low BRV).
- Birds of a Feather: With Paine, pointed out by Zell. Both Squall and Paine try to deny this (Squall internally, and Paine out loud) but Squall realizes they really are similar and keeps his mouth shut about it.
- Blade Spam: Every one of Squall's attacks, Solid Barrel, Renzokuken, and his EX Ability Assault Trigger, all hit the enemy several times, with the fully upgraded EX+ dealing an additional 6 BRV hits followed by an HP attack before the normal 8 BRV hits ending in a HP attack. Hell, Renzokuken literally means "Continuous Sword" in Japanese. His Force rework further emphasizes this by granting his Burst buff the effect of making his EX ability useable every turn while it's up.
- Desperation Attack: When Squall has low BRV at right below 250% of his current Initial BRV amount, his Solid Barrel and Renzokuken will become their plus versions, striking an enemy several more times than normal. His rework fixes this by making his new Solid Barrel Extend give him a new unique buff called Solitary Lion, a framed buff that increases his Attack, Initial BRV and Max BRV while negating the Initial BRV requirements for both his plus version abilities as long as it's active (and likewise, no longer having BRV batteries interfere with his gimmick).
- Distressed Dude: Ultimecia teleports him away from his allies during a confrontation with her in Act 3, Chapter 9, and when they battle alone she has him on the ropes until Seifer's group, Laguna, and Kuja come to rescue him.
- Friendly Rivalry: After the events of Act 3, Chapter 9, his relationship with Seifer eventually turns into this, and Squall acknowledges Seifer's strength after the latter rescues him from Ultimecia.
- Hidden Depths: Aerith learns from Seifer that Squall had a dream to fill the world with flowers, which took her by surprise and made her look forward to bonding with him. However, when she presents him with a bouquet to share her love of flowers with him, he is taken aback and says it was only something he came up with in the moment (since Seifer happened to be torturing him at the time, and all). Even so, it's implied it might really be something he secretly wants, since he encourages Aerith to pursue that dream for herself. It surprised Rinoa, too.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Squall tries his hand at opening a Torsion to pursue Ultimecia in Chapter 10. It winds up taking them in a loop back to where they'd started.
- Ineffectual Loner: As usual. However, his reasons for it are different this time around - he tries to take on the burdens of his friends by himself, because he cares about them and does not want to see them suffer due to their lack of memories (since only Squall and Rinoa have all their memories intact). Eventually they all convince him to let them help, even Seifer, and it takes Ultimecia kidnapping Squall for him to finally give in.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Squall explains his reluctance to join the party by saying that it's ridiculous to risk his life solely based on the words of a moogle.
- Mighty Glacier: While Squall hits many times and hits very hard, before his awakening one of his biggest weaknesses was his average 3/5 speed giving him a low turn rate. That, and he has high base attack and Max BRV at 5/5, but average Initial BRV (important considering his gimmick) while also suffering from poor defense (also making him a Glass Cannon). However, he becomes a Lightning Bruiser once buffed due to his crystal level 58 passive giving him a invisible huge speed boost compared to other 54/58 speed boosts.
- Save the Villain: Squall does this for Seifer at the end of Chapter 10, shouting for him to wake up before he gets sucked into the Torsion.
- Simple, yet Awesome: Squall's attacks are all just variations on the same "hit the enemy over and over again" strategy, yet he is one of the most used characters in the meta. However, the biggest weakness tends to be his longevity in long waves of enemies due to easily running out of firepower. His later Lv. 70 awakening fixes this somewhat with each usage of his Lv. 65 Additional Ability (Added Ability Attack Up) recovering a single skill use for both.
Laguna Loire
Laguna Loire
Alternate Skin
An aspiring journalist and former Galbadian soldier who is traveling the world in search of a girl who was kidnapped by a sorceress. He may not think things through all the time, but there's something about his easy-going, genuine demeanor that draws people to him.
Voiced by: Hiroaki Hirata
Recruited in Chapter 5 of the main story. When the party first finds him, he's hunting monsters on his own, but joins up with them even though he's not quite following what's going on. As the party meets more of the FFVIII cast, he gets more and more bewildered when they recognize him from their dreams or his movies, but they keep him in the dark, because this version of Laguna is from the past, not Squall's present day.
- BFG: His EX ability, Ragnarok Buster, has him wielding one to assault his enemies with a laser beam. His Burst ability also follows up Desperado with the "Ultimate Ragnarok Cannon" ability.
- BFS: His LD ability, Ragnarok Blade and the followup from his LD buff, allow him to wield it like a huge Laser Sword.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Laguna argues at one point that sometimes this is necessary in order to protect their loved ones. Yuri and Krile vehemently disagree, saying that they would rather fight alongside their parents instead of being left behind.
- Having a Blast: Using a Grenade, Laguna can hit every enemy with an explosion packed with a defense and speed down debuff.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Squall and the rest of the FFVIII cast (and even some outside of it) keep Laguna from knowing about the origin of his "fairies" and that they're all from his future.
- Mighty Glacier: Has a slow turn rate until his Lv. 60 Awakening with a subpar 2/5 in base Speed, Defense and Initial BRV (leading him to be BRV broken easily in most circumstances). Even then, he has solid self buffs on top of above average Attack and Max BRV at base via 4/5, along with his HP being a 5/5. His crystal level 54 passive also helps in the speed department, along with his much-needed HP Attack+ gained from max limit breaking his EX weapon which both offers low action delay/high turn rate and helps solve his longevity issues of burning through his skills too fast.
- No Sense of Direction: Laguna gets lost from the party on more than one occasion, sometimes also with Bartz.
- One of the Kids: He is frequently shown playing around and goofing off with the children of the party.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: His second ability is Shotgun, which also hits every enemy in a spread shot. With his 35CP passive introduced in Zack's event, it becomes one of the earliest AoE BRV+HP Attacks that only ends in single target HP damage, with the reworked version finally having an extra hit and overflow.
- Status Effects: Specializes in this as one of the game's earliest AoE debuffers in its lifespan, with his Extend passives of his abilities even pushing the debuffs landed on a target up by 2 turns. His Burst allows him to inflict the enemy with a rare golden debuff that reduces their defense and makes it so that every time someone in party deals HP damage, an explosion deals full HP damage to all enemies based on Laguna's Attack stat.
- Team Dad: Though this version of Laguna is younger than most of the other dads of the party (and he's not actually a father yet) he is often one of the ones who takes on this role.
- Time Skip: His alternate costume is his casual attire as the president of Esthar, aged roughly seventeen years from the prime of his fighting days.
- Wave-Motion Gun: His EX ability, likely akin to how his EX Burst worked back in 012 on PSP. Despite the initial shots fired from the cannon's bottom barrel during the start of the animation, it's only the laser itself that deals the damage. His Burst animation uses the full Dissidia animation, with him summoning a bigger, golden Ragnarok Buster to ride on before firing it at the enemy.
Zell Dincht
Zell Dincht
A SeeD cadet at Balamb Garden who fights alongside his classmate Squall to stop the sorceress. While his antsy and impulsive nature earned him a reputation as the school troublemaker, he is also an avid learner which has proven to be more than helpful from time to time.
Voiced by: Noriaki Sugiyama
Recruited in Chapter 7 of the main story, found wandering on his own outside of Imber Manor. Since he can't find any of his friends, he joins up with the party when he recognizes Laguna from his dreams, though the latter has no idea who he is.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Both his standard abilities inflict fairly potent defense down debuffs on his target, and his EX+ ignores enemy defense when upgraded.
- Amnesiac Hero: While other party members from Final Fantasy VIII remember events from their game all the way up to meeting Ultimecia, Zell actually doesn't remember much farther from when they confront Edea at the end of Disc One, something which upsets him quite a bit.
- Battle Aura: Has a fiery aura when he uses Burning Rave, although the attack still does non-elemental damage.
- Death from Above: Meteor Barrage has Zell leap into the air, before crashing down on top of his opponent. Also present in the final blow of his EX.
- Evolving Attack: Using Punch Rush or Booya puts Zell into Duel Mode, which turns the previous abilities into Burning Rave and Meteor Barrage while also enhancing his BRV Attack (with his 35CP active). Doubles for his awakened version (where if at 80% HP or higher, he'll use the other opposite skill as a followup for free for more BRV shaving; e.g. Punch Rush into Booya and so forth) and when he's used his EX, his BRV and HP Attacks change into Burning Combo and Meteor Combo for a single use: the former is a Punch Rush into Burning Rave and the latter is a Booya into Meteor Barrage, although both combos will be noticeably weaker than his actual moves if his EX+ isn't upgraded enough.
- Fragile Speedster: Has a solid 5/5 base in Speed and HP, with a 4/5 in Max BRV along with having high skill counts for solid longevity, but with average Attack (3/5) and a horrendous 1/5 in both Initial BRV and Defense. Both his crystal level 45 passive and crystal level 54 passive (pre-rework and post-rework for the latter) even speed him up when buffed.
- Ground Punch: Burning Rave has Zell punch the ground, causing collateral BRV and HP damage to all enemies.
- Hot-Blooded: Zell is quick to anger and likes rushing in fists ready for action. Seifer is able to use this to easily get a rise out of him. It's even weaponized in his rework where he gains himself a new framed buff known as Balamb's Hothead that replaces his original Max BRV Up added with a normal Attack Up, allowing him to still keep holding onto his power spikes along with his new crystal level 54 and 58 passives no longer relying on his Duel being active.
- Innocently Insensitive: In Act 3, Chapter 9, he gets angry after Ultimecia's latest assault and yells about how evil sorceresses are. Meanwhile, Rinoa is literally right by him and hesitates to agree, knowing full well she is one as she and Squall are the only two to have the vast majority of their memories. Squall even lampshades this when he recalls that out of the group, Zell has the fewest of his memories as he only remembers up to the assassination mission in Deling City, well before Rinoa eventually became a sorceress.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Like his skills without Duel active, his LD skill is also free to use in its base form and grants him a buff that's essentially a mini-Burst mode, further mimicing the effect of his Limit Break from his original game: it has a fixed 4 turn duration, gains a stack up to 4 whenever he takes a turn, makes it so that all his attacks unbreak the enemy and grant him an extra turn when he breaks an enemy and on the buff's last turn, he can only use his LD skill or a call, with the LD being upgraded to My Final Heaven as described above.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Punch Rush is a barrage of punches.
- Sheathe Your Sword: In one scene when Garland is summoned to fight alongside the party, he turns against them just because he wants a good fight. Instead of playing into his wants, Zell recommends that the party just sheathes their weapons and faces him down until he gives in and leaves, too much of a Noble Demon to attack them when they're unarmed.
