In Dark Cloud 2: Monica's monster transformations don't quite count because there are some dungeon rewards for using them and a story to introduce the feature, but they're never mentioned once after the introduction quest. The grind to get full use is a dire slog both because the rewards are rare and the leveling takes a long time for every individual monster.

The story and level-up system are perfectly paced until the player gives monster transformation any attention and even collecting the badges that unlock transformations are obscure enough tasks that most players probably never found them all.

He still fits the definition of a "why are you here" character in that Yogurt really doesn't add anything to the game.



The character Yuki (known as Yukino Mayuzumi in other versions) in Revelations Persona would be a situational why are you here character. I'm specifically referring to the English language localization of the 1996 PlayStation game, not the original Japanese release from 1996 nor the PlayStation Portable remake.

The issue with her is entirely related to the Snow Queen quest, which is an optional story route, because she is one of the main party members for the Snow Queen quest route but not the game's main plot route involving SEBEC. When the game got released in English as Revelations Persona, they had disabled the Snow Queen route. This also meant that Yuki ends up being this character that you're forced to use very early in the game, even though she would leave your party at some point and become unavailable for the rest of the game.

In comparison, Ellen (Eriko Kirishima) was another early party member that would also leave you. However you also had the option to meet up with her again and recruit her back into your party later. She didn't just disappear forever because she was tied to an alternate story route that was disabled.

There was a way to activate the Snow Queen route using cheats, but only one intermission was and most battles were translated to English. This meant that there would be a ton of garbled text. It was also extremely buggy for some reason.
https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Snow_Queen_Quest



Also every single Final Fantasy game seems to have at minimum one character that could be just completely removed from the game with little to no impact on anything. It feels like this is a requirement of some sort.

Which character from the original Final Fantasy do you think could be removed with little to no impact? How about the original Final Fantasy 3?

Funnily enough, for Final Fantasy 5 I'd argue that the character you could remove with the least impact would actually be the main character, the only one you can name. (For some reason, FF5 only lets you name one character, unlike 2D FF4 where you can rename characters by talking to a certain NPC, or FF6 and (at least one of) the PSX games where you can name characters when they first join or their name first comes up.

I'm going to have to concede that I haven't actually played every single Final Fantasy game, so I won't be able to give you a game by game list for each game. It just seems like an overall trend. Of the ones I have played, there was always at least one character that you could cut out the game with no impact. If by the original Final Fantasy 3, you mean Final Fantasy 6 (as it was originally released in the US as FF3), both of the secret characters - Gogo and Umaro - were completely unnecessary and more so when you consider that there are twelve characters player characters without them.

I may as well toss Vincent (FF7) in the why are you here pile as he's less useful than Magikarp because while Magikarp itself is easily the worst Pokemon ever, Magikarp can evolve into Gyarados if you're patient enough to deal with all of it's splashing about.

No, I mean the *original* Final Fantasy 3, as released in Japan for the Famicom. In that game, your party consists of 4 generic characters (children, I believe), who starts out as Onion Knights, but whose jobs you can change during the game.

Worth noting, however, that some of the jobs are pretty worthless, like Evoker and Bard, and some are only useful at certain points in the game, whether becoming obsolete, or in some cases (Dark Knight comes to mind) not having enough equipment available to function at first.

Magikarp isn't quite the most useless Pokemon. In particular:
* Magijkarp can learn tackle at level 15. Abra, on the other hand, can't learn anything other than Teleport before evolving.
* Even before evolving a Magikarp can, in theory, defeat a wild Pokemon; once Splash runs out of PP, it will start using Struggle, which is a move that does damage to both the attacker and target (and which, I believe, exists to prevent competitive Pokemon from softlocking if both sides run out of PP). Abra, on the other hand, can't use Struggle against a wild Pokemon unless it starts the fight with 0 PP; its only move, Teleport, will end the battle as though you had run away.
* (On the other hand, Teleport has a nice non-combat use; it takes you back to the last Pokemon center you visited; in Generation 1, this is useful for activating the Trainer Fly glitch without actually needing Fly, allowing you to encounter Mew (or Missingno.) earlier than you'd otherwise be able to. On the other hand, in Generation 1 there's a spot in Viridian Forest where you have to walk by a trainer who starts a battle, but if you happen to get attacked by a wild Pokemon in that one square of grass and lose the battle, you can trigger Trainer Fly that way.)
* Also, worth noting that certain rulesets can affect the usefulness of various Pokemon. If you only allow level up moves, Smeargle is useless because its only level-up move is only useful to permanently acquire moves that aren't on its level-up list. In Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Ditto is useless because the Transform move is only a cosmetic change, and doesn't actually affect the user's stats or moves. Allowing only freshly caught Pokemon (and not those that have been evolved) makes Kakuna and Metapod useless, as they can only use Harden. If playing a randomizer, which Pokemon are useful and which aren't depends on how the randomizer distributed the learnable moves to the Pokemon.

I mentioned this before, but they're interesting mechanically, and Gogo is a nice FF5 reference.

Also, if you don't wait at the end of the floating continent, you'll need to get at least one of these characters in order to be able to fill up all 3 parties for the final dungeon.

Lily, the Nightkin super mutant companion from Fallout: New Vegas, probably counts as far as speaking companions are concerned. Her character arc is pretty much done and over without even leaving Jacobstown, and since that's likely going to be very late game, likely the final companion you will get, it's a bit underwhelming. Topped with the fact that there's a limited pool of equipment she can use, she's likely going to be a niche companion, so I never used her and stuck her in the Lucky 38. I wouldn't truly know if she's worth using since I usually just stick with Boone or otherwise stop using companions after a while.

