With Final Fantasy XVI out, we have a new hero joining the pantheon of series’ protagonists. But where does Clive rank on a list of the best main characters to grace a Final Fantasy game? How does he stack up against classic characters like Cloud and Zidane? Let’s take a trip through Final Fantasy hero history and find out by ranking them from worst to best.
Because of how he came to be, Luneth doesn’t stand out compared to other Final Fantasy protagonists: He’s essentially a personality grafted onto something that was once nameless. In the original Final Fantasy III, the party was made up of four Warriors of Light that were mostly blank slates and didn’t have the same characterization as the most memorable Final Fantasy characters. However, the DS remake gave these characters names and more fleshed-out stories. But even so, it doesn’t feel like Square Enix really acknowledges him as the real protagonist of Final Fantasy III. He doesn’t even get to represent the game in the Dissidia series, which instead has a kind of generic Onion Knight character meant to encapsulate the original Warriors of Light. RIP to him.
Final Fantasy II is what some consider to be the “black sheep” of the franchise, and as such, Firion isn’t widely beloved the way several of the other heroes are. Much like the game’s story itself, Firion is pretty generic compared, to the point where I have a hard time coming up with notable things to say about him. Meh.
Vaan’s probably fine. As a protagonist, he is extremely forgettable because almost everyone in Final Fantasy XII is more memorable and central to the game’s conflict. So when you’ve got a guy who is mainly just following the important people around so you, the player, can watch events unfold, it just makes you constantly ask, why am I not playing Balthier or Fran instead?
Final Fantasy V’s Bartz is almost entirely characterized by his optimism and free spirit. t’s refreshing to look back at an early FF protagonist who doesn’t fall into some variation of broody sad man given the melodrama of much of the series’ modern heroes. He’s pretty likable, even if his story hasn’t had the staying power of other games in the franchise.
Noctis is a protagonist who is infinitely lifted up by his friends, both literally and as a hero. The would-be king of Lucis is the centerpiece of Final Fantasy XV’s road trip and in that context, he works well as the angsty little brother to a bunch of guys who love the fuck out of him and want to help him succeed. That dynamic is what makes Noctis compelling more than anything he specifically has going on. Final Fantasy XV’s writing is all over the place, though, and even the strength of that dynamic can’t elevate him higher on this list.
Initially a side character and living MacGuffin in Final Fantasy XIII, Serah becomes the main character of Final Fantasy XIII-2, and gets a lot of much-needed agency. Compared to her more distant sister Lightning, Serah is joyful, outwardly loving, and wears her selflessness on her sleeve. As the reality of XIII-2’s time travel shenanigans make it clear that saving s the timeline will lead to her death, she dives headfirst into it without hesitation. The Final Fantasy XIII trilogy is full of selfless heroes, but the immediacy with which Serah puts herself on the line for others stands out. She doesn’t need to doubt. She doesn’t need to fear. It makes it tragic when it comes to light she was playing right into the hands of Caius, the villain who seeks to stop time itself for his own noble cause, but she believes in her heart this is what she has to do.
Final Fantasy X’s himbo jock with daddy issues gets a bad rap because people take the game’s iconic laugh scene out of context and say he whines too much. This guy is going through it, and if you were propelled 1,000 years into the future and found out everything you know and love has been leveled by a giant whale monster who is actually your dad, you would be, too.
Though the player inhabits him, Tidus isn’t really the main character of Final Fantasy X—Yuna is. But he exists as an inverse to her journey. Whereas he starts off as selfish, angry, and thrashing through the world of Spira for answers, she starts off selfless and willing to give her life for everyone else at the expense of who and what she wants to be. By the end, Yuna isn’t the one who is sacrificed for the greater good, as was the plan. Tidus learns his life is forfeit if the world of Spira is to thrive, and where once he would have given anything to leave, he gives his life so it can flourish. While he may disappear at the end of Final Fantasy X, he teaches Yuna her selfless love for the people of Spira doesn’t have to be at the expense of what she wants for herself, and helps catapult her into an even better arc in the sequel. Perhaps it is fitting that on a ranking of Final Fantasy heroes, Tidus falls off before Yuna, as his story is core to what makes hers in the sequel so profound.
Technically, Final Fantasy VI isn’t meant to have a central protagonist, but Terra has taken on that role in the years since the original game launched on the Super Nintendo. Despite its ensemble structure, Final Fantasy VI shows some favoritism toward her, from her appearing in the game’s logo, to having you play as her before anyone else in the cast. So it makes sense she would end up representing the party in games like Dissidia or World of Final Fantasy.
In the harsh world of Final Fantasy VI, Terra is often faced with the constant damning realization that to those around her, she is just a tool to be used. Her magical esper/human identity places her in the center of several of the game’s conflicts as she struggles to understand her place in the world and what she actually wants out of the life she’s been given. Because she was being controlled by the maniacal villain Kefka for so long, she spends the early parts of the game struggling with amnesia and trying to determine who she is and sort through emotions she doesn’t know how to contextualize. It’s through her connections with those around her that she determines she’s capable of feeling love for others, and she wants to fight for that. And as she goes on to prove, that kind of love can change the world.
