Party Members you never bring along

Sometimes they are irritating. Sometimes they are useless(or worse a liability). Sometimes you just aren't interested in them. For whatever reason these characters stay out of combat and active use.

Off the top of my head is Repede from Tales Of Vesperia. He's not annoying or anything, he's just kinda boring. He is a regular dog(well for a given value of regular dog, Cutlass Between the Teeth nonwithstanding) so he doesn't talk or do much for the plot. Plus his role in combat as a striker / support(via running interference) were easily handled by Yuri, Raven and Judy.

In Knights Of The Old Republic I never brought Mission or Zaalbar except when the story required it. T3-M4 was better at being a skill-bot(seriously is there anything that little guy can't do?) and Revan and the other Jedi were better at melee than than the Wookie.

Repede had a pipe. A dog with a pipe! Need I say more?

edited 7th Jun '10 10:13:41 PM by Clarste

First KOTOR I also never brought Mission or Zaalbar except when the plot required. I also never brought Juhani except when she was forced into my party for the second-to-last dungeon.

Second KOTOR I never brought G0-T0, HK 47 (Got them too late in the game to care) Visas (Except maybe once, but generally no) Kreia (irritating bitch).

Mass Effect: Kaidan. Yet I still stumbled upon his romance option.

Chu-Chu. Why would I?

Vincent and Cait Sith. In a game where a character's only distinguishing features are the Limit Breaks they bring to the table, these two the incredible selling point of not being able to control them at all. Whee!

Quistis and Rinoa. See above regarding limits, except Blue Magic is lame while Angelo Whatever is the only uncontrollable one. Selphie at least has The End.

Natalia. Although that's not her fault for being a bad character - she's quite good. It's the game's fault for deciding to remove her from my party through an extremely annoying glitch.

edited 7th Jun '10 10:23:38 PM by Shale

If the game gives me complete freedom of who I'm going to choose, and there are no specialized circumstances for which some characters are better or worse, I pick whoever fits my party best and never let go of them. As a rule of thumb, I dump whoever moves the slowest (ex. Man-Bot), followed by whoever's the frailest melee specialist (ex. that girl with the flower in her hair), followed by whoever has no positive contribution to the group (ex. Garrick, who gets high-tier spells early but sucks at casting them.) There are other ways of getting dumped, though: I speak for many when I say that the incredible power of mages in Dragon Age was not worth the hassle of putting up with Morrigan.

edited 7th Jun '10 10:42:27 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

I rarely bring along a dedicated healer in any RPG. Tales of Vesperia was one of the few times that I did, largely because Repede was uninteresting (personally), Karol was too goddamn slow, and Judith had a tendency to fuck up my combos.

Also, anyone in Mass Effect/2 that isn't Tali, Garrus, Wrex, or Kasumi. It's not that any of the others are bad characters, or anything, but those four are just so much fun. I probably crippled myself on my Insanity run by sticking with them, but I don't care, dammit. EDIT: Mordin can come along every once in a while, too.

Also also, as soon as I got the option, Vanille left my party and never came back unless I didn't have a choice.

edited 7th Jun '10 10:59:15 PM by Theoneknownasme

• Baldur's Gate II : Aerie. Damn Aerie. Did all the party combination but .. her? Never. Never in my part. Never ever never ever ever. Grr.
• KOTOR I : Carth. Just. Carth.
• KOTOR II : Hanharr and Miria, depending on the playthrough. I always get them too late to make any use of them.

Dragon Age : Sten. I like the guy but meh, can't really find a use for him in the battlefield. Same for Oghren, except I don't even like him that much.

• Dragon Age Awakening : Oghren. Yeah, again.
• NWN 2 : Casavir. Oh god, Casavir. Paladin with an annoying personality? I wonder what they were thinking when they wrote the character.
• NWN 2 Mask of the Betrayer : Okku. Guy was a multicolor bear, so he should be awesome, but he just didn't fit my party. Sorry Okku =/
• Mass Effect : Pretty much everyone except Ashley and Tali. Companions weren't exactly so useful anyway, so I just brought eyecandy with me.

edited 7th Jun '10 10:57:55 PM by WorstUsernameEver

I'm not a bug, I'm a feature!

I'm sure there were others, but off the top of my head...

• Romancing Sa Ga: Herman. Yes, I know he has great LP, but that voice!
• Breath Of Fire: Unless you count when he was merged with Karn, Gobi.

edited 7th Jun '10 11:33:54 PM by FoominBlue

Breath Of Fire III: Nina. Offensive magic pales in comparison to any of Ryu's Dragon Forms.
Final Fantasy VI: Umaro. Berserkers, ew.
Final Fantasy VII: Cait Sith, obviously.
Chrono Trigger: Marle may be the best healer in the game, but her offense isn't the best.

"Wait, it's IV. Of course they are. They'd make IV for Dreamcast." - Enlong, on yet another FFIV remake

Off-topic: You know, I was just now contemplating making a similar, but much more inclusive thread. Should I make derivatives by genre, by type, or just one big thread?

I am a proud member of the Western Federation's Anti-Japan Media Task Force. My work is very important.

Johnny. And he was the protagonist.

Yosuke. If you're going to be a jerkass, then you don't get to come fight Shadows and possibly die... uh, wait. Also Teddie, because he annoyed me.