A first rate, non-human NPC example from a CDPR game, Nibbles Teh Cat.
In stock, unmodded CP2077, all you can do in game with Nibbles is have it show up in different places in V's main apartment, each time you re-enter the place.
Outside of gameplay, you can have it show up in photomode.
That's it.
Lock. Stock. Barrel.
After acquiring Nibbles, you can't feed it, play with it, or even pet it.

Eri in Yakuza 7 Like a Dragon.

You eventually recruit her as a party member. But, because it's highly variable when you do that. She joins your party upon completion of an optional mini-game side area, business management. While most players are going to max out that part of the game as soon as they can -- it's the primary source of monetary income in the game until the last dungeon -- it's widely variable when; and the player could just forgo her altogether.

Thus, she's not integrated into any of the game's cut scenes except her own, even as a non-speaking "just present in the scenery" character. She's just not included at all. And it's a shame! She is is actually my favorite character-specific main job the game has and is interesting in that she has a different origin (as in "comes from a different life situation") than the rest of the cast, so she could have pulled a lot of weight and added contrast and insight. I guess they just didn't want to have to code variables in their [in-engine, not pre-rendered] cutscenes.

Ok, If I'm allowed to stretch the OP a little,
I'll bite with a controversial one (if not them all):

Cat1: Ken in Street Fighter
I mean, he has exactly the same moves/aspect as Ryu
Yes, decades later both have earned their own deserved public
& proved differences to connoisseurs
(I like his Shoryuken better than Ryus,
while the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku the other way)
and the lore has justified both
But I clearly remember to ask "why the hell are you here?"
(Among my excitement of course!) when the vgame launched

If the results through years would've been different (negative),
been easier today to ask why the "effort"(?)
of a copypasta character to begin with...
at least give them some differences like AoF Ryo & Robert...

And a similar situation with some clone characters in Mortal Kombat


Cat2: Chess pawns (or any other piece)
I know, a gameplay style and knowledge subjective...
and I know, calling characters to pieces...
Anyway, I permanently questioned the usefulness of pawns way back when started playing
and still today when under siege. I ask them: "Guys, why are you here?"

So, if lack of mastery/dextery is allowed, I'd go back to SF2 and also
question Zangief & Dhalsim AS my warriors...
Which were fun & useful ONLY on modded arcades


And to finish this category: The FIFAs and their team star figures
(Heck! and the goal keepers as well... and all the players as whole teams...)
NOT delivering any perceptible (to me) positive result
"Why are you here?!"
Pretty clear situation when my human fellow opponent gives me the chance
to pick the "best" team possible while him playing the worst nobody-knows ones
and I still lose... by far!
(To provide full context: I don't own those vgames,
I've played/learned/practiced them only when visiting friends & relatives...
for 1vs1 matches...)

Cat3: FEZ
It's really hard to me to pass the opportunity to complain
about that companion guide which proved to me to be useless



I don't know why, but I have this feeling
I deflect my vgaming incompetence/frustration on characters...
...Isn't one of vgaming perks?

Twisted mind, over



Disclaimer:
Despite the low audience on this forum for fighting, sports & chess vgames
any negative interpretation of my post is not real:
-I love SF, MK, AoF, any fighting & Chess! All their characters (and pieces)
This post is just an intent to play-with/stretch the OP and chit chat:
When boredom caused by playing a vgame until apparent depletion appears,
are all those "minor/weak" characters which insufflate life/challenge
(at least on the mentioned genres)
and remind the great offer each vgame has -inside-
-About FIFA: I'm on the list of naives waiting the day EA
gives green light to client-free version of its sports vgames
(I ask for a single oldie version for each sport, damn it!)
Meanwhile... I have a lot of fun playing the atari One on one :)
-About FEZ: It made me feel stup*d after few hours I played it and quit
Maybe I am... maybe not... maybe someday I'll go back and try again. Not urged right now
Nothing wrong nor personal against it. Its me just kidding my own misery there
Peace

The purpose of Chess is to simulate a medieval battlefield and exercise the players' minds so they might more smartly lead an army. No such simulation would be complete without meat-shields leading the charge.

I know, its just me providing some "Why are you here" personal moments

Besides, any player aspiring to a master level must handle pawn structures as good as the rest of the pieces

...and if not enough: Pawns are the only pieces that can be promoted! :)

Personally, I think they should have had Ken but not Ryu, mainly because there's another Capcom series that started on the Super NES, Breath of Fire, in which the main character of each game is named Ryu.

(Note that Ryu is the Japanese word for (eastern) dragon, and it, as a result, appears many times in Japanese games, though, incidentally, not in the Japanese title of Dragon Quest.)

Breath of Fire 1 has its share of pointless characters, notably the last character who joins, who doesn't have a decent combat role and by which point you already have plenty of characters to fill out your party. (The game does have DQ4-style party switching, except that, once the active party dies, it's an immediate game over.) (Another thing I find strange is that the main offensive caster doesn't join for a long time, and is the second-to-last party member who joins.)

Some Ratchet & Clank games have gadgets that were better left on the cutting room floor, like the mites in part 1. Ally-summoning tools like Mr. Zurkon became iconic later on, but an important detail was not relying on finding said allies in the wild; it works so much better when they teleport in or grow from a size-dilation pocket.