- Shock and Awe/Use Your Head: Booya does lightning elemental damage with a headbutt.
- Shoryuken: A rapid flip-kick version with his EX Ability, Different Beat, where he ends with an HP damaging Goomba Stomp Diving Kick.
Irvine Kinneas
Irvine Kinneas
A sharpshooter trained at Galbadia Garden. His flippant attitude is an act to distract from the pressure of his missions. In reality quite sensitive, his nerves tend to get the better of him when it's most important despite his superior marksmanship.
Voiced by: Daisuke Hirakawa
Recruited during Chapter 9 of the main story. Irvine is discovered fighting monsters and joins up with the group when they hear his gunshots in the distance.
- Abnormal Ammo: His abilities make use of his Limit Breaks from VIII, wherein he used these. With his LD, his standard BRV and HP attacks change to Dark Ammo and Pulse Ammo, respectively.
- Big Damn Heroes: When the Emperor tries to finish off Firion and Leon, Irvine interrupts with a well-timed bullet and says "Mind stepping away from my friends, Mr. E?"
- Failed Attempt at Drama: When he joins the party, he introduces himself with his loner cowboy persona... and then Zell announces to the group that Irvine always chokes up when it's actually time to shoot.
- Faking Amnesia: In his Intersecting Wills chapter, he reveals that he remembered the whole journey from FFVIII all along, and has full knowledge of Ultimecia unlike Zell, Quistis, and Selphie. He chooses to keep it from his friends (aside from Squall and Rinoa) out of a sense of guilt because he doesn't want to be the one who has to fill in the gaps for them - Alphinaud, Alisaie, and Lyse help him realize that they'd be better off remembering on their own. Despite that, he can't help but feel lonely again because of it. However, the end of the chapter sees Ultimecia appearing and seemingly taking away his memories for real.
- Friendly Sniper: Despite his attempt to introduce himself as a Cold Sniper, it quickly gives way to his actual, much more affable personality.
- Gun Nut: Irvine bonds with Laguna, King, and Vincent over their usage of guns and even uses the trope name to describe himself.
- Three-Strike Combo: His Scatter Shot deals area of effect damage three times in a row.
Quistis Trepe
Quistis Trepe
Alternate Skin
A SeeD operative and instructor at Balamb Garden. She holds the record as the youngest to pass the SeeD exam and is looked up to by many a student. Dismissed from her faculty position due to a certain incident, she puts her vast SeeD experience to use accompanying Squall in their mission to assassinate the sorceress.
Voiced by: Miyuki Sawashiro
Recruited during her event, "Balamb Whiplash". She's first found in a volcanic region searching for her friends, and is shocked and confused to see Laguna. Afterward, she meets up with the others and they apprise her of the situation.
- Acceptable Breaks from Canon: All of Quistis's abilities are based on her Blue Magic Limit Break spells, but are not direct uses of said spells, instead being abilities based on them using her whip as the catalyst.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Her buff from her LD Ability allows her to bypass delay immunity, ensuring any enemy she attacks with her delays is going to get pushed back.
- Badass Teacher: While she is no longer a teacher of Balamb, she is still often referred to as an instructor and even has members of the party (such as Eiko and Vivi) who want her to give them lessons. She can also hold her own against the likes of beasts and monsters just like everyone else. And also, she has her Balamb Garden instructor uniform as a character gloss.
- Birds of a Feather: She quickly bonds with Y'shtola on their ability to read people, particularly to tease Squall.
- Commonality Connection:
- She confides to Iris and Jessie that she used to have a crush on Squall in order to relate to Iris' crush on Noctis, and both of them discuss how those feelings changed to a different sort of bond; not romantic, but no less important.
- With her Force Partner, Seven, both are the Cool Big Sis of their groups, with Quistis presenting herself as the mature one of the group, and Seven sometimes coming off as cold or standoffish, however, both are actually very supportive and warm towards their friends when needed. That, and both are two out of the three whip-specialists in the entire game.
- Extra Turn: Using her Degenerator Whip she can delay the enemy giving the party an extra turn. Her 35CP weapon/Red Scorpion's passive upgrades this delay effect to three turns, the highest delay in the game only a few other characters posssess. Her rework released alongside her LD ability makes the ability instant and giving it up to 9 uses from her LD and Awakening Ability and the LD itself also delays all enemies by 2 turns, letting her effortlessly deny the enemy from taking any actions for the rest of the battle assuming their Lufenia orb doesn't require them to do so, and to top it off, her LD buff also lets her ignore any enemy immunity to being delayed. Fittingly enough, her LD buff can be stacked up to 3 times and increases by 1 every party turn, but drops back to 1 if any enemy takes a turn. Finally, her Burst buff allows the entire party to delay the enemies by 1 turn every time they attack and like Quistis' own attacks with the LD buff active, these delays also ignore the enemy's immunity to being delayed.
- The Glasses Come Off: Quistis is the first character to have a different character model in battle and outside of it - in battle and her character art, she lacks glasses, but her overworld and cutscene model have her wearing them.
- Finishing Each Other's Sentences: Just like in her home game she will often finish Squall's sentences to show how predictable he is, much to his chagrin.
- Power at a Price: When she reveals she also has gaps in her memory she is asked by Irvine if she's using a GF (Guardian Force). She says she isn't, and even if she had a GF with her she wouldn't risk using it in spite of it's power boost since it can cause loss of memory.
- Power Copying: All of Quistis's moves are based on the various Blue Magic spells she has available to her from her Limit Break but channeled through her whip strikes. Laser Whip is based on Laser Eye (known by default), Degenerator Whip based on Degenerator (learned from Gesper drops), Homing Whip is based on Homing Laser (learned from Belhelmel, Elastoid and Mobile Type 8 drops), and Ray Whip on Ray-Bomb (found in the Lunatic Pandora or stolen from Blitz enemies). Her Burst Attack is Shockwave Pulsar, which is also used by Ultimecia as her LD Attack (Quistis's version uses the FFVIII animation while Ultimecia uses the version she used in the Dissidia PSP games).
- Support Party Member:
- Quistis' primary focus in mainly in delaying enemy actions through her two debuffs that screw with their turn rate, as well as delaying their turns directly. Stat-wise, her Attack, Speed and HP are an average 3/5 in base with a high Initial BRV rating of 4/5 and 5/5 in Max BRV. Her HP however, is a 2/5, along with her average attack holding her back if she's not setup properly (with artifacts, solid party member's buffs and so forth).
- Her crystal level 58 passive, Debuff Attack Boost All, is one of the earliest most potent party invisible auras in the game (a 40% increase to Attack and Max BRV while most other awakening crystal level 54/58 passives are at 20%), making her a very valuable support party member in a fight where an enemy is easily exposed to any debuffs. Her later reworks also now let her battery the party with all of her skills as well as increase their BRV gains to counter Lufenia BRV gain reductions.
- Whip of Dominance: Quistis is one of three whip-users in the game (along with Rydia and Seven), she is also classroom instructor with a playful but strict personality. She even teams up with Seven using her Whip Sword for her Force Attack.
Selphie Tilmitt
Selphie Tilmitt
Alternate Skin
A guileless transfer student to Balamb Garden. Her unflinchingly upbeat attitude is an inspiration to everyone around her, and her constant energy is enough to wear out even Zell. No matter how painful or difficult things get, she always keeps up a happy face for her friends.
Voiced by: Mayuko Aoki
Recruited in the "With Trabia in Mind" event. Lost and alone, she notices an airship passing overhead and chases after it on foot, shouting on it until they stop and let her on. She's elated when it turns out it holds several of her friends, and subsequently joins the party.
- Barrier Warrior: Can cast the powerful Wall spell to bolster the party's defenses against Brave attacks and decrease debuff chance.
- Character Catchphrase: "Booyaka!", becomes a Borrowed Catchphrase for the rest of the party when it starts to catch on.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Is from a more modern/steampunk setting, so when she sees Cecil decked out in full Dark Knight armor from his fantasy/medieval setting Selphie assumes it's some crazy workout outfit for him to sweat off extra pounds. Squall dismisses her claims as joking, though.
- Commonality Connection: She hits it off with the Type-0 characters, who are also cadets at a military academy, and quickly suggests that they hold a school festival-type event.
- Determinator: When she spies the heroes' airship, she actually starts to chase it down ... and succeeds. She somehow keeps pace with a moving airship, while screaming at the top of her lungs for them to stop and pick her up. Suffice to say, everyone on-board in stunned by Selphie's tenacity.
- Genki Girl: Is described as extremely loud and cheerful, to Squall's chagrin.
- Launcher Move: Her LD ability batteries the party, delays all enemies by 2 turns, instantly launches the targetted enemy and inflicts all enemies with an unique debuff that makes every attack from every party member instantly launch the enemy, but like Edward's LD debuff, its duration is reduced by 1 whenever someone deals damage to that enemy. Her lv90 rework removes this restriction and increases its duration, easily making enemies launchable on every attack for the rest of the fight.
- Life Drain: She can leech enemy health with her Drain spell, with the excess amount turning into BRV gain for the rest of her party.
- Non-Answer: When Lightning finally asks what the word "booyaka" actually means, Selphie just tells her that she can use it as much she wants.
- This Is Gonna Suck: When she finally joins the party, Squall laments how loud and boisterous Selphie's personality naturally is.
Rinoa Heartilly
Rinoa Heartilly
Alternate Skin 1
Alternate Skin 2
A member of the Forest Owls fighting for Timber's independence. She becomes involved in the battle with the sorceress after hiring SeeD to help abduct the president of the state occupying Timber. Daring and amiable, she is a woman of action able to make friends with anyone.
Voiced by: Kana Hanazawa
Recruited via her event, "Where to Go." A few members of the party encounter Rinoa when they are searching for the lost Laguna, and she decides to help find him. Later, they find Quistis and Laguna lost together and Rinoa is overjoyed to reunite with her friends and Squall, and joins up with the party.
- Acceptable Breaks from Canon: Rinoa's Angel Wings Limit Break in the original game forced her into a magic-berserk state where she'd cast offensive magic exclusively while being uncontrollable. In this game though, the most it does is drain her health while it's active.
- Ambiguous Gender: Not Rinoa, but Angelo. Canonically, Angelo is a girl, but in Opera Omnia the characters refer to Angelo as a boy.
- Attack Animal: Angelo Cannon has Rinoa call her faithful canine, Sant' Angelo di Roma, launching her like a living projectile at an enemy!
