Lulu destroys Rydia? Let me point out a few things here about the overabundance of flaws in that logic.
1) Lulu is a black mage, purely. She casts hurt-you-lots spells.
2) Rydia does everything. Pre-Leviathan incident she could summon, cast black magic, and cast white magic. Post-Leviathan she could still use black magic, and MUCH better, and summon things that would make Lulu wet the bed.
3) Lulu's guardian is Wakka. Rydia's guardian is Edge. Wakka is a blitzball player. Edge is a NINJA. Enough said.
As far as not liking FF2/4, that's unfortunate seeing as it had actual characters, whereas others (FF8 being the prime example here) took characters that were cool in the beginning and turned them into boring cardboard cut-outs and threw them into an unlikely love story where you didn't really care if they got together or not. Honestly, I thought Squall started the game as a hardcore soldier type and ended it as this incredibly pansified softy in love with a useless and boring chick that did nothing but use and manipulate him.
Your other choices I agree with, except I would put FF2/4 in front of everything there. Come on, how badass does your end party have to be? You have the baddest Dragoon ever (Kain), a Black Knight turned Paladin (Cecil), the White Mage/Archer with a little spell called White (Rosa), the Caller that can cast Nuke, Meteo, AND Bahamut (Rydia), and a freaking Ninja. Would you like fries with that ass-whooping?
