CLOSED - Rate Cross Characters 44: Zappa

[ZeaLitY]

Evaluate Viper based on his character design, combat usefulness, and Tilt factor -- which can mean anything, from how much he strikes you as cool to how important he is to the plot.

http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Zappa.html

[ZeaLitY]

Design: Take a closer look. That dude has the metal theme down.

Combat: His son Karsh sort of outdoes him in terms of kickassery, but come on..."Balls of Iron".

Tilt: Zappa has some good scenes, like wildly resisting the closure of his shop, expressing disbelief at seeing Karsh alive (and the dramatic irony is emotionally painful to endure), and uniting with the old Deva guard in one of the endings. I'd love to see his tenure (well, and that of the other Devas) on the Zenan mainland. I bet he was pure awesome. In Cross, his power is diluted by Karsh and Viper, who each share different traits with him and execute them more uniquely. But Zappa's still a good, memorable character.

B

Without thinking, I could have put C, but then I would have been no better than the depressive downvoter clique who plague these polls with weird, indignant discomfort.

[Kyronea]

Character Design: Blacksmiths don't get anymore obvious than this.

Combat Usefulness: I don't recall ever using him, but I'm sure he's pretty decent.

Tilt: Being Karsh's father and as a result having the problems he does with the Home World Karsh disappearing and the Another World Karsh showing up plays on the heart, and develops his character very well. What's more, I think the Scottish accent that the translators gave him fits the character perfectly. He's a great guy, and the scene watching him work with himself is funny. Plus he gives you the Smith Spirit and that's damned useful.

He's not a top tier character...I think I'd still have relegated him to guest PC status...but he's certainly a good one.

Final Grade: B.

[Romana]

Design: He's a big blacksmith with a badass hammer. Generic? Maybe, but Zappa still looks pretty cool.

Combat: Never used him. Gonna assume he's a physical hellhouse, though.

Tilt: Seems he gets a decent amount of development. Oh, and Smith Spirit. That's one huge plus.

Final Grade: B

Without thinking, I could have put C, but then I would have been no better than the depressive downvoter clique who plague these polls with weird, indignant discomfort.

I don't... happen to be one these people, do I?

[ZeaLitY]

Nah, it's a mystery.

[maggiekarp]

Design: Like it

Combat: Never used him in combat, only as a smith

Tilt: I actually got this guy on my playthrough but I just now found out he's Karsh's dad. That's how poorly handled the characters in this game were. He'd be excellent as an NPC ('specially if you still get the smith spirit) if Karsh was still a PC, though.

C

[V_Translanka]

Character Design - A-typical smithy look, but still kinda neat. I sorta like it. Scruffy beard & scar over his right eye aside.

Combat Usefulness - He uses the axe/hammer combo in which most of the hammers are, I think, supposed to be more unique weapons for him (being that he's the smithy). His Techs mostly have boring names and looks to match...BallsofIron totally not as cool as it's name.

Tilt Factor - He's kind of the stubborn old man character...He's the father of Karsh...uhhhh...he was one of the original Dragoon Divas or w/e...?...He probably shows the most emotion out of the lamers, but it's all kind of the same, "ARGH! Get out of my shop!" stuff...once he might have said something about his son...*shrugs*...but he's kinda cool since he forges your weapons & armor and is the only real way to get yer Rainbow gear...But I don't think he needs to join your party. I mean, just have him be the NPC that does all that and I'd a been set.

Final Grade - C

Without thinking, I could have put C, but then I would have been no better than the depressive downvoter clique who plague these polls with weird, indignant discomfort.

That almost seems like a statement meant to goad people into voting a higher grade then they think appropriate.

[ZeaLitY]

It comes from my late realization that not everyone has the necessary Z-Quotient to grade these characters correctly. A lot of threads have seen comments suggesting that people weren't aware of certain details before someone brought them up, which is understandable since Cross is such a huge game (and no, I'm not generalizing based off the comment like that in this thread). Still, that deficiency in experience will result in shortchanged character votes. I've linked to the bios in each poll, but probably no one is reading them before voting.

Makes me want to revive the "editorialist ranking" idea over the populist one.

[maggiekarp]

I don't read the entries before I vote, but I only vote on characters I actually bothered to get. I feel it's better to vote based on my own experience with the character instead of what the Encyclopedia tells me about them. The reason most of my votes linger around the C grade is because they're so horribly mediocre, or poorly portrayed.

IN MY MOST HUMBLE OPINION, anyway~

[V_Translanka]

I actually didn't know you had those links, but I always went to those pages anyways though...Sometimes I would skim the bio if I had forgotten something about the character (it HAS been a while since last I played CC), but mostly I went there for Tech names (Tech descriptions are on another page...I think they should be linked) & the character art (much of which has proven to be better than the final result).

But anyways. A lot of the characters have absurdly hidden "events" (aside from those "take them to their doubles and watch the sparks fly and the hilarity ensue" scenes) where if you take character X to location Y at time Z you'll get a character event. Sometimes it's two characters or you need some item or w/e, but I just don't think it justifies the characters. Especially since they're mostly just ONE scene, while I think there's one scene in FFVI that more than saves Gau, I don't think one scene is going to make me like Korcha. The fact that the scenes are so intricately placed with very little in terms of clues on how to get them is probably another big part that upsets me about the whole thing...

EDIT: I'm putting money down that SOMEONE WILL RATE ZOAH IN ALL CAPS.