Favorite Freedom Force Characters & Builds

[Merchant]

I played both titles once all the way through (first one twice) and recently got curious, what is your favorite characters and the ways you improve their prestige?

With both titles, I tried using storyline related characters (didn't purchase Blackbird, Supercollider or Iron Ox the first time in FF1) and tended to build them in a balalnced fashion.
Usually I only bought powers up to a level where I could get the option to buy the next power, this usually meant level 3 for most powers.
I would aim for Flying for anyone that had it especially Man-Bot as his slow speed was annoying to me.
Levitate seems just worthless.
I admit I found it odd in FF1 when Man-o-War and Sea Urchin became available, I only get enough prestige to recruit one, I would have thought both would come together. I find myself getting Man-o-War and not Sea Urchin, I tried getting her once abd while her acid attack is good against some opponents, the way it works is problematic sometimes shooting an extra attack at a team member!
The second time through FF1, Blackbird was useful against some villains and Supercollider was faster than I expected and was really powerful, Iron Ox just didn't work out when I tried to use him.
I also found myself avoiding Law & Order in both titles, Order because of his slow speed and Law, other than her healing, was not as effective as other characters.
I never tried the Bard.
Quetzalcoatl was another I had problems using.
Green Genie was somewhat useful.
So I never get to develop Sea Urchin, Law & Order, Iron Ox, Bard or Quetzalcoatl both because of how I couldn't get them to work successfully and the limited mission numbers that prevent full development of everyone.

[darkphoenixII]

I don't mind scraping dust off THIS one. 

In the first one, I did what I always do in video games; focus on the one I like the most, Alchemiss. Minuteman and Mentor are always the easiest ones to develop. But don't count Law out, 'cause she's definitely a worthy addition if you give the time. As for the sequel, I hated The Bard, and the Aztec one wasn't easy to deal with. But Green Genie was lots of fun, and Tombstone was interesting. Red Oktober was funny.

...but honestly, it's more fun to incorporate your own characters intot the campaign. DC/Marvel characters are all well and good, but try making a character from scratch and recruit him. I have about 6 originals that I LOVE using.

[Imperios]

I prefer using my custom characters, actually. I made three of them for a campaign:

First, the Word. A guy which does not relate on energy at all. His abilities cost no energy, all of them, and he can't generate it. His abilities included a direct damage radiation attack, healing, various crowd control abilities, a little AoE attack, and making a shield against ranged attacks. He had medium HP and no melee attacks at all, but he could regenerate damage, so he can heal more easily. Rather original character, I may incorporate him in future campaign...
Second, the Anonymous. I basically made him during a Deja Vu encounter, and basically, I tried to make my own Deja Vu. He had two strong melee attacks and medium ranged attack, as well as ability to increase weight. He could clone himself easily with little energy cost, allowing him to basically summon armies of clones against enemies. His attacks were electrical and fire-based, so he was excellent against Mechanical.
And third, the Assassin. I made her for late encounters - but I could only use her for post-Pan ones. Here, she was awesome. She had crazy speed like that of Bullet, extremely strong melee using a lot of energy though, and a stunning ranged attack. She could also cloak like Shadow, making her able to hide, stab from back, then retaliate and hide again. I could defeat a penultimate encounter with Microwaves and small Time Master with her alone via this tactic.
But what about normal heroes, it actually depends on mission.

Blackbird/El Diablo pair worked excellent on a Pan encounter, while Ant was pretty useful during Deja Vu-related missions, due to his strong melee attacks and ability to stun (i.e stun cops to the ground, then bash them).

[stumpy]

Beware: -- Some Spoilers --

I prefer my own characters, for the most part, but I must say that the IG characters are pretty good and pretty well balanced. In the first game, I was a big fan of Microwave. Especially given the way the first game handled Genetic Damage (which was way too uber), the 'CroWave was a one-man (plus clones) wrecking crew. And, in the second game, even with the somewhat nerfed Genetic Damage and much weaker base attack (his microwave beam), Microwave can be a walking can of win versus Entropy with her Adaptable attribute. (For those who don't know, Adaptable + Gene Damaged = Dead Man Walking.)

The second game has different balance to it. With the greater variety of powers, I enjoyed characters that allow you to employ different strategies. Because of that, Green Genie was a favorite in FFvT3R. The fact that she is a fast flyer (even without the FFX attribute) and that she has teleport swap means that she can transport even the slowest tank into the middle of the action from anywhere on the map. Very useful for those missions where different baddies spawn all over the map. Just have her land on a building, a bit out of harm's way, and use her zap power to wear down (and stun!) opponents until it looks like things are about mopped up and then she can fly to the next battle and swap in a good damage-dealer to start baddy bashing, and she will still be back in time to cause some trouble on her own.

Also, in the first game almost all of the characters were useful throughout the campaign. Arguably, Liberty Lad doesn't scale well because the final mission set is heavy with beam-using opponents and his low hit points combined with the no-dodge nature of beams means that some opponents can one-shot him. (This is playing at the hardest difficulty level. He might be okay when the baddies' damage isn't amped up as much.)

But the rest of the team is pretty good all the way through. I would play the campaign until the final level (when we start the disk-hopping missions) and then save at the base and take in a different team every time to see what strategies worked for them. E.g. Can an all-melee team take down Time Master? What about all ranged characters? Maybe all optional characters (Blackbird, Law, Supercollider, etc.), all women, the three kids (LL, the Urchin, Ant) and a chaperon, and so on.

The sequel was fun to play the same way, but a little less flexible because of the need to take in characters with opposing powers to deal with Entropy's Adaptability (e.g. it's best to tag-team her with a character who does energy damage and one that does electrical damage, etc.) and because Man-Bot has to be part of the group (though I like the big lug).

My own characters are the most fun to play, but it's tough to avoid creating them in such a way that they are ready for the baddies I know are coming up. I generally create those characters in FFEdit and then add them to the list of recruitable characters for mods I play, so that I can test them in different environments. That way, a character who may be a rock star in the base FF campaign gets a chance to show his stuff in DrMike's Strangers campaign and see if he really has what it takes.

[yell0w_lantern]

I seem to use Minuteman a lot and I like Microwave. I use el Diablo when I need explosions. Alchemiss and Mentor have their uses too. I use Bullet a fair amount.

I like Minuteman because he's not too slow and I like direct fisticuffs but don't like having to recruit and level up the bruisers that become available later in the game. I don't think I have ever used Queztacoatl. I almost never use Supercollider, Iron Ox, Law/Order or Sea Urchin. The odd times that I recruit Man O War I do like to use him.

When I did Customforce-X it gave me a chance to spruce up Blackbird and Mentor. Once I gave them long distance melee attacks I used them a lot more. I've always like Blackbird.

What I REALLY enjoyed was replacing the FF1 campaign character with DC heroes. It was so long ago I hardly remember some of them:

Minuteman -> Batman
Mentor -> Martian Manhunter
El Diablo -> Captain Atom (or Green Lantern?)
Microwave -> Red Tornado
Liberty Lad -> Robin
Alchemiss -> Firestorm
Eve -> Wonder Woman
Manbot -> Green Lantern (or captain Atom?)
Law/Order -> Captain Marvel?
Sea Urchin -> ?
Man O War -> Aquaman?
Bullet -> Flash (Barry Allen)
Supercollider -> Superman
Blackbird -> ?
Iron Ox -> ?


I had the Odd Couple theme playing on a mission with Batman and Martian Manhunter.