The Final Fantasy series is home to some of the most valued and treasured JRPGs around, featuring some of the greatest games of all time. But nearly every entry can be considered divisive to some extent or another, and goodness gracious, Final Fantasy 8 is no exception.

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Regardless of your own feelings on the game, FF8 has some powerful party members. Sure, the game's more about its characterization than its character combat capabilities, but you'll be fighting plenty. Who should you bring along the most? Here are our thoughts.

11 Kiros Seagill

We'll start this list off with Laguna and his boon companions, the trio of characters whose adventures in Final Fantasy 8's past players will experience firsthand on several occasions.

In each of these segments, the three men either inherit the junctioned spells and abilities of a present-day character, or else the player is tasked with picking one to suit the scenario. Either way, Kiros is probably the weakest guy in the game; his physical attacks are fairly weak, and while his speed is solid and his magic equally so, none of it really manages to push him forward enough.

10 Laguna Loire

Out of the dream sequence trio, Laguna fits perfectly in the middle with his average speed and strength. However, the fact that he can fit anywhere in the party and use his machine gun to deal the same amount of damage is definitely a plus.

That long-range assist is worth consideration, and frankly, if we were to include his music as a basis for these rankings, Laguna would be miles ahead. Alas, music does not equate to combat ability...

9 Ward Zabac

Ward Zabac easily becomes the strongest, but also the slowest, party member in the dream sequence trio. We won't argue if you prioritize speed, in which case, you can pretty much reverse the rankings of Laguna's sidekicks; in our experience, a properly-outfitted behemoth of a man liek Ward more than makes up for his base slowness with physical attacks that tend to dish the most damage per turn in these segments.

8 Seifer Almasy

A prideful antagonist of Final Fantasy 8 who fans absolutely love to hate? That's Seifer Almasy. Early on, Seifer is controllable for a single mission, but from thereon out, he's on the opposite side of the turn-based battlefield.

Seifer's fairly good in this sole playable section. At the same time, his relative strength is kind of underwhelming in all four (!) fights to come, so if we're going to include him in our thoughts, we've got to leave him toward the tail end.

7 Edea Kramer

As with Seifer, Edea's a temporary party member. She sticks around a little longer, to be sure, but not by a country mile. Edea's Magic stat is fairly high, albeit at the expense of just about everything else. Her Limit Break, Ice Strike, is powerful in theory; that theory falls apart when you factor that it only hits once, whereas the best Limits in FF8 can be tapped into multiple times in one round.

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If Edea stuck around longer, she might have gained further Limit Breaks, including one that could put her high Magic to good use.

6 Quistis Trepe

Finally. It's high time we get to talk about the main party members and rank them in terms of strength. First up is Quistis Trepe, the unofficial Blue Mage of the party who, as is the trend with Blue Mages in the Final Fantasy series, ends up being the weakest member.

Final Fantasy 8's party member systems are far from the most dynamic in the franchise - that is to say, junctioning, Guardian Forces, and other universal aspects tend to take precedence across the board. Hence, we look toward Limit Breaks to differentiate the gang of six main heroes, and Quistis just doesn't bring the same potential damage output of her peers. This makes her great in a supportive role, at least!

5 Selphie Tilmitt

via finalfantasy.wikia.com

Next up on the list is Selphie Tilmitt, whose own Limit Break is simply too chance-based to label her as one of FF8's finest. That said, if you're playing the original PlayStation version, you can pop open the disc cover while spinning Selphie's reels, taking all the time you need to find something like The End - that one one-shots everything, including, yes, even a Level 100 Omega Weapon.

Odds are slim you're still rocking that PS1 disc in the 2020s, but if so, hey. More power to you. Otherwise, Selphie's potential sees her higher than Quistis, but her probability-based antics just can't compete wtih the guaranteed strikes ahead.

4 Irvine Kinneas

We've officially moved into the realm of strong Final Fantasy 8 characters, and first up is Irvine Kinneas, the gun-toting cowboy with an eye for gals. Irvine's Limit Break lets players fire off as many shots from that gun as they can within a set amount of time. The length varies, but since it's tied to an invisible gameplay mechanic, you're better off assuming you'll get the shortest input, and be pleasantly surprised otherwise.

AP Ammo shreds through enemy defenses, and Pulse Ammo just straight-up does the most damage on average. AP is swift, but Pulse is... flashier? You've got other ammo choices, too, but once you get to the late game, these are your best bets. Since you'll be firing off multiple shots, you can hypothetically strike for the 9,999 max several times in a row.

3 Rinoa Heartilly

Rinoa has not one, but two, types of Limit Breaks; plot shenanigans dictate the gaining of a second one called Angel Wing toward story's end. Like Selphie, there is a degree of luck involved in getting the 'right' one - well, there's a complex comprehensible explanation of how it all works on the Final Fantasy Wiki, but in practice, it's probably easier to consider things unknowable on a moment-to-moment basis.

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Unlike Selphie, Rinoa has a slim number of potential outcomes, most of which are fantastic. Angel Wing amps up her Magic power five-fold, and it's already the best to begin with; she'll strike foes with a barrage of spells from her stock, prioritizing Meteor. Invincible Moon and Wishing Star grant temporary invulnerability or several strikes of severe damage, respectively. All told, Rinoa's a tough one.

2 Squall Leonhart

via Square-enix

Squall virtually cannot miss with his regular attacks, as Gunblades have a 255% accuracy rate. This alone makes Final Fantasy 8's hero the most reliable physical attacker as a rule, but as we've discussed, much of the cast's strength factor pertains to Limits. Lion Heart, Squall's ultimate Limit Break, is only obtained after the player acquires - wait for it - Lion Heart, which is also the name of his ultimate weapon.

Again, there's a hidden mechanic involved in dictating which of several Limit Breaks Squall uses, but a one-in-four without any sort of player-dictated influence is pretty good when Lion Heart hits a whopping 17 times. That's 17 times 9,999 damage on the uppermost end, the single most ferocious ability in Final Fantasy 8.

1 Zell Dincht

Meet Zell Dincht, the reigning king of DPS (damage-per-second) in perhaps all of Final Fantasy. Naturally, that clinches his top spot on our list. Zell's Limit Break, Duel, is a fighting-game-style, command-input, all-you-can-combo spree that lasts between four and 12 seconds. (You guessed it; it's that pesky invisible mechanic at work yet again.) The thing is, while Zell's quartet of learnable 'finisher' moves are fabulously pretty, the best strategy by far is to input Zell's 'weakest' techniques over and over until the timer runs out.

Do this well, and do it on the 12-second timer, and the FF Wiki posits that players can dish roughly 720,000 points of damage with a fully-maxed Strength stat. That's, uh, going to leave a mark, Zell. You're on cleanup duty!

Next: Final Fantasy: The Most Powerful Hidden Bosses, Ranked