- The Bait: Seifer has this as his plan for Rinoa to draw in and trap Ultimecia in a pincer attack in Act 3 Chapter 9. Rinoa agrees to it despite Squall's near-immediate objection at first. The situation resembles a moment in the main game where Rinoa likewise agreed to be used as bait in a plan likewise meant to attract Ultimecia's attention, though she is far less reluctant this time around.
- Cast from Hit Points: When she uses Angel Wing, both her BRV and HP attacks drain her own health in exchange for high damage. This plays well into her Force Ability, which increases more if the player does not have full HP at the end of their turn.
- Colony Drop: Her EX Ability has her cast a Sorceress-enhanced Meteor three times over.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Like Locke, her sticker pack was released months before she was made playable in this game, to commemorate her becoming playable in Dissidia NT.
- Glass Cannon: One of the game's premier examples; Angel Wing neuters her defense and saps her HP with its attacks. Reckless Rinoa players may bring her HP so low that tougher enemies can KO her in a single retaliating strike.
- Idol Singer: Riona's second alternate costume is her "Valentine Rinoa" outfit from Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade, and has her in a white idol dress with pink frills and heart-shaped jewelry; it even changes her Angel Wings transformation by giving her white wings with soft pink tips.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Rinoa's first alternate costume is the Party Dress she wore for the Balamb Garden's SeeD inauguration ball, specifically the one she wore during the famous "Waltz for the Moon" FMV cutscene.
- Power Gives You Wings: Her Angel Wings ability has Rinoa tap into her Sorceress Power, manifesting in a pair of angelic wings on her back coupled with incredible power at the cost of defense. Her EX Ability, Angel Wing Meteor, also activates this power.
- Rings of Death: Rinoa's weapons are Blaster Edges, which range from bladed chakrams to trident heads, launched from a shooter on her wrist. In spite of the fact of them acting similar to Throwing Weapons, they are actually classified as Special Weapons and can only be equipped by Rinoa.
- Spam Attack: She essentially becomes a magical AoE version of Tifa with her Burst, which grants her 6 uses of the limited use HP attack Ultima that deals up to 9 HP dumps worth of damage to all enemies.
- Stance System: Rinoa can alternate in two stances; Angelo Recover has her regenerate health and BRV every turn, as well as grants moderate buffs to the entire party, while Angel Wings is entirely a selfish buff, causing Rinoa's attacks to be Cast from Hit Points in exchange for turning her into a powerful Glass Cannon.
- Taking Up the Mantle: In Act 3, Chapter 9, Squall gets kidnapped by Ultimecia and Rinoa is the one who steps up to the plate and leads the party in hunting her down and rescuing him, because she is the only one of the VIII cast left who has all of her memories (since Irvine's were stolen by Ultimecia). Despite her insecurities, her friends encourage her and Quistis, Zell, Selphie, and Irvine do everything they can to support her.
- Transformation Is a Free Action: Invoked with her Angel Wings ability, which transforms her into her winged sorceress form while immediately giving her another consecutive turn without eating up the turn counter. This comes with all the benefits (using up debuff turns, building up EX Gauge) as well as all the drawbacks (still uses Assist/Summon turns, uses up buff turns).
- With Great Power Comes Great Opposition: Rinoa, Layle, Prishe, and Terra all discuss how their unusual powers have caused others to fear and, in some cases, revile them. The others help Rinoa come to terms with her sorceress powers, insisting that as long as she has at least one person at her side she'll be okay.
Seifer Almasy
Seifer Almasy
A SeeD cadet training to be a mercenary at Balamb Garden. Evenly matched and using the same weapon, he is widely considered to be Squall's rival. Though his belligerent attitude garners the most attention, he is responsible for leading the disciplinary committee and boasts good grades. He seems to have some "romantic" dream involving sorceresses.
Voiced by: Takehito Koyasu
First encountered in Chapter 3 with Fujin and Raijin, though it's as an enemy when he's trying to strong-arm himself into being a knight for Yuna. He finally joins the party at the end of Chapter 10 after the party finds him under Ultimecia's control.
- Acceptable Breaks from Canon: Seifer's LD Ability, Purge, is original to Opera Omnia, and was not one of his abilities in the original Final Fantasy VIII nor any of the spin-off games that featured him as a guest character.
- Aloof Ally: Seifer joins at the end of chapter 10, but insists that he's not actually joining them—he's just using everyone else so he has a chance to punch Mog's face in.
- Anti-Villain: Vivi and a few of the other characters repeatedly express doubts that Seifer, Raijin, and Fujin are all that bad. Unlike both Raijin and Fujin, Seifer's much more openly abrasive at times.
- Ascended Fanboy: Seifer basically has stars in his eyes when he runs into Laguna, recognizing him as the actor from the movie Seifer modeled his life goals around and openly calling Laguna his hero (even from their home game, Seifer's stance is a mimic of Laguna's time of wielding a fake gunblade). This being Seifer, he then insists on testing himself against Laguna in a fight.
- Bring It: Makes this motion when using his LD Ability, Purge.
- Catchphrase Insult: Seifer calls anyone he considers weak a chicken-wuss. Considering his ego, a lot of people get called chicken-wuss by him. He has doctored it up once or twice, like calling Leon "dark-wuss".
- Dulcinea Effect: The party shoos Seifer away from Yuna when he's apparently trying to abduct her. Further cutscenes establish that he was insisting on acting as her knight after she told him her day job, he was just being a heavy-handed Jerkass about it. He later tries to be Aerith's knight as well, saying that she needs to be protected because she also has a unique ability and special powers with a mission to save the world.
- Easily Forgiven: Becomes a plot point in Raijin's Intersecting Wills; Raijin and Fujin always give Seifer a "pass" regardless of the terrible choices he makes, because they are "best friends" because that's what friends are supposed to do, they don't hold anything over on each other. Kuja, of all people, points out by doing this they are giving Seifer no consequences for his actions, which leads Seifer to continue making bad choices in the future.
- Enemy Mine: Seifer does this when the party is charged by Materia and Spiritus both to go into the Dimensions' Labyrinth.
- Face–Heel Turn: Attempts this in Raijin's Intersecting Wills chapter, abandoning his closest friends to once again be Ultimecia's knight ... only for Raijin to knock him out in battle and refuse to let his comrade leave.
- Foil:
- Once again, to Squall in a sense. Even in gameplay, where Squall focuses mainly on hard-hitting single target damage that packs occasional area of effect (when awakened) that's primarily melee with self buffs, Seifer's focus is all about ranged party-wide damage that inflicts debuffs that make his own attacks hit stronger regardless of the types of debuffs landed.
- Seifer himself draws a comparison between him and Leon, as they are both "knights" who were manipulated by a villain in an attempt to get more power. While Seifer is able to move on from this and forge ahead without any hesitation, accepting the fact that he wanted more power, Leon has trouble and worries that he may end up turning on his friends again.
- Having a Blast: His Bloodfest does this, where he slashes the earth twice, then causes it to explode via the trenches created for some HP damage.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Ramza notes in Leon's event that Seifer had a point in not looking to the past when he was possessed, and that Leon just needs to accept that gaining more power isn't something he should feel bad about, especially if it is for altruistic reasons.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: Seifer's abilities inflict imperiled/weakness damage on any debuffed targets regardless of which debuffs they have on them.
- More than Mind Control: Much like in the original game, Ultimecia plays into his desire to be a Sorceress' Knight and encourages him to turn on the party. He even attacks Raijin in the latter's Intersecting Wills chapter as a result.
- Playing with Fire: His Flashfire magic BRV Attack used only as a boss in earlier chapters, as a direct Mythology Gag to both his blinding attack on Squall in the intro of their home game and the startup of his Fire Cross Limit Break, which has a chance of inflicting Blind for 1 turn.
- Razor Wind: No Mercy does wind elemental damage while inflicting an Attack Down debuff with his 15CP passive. Also has his Demon Slice from his original boss battles in earlier chapters where he spins around in a tornado at a single target.
- Recurring Boss: He is fought three times in the third region with Fujin and Raijin. He is then fought again in Raijin's Intersecting Wills chapter, except he is paired with a Cerberus that time.
- Spirited Competitor: When Zack suggests squatting as a way to keep warm, it quickly turns into a contest between Zack, Seifer, and Tidus to see who can squat the most. It ends with all three of their legs getting tired out to the point where they're unable to walk.
- Stone Wall: In a sense in regards to his stats: he has a high base defense 5/5, with his HP and Max BRV being 4/5, but suffers from having a low base 2/5 Initial BRV along with an average 4/5 in Attack and Speed. Also despite his decent Max BRV amount, his divided HP damage makes his damage output on multiple targets fairly low as opposed to focusing on a single target.
- Tsundere: Essentially. After joining the party, he makes excuses and blunders away or insults people every time someone accuses him of doing something nice, such as when he went to go comfort Noel after the supposed attempt by Ultimecia to put him under Mind Control.Raijin: We wanted to see how you were doing, y'know?Seifer: No! We knew he'd be down in the dumps, so we came all this way to check on him.Squall: (How is that different?)
Raijin
Raijin
A member of Balamb Garden's disciplinary committee. He believes in Seifer, and sticks with him after the sorceress's influence sets Seifer down the wrong path. Though big and tough, he is also good natured and affable. His purer side can be seen in his fondness for insects and story books.
Voiced by: Kazuya Nakai
First encountered in Chapter 3 as Seifer's lackey, but joins in Chapter 10 after getting separated from him and Fujin, choosing to help the party free Seifer from Ultimecia's control.
- Anti-Villain: Like the other two. Though he seems to be able to get along with other people easier due to his more simple-mind compared to his other two colleagues.
- Bruiser with a Soft Center: It wasn't shown as much in his home game, but here, he and Eiko come across a flower field and pick flowers together, hoping to make flower necklaces for everyone.
- Carry a Big Stick: While his staff may qualify as a Martial Arts Staff, Raijin mostly just swings it at his enemies and bludgeons them rather than carrying the usual connotations of the trope, qualifying it as this. This game classifies his staves as spears though, allowing him to equip other spears as well.
- Combat Medic: He is able to regenerate the party's HP through his Thunderpeal buff from his EX.
- Dumb Muscle: While his heart is in the right place, Raijin is not the sharpest tool in the shed by far.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Fist is a simple punch attack that can deal BRV and HP damage, which is best to use when augmented from Raijin Special.
