Character Equations: Part II
March 24, 2010
Time for the next two characters. This time Sazh Katzroy and Oerba Dia Vanille. I have to way these two are probably my favorite characters in the game. Dispite the fact the first two thirds of the game were extremely linear I liked how in each chapter focused on individual characters while the party was split up. It really gave each character an oppertunity to develop.
Sazh I really liked because he seemed like the most original character to me. There's really no one else in the series to compare him to. I suppose the closest would be Barrett Wallace from VII, since they are both caring fathers who use guns as their primary weapon, that and they're the only major playable Black characters in the game, but I didn't want to have to say that. Where Sazh differs from Barrett is in his demeanor. Sazh is the most down to earth character in the game, if not the entire series. That and he has a baby chocobo that lives in his afro, and what's not to love about that.
Vanille took me a little while to warm up to. At first I thought the sstory was going to pair her up with whiny emo boy, Hope, (more on him friday.) Luckily she ended up traveling along with Sazh for the first two thirds of the game, so I suppose a little of Sazh's awesomeness rubbed off on her. Vanille is much easier to pigeon hole into an archetype, she's the token perky girl of the game. I suppose you could say this role started with Rydia in IV, or Krile in V, but they had a little too much personal tragedy to the perky all the time. Relm in VI was the first true perky girl to the unreasonably upbeat from beginning to end, and the trend continued unbroken with Yuffie, Selphie, Eiko, Rikku, Rikku again, Penelo and now Vanille.