The Best of the Sorceresses.

I voted Edea. Though technically the things she did to "make us fear her" were actually done by Ultimecia, Edea just looks and behaves so much cooler. I liked the idea of her being a mom to these kids, who now have to turn around and kill her. Too bad she didn't stay evil, though.

Rinoa is one of my favorite characters, but in the story, she has done nothing remotely sorceress-like. Yeah, her Angel Wing limit break uses those powers, but you never see her use her powers at any other time. So she's hardly the "best" sorceress.

Ultimecia is just the product of bad writing. She could have been cool, but I felt completely unconnected from her. I never hated her, which I think all good evil villains should make me feel, or felt sympathy, like I'd feel for a more Kuja-like villain. She fails. And so, even though she has done some arguably cool things with her sorceress powers, I just can't like her.

I'd probably give honors to Adel. She was a pretty badass sorceress, causing wars, abducting children, etc. Her strange appearance makes it a little hard for me to take her as seriously as she probably should be taken, but she accomplished things using her powers, unlike Rinoa, and she was better worked into the story than Ultimecia.

Those random bosses at the end? How could any of those be a favorite? They have no personality, and they weren't even a challenging fight.

 

I found Edea rather useless as a party member. Her ice strike limit break was pretty lame. But I did like having her in the party anyway, because it was a change, and besides, during that Lunatic Pandora bit, I packed all of the characters I liked into space, and having Edea in the party was at least better than using Irvine.

I suppose if you take into account Rinoa's Angel Wing limit break, she's a strong sorceress. The meteor trick lets her wipe out even tough bosses rather easily. I wish she had shown her powers off a little more, though. Theoretically, she should be able to do anything Ultimecia, Adel, or Edea could do, since she inherited powers from all three of them in one way or another.

 

I would have enjoyed Edea in the party a lot more if she'd had those other limit breaks to choose from. Ice Strike was okay- it looked impressive when she was attacking Squall at the end of disc 1 anyway, but I don't recall it doing a whole lot of damage. I don't remember her being as strong as the rest of my party members, even the ones I only used to level up. When I used her, I did it just because she was a cool character, not because she was handy in battle.

 

I played Triple Triad like crazy, and I had a stockpile of stronger magic early on, too. But even so, I don't remember Edea as being quite as good as the rest of my party. Or, she had no clear advantages.

Though, this brings up an inconsistency, now that I think about it. At the time Edea is in the party, she's not even a sorceress anymore, correct? She'd already passed her powers onto Rinoa, so how is she making crystals out of ice and throwing them at anything, anyway?

 

Ultimecia left Edea and Edea gave her powers to Rinoa when the party defeats her in Galbadia Garden (I think at the end of disc 2). After this event is when Rinoa went into the coma and Squall decided to go to Esthar to try and find Ellone to discover what happened to her. Edea came along because she, still thinking she was a sorceress, wanted to speak with Doc Odine.

Rinoa was already possessed by Ultimecia because when Ellone sends Squall back to Rinoa's past immediately following Edea's defeat, we see Ultimecia speaking to Seifer through Rinoa's body before Rinoa collapses.

So unless an affinity with ice was Edea's gift before becoming a sorceress (and no one else in the game, with the exception of Ellone, is shown to have any sort of ability like that without junctioning a GF), Edea shouldn't have had a Sorcery limit break while in the party. But I suppose if she didn't, that would have spoiled the reveal that she was no longer a sorceress when the time came.