- Fighting Your Friend: In Raijin's Intersecting Wills chapter, Seifer decides to become Ultimecia's knight again. Kuja and Laguna help Raijin realize that he shouldn't follow Seifer unquestionably and give him a pass for doing stupid things like that, so eventually Raijin fights Seifer with Fujin's help to demonstrate their close friendship and keep Seifer with them.
- Hidden Depths: He comes off as a meathead, but Raijin loves reading and frequently checks out books from the Garden library. Though they tend to end up overdue because he spends so much time with the committee.
- Insistent Terminology: A point of contention between himself, Laguna, and Kuja is just what is the nature of his and Fujin's relationship with Seifer; Kuja refers to them as "lackies" since they seem to jump at his beck and call, while Laguna says they are "friends" since its obvious they care for one another. Raijin dislikes both labels, since flunkies makes it sounds like they work for Seifer, and friends can be wishy-washy and in his experience are only with you in the good times; so, he decides the correct term is they are "best friends". That still falls flat to Laguna and Kuja, and eventually after Raijin says their relationship is built on mutual respect and a desire to support each other's dreams, Kuja suggests "comrades" to which Raijin thinks is perfect in describing themselves.
- Javelin Thrower: Raijin Prod has him turn his weapon into a peal of electricity like a spear before throwing it at the enemies; although technically Raijin's weapons are bo staffs they are classified as spears and not staves.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Raijin has a special effect called "Thunder Mode", which unlocks the enhanced versions of Fist and Raijin Special. Perhaps in part due to Early-Installment Weirdness while this 'mode' has a visual effect, it is not considered a buff or an overhead and is entirely unique to himself and his friend, Fujin.
- No-Sell: His LD Debuff "Don't lay a finger on my friends, ya know!" provides this when affecting the enemy party, limiting their HP damage by 100%, reducing their attack by 100%, and preventing them for inflicting debuffs for two turns.
- One of the Kids: He frequently pals around with Eiko, Vivi, and the other children in the party, and joins in their play.
- Recurring Boss: Fought together with the other two in the third chapter.
- Shock and Awe: He's named Raijin (lit. Thunder God) for a good reason, his Raijin Special encases his body in electrical discharge. He can also paralyze enemies with his Lightning Discharge ability.
- Non-Indicative Name: Fist in the Japanese version is actually called Shoutei (lit. Palm Sole), which makes more sense involving the animation (since Raijin seems to clearly be using his palm to strike at the enemy).
- Undying Loyalty: To Seifer, the only reason he agrees to join the party is because they are able to convince him that Ultimecia is only using Seifer and has no interest in his well-being.
Fujin
Fujin
A member of Balamb Garden's disciplinary committee known for her extraordinarily brusque manner of speaking. Devoted enough to Seifer that she normally follows him unquestioningly, his changes since becoming a sorceress's minion cause her concern. Despite being the junior of the pair, her strong will has Raijin thoroughly whipped.
Voiced by: Rio Natsuki
Like Raijin, she is first encountered in Chapter 3 as an enemy and Seifer's lackey. She later joins the party in Chapter 10 after seeing Raijin with them, seeing an opportunity to help free Seifer.
- Anti-Villain: Just like Seifer and Raijin. Compared to the other two though, Fujin keeps to herself more.
- Blow You Away: Fitting for her name being Fujin (lit. Wind God), her Sai skill encases her body in a winding gale, giving her attacks a Wind attribute and making both of her default skills launch the enemy instantly while it's active.
- Call-Back: Her BT Weapon, the Windstorm Chakram, is design after the FFVIII Guardian Force Pandemonium. Not only is Pandemonium the Wind GF, the same element shared by Fujin, but Pandemonium could be drawn from Fujin in the game.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Several of the girls in the party try their best to get Fujin to open up once she joins, in an attempt to befriend her. She is surprisingly receptive to this.
- Launcher Move: Her lv90 rework further emphasizes on this by making all of her skills other than her LD instantly launch the enemy and making other targets launchable, and making it so that her EX trap debuff also makes the enemies instantly launchable after it triggers. Her Burst buff allows the party to automatically launch the enemy on their turn, and doubles the default amount of wall damage done after the launch from a maximum of 20% to a maximum of 40% of total HP damage dealt during launches.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Fujin has a special effect called "Wind Mode", which offers some boosts to the party and unlocks the enhanced versions of Metsu and Sai. Perhaps in part due to Early-Installment Weirdness while this 'mode' has a visual effect, it is not considered a buff or an overhead and is entirely unique to herself and her friend, Raijin.
- No Indoor Voice: Fujin does not mince words, she speaks in short, to the point responses usually shouted at the top of her lungs. Same even applies to all of her moves being named in Japanese via single kanji and nothing more than that.
- Not So Stoic: Very rarely when she feels comfortable, she will relax her normal military demeanor and speak softly and in full sentences, although such instances are few and far between.
- Recurring Boss: As with the other two, fought multiple times in the third region.
- Rings of Death: While she can use any Throwing Weapon, her signature weapons are all chakrams.
- Tornado Move: Fujin's EX and LD both summons tornados to attack the enemy. Her Burst Attack does as well, this time summoning a tornado so large that Fujin herself battles the enemy in it's vortex.
- Undying Loyalty: To Seifer, the only reason she agrees to join the party is because they are able to convince her that Ultimecia is only using Seifer and has no interest in his well-being.
- Wind Is Green: As a Wind-element specialist, all of the wind effects Fujin summons are green.
Ultimecia
Ultimecia
A fearsome sorceress from the far-flung future, filled with anger and hatred. By possessing sorceresses of the past, she aims to realize time compression, magic that would bring the past, present, and future all together into a single instant where nothing exists but herself.
Voiced by: Atsuko Tanaka
First encountered in Chapter 10 taking control of Seifer for her own ends once again, and makes sporadic appearances afterward, working toward her own goals. She becomes playable in her event, "Governess of Time," when she gives her dimensional coordinates to Mog to be summoned in battle.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While the question of if she really has had a change of heart or not is dubious, this is by far the nicest, least hostile version of the character in the franchise. She seems intrigued by the bonds between the heroes she openly scorns in other games and offers to help them at several points instead of antagonizing them.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Ultimecia's specialty is dealing lots of magic damage in a short amount of time, with plenty of free turns. However, each of her spell casts doesn't actually deal that much damage on their own, which means Ultimecia can burn out rather quickly, even with her Burst weapon. Her Burst+ and level 90 upgrade fixes these issues, making her the fearsome witch she was meant to be.
- Even Evil Has Standards: She is completely disgusted with Kefka's actions in Act 2, Chapter 5, and makes no effort to hide her revulsion towards him, calling him an abominable wretch.
- Extra Turn: On top of the free turns she gets from using her EX ability, her Burst buff allows her to delete the next turn of any enemy she attacks.
- Foil: Has this with Squall gameplay-wise, given the coincidental concepts of her design. Her overall kit functions as a foil to Squall's, with both of them having a multi-hitting BRV Attack+, an AoE HP Attack+ via the chosen target taking the brunt of the damage, an AoE skill 1 ending in single target HP damage, and a second skill that ends with 100% undivided HP damage on all targets.
- It's All About Me: Eiko wonders why she wants to achieve Time Compression if she's so lonely and points out that it's hypocritical of her to want to make a world where only she exists.
- Lady and Knight:
- Act 2's Final Chapter has her becoming the Dark Lady to Caius's Black Knight, as a temporary Enemy Mine type of situation to prevent Ardyn from using the crystal core of darkness to manipulate them. Ultimecia even calls him her "transient" knight.
- In Act 3 Chapter 5, Zidane becomes the White Knight to her Dark Lady.
- Lady of Black Magic: A villainous one – elegant, nefarious, and powerful.
- Master of the Levitating Blades: She has a floating armory around her of multiple bladed weapons, which are her equippable weapon type. Due to the variety of these blades, she uses the Unique weapon type (in contrast with Vayne, who uses the same trope but he wields greatswords).
- More than Mind Control: Ultimecia controls Seifer once again with magic and by playing into his "romantic dream" of being a knight. The party later suspects her of trying to do this to Noel.
- Not So Similar: With Rinoa. Despite being Sorceresses, Ultimecia says Rinoa can never understand her since Rinoa has her loyal knight always at her side, while Ultimecia lives in solitude.
- One-Winged Angel: Subverted as it's her penultimate form, but she takes on her Junctioned Griever form in the second half of Act 3, Chapter 9's final battle and again in Act 3 Finale, Part 2.
- One Woman Army: She becomes this in Act 3 Chapter 9. Even with everyone's combined strength she wipes them out with little effort thanks to her power boost from stealing the memories of Irvine and Luna. It takes the party restoring Luna's memory while distracting Ultimecia for them to even have a chance.
- Reformed, but Rejected: She tries to claim she has reformed and gives her dimensional coordinates to Mog, saying that she is lonely and felt connected to Noel in that they both lived to the end of humanity. The party doesn't believe her and refuses to trust her, with the exception of Noel, and they don't let her travel with them. Based on her scene with Kefka, it is unclear how genuine she was, but she does acknowledge Noel's trust in her.
- Screw Destiny: She hints that she is trying to avert her Bad Future, which she believes is a result of Because Destiny Says So, but Squall and the others don't buy it, and Celes says her words sounded empty.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Her reaction toward the party in Act 2, Chapter 5, after they rebuff her warnings about Kefka up in the Floating Continent. She genuinely did try to help Locke's Dark Manikin find the Terra and Celes Dark Manikins, even though she told him to save himself. She is also sympathetic to Noel's plight of being the last survivor of a Bad Future.
- Time Master: Her turn manipulation mechanic is a nod to this. Her EX+ when max limit broken even allows for 3 free turns and with her lv90 rework, two free uses on either skill, giving her a lot of combat longevity.
- Time Stands Still: She pulls this off with her BT skill "Sorceress Heart," stopping not only time within the phase but even the music itself.
- The Voice: She speaks to Noel this way as he treks through the world in solitude, abandoned by Materia. Despite his protests otherwise, she does not appear to him because she says he would fear her as a monster, like others have, and also does not tell him her identity.
- Walking Armory: While her weapons are collectively of the Unique type, Ultimecia's weapons are an axe, a spear, a longsword, and a shortsword, all of which she wields using her magic.
Introduced in Final Fantasy IX
Zidane Tribal
Zidane Tribal
Alternate Skin 1
Alternate Skin 2
A professional flirt and member of the Tantalus Theater Troupe, a band of thieves posing as performers. At the heart of his journey to stop Kuja, he learns the truth of his existence and nearly falls into the depths of despair but overcomes the darkness with the help of his friends. While he can get carried away at times, his sense of justice and positive nature give him the strength he needs to face their true enemy.
