Final Fantasy fans vote on best character

One of Final Fantasy’s biggest online communities has spent a month voting on the best character in the series, and they’ve finally reached a verdict

Final Fantasy fans in one of the series’ biggest online communities have spent the past month voting in a complex tournament to decide the best character in the series, and they’ve finally got an answer.

The votes took place on the series’ subreddit, r/FinalFantasy, where thousands of users took part in multiple rounds of an elimination tournament to pick the best character across the series’ 35-year history.

The first round of voting started out fairly simple, with less-popular characters like Final Fantasy 3’s Desch, and Final Fantasy 2’s Leila and Minwu getting the boot early on as players picked their least favourite characters. As time went on, however, those choices became a lot more difficult, with fan-favourite characters popping up more and more.

Despite the game’s overwhelming popularity, no characters from Final Fantasy 14 made it into the finals. Picture: Square Enix

After eleven rounds of voting, the community landed on four characters to choose from for the top spot: Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa from Final Fantasy 7, and Vivi from Final Fantasy 9. The quarterfinal had the four facing off, with Aerith getting eliminated in a very close vote, losing out by just six votes.

The semi final saw Final Fantasy 7 protagonist Cloud given the boot, which left FF7 leading lady Tifa and FF9’s black mage Vivi facing off in the finals. The result was a landslide victory for Vivi, cementing his place as the community’s favourite character.

Vivi from Final Fantasy 9 has long been a fan-favourite character, but now fans have named him as number one. Picture: Square Enix

The Final Fantasy series started out on the Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1987, and has seen widespread success around the world. Since that first release, almost every single video game console and handheld system has had some sort of Final Fantasy game on it.

The newest Final Fantasy game is coming sooner than expected, after publisher Square Enix revealed the game’s release date at The Game Awards. Despite many expecting Final Fantasy 16 to be released sometime in the second half of 2023, it will instead be released on June 22.

It’s not all good news, however, as Final Fantasy fans got mad at EB Games over the game’s expensive collector’s edition. The special edition, which cost $700 and included a statue, a collection of metal pins, and a cloth map, was limited to only a select few EB Games customers.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.