Final Fantasy IX’s Zidane is a bit of a palate cleanser for the series after Terra, Cloud, and Squall gave us three gloomy protagonists, and harkens back to characters like Bartz who are more carefree in the midst of a lot of strife.
Initially, he starts as a happy-go-lucky kid who is largely characterized by his charming and playful nature. He’s a bit of a trickster and a thief and doesn’t really take anything seriously. However, as the truth of his nature as an Angel of Death comes to light, Zidane is forced to confront some harrowing, world-shattering stakes and grow up real quick. Zidane is good in the same way Final Fantasy IX is: His emotional range has a wide spectrum, and it makes him both likable and deeply sympathetic.
As the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy evolved, Claire “Lightning” Farron is forced to inhabit several different roles. She goes from a member of the military swept up in the Fal’Cie’s petty squabbles, to a guardian of a god in Final Fantasy XIII-2, then ultimately, the savior of everyone in Lightning Returns. Throughout it all, she maintains a stoicism, much to the frustration of everyone who tries to connect with her. She is duty-driven and capable, but after literal centuries of fighting, Lightning Returns asks why she insists upon walling herself off from everyone who loves her.
In this game, we meet Lumina, the personification of every vulnerability Lightning once deemed too childish to hold onto. In the end, Lightning accepts that despite her stubborn need to handle everything from saving her sister, to moving an entire universe into a new world, she needs others. Lightning can be walled off, she can feel like she isn’t relatable because she tries so hard not to be. But she’s just as broken, lonely, and loving as the rest of us.
Squall (the best-looking guy here) is easy to dismiss as Cloud Strife II: But Meaner This Time, because he’s angsty, stoic, and has iconic, cutting one-liners. He starts off as an angry loner indifferent to others’ feelings, but as time marches forward and circumstances change, he is dragged into a leadership position. He can no longer treat people as disturbances of his peace, and has to connect with them on levels he once would have found insufferable.
Squall wants to be alone. He doesn’t want to rely on or care for others. But as he’s forced to work alongside people and grows protective of them, he sorts through his emotional constipation and finds connections he once would have scoffed at. Through becoming a leader, Squall goes from a misanthrope deadset on his own isolation to someone who risks his life for those he loves, and that’s beautiful.
Also, his gunblade is fucking sick.
Cloud is the quintessential Final Fantasy protagonist. He’s broody, he’s badass, he has a big sword. At first, he seems like he’s just a merc for hire, a weapon to be pointed and shot at an enemy. But as he’s forced to reckon with the realities of Midgar and the rest of the world, he grows to care for those around him and their plights, which leads to some of the game’s most devastating reveals. And it already has plenty of those.
Much like Clive, Cloud is at his best when he is subversive. He’s proficient with the Buster Sword, but watching his guard come down alongside Aerith and Tifa, seeing him have to care about Barret’s cause, then sitting with his pain as his own world comes crashing down is all even more impactful than watching him be the sullen action hero he thinks he has to be.
It’s funny to think back on early looks at Final Fantasy XVI that made Clive look like a broody edgelord protagonist, because now that the game is out, it’s clear that he’s actually a big softy. That’s not to say his story isn’t dark. He goes from believing himself responsible for the death of his brother to fighting for the freedom of the enslaved Branded people of Valisthea. But in between the gravitas and drama, Clive is just a sweetheart enveloped in a corset that shows off his slutty little waist.
Final Fantasy XVI is full of huge setpieces and spectacular battles, but Clive stands out most when the game is tender. It’s in hushed moments between him and Cid, Jill, and others that Clive is able to be more than a Dominant, and more than a figurehead bearing someone else’s name.
Cecil feels like a fulcrum point for Final Fantasy heroes. The Final Fantasy IV protagonist set the stage for future Final Fantasy leads to question the world around them and to stand against oppressive systems. While subsequent games would take on new stages, new allegories, and new heroes, the core theme of facing the truth and your place in it has reverberated through the franchise in the years since Final Fantasy IV. Cecil is the blueprint for nearly every hero that followed.
Though Yuna doesn’t get to be on the box of Final Fantasy X, she is undeniably the main character of both it and its sequel Final Fantasy X-2. Her journey from a selfless summoner willing to put herself through the gristmill of Spira’s battle with Sin requires her to confront a lifetime of deeply ingrained beliefs. Once she begins to question everything she’s ever been taught, she pulls an entire world into a new era by destroying Yevon and dismantling the oppressive systems it put in place.
But that’s only the beginning of her story. In Final Fantasy X-2, she takes that newfound freedom and decides for herself who she is in a world that once required her to relinquish everything. She turns from a sacrificial lamb to a free spirit, no longer shackled by the expectations of a world that sought to keep her locked in a cage for slaughter. Final Fantasy X-2 is often lambasted for its shift from the original game’s melodrama into something more upbeat and campy, but it embodies a freedom its heroine finally gets to experience. It is the conclusion of an arc of a universe and the character in its center.