Voiced by: Romi Park
Recruited in Chapter 2. Zidane comes across the group, joining quickly upon seeing Vivi traveling with a bunch of cute girls.
- Balance Buff: Post-rework, he gains the ability to inflict a unique trait known as "Thievery" that doubles as both a framed buff and debuff to himself and his respective target that enhances his abilities to their + versions (which greatly solves Zidane's issue of being turn inefficient and being very reliant on luck to have his debuffs occur). On top of this, his crystal level 54 and 58 also get updated to standard invisible buffs.
- Birds of a Feather: Freya uses the trope name to describe Tidus and Zidane, since both have the desire to play the hero.
- Book Ends: His alternate costumes are this; the first being the Knights of Pluto garb he wore in the very first mission of the game, and the second being the disguise he wore in the very last cutscene of the game.
- Casanova Wannabe: An infamous skirt-chaser in his home game, he typically enjoys flirting with most of the female party members when he has the chance (with the exception of Y'shtola, who intimidates him a little). With the exception of Garnet (his love interest from his own game), he gets turned down every time.
- Chivalrous Pervert: While Zidane may be a flirt, his Gentle Knight ability has him trying harder when he had to protect female party members. The more females in the party with him, the bigger a boost Zidane will receive to his stats.
- Combat Medic: His Burst Effect allows his attacks to always 'Steal an Elixir' whenever he inflicts a debuff, which means he heals the party for their Max HP, with any overflow going to battery party Brave.
- Devious Daggers: While Zidane's weapons are classified as daggers, half of his signature weapons, the Butterfly Sword and Exploda specifically, are actually double-ended swords that can be detached into dual knives.
- Double Weapon: Zidane's daggers, half the time he dual wields them, but he can also combine them at the hilt to turn them into a double-ended dagger-sword.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Zidane's first alternate costume has him dressed as one of Steiner's Knights of Pluto, which he did in order to infiltrate Alexandria Castle to kidnap Princess Garnet.
- Dual Wielding: Zidane fights using dual daggers, although he can combine them at the hilts/pommels, just like he could in his home game.
- Fragile Speedster: Has a high turn rate while dealing multiple hits, but often falls short on having effect damage-per-second/turn and/or enough raw power to back it up. One of his biggest prior weaknesses was being subject to leaking extra BRV when shaving off a target, along with his debuffs being proc'd solely on chance. Both his Awakening and his eventual rework put him more in the right place of being able to have better overall power, on top of increasing his already decent longevity in long battles.
- Instant Runes: Free Energy creates a magical rune with a Sanskrit character that raises Zidane's current BRV amount before doing HP damage. Also inflicts a defense down debuff on the target while buffing Zidane's defense likewise.
- Intangible Theft:
- His main gimmick that's somewhat emulated by his abilities both debuffing his target while buffing himself at the same time out of chance (Stellar Circle 5 has a Speed Up + Speed Down, while Free Energy has a Defense Up + Defense Down). Ditto for his reworked version giving himself the unique Thievery framed buff/debuff that provides extra benefits to him while also further debuffing his targets.
- His LD special effect 'A Place to Call Home' allows him to not only delete enemy turns when he breaks them, but steals them for himself, allowing him to immediately act again.
- In the Hood: Zidane's second alternate costume has him dressed in a hooded cloak and Cool Mask, that he wears in the final cutscene of the game when he poses as the lead actor in a play in order to surprise Garnet and his friends with his survival.
- Launcher Move: His EX Ability, Booster 8.
- Light Liege, Dark Defender: Inverted in Act 3 with Zidane and Ultimecia. He takes pity on her for her loneliness and swears himself as her knight despite her villainy, causing the party to fear that he may be under her mind control. But he isn't — his kindness draws him to try and help her despite who Ultimecia is.
- Mistaken for Gay: During Faris' recruitment chapter, Zidane was the first character from outside V to see through Faris's disguise. As a result, the rest of the party believe that Zidane "switched sides" when they see him flirting with her.
- Spectacular Spinning:
- Stellar Circle 5 is a spinning vortex of energy that hits a single target (that also increases his own Speed while debuffing his target's).
- His HP Attack animation also involves a somersault, along with some flips in his EX ability.
- Taking the Bullet: He takes the fire spell meant for Garnet when "Vivi" turns on them, revealing that he knew it really wasn't their friend all along.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: Zidane does extra damage to Wolf enemies, via a Mythology Gag to one of his first skills he gets back in his home game.
- What the Hell, Hero?: When Eiko joins the party and reveals that her and Zidane have a history (one-sided on her side, but of course she doesn't say that) the other party members call Zidane out for courting a young girl.
Vivi Ornitier
Vivi Ornitier
Alternate Skin
A black mage tender in years, who is reticent and somewhat naive. While at first glance appears frail and unreliable in battle, he is in fact a powerful wielder of magic. He always strives to do right and through the numerous life-or-death encounters he faced with Zidane has grown confident in himself. Vivi enjoys theater.
Voiced by: Ikue Otani
Vivi is one of the starting characters from Chapter 1, having been traveling with Mog, Rem, and Sazh already. Throughout the story, he always maintains his kind, introspective demeanor and is one of the first to show sympathy to other characters and even the Manikins.
- Attack Reflector: Vivi's Burst Attack combines his strongest passive ability, Reflectx2, along with Auto-Reflect in order to bounce a Doublecast Flare back to the enemy at double potency. This combination allowed Vivi to easily bypass the 9,999 Damage Cap limit in his original game making him the most potent damage dealer in IX.
- Balance Buff: The biggest issue with Vivi's early awakening was mainly due to him having HP conditionals needed to be reached on his new enhanced skills. Added with his high-base Max BRV, this makes it hard to fufill. After his rework however, he finally gains automatic HP damage dumps on his new tools, with his Focus Extend now giving a brand new framed buff that further enhances him and grants him enhanced BRV and HP Attacks for longevity.
- Cast from Hit Points: His Doomsday LD does this for him and the rest of the party, basically requiring him to be paired with HP Regen healers and/or tanks to ensure no one gets KO'ed.
- Casting a Shadow: Doomsday does dark elemental damage in addition to fire damage.
- Costume Porn: About the only way you can describe his alternate costume based on the original concept art by the legendary Yoshitaka Amano; with Vivi dressed to the nines accented with feathers, furs, tassels, and ribbons.
- Death from Above: Vivi is part of a rather long line of characters who use meteor-themed EX abilities. His LD, Doomsday, is a giant meteor that actually attracts other meteor-sized chunks to it before falling down on enemies. His FR, Our Journey, has Vivi combining his might with Sazh, specifically following up the gunman's barrage of bullet-fire with the spell Comet, casting smaller meteor chunks at the enemy.
- Difficult, but Awesome: Doomsday consumes a percentage of the party's HP when cast, and the subsequent follow-up attacks also consume a percentage of their HP when they trigger. This can be used to easily take advantage of characters who function well at low HP (Ardyn, Rinoa, and Dark Knight Cecil), as well as easily proc summon passives that require lower HP thresholds (Alexander, Diabolos, etc.), but improper use has a significant chance of causing the party's death.
- Disc-One Nuke: During Chapter 1 the game gives the player a tutorial on how to draw from banners and how to use the 10+1 guaranteed Golden Weapon draw feature. The guaranteed golden weapon will always be Vivi's Oak Staff, which turns his Fire spell into the more powerful Fire+ Spell.
- Distressed Dude: He gets captured by Kuja early in Arc 2 Chapter 3 and replaced by his Dark Manikin, out of Kuja's desire to manipulate the party and show Vivi that he is a replaceable puppet. Despite being tortured by Kuja, Vivi trusts in his friends and even tries to help Kuja both during and afterward.
- Friendly Fireproof: Averted with Doomsday, which in addition to damaging the enemy also takes a percentage of the whole party's HP.
- Glass Cannon: Vivi is a rather potent Black Mage and can deal heavy damage to your enemies' BRV given good equipment and matchup (on top of having a high 5/5 base attack and Max BRV for an early game character), but he's a Squishy Wizard and desperately needs support from allies to not bite the dust.
- Life Drain: While assisting in Dark Knight Cecil's FR, Dark Blast, after setting up the enemies by casting Stop Vivi follows up with a Drain spell, boosting the power of Cecil's Darkness attack.
- Ma'am Shock: Vivi's polite mannerism tends to get this response from other characters, such as Squall and even Hope, who is taken aback by being called mister at his age.
- Meditation Powerup: Can use Focus to increase his Attack and Max BRV for a set duration, though it often hurts his turn efficiency due to it needing to be used as a ramp up. The reworked version now gains another Attack and Max BRV in the form of the unique framed buff "Black Mage's Torch", overall increasing Vivi's return on using it as the buff itself also enhances his BRV and HP attacks.
- One of the Kids: Zig-zagged, as in his original game. Vivi is effectively a living doll and was not intended to be even capable of autonomous thought, let alone develop a personality, but his short stature and kind nature leads to him befriending all of the other child characters, and he's frequently seen alongside them when the FFIX cast isn't being focused on as a whole. This unfortunately gets him into trouble in Nabaat's Lost Chapter, when she takes advantage of his trusting spirit to take him hostage.
- Playing with Fire: Comes equipped with the classic Fire spell, and after his he gets his 35CP passive, awakening, and especially his rework, he becomes largely a fire-based specialist. Fire Extend when reworked hits even harder with overflow and an HP damage finisher, and he can even make use of enhanced BRV and HP Attacks for better longevity with the use of his aforementioned Black Mage's Torch framed buff. Several more reworks makes his Focus throw in a Fire spell and even making his regular Fire spell become a group attack
- Poisonous Person: One of Vivi's optional crystal passives gives his Fire spell a chance of poisoning the enemy.
- Spam Attack: His EX ability grants him the Double Black buff, which changes his HP+ attack into Double Fire+, his hardest-hitting attack, but using it dispels the buff, meaning it's only useable once by default. However, his Burst buff makes all his self-granted buffs gold-framed which prevents them from being dispelled by any means, meaning that he can keep using DF+ as long as his Burst buff is active.
- Squishy Wizard: Vivi has powerful BRV attacks, high base 5/5 in Attack and Max BRV but also has very low HP and Defenses.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Vivi expresses sympathy for both the manikins and Kuja, even despite all the evil the latter did back in their world, and wishes to help them.