Torment liveblog is still hiatusing. You can vandalize my contributor page if you want something to do.

• Final Fantasy VI: Umaru. Just so useless.
• Enchanted Arms: Golems. Humans actually need SP for most of the game, and by the time they run out of skills they have a bunch of gamebreakers.
• Final Fantasy XIII: Snow because I hate him, and Sazh because he sucks.
• Final Fantasy VII: Aeris. I knew ahead of time that she was going to die. Also; I hate her.
• Chrono Trigger: Any male not named 'Crono'. Magus' inability to use multi-techs is crippling, Robo is slow with awkward ranges, and Frog isn't actually good at anything.
• Bahamut Lagoon: The minidevils. They're useless.

edited 7th Jun '10 11:54:10 PM by Hylarn

So I'm the only one who abused the Magus/Lucca/Marle triple-tech, then?

Why would you need to make a new thread? Any party member you don't like bringing along regardless of genre is fine.

Or you mean stuff like "NP Cs you try to avoid interacting with" sort of spin off?

Equipment, vehicles, Party Members, NPCs, etc. etc. That's what I mean.

I am a proud member of the Western Federation's Anti-Japan Media Task Force. My work is very important.

Final Fantasy Tactics:

• Meliadoul: Between Cid and Agrias, why do I need her?
• Rafa and Malak: Who?
• Cloud: Yeah, no, not training him up from level 1 and hunting down his crappy sword so I can watch him sit still for eight turns.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness: Hoggmeister, Maderas, CAPTAIN GORDON, DEFENDER OF EARTH!, Jennifer, Thursday, and Kurtis. By the time I have them on my party, all my other characters are far better.

Final Fantasy VI: Cyan, Umaro, Gogo, and Mog. Gau is useful in the early parts of the game, but Rage collection is quite tedious.

Ah, I suppose a spin off thread would be the best choice. One for NP Cs and one for equipment and vehicles seems like the most sensible option.

• Enchanted Arms: Golems 90% of the time. The human characters become crazy awesome, especially via extensive casino abuse. Late game this number goes up to 100%.
• Final Fantasy VIII: Anyone not named Zell and Irvine.
• Final Fantasy IX: Anyone not named Steiner, Freya and Aramant.
• Final Fantasy XIII: Anyone not named Hope and Fang.
• Star Ocean Till The End Of Time: Anyone not named Maria and Albel.
• Star Ocean The Last Hope: Anyone not named Reimi and Arumat.
• Digital Devil Saga: Argilla in the first one.

edited 8th Jun '10 12:22:26 AM by Anaheyla

This is still a signature.

Are you kidding me? Frog is pretty much a better version of Marle. Speaking of which I never did use Marle or Lucca that much when I didn't have to on my first playthrough.

You are not alone, and you are not strange. You are you, and everyone has damage. Be the better person.

Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn: Meg. She's fat and ugly, her entire backstory consists of her trying to force him to marry her rape bishie Zihark, and she comes in completely underleveled, which is awful for a class like an Armor that can't really rack up the kill exp. Not to mention her father is dumb as a brick.

Also seconding the Vanille hatedom. She's just awful.

Star Ocean four also has that annoying girl that talks like she is five years old. Not really my type.

Fear is our ally. The gasoline will be ours. A Honey Badger does not kill you to eat you. It tears off your testicles.

Dragon Age: Zevran. Sure, he's a rogue, but he's friggin' USELESS at the stuff I want him to do. When I got him on my first playthrough he could barely unlock any chests. Leliana is a whole lot more useful.

\Mass Effect, not really. I may not bring them along very much, but I bring everyone on at least one mission. Garrus, Grunt, and Tali are my party of choice, though.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

FFI: Thief, god, he's useless. White mage also qualifies sometimes.

-FFs in which you can't change your party and/or I try each and every one of the jobs-

FFVI: I find it funny to be the only one who kicked Kefka's ass to the hell and back with Mog, Umaro, Gau and Cyan (and I have Gogo in my main party). The character I don't like to use is Terra, Celes is just better, and at least has some character development.

FFVII: Vincent or Cait Sith, Vincent because I don't like him, Cait Sith because... I don't like him Reeve is pretty cool, though.

FFVIII: anyone who's not Selphie or Zell (or Squall), at least those two are supposed to be stupid.

- I like everybody in FFIX and since you can switch characters in the middle of the battle in X...-

FFXII: What do you mean Penelo is a character? I only use her to cast life when too many people die.

FFTAdvance/A2: Any mog, I don't like them, and I don't like their jobs. And of course: Montblanc can burn in a fire. Also: Ritz.

Chrono Trigger: I used to put everyone in my party at least for a while, except for Lucca.

Suikoden V: Lyon, stupid brat.

Pokémon: Pikachu. Go kill yourself and your entire species, damned yellow rat from hell. I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOUR FACE.

Mass Effect: Kaidan Alenko.

Phantasy Star Portable: I wish I could choose to go always alone.

And I'm sure I played some more games with parties, but I can't remember them.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, I remembered one two more:

Tales Of Eternia: The damn little pirate brat, however she was called.

Legend Of Dragoon: The Female Love Interest, I don't even know what's her name.

edited 8th Jun '10 7:56:55 AM by Zakdos

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