Final Fantasy 9 True Cast

		True Cast
		Zidane:  He's an amusing hero because he's so unrelated to the plot at first, but then at the end he becomes overloaded with plot relation. It's a good format for this lead character though because he builds up such a "good guy" character by performing a bunch of selfless tasks to help his friends and his world, then he has a breakdown later on because he is having his own problems and doesn't want to ask others for help. He's a great, self-sacrificing main character that has good intentions. He makes the game easy to understand because his whole style is to help people, so it makes sense why he's going from town-to-town and saving everybody; it's his nature to help people. Sure he's a thieving thief nature, but he's a terrible thief, so it all works out.
		Garnet: This story is really about Garnet. Would I classify her as a bigger role than Zidane? Not really. Her personality isn't right for a main character, even with her "less talkative than Squall" portion of the game! Her personality doesn't quite work since she is still a helpless damsel in distress character through most of the game. She gains some courage and strength, but she still needs Zidane and Steiner to save her at every turn. She has strength in character, but she is unable to assert herself well enough to take a truly leading role.
		Vivi: Vivi is intense. His role in the game is very large, and yet, whenever I play I don't really notice how large his role really is. He finds these creatures that look and act like him, only to find they're soul-less puppets. Talk about a head trip! He adventures with the group to learn about himself and his "people" and gradually changes from a timid little slave into a go-getter out for blood....sort of. He's always still a nice guy and never loses that aspect of himself, but he really grows up throughout this journey. And as a fun fact, did you ever notice that aside from those Zidane-only moments like the Festival of the Hunt, Vivi is the one character (besides Zidane) to never leave the main party? Yeah, this little dude is True Cast 100%.
		Steiner: Just like Vivi, Steiner grows up throughout the game. He experiences disloyalty from a queen he has never questioned and was put in a predicament he never expected. He was suddenly forced to choose between the princess he had sworn to protect against the queen he had sworn to defend. Loyalty was all he knew, then he was told that he had to be disloyal to somebody. He had to use his own brain and, in doing so, his life changed tremendously. He fell in with criminals, only to find they weren't the scum he believed them to be and he also fell in love with his rival, bonded by their love for their country, flawed as it may have been. Although Steiner has several moments throughout the game where he is nothing more than your team's heavy hitter, he is intertwined with the plot completely and is one of the people that really impacts the plot. Think about all that Garnet was able to do because she had his support. Sure, it's her leadership that takes her back to Alexandria and separates from Zidane, but she wouldn't have done it without Steiner.
		Secondary Cast
		Freya: Even during the Burmecia/Cleyra events, Freya still somehow manages to be somewhat backgrounded. She's a driving force to visit that section of the world, which exposes a lot of what Brahne was up to and the culture of their people, but her role in everything is often unseen. Burmecia rarely has any talking scenes in it and Cleyra often has Freya separate from Zidane. Even when she joins Beatrix to fight Brahne's forces, it's more a modifier of Steiner's character to help him make his decision. After her separation from Zidane's group, she never really comes back, either. She's around, often just to pester Amarant, but she says and does little else in the entire game.
		Eiko: Her late arrival into the game is the penalty that puts her in Secondary Cast instead of True Cast. She has a plot with Madain Sari, which introduces Garnet to her homeland, but most of Eiko's story is used to modify Garnet's story instead of creating her own. Any elements of the story that apply to Eiko are either things that Garnet went through (Eidolon extraction) or to give summoners a backstory and maybe give Garnet a bit of motivation to use her Eidolons again. I almost wish that Eiko would've just replaced Garnet in the cast since she's almost an exact copy in combat only with better skills. But since she didn't: Secondary Cast.
		Unnecessary Cast
		Quina: Yummy-yummies! Quina goes with you to eat things. Mushrooms, pickles, every monster s/he comes across, whatever. Quina, depending on your actions, is with you for a fair portion of the game and pops up quite often throughout, but never to progress plot. S/he is the comic relief with no purpose. Not only does she serve no purpose, but for me she tries to ruin the plot of the game. Don't get me wrong, I love Quina, but when Zidane has some tragic unveiling of his plot in Terra and Quina comes out and says "My master tells me, somebody gives you tasties, you give them tasties, too. Is good manners! I still not cook you succulent frog, Zidane." Like, yeah, the sentiment is there. Friendship and all that, but in an emotional scene, I'd probably leave out the thing with the giant tongue that just talks about food. And yet, despite all of this, she's still a more meaningful character than the following cast member. . . .
		Amarant: Amarant might be one of the most tacked-on, useless characters (plot-wise) in any Final Fantasy. Sure, there were the original, nameless heroes in the first few games and Umaro in Final Fantasy 6, but Amarant comes from a generation with higher plot expectations and from a game with some of the most characterization ever, and still fails. He joins your party why? Because he wants to die. Or see what makes Zidane tick. Whatever. And then what does he do in the game? He...races you through Ipsen's Castle? He carries Vivi and Eiko up the Iifa Tree? He goes with Freya to the Fire Shrine where you, the player don't even get to see the boss fight? There is nothing that he does in the game. At all! This man is an Unnecessary Cast All-Star!
		Final Remarks      Final Fantasy 9 has always been about the first half to three-fourths of the game for me, and the reason is the character and plot development. The game may start slow, but it picks up and has some really interesting developments like the wars between the nations and such. But then you journey to the Outer Continent and gain people like Eiko and Amarant and the whole plot just kinda...stops. It picks up again, but it's a change in direction that is so drastic that the game feels almost like two games: Brahne's half and Kuja's half, if we let villains dictate the borders.      The characters from Kuja's half (Eiko and Amarant) go very unnoticed. Eiko is Garnet redux and Amarant is...around. The formula is good: focus on characters, then focus on plot, but if you're going to have a focus like that, then you need to obtain all your party members before you switch to such a character-less plot. Eiko gets a house party and then it's back to the main plot. But hey, Amarant doesn't even get that! And Quina, well, s/he is optional up until (I think) the Outer Continent, so his development isn't much more than yummy-yummies because the other, required characters are filling all of the important dialogue, so all s/he can really do is talk to himself. Even Freya is left somewhat in the dust because she joins you, you do a couple things, then she leaves again, only to rejoin you late in the game.      One final comment about ATE's. Active-Time Events are decent for character development, but meaningless when it comes to forming a True Cast. Amarant's backstory as a bodyguard or bouncer or whatever didn't make him any more important to the plot. Quina's constant search for food which often includes jumping off of tall things and into bodies of water is funny, but doesn't add anything to the game except a few cheap laughs. Most ATE's were humor-based, which starts to become almost annoying at a point because you just want to get from A to B, but then five ATE's pop up and you have to decide: Do these matter? Should I watch them? Or is Quina just going to lick Terra's sacred crystal?