- Time Stands Still: During Dark Knight Cecil's FR, Dark Blast, Vivi's first contribution to the attack is to cast Stop, freezing the enemies in place before following up with a Drain Spell.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: From the beginning, Vivi was always sympathetic to the manikins because he recognized how similar their circumstances were to his own. When he meets his own Dark Manikin, who struggles with its own existence and the idea of making friends, Vivi even starts thinking of him as a little brother.
Adelbert Steiner
Adelbert Steiner
A loyal knight of the royal family of Alexandria. He never once doubted that serving the royal family was his calling until he was inspired by Princess Garnet and his newfound friends to question his real purpose in life.
Voiced by: Minoru Hirota
Recruited in Chapter 5. Steiner is encountered being harried by some monsters, and is aghast to see Zidane traveling with the party but comforted by Vivi's presence. He is eager to get back to his job of protecting Princess Garnet and finding his men, the Knights of Pluto, but is a staunch ally to the party.
- Acceptable Breaks from Canon: Normally, Steiner would be unable to use Spellblade without Vivi in the party, as in their home game it was a Combination Attack. Here, it's instead framed as Vivi supporting him offscreen, which also manifests as an unique party BRV regen effect that grants the party BRV based on Steiner's maximum BRV after every party or enemy turn.
- Birds of a Feather: He frequently chats with the other knights. He also extends his sense of camaraderie to people who consider themselves protectors, like Wakka, even though they're not exactly of the traditional mold.
- Doesn't Trust Those Guys: He still can't stand anyone who's on the wrong side of the law. While this isn't totally unreasonable, the fact that all of the thief characters are reliable allies makes his outrage seem over-the-top. Living as a brigand also overrides other considerations; even though Faris is Lenna's sister and therefore technically a princess, he still scolds Lenna for getting a pirate's help.note
- Enemy Mine: Played for Laughs when he and Zidane interrupt their perpetual bickering to stop Edge from flirting with Garnet.
- Failed a Spot Check: Steiner is upset at the thought of the pirate Faris joining them until Vaan and Zidane point out that they already have a bunch of thieves and brigands in the group.
- Honor Before Reason: When he realizes half of their traveling party are the likes of pirates, thieves, and rogues he immediately wants to kick them out of the group, not only in spite of them having worked together for several chapters by that point, but with one of them being Zidane, a party member from his own homeworld!
- Hot-Blooded: His strong temper combined with his impulsive tendency to be aggressive to new strangers leads him to fighting with Barret in the latter's recruitment event, spurred on by the equally hot-blooded Cater.
- Kindness Button: He becomes more accepting of Faris when she reveals her concern for her men, something Steiner can relate to.
- Knight in Shining Armor: He is gratified to be viewed as this by some of the other party members, and clearly admires those who are as well, such as the Warrior of Light and Cecil - even Wakka, who he describes as a sort of "knight" since he's Yuna's guardian.
- Multitasked Conversation: He lectures Lenna about how royals shouldn't go solve problems on their own because it makes their people worry, and they definitely shouldn't resort to getting help from brigands like Faris. Garnet, who is also chatting to them, asks rhetorically if this is directed at Lenna or herself.
- "Not So Different" Remark: In relation to the above, while he is initially aghast at working with the rogue pirate Faris, when the latter speaks about she's worried over the safety of her crew, Steiner relates to her in that he's worried for the safety of his own Pluto Knights.
- Playing with Fire: Spellblade is a Fire-based BRV attack.
- Stone Wall: His LD ability, Flare Sword, deals damage and gives him a buff that makes him capable of tanking by massively increasing the party's defense and reducing the HP damage that they take.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: Steiner does extra damage to humanoid enemies; such as humans and manikins.
Eiko Carol
Eiko Carol
Alternate Skin
A mirthful and precocious young summoner who is the last survivor of her tribe. After losing her family at a tender age, she quietly lives in the village of Madain Sari until a fateful encounter with Zidane's party inspires her to move on. Only through bonding with Garnet is she finally able to overcome her loneliness.
Voiced by: Hisako Kanemoto
Recruited in her event, "The Small Summoner". Eiko finds herself alone in the world of Opera Omnia and latches onto the group once she sees her friends again.
- Assist Character: She appears in Garnet's Burst finisher animation, as a nod to how the two of them summoned Alexander in game.
- Back from the Dead: Eiko is the only character who can do what no one else can: cheat death from Lufenia orbs. Her LD Rebirth Flame generates 3 stacks of Phoenix Pinions, consuming one Pinion whenever an ally takes damage that brings them to below 50% HP or kills them. The resulting counter immediately revives and heals all allies and unleashes a powerful counterattack on all enemies.
- Culture Clash: Eiko says the trope by name when she learns about how many summoners there are in Yuna's world (when she is the Last of Her Kind in hers) and especially when Yuffie and Tifa mention that anyone can be a summoner in their world with the right materia.
- The Cutie: Said as much by some other characters, she definitely fits as one of the youngest in the group.
- Costume Porn: Just like with Vivi's alternate costume, Eiko gets her Yoshitaka Amano concept art as an outfit, which beautifully exaggerates her appearance in green hue-tones.
- Improbable Weapon User: Eiko can use any staff weapon, but her signature weapons are Air Racquets, which are basically magical lacrosse racquets. Interestingly, she mentions to Deuce that she uses flutes as well in her home game, but they're unavailable to her here.
- Informed Ability: Eiko is a powerful Summoner in her home game and is referred to as such in this game, but her attacks are all from her White Mage moveset, she has no ability to summon in this game. Her EX ability later lets her summon Madeen, and her LD ability has her summon Phoenix.
- Light 'em Up: Smite is a Holy-based attack that restores Brave to the entire party. Eiko was also the first party member to join the group with any sort of Holy-based attack. Terra Homing is also a holy attack, which grants her the Double White Magic buff which lets her double cast Holy instead of her standard HP attack.
- Precocious Crush:
- Her crush on Zidane is present as always, and Tifa and the others call Zidane out on it when they misunderstand Eiko's lamentations as him wooing her in the past.
- She relates to Iris in this, since Iris had a similar crush on Noctis, and learns from her example in understanding that Zidane and Garnet make each other happy, just as Noct and Luna do.
- The Rival: One scene has Eiko declare Yuna her rival for Zidane's heart, but no one takes it seriously.
- Team Chef: When Eiko cooks for the party in her lost chapter, everyone raves about how amazing it is and wants her to do it more often.
- White Mage: In addition to the Holy spell Smite, Eiko can use HP Regen to heal the party over several turns.
- Your Magic's No Good Here: She can only use her white magic, but she says she can't call on her summons in this world, even though Garnet can. Though this is an example of Gameplay and Story Segregation, and eventually become a non-issue as she eventually is able to summon Maduin with her EX and Burst, as well as Phoenix as part of her LD Attack.
Garnet Til Alexandros XVII
Garnet Til Alexandros XVII
Alternate Skin 1
Alternate Skin 2
Renowned as the most beautiful princess in the history of Alexandria. With the aid of Zidane and Tantalus, she flees the castle in order to stop her mother the queen's plans for world domination. Initially naive, she finds her true self while traveling with her companions, and becomes a young woman fit to lead her kingdom.
Voiced by: Mamiko Noto
Recruited in her event, "Princess of Alexandria". Garnet encounters Kuja before the party, but they all manage to save her from him and she joins to be with her friends again.
- Assist Character: She appears in Zidane's Burst finisher animation casting Curaga on him. Doubles as Call-Back to her assistance during the scene which the rest of the party helps Zidane in his time of need.
- Beam Spam: Her LD ability calls forth Ark who rains down laser fire from the air and grants her the Pumice Eidolon overhead buff, which gains stacks for every party and enemy action and once it hits the maximum of 4 stacks, it triggers an additional AoE BRV+HP attack that deals full HP damage to all enemies and batteries the party based on total HP damage dealt, consuming 3 stacks to do so.
- Commonality Connection:
- During her Lost Chapters, an extra scene has Garnet bonding with Princess Ashe over the fact they both staged their own kidnappings in order to evade enemy capture, Garnet from her own mother Queen Brahne and Ashe to avoid capture from the Archadian empire.
- When the party is trying to convince Kadaj to give up his search for his "mother," a genocidal mindless space alien, several characters talk about how they've also lost their mothers but have found happiness with the friends around them. When Kadaj retorts that none of them had mothers who were indiscriminately hated by the world, Garnet opens up about her mother Queen Brahne, who was a merciless tyrant that she similarly had complicated feelings about, because they once loved each other. This actually gets Kadaj to listen.
- In the Hood: Her first alternate costume is the classic Final Fantasy White Mage-style hood she wears in order to travel incognito as 'Dagger' in her game.
- Jealous Romantic Witness: Downplayed, but Garnet can't help but exhibit some jealousy when she learns Zidane has sworn fealty to Ultimecia out of his innate kindness and pity for her. Garnet comes to realize this, however, and doesn't hold it against him.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Her second alternate costume is her royal dress.
- Making a Splash: Aquamarine Waterglint summons the powers of Leviathan for a Water-based attack, and turns Garnet's normal BRV attack into the area of effect Deluge.
- Mythology Gag: Garnet's two attacks are based on Leviathan and Ramuh, the first two summons she is guaranteed to receive during normal gameplay in Final Fantasy IX. While it is very likely Garnet could learn other summons such as Shiva and Ifrit, they are based on random drops and are never required to be found or used during the game. Her EX Ability, Holy Prayer, has Garnet summon the Eidolon Alexander which she also summons in one of the FMV cutscenes and is, therefore, also one of the few Eidolons Garnet is guaranteed to interact with. The only Eidolon that bucks this trend is Ark which she uses for her LD ability, which is one of Garnet's most powerful optional summons in the game. For her Force Attack she summons Atomos (along with Braska summoning Ifrit), which is an Eidolon Garnet has during the game, loses at one point, and can re-learn again.
- Power Crystal: Uses the Aquamarine, Peridot and a Pumice in her attacks, allowing her to summon great attacks from Leviathan, Ramuh and Ark.
- Prayer Is a Last Resort: Her EX Ability is Holy Prayer, which provides a large amount of healing and BRV to the party, while also granting everyone's BRV attacks water and electric elements, allowing the entire party to take advantage of Garnet's debuffs. Unusually for the series, despite drawing on Alexander's power the ability has nothing to do with the holy element.
- Shock and Awe: Peridot Thunderflash summons the powers of Ramuh for a Lightning-based attack, and turns Garnet's normal BRV attack into the area of effect Superbolt.
