11: Mister Puniverse [Recapture Aveh + Desert Despair]

Spoiler: We spend 5 episodes talking through "Kislev Capital" through "Night Purge". It's a lot of fun.

Chris

YES. Rico is the ultimate benchwarmer to me, which is sad. I would like to use him more, but he's so damn slow that the only thing I could imagine using him in is a purposeful challenge run. Bart becomes pretty close, IMO, once you get Billy and Emeralda. All of the stuff that makes Bart really good can be done better with both + both have Ether capability and in Emeralda's case multistrike attack ethers, Wild Smile loses its value, and Ygg Drop Charge isn't anything compared to JessieCannon. That said, I think the ultimate benchwarmer (albeit one forced into your party) is actually Elly, at least if you know what happens to her. True, for a small part of the game after she gets Aerods, she's an absolute nuke - but before she gets Aerods, her ethers aren't worth that she's a Squishy Wizard, and... once you reach a point on Disc 2, you lose access to her for good. There's a reason I only want her in the party when Aerods are useful (traveling the oceans in the Yggdrasil, and sometimes I'll switch her in for the Shakhan battle since her Aerods are one of two strategies to overwhelm his healing, ether!Fei being the other)

Seth Who Talks Too Much

THEY COULD BE and I hope they are!

Seth Who Talks Too Much

Also, show topic suggestion: Which character ended up warming the bench the most. Outside of sequences that required him, I personally never used rico despite liking the character and loving the next few sequences of this game which heavily featured him.

Can't wait to see how you guys cover the prison sequence. The prison, the sewers, the tournament and the attack on nortune could all be multiple podcasts on their own, but it's only a few hours of this game.