Final Fantasy 6: Every Party Member, Ranked From Weakest To Most Powerful

Final Fantasy has ranged from a single playable character at lowest, in Final Fantasy 16, to a whopping 14 permanent party members in Final Fantasy 6. If you've clicked this article, you know it's that latter game we're here to discuss - and for good reason, given the size of its cast.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake: What The Tifa Outfit Choice Actually Does

When Tifa asks Cloud to pick an outfit for her in FF7 Remake, the choice comes into play later.

Let's take a look at each of them in turn. How do they fare as potential slots on your four-person squad? At the end of the day, anyone can work well enough, and surely our analysis won't be universally accepted. But hey, conversation's half the fun.

Just to emphasize the point, we're ranking based on gameplay capabilities, not beloved personalities or anything of the sort. This is a mechanical approach!

14 Gogo

Right off the bat, we may get some side-eye here. Gogo's ability to mimic his fellow party members is rad. He can equip separate commands, too, which is, you know, twice as rad. He's a little bit like a Freelancer in Final Fantasy 5. Or, perhaps far more aptly, like Gogo himself in Final Fantasy 5.

The trouble starts brewing when you consider that Gogo cannot equip Espers. Not being able to summon Espers is, on its own, not a big deal. Not being able to raise a character's stats through Espers, on the other hand, means they'll be left helplessly behind in the game's most important growth aspect.

Top it all off with the fact that Gogo's stats are dire. It's a bad mix for our situationally spiffy mime.

13 Umaro

Umaro is probably the most powerful party member in Final Fantasy 6. Which makes it sort of awkward that he's second-to-last on a ranked list of the most powerful party members... in... Final Fantasy 6.

If you're a veteran of FF6, however, you probably already know what's up here. Umaro can't be controlled. You can equip a couple of highly useful accessories that turn him into a powerhouse and only a powerhouse, but he can't learn stat boosts from Espers, either.

We'll give him this - Umaro may not be the cat's meow most of the time, but his completely predictable move set? That makes him the best pick at the Coliseum!

12 Strago Magus

These first few picks aren't exactly shockers, eh? Blue Mages are a nifty Final Fantasy tradition, characters who can learn a wide range of monster skills for a variety of damage and fun effects. Strago himself isn't a bad example of a Blue Mage; the trouble is, there's sort of someone substantially better at it.

Neither are the vast majority of Strago's Blue Mage spells real winners relative to the most devastating attacks most other characters can achieve. When you factor in that poor Strago is, of the game's four most blatant mage-like characters, fourth place for magic stat, Strago doesn't have a ton going for him.

11 Setzer Gabbiani

Setzer's one of the few characters whose presence in your party is downright mandatory in the World of Ruin, so one would hope he'd be fantastic. He kind of isn't. But that's OK, because he's hardly dire, either.

The 13 Best Weapons In Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Ranked

Equip Cloud, Aerith, Barrett, Tifa, and the rest of the party with the strongest and most useful weapons you can find in FFVII Rebirth.

Give Setzer the Fixed Dice as soon as you find them, and he'll remain modestly competitive. But Slots is unreliable at best, and Setzer's inherent damage output isn't anything to write home about. Setzer simply exists; then again, this carefree rogue probably prefers it that way.

Mog does, however, join at an above average level in the world of balance, which helps his usefulness. Furthermore, you need him if you want to use Molulu's charm, which lets you skip random encounters completely. Furthermore, Mog has decent stats and excellent equipment. The snow scarf is the best defensive item in the game and Mog also makes an excellent dragoon.

10 Cyan Garamonde

Poor noble Cyan spent a long time as a downright poor party member. From Final Fantasy 6's 1994 debut until the mid-2010s original mobile and Steam ports, his special ability, Bushido, involved waiting in real-time for a bar to fill, thus allowing enemies to repeatedly attack you, thus making his attacks objectively not worth the whole ordeal.

Something changed with those ports, and it was made all the better with FF6 Pixel Remaster. You no longer have to wait it out. Cyan still needs a charge time, but you can continue controlling the other characters. All of a sudden, this guy's genuinely decent arsenal is far more appealing.

Cyan's still no full-blown winner, but boy, does it feel good to see him escape that traumatic past.

9 Locke Cole

Locke's one of the harder FF6 characters to rank. Power-wise, anyway. (Personality-wise, he's great!) He's pretty unreliable for a long stretch of the game. Apart from his stealing, there's nothing Locke can do that someone else can't do better. He's frankly kind of weak.

The fates smile on our thief more so in the World of Ruin, when low health and the Valiant Knife turn him into a fierce four-hit fighter. Still, even then there are some better picks, and it's just so hard to look past Locke's mediocrity earlier on.

8 Mog

Don't underestimate the utility to be found in Mog's Dances. Sure, there are only eight in all, but every one of them's a good call in the right circumstances.

Mog's also one of the best characters to use as a makeshift 'Dragoon class', since he does well with the relics that essentially turn a character into that archetype. You should definitely pursue this path when you've got him in your party, but there's someone still to come who does an even better job of it.

7 Shadow

If we were speaking purely in terms of evasive capabilities, and we don't think that'd be worth an entire list, but hey, who knows, Shadow would curb stomp the competition. He joins with a high Evasion stat, and grinding that out to a point where he can avoid attacks at least nine times out of ten? That's amazing.

That's why he makes it this far, in fact. Shadow's damage output starts off notably great if you can afford his Shurikens and their elemental peers. They're still fine in the World of Ruin, but they've certainly lost something of their edge.

Shadow's a speedy fellow who has a good chance of remaining alive to save you from a party wipe, but strength isn't his, er, strong suit.

6 Sabin Figaro

Sabin is pretty cool! His fighting-game-like ability inputs are easier than ever to get down in FF6's Pixel Remaster version, and the way that some are reliant more on Strength than Magic, yet others are vice-versa, gives the guy good reason to invest in both stats almost equally.

Doing so means spending less time with Sabin at peak efficiency on either end of the equation, however, or else ignoring certain Blitz techniques altogether. He's also largely incapable of reaching the multi-damage heights of the best characters - or Locke, for that matter, somewhat impeded though Locke may be.

5 Relm Arrowny

Relm's unique command, Sketch, is bad. We wouldn't recommend using it beyond the realm of curiosity, if that. It's just not what the game cracks it up to be.

Final Fantasy: The 8 Best Summoners In The Series

Here are the best summoners in the Final Fantasy series!

But Relm cannot so easily be written off. Though she's quite frail and lacks the equipment prowess that really pushes them to the next level, Relm's base Magic stat is the highest in FF6 - even higher, yes, than Terra's and Celes'. If you want a fierce spell-slinger and don't mean constant healing sessions, Relm's not kidding around.