- Summon Magic: Is capable of summoning the powers of Ramuh and Leviathan to attack her enemies. She uses the powers of Alexander to heal the party and massively battery their Bravery and with the release of her EX+, Alexander actually appears when she uses the ability. Her LD ability has her summon Ark, one of the most powerful optional Eidolons in the game, and her Burst finisher summons Alexander with Eiko's aid to attack the enemy with its Signature Move, Divine Judgment. Her FR ability uses the power of Atomos, though it doesn't physically appear, while Braska summons Ifrit alongside her.
Freya Crescent
Freya Crescent
A young Burmecian dragon knight who travels in search of her lost love. When her homeland is in danger, she rushes to its aid with her old friend Zidane, but winds up entangled in a world-encompassing conspiracy. Understanding very well the precious nature of life, she often advises her reckless comrades against their rash actions.
Voiced by: Ai Orikasa
Recruited in Arc 2, Chapter 3 of the main story. She encounters the group at the Iifa Tree, sent there by Materia to aid them in the familiar location to help stop Kuja's machinations.
- Birds of a Feather: She immediately hits it off with Kain as a fellow dragon knight with a similar personality. Defied with Cid, whose personality is wildly different from the two of them despite also being a Dragoon (though Cid denies such terminology as well).
- Breath Weapon: Dragon Breath, with Freya summoning an energy dragon to expel a breath weapon at the enemies.
- Combat Medic: Reis's Wind and Cherry Blossom can both provide HP Regen to the party; Cherry Blossom's unique buff Soothing Petals also gives the entire party Last Stand.
- Culture Clash: When Freya learns that the people of Orience forget those who died due to the power of the crystals, she reacts with shock. This is perhaps due to her motto back in her own game: "To be forgotten is worse than death."
- Death from Above: Like Kain, her LD gives her an overhead buff that changes her BRV attack to Descending Dragon, which makes her jump offscreen and attack all the enemies with a BRV+HP attack that doesn't consume her BRV and heals and batteries the party whenever anyone takes an action until her next turn.
- In a Single Bound: Like the other Dragoons, of course. Both her standard BRV and HP attacks change into Jump and High Jump, respectively.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Dragon Breath and Cherry Blossom both summon an energy dragon to attack the enemy.
- Petal Power: Cherry Blossom, which should be obvious from the name, summons a pink energy dragon along with a flurry of cherry blossom petals.
Quina Quen
Quina Quen
From a mysterious tribe called the Qu. They are devoted to the discovery of ingredients and the pursuit of gourmet food. They follow Zidane and his friends on their travels to learn more about food. Their favorite food is frogs. They are fast-paced and put the search for gourmet food first in every situation, but their humorous personality and tone of voice bring a relaxed atmosphere even in an emergency situation.
Voiced by: Kōki Miyata
Recruited in Act 4, Chapter 1 Part 2. When the party arrives in Qu's Marsh, Zidane and Vivi immediately recognize it even though it seems to be lacking in frogs. Sure enough, Quina themself soon shows up with their usual single-minded determination to find and eat frogs, but upon being showed kindness from the rest of the party they become fixated on cooking a feast for everyone — and offer their simpleminded wisdom to help grant their wishes.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: With their Burst buff up, the party automatically deals maximum possible HP damage with each HP dump as long as the party member in question isn't broken regardless of how much BRV they have or how much HP damage resist the enemy currently has, although this effect doesn't work on attacks that deal HP damage based on a stat other than the character's normal maximum BRV, such as Jack's followup that deals damage based on the enemy's negative BRV or Sherlotta's overhead battery-based HP dumps off her special HP+ attack or LD skill. In addition to always dealing maximum HP damage with their Burst buff up, Quina's EX ability also deals rainbow BRV damage by default, and with their Frogs Caught stacks maxed out, the effect is applied to all their BRV damage.
- Berserk Button: Any form of food disrespect is the quickest way to get a rise out of them. Zidane tries to curb their hunger by telling them they don't technically need to eat in the World of Respite, only for Quina to get mad, and later when Vayne refuses to join them for food as it was a 'waste of time' again earns ire from the Qu.
- Big Eater: Quina does not seem afflicted by the inability to feel hunger in this world, even when Zidane points it out. As usual, all they're focused on is eating and trying new food.
- Commonality Connection: Ignis introduces himself as a fellow chef and the two look forward to learning from each other. Later, when preparing a feast for the whole party, Ignis is among the people helping, along with Eiko, Yuri, and Tifa.
- Extreme Omnivore: Quina doesn't just eat live frogs, as usual, but they also ask if they can eat Mog. Later, when they meet Amidatelion, they even ask if they can give the Yuke "just one lick."
- Non-Human Non-Binary: Qu are genderless by nature, which is reflected in the original game by calling them "s/he", although the game mechanics treat them as male and they're voiced by a male actor in OO. This game has them using they/them pronouns.
- Non-Indicative Name: As in their original game, their EX ability involves no handwear of any kind and most details point towards the intended name being "globe."
- Obsessed with Food: Much like in the original game, Quina prioritizes "yummies" over everything else, with their Trademark Favourite Food being frogs and their first skill involves trying to cook and eat the enemy and doing so grants additional stacks to their "Frogs Captured" overhead buff, which upgrades their second skill when maxed out. This is further referenced in their Force ability, which involves Fusoya casting Toad on all enemies, which Quina naturally jumps at the opportunity to eat.
- Older Than They Look: Despite acting very immature, being easily distracted by food and having a voice that sounds like it belongs to a young boy, Quina is officially stated to be almost 90 by the time the plot of the original game takes place.
- One-Track-Minded Hunger: As is normal for Quina, when they decide they want to eat, they will run off from the party to try and find "yummies" (normally frogs). Zidane even tries to point out how they technically don't need to eat in this world, only for them to get angry at the very implication that food was somehow unimportant.
- Overly-Long Tongue: Like all Qu, Quina has a giant tongue persistently hanging out of their mouth. Gilgamesh mentioning meeting someone with a tongue that almost reached the ground is how Zidane and Vivi realize Quina has arrived in the world.
- Simpleminded Wisdom: As usual. Quina is the one to suggest helping their enemies fulfill their wishes as well, and that maybe they'd be more amenable with a full stomach.
- Trap Master: Their LD ability inflicts the Heat status on all enemies, which deals multiple HP dumps before each enemy's turn.
Amarant Coral
Amarant Coral
Alternate Skin
A solitary fighter who is revered as one of the best in the underground. He never says anything unnecessary and doesn't trust others, but in order to understand Zidane, he began to accompany him on his journey. In the process, he learns of his own inexperience and the importance of creating bonds with his friends.
Voiced by: Shunsuke Sakuya
With the shut-down of the game, this character was only released on the Japanese Server. It was never made available on the Global Server.
Recruited in his event, "The Flaming Amarant." He first spots Laguna and Raijin traveling with Kuja, and instantly gets suspicious so he trails them on his own. Soon joined by Sice and Porom, who are unaware that he is tracking Kuja who is something of a "friend" now, Amarant clashes with Kuja until everyone catches him up on everything that has happened in this world.
- Acceptable Breaks from Canon: In the original games Demi Shock does a fixed amount of gravity damage equal to twenty percent of the enemy's health, while Countdown inflicts Doom on the enemies, which auto-kills if the timer hits zero. However, in DFFOO both attacks do standard Brave and HP Damage.
- Aloof Ally: He acts as this to Sice, who herself is prone to this trope, but she doesn't allow it because she likes the idea of fighting alongside him.
- Ambiguously Human: Amarant is a blue humanoid with wild red dreadlocks ... but is still considered a normal human. This becomes much more obvious with his alternate costume based on his Yoshitaka Amano concept art, in which he is more obviously human with flesh-colored skin and a more subdued hairstyle.
- Combat Medic: Chakra is an instant turn-rate move that restores a significant amount of health to the party.
- Commonality Connection: With his Force Partner, Sice. Both firmly believe in "Survival of the Fittest", being very critical about any perceived mistake or error, and tend not to work well with others. Although Sice learns to soften up with her teammates, and Amarant does end up warming up to the rest of the party by the end of his game as well.
- Counter-Attack: While his Burst Effect is live Amarant will counter any enemy that hits him with Counter Attack Throw. However, due to the fact Amarant has no native way to make an enemy target him, he'll need to use a Call Ability to inflict lock-on onto the enemy, or focus on enemies that use attacks that hit the entire party.
- Red Baron: The Flaming Amarant. It is also the name of his Character Event.
- Spam Attack: While his Solitary Warrior buff is active, he will finish any of his own turns by using Throw as a follow-up. While his Burst Effect is active, Throw becomes Throw+ which does more damage, and he gets an additional attack after an enemy hits him with a BRV or HP Attack called Counter Attack Throw+.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Uses Throw and Counter Throw, although it can be assumed in that case he is using actual throwing weapons. His Burst Finisher, Power Throw, however, clearly shows Amarant throwing one of every type of weapon from FFIX (minus Eiko's flutes, which she doesn't use in this game, and Kuja's magic cores).
- Wolverine Claws: His weapons are all claws/fangs, Good Old Fisticuffs weapons that typically sport one to five blades on them. Unlike most hand-to-hand characters who use a weapon on each arm, Amarant only uses a single claw/fang weapon one-handed.
Kuja
Kuja
Alternate Skin
An enigmatic man whose plots embroil the Mist Continent in war. He is known for his pompous, overblown mannerisms and theatrical rhetoric. After learning the secret to his own existence, he sets off an a maniacal pursuit to annihilate all creation.
Voiced by: Akira Ishida
Recruited in his event, "Taking the Gods' Stage", but is encountered as an enemy several times throughout the story. He is investigating the cause of the Torsions, and also wishes to free himself from the battle between the warring gods. He ends up joining the party to uncover Mog's true intentions, giving them his dimensional coordinates to be summoned for battles.
- Aloof Ally: Even after helping the party, he still only offers his coordinates to Mog to be summoned for the occasional battle.
- Badass Longcoat: Kuja's alternate costume, the Cloaked Anchorite, has him wearing an ornate black longcoat, not unlike Faris and Setzer.
- Dual Wielding: Kuja uses twin Cores of magical energy in combat.
- Energy Ball: His weapon of choice are Cores, which are unique to him. Cores are basically twin orbs of powerful magic that Kuja can use to augment his already potent magical abilities.
- Evolving Attack: By using his powers, Kuja builds up the buff "Soul Cleave" over time; these Soul Cleave stacks each give Kuja extra Max BRV and BRV regen per stack. Once he reaches four stacks of Soul Cleave his attacks evolve; Ring Holy+ now hits much harder and Ultima+ attacks twice in a row, although once used Kuja's Soul Cleave count returns to zero (unless he uses his EX beforehand which gives him the Dark Messenger buff that makes his stacks remain at full for 6 turns).
