While JRPGs have always touted the strength of their world building and compelling narratives, Western RPGs have often had the upper hand when it comes to compelling characters. Needless to say, there are many, many exceptions to this rule!
Still, if you’ve played many JRPGs in your lifetime you have thought “I love this game, but __________ is SO annoying!”
What party members do you wish you could mute? I realize they might essential to the narrative… so let’s ignore that. Just on a “I find this character very grating” scale.
Teepo (Tales of Xillia) drove me bonkers, personally.
Words don’t even begin to describe the depths of hatred I have for this character. EVERYTHING, from her arc to her personality, was handled so badly that I almost screamed while playing at a few points. All of those teens are messy, but Yukari is the only one who doesn’t actually grow or learn a lesson by the end. AND SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO.
Lost Odyssey is a forgotten masterpiece and more people should play it (it was free on Xbox a while back!). That said, the kid party members, Cooke and Mack, were the woooorst.
Since it’s the latest JRPG I played, I have to say Prompto in Final Fantasy 15. There are moments where he isn’t terrible, but if I met him in real life I would be exhausted after five minutes.
Yukiko from P4
We already got Yusuke here so I’m going with another P4 character. She’s not completely bad but just bland as her story isn’t very interesting, kinda petty, and is just a simple friend for Chie. All the other female characters have a lot deeper back story and purpose to the game than she is.
Ringabel from Bravely Default (pervy young man instead of pervy old) because the game drags even for a JRPG and his ogling is exhausting.
See also Edgar from FFVI, he was growing on me despite the pervy archetype until he said “See you in ten years, kid” to Relm after asking her age vomits
ostensibly the ‘best friend’ type character in Persona 4 except that he never really actually does anything to justify this spot. He constantly whines, everything is an imposition and it’s really super hard to think about any redeeming qualities of his personality.
But even worse, he absolutely never, ever misses an opportunity to have a gay panic moment with Kanji. To the game’s credit that leads to one of the best Kanji lines in the game, but it still sucks,
and the games dialogue choices never give you the opportunity to call him out on his bullshit,
so you just have to kinda ignore it.
I always max out the social link with Yosuke, because you get to punch him real hard at the end of it. At his request, but still.
I vaguely recall that his tragic backstory involved spilling coffee on someone’s computer and it further cemented my intense irritation at his constant presence.
I could only take so much of Ryuji saying a variant of ‘Damn it!’ and ‘This is bullshit!’ for about ninety hours. It feels like every scene with him involved had one of those two lines.
His arc is also rather disappointing? I wish it dove more into his home life rather than like, him and his ongoing problems with the track team, which I found to be the least interesting part of his character.