- Fragile Speedster: Plays into his chosen Assassin class back in NT, as he buffs both his speed and Max BRV very often, allowing him to hold a lot of BRV and have frequent turns, but often requires some setup to hit harder than he already currently does, on top of not having that much durability and overall average attack power (though his attacks often contain a lot of BRV hits before the HP damage portions). Thankfully, his EX+ when limit broken enough gives him a passive boost in both attack and speed, while also making him start out with Dark Messenger at the start of a quest.
- Genre Savvy: Almost to the point of Meta Guy — he even says he is just making a "cameo appearance" when he offers his dimensional coordinates to Mog to be summoned for battle and becomes playable.
- Glass Cannon: As noted under Fragile Speedster, Kuja hits everyone very hard but isn't very durable nor do his BRV damage potencies skyrocket with his average attack stat, though his attack up buffs added with his many BRV-hitting skills make up for it slightly.
- Having a Blast:
- His skill 2, Ultima (ver. IX), where he summons a wad of energy blasts from above that end in an explosion for BRV+HP damage split across all targets. When at max Soul Cleave stacks, a second wave of Ultima blasts that go upward from the ground instead with increased BRV damage potency.
- His EX ability, Symphonic Force, where he flies forward up to the target, performs a somersault while both his orbs vortex around as slashing waves of crossing energy appear to detonate a blast in front.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Kuja starts as a villain, but similar to his portrayal in the original Dissidia he doesn't really bear a grudge against Zidane anymore, so come his Character Event he provides his dimensional coordinates so the party can call on him, stating he's doing so on a whim. Come Arc 2, Chapter 3 though Kuja becomes distressed when he realizes he can't change his fate and once again turns on Zidane and the party, only to be saved by them after Kuja accidentally summons Soulcage and begrudgingly returns to being an Aloof Ally.
- Heel–Face Turn: Although many members of the party don't trust him, Kuja seems to ally himself with the hero party for the most altruistic reasons out of any of the villain party members.
- It's All About Me: Very much so as he believes in the play of life he's the leading man and everyone else are just supportive actors, or worse, mere props. After his breakdown upon realizing his fate is sealed and he cannot do everything alone, he finally relents and admits Zidane is really the leading role, and he'll delegate himself as support ... at least temporarily.
- It's Personal: When traveling with the party in his Intersecting Wills, they lose Laguna and believe that he was eaten by a monster. Kuja immediately prepares to take revenge, as he'd been getting along quite nicely with Laguna lately, until it turns out Laguna survived.
- Kick the Dog: In Arc 2, Chapter 3 after realizing he's being used by the Gods and that once they are done with him he'll be returned to his own world (where he is already dead), he loses it. He captures Vivi and attempts to emotionally (and physically) torture the poor Black Mage by replacing Vivi with a puppet to prove how interchangeable he is to his own friends, while also planning on using the fake Vivi (by emotionally manipulating the confused Dark Manikin) to kill Zidane while the real Vivi watches.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Kuja tells Garnet something along the lines of "this world is placed on the palms of destiny" - that is, palms of the players holding the phone that runs the game.
- Mortality Phobia: After Kuja joins the hero party, Zidane theorizes he's only doing this because he's still afraid to die (his fate at the end of FFIX) and wants to use the power of the Torsions to escape his destiny. Exemplified in Arc 2, Chapter 3 when Kuja realizes once the Opera Omnia world no longer needs him, he'll be sent back to his own world where he is already dead, going off the deep end as a result.
- Odd Friendship: With Laguna, and to a lesser extent Raijin. He takes some time to teach them about how to be elegant and cultured, and swiftly prepares to take revenge when it seemed like Laguna was killed by a monster. He is also pleasantly surprised to learn that Laguna was an actor who portrayed a knight, and when Laguna calls them friends he does not seem opposed to it.
- Pet the Dog: In Aphmau's Lost Chapter, Kuja is the first one to come across her sentient automatons, Ovjang and Mnejing. At first he plans on using them as pawns while he openly insults them, but when the two show him no malice and genuinely thank him for helping them, he changes his mind at the last moment and warps them directly to Aphmau. Even Zidane and Vivi are shocked to hear Kuja actually helped the two puppets.
- Power Floats: He is always airborne in battle.
- Recurring Boss: Kuja is fought several times in the story and numerous events.
- Rings of Death: His skill 1, Ring Holy, which disperses according to the number of targets. While Kuja normally fires three of them on both normal and + versions, the Extend passive version allows for him to fire a total of 6 rings instead with the + version having overflow and HP damage.
- Screw Destiny: His biggest justification for joining the hero party, he doesn't want to do what is expected of him and be a villain just because he was summoned to be one.
- Spam Attack: Ultima not only has the highest non-EX BRV hitcount out of any attack in the game at 9 hits, but with maximum Soul Cleave stacks, it also executes a second time. His LD ability, while it only deals 2 BRV+HP attacks at a time, does so 7 times in a row, with a BRV gain of 20% of the total damage done so far after each HP attack, making it the hardest-hitting attack in the entire game by a large margin until Tifa's LD that works in a similar manner.
- Tragic Villain: Hinted at beforehand but put into the forefront come Arc 2, Chapter 3. Kuja wants to find a way to Screw Destiny and avoid his fate of dying at the end of his game, only to realize whether he works for the Gods or rebels against them, once the world no longer needs him he will be sent back and die anyway. Both Vivi (who was emotionally tortured by Kuja) and Steiner (who is a moral compass for the party) both state that while they cannot forgive Kuja for the evil he's committed back on Gaia, they understand Kuja is scared and lonely and lashing out.
- Villain Teleportation: He can teleport with and without the use of Torsions.
- Villainous Breakdown: Possibly crossed with Heroic B So D, Kuja rebels against the Gods because he wants to fight against his fate in Final Fantasy IX in which he dies at the end. He eventually realizes to his horror that no matter what he does, once the world of the Gods' no longer needs him he will be returned home and die regardless. As a result the normally composed and quirky villain goes off the rails, kidnapping Vivi and attempting to use a confused Vivi manikin to kill Zidane while the real Vivi watches. He does this because Vivi is also a character destined to die at the end of FFIX, and Kuja wants him to be as despaired and alone as he feels.
- Wicked Cultured: Tends to be someone who loves to spout theatrical references (almost as much as Balthier), and even has his EX Ability named Force Symphony (which was also one of his original attacks in the PSP games).
- You Are Not Alone: As a Call-Back to the party pulling this trope on Zidane in FFIX, Kuja's former opponents all rally to help him face Soulcage, recognizing that he is a Tragic Villain and deciding to help him.
Beatrix
Beatrix
Seasoned general and pride of Alexandria. With her trusty blade Save the Queen at her side, she gives her all to defend the kingdom and its royal family. Under Queen Brahne's orders, she commanded the invasions into other nations, but later, realizing the error of her ways, she would become a valuable ally in Zidane's struggle against Kuja.
Voiced by: Yuka Komatsu
Beatrix is the first Global-first character to be released in the game. Recruited in her event, "Rose of May." Beatrix had been summoned by Materia and informed that Garnet is in the same world, so she rushed to her side in order to protect her. Struggling with the weight of her sins back in her world, Beatrix is determined to do anything she can to atone.
- The Atoner: Beatrix is well aware of the atrocities she committed back in her world, and here she is a steadfast ally to Garnet and determined to atone.
- Battle Couple: Her Burst Finisher involves her calling in Steiner, who uses Climhazard, which she follows up with Stock Break and finishing it off by having him grant her power for one last strike.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Beatrix works really well with Garnet, since her buffs benefit Garnet and make her stronger while Garnet is able to massively increase the damage of lightning element attacks, which is Beatrix's main form of damage.
- Friendly Rivalry: She sort of has this with Steiner, as she explains in her final Lost Chapter scene. She mentions that Steiner beat her in a previous duel and that she'd honestly like another chance to duel him again. But so long as they're in this new world, they are allies and should prioritize protecting Garnet.
- Hair Flip: She does one as part of her victory pose and as part of her animation when she uses her Shock LD attack.
- Jack of All Stats: She fulfills a large number of party roles but doesn't excel at any single one of them: she buffs party stats a good amount, deals respectable damage thanks to her followup and batteries the party with it, recovers an use of her main damaging skill on using her EX, counters enemy attacks, dispels enemy buffs, heals the party both passively and on command, has a multi-purpose debuff and can prevent all HP damage done to the party for a single turn, or with her Burst buff active, as long as it lasts.
- No-Sell: With her fully realized EX+, her HP+ attack changes into an unique attack for a single use: when used, she gains a buff that prevents all HP damage to the party until her next turn. Her Burst buff lets her take this even further by making it so that her own buffs don't lose duration with it active, allowing her to protect the party from HP damage much longer.
- One Woman Army: She has this reputation as the "Hundred Knight Killer." Also, she engages Tidus, Vaan, Firion, and Seifer each in one-on-one duels in her LC and beats all of them.
- Petal Power: She has this with her "Rose Petals" follow-up attack after she uses Shock, removing a buff from a target, gaining BRV based on her max BRV, dealing a defense-ignoring BRV+HP attack that deals 50% splash damage to other targets and batterying the party based on total HP damage dealt after she attacks an enemy with the debuff, which saps 10% of the target's max BRV and reduces their attack and defense by 20%. A later update also turns it into a Counter-Attack that triggers every time someone in the party with her Noble Loyalty buff takes BRV or HP damage.
- Shock and Awe: Thunder Slash is a powerful lighting elemental attack. All versions contain overflow, making it one of the earliest overflow BRV+HP Attacks in the GL version that is not an EX ability during her release.
- Stab the Sky: She does this before using Thunder Slash, though it's more of holding the sword up just to charge it with lightning. She and Steiner also do this at the end of her Burst Finisher with both of them holding her sword aloft, much like in her original game's ending FMV.
- Status Buff: Has two unique ones, Noble Loyalty and Sworn General. All of her attacks also change into stronger versions if the party has a total of 12 or more buffs currently active.
- Sword Plant: She does this when using Saint Cloth.
- To Be Lawful or Good: She and the party talk about how she struggled with this back in her world and, before meeting her, wonder if she'd have memories from before or after deciding to be Good. However, she has gone through her Character Development and settled firmly on the side of Good.
- Undying Loyalty: To Garnet.
