So, if you haven't noticed

[TurkSlayer]

The number of party members on your team has been increasing with each new game released. This is sort of obnoxious to me, since I'm the type who likes a large, diverse cast (Which is part of what I loved so much about FFVI). When I realized the party only had six member in FFXII (Smallest group since FFV), I was none-too-pleased. But now, with just five characters appearing in the recent trailers, now I'm even more concerned with how small a cast they plan to use.

So, what do you guys think? Think there are going to be more characters to play here, or is this the final party? And how do you guys feel about large vs. small casts of characters?

[Wolf Kanno]

It takes a awhile to announce everyone in a cast and SE has kinda been extra secretive about this title. Even then, they have been releasing more and more info and I know a few people were surprised by the announcement of Hope.

I'm actually more concerned with the game falling into my main gripe of having a small cast and still only being able to focus on one or two characters. I'm a bit annoyed seeing Lightning, Snow, and Vanille getting all of the attention and more interesting characters like Sahz seem to be there to fill in party slots. Its understandable not to be able to give good air time to every character in a large cast but when you have a smaller and more intimate cast, you really have no excuse not to.

[Dante WolfWood]

It takes a awhile to announce everyone in a cast and SE has kinda been extra secretive about this title. Even then, they have been releasing more and more info and I know a few people were surprised by the announcement of Hope.

I'm actually more concerned with the game falling into my main gripe of having a small cast and still only being able to focus on one or two characters. I'm a bit annoyed seeing Lightning, Snow, and Vanille getting all of the attention and more interesting characters like Sahz seem to be there to fill in party slots. Its understandable not to be able to give good air time to every character in a large cast but when you have a smaller and more intimate cast, you really have no excuse not to.

same way cloud and vincent over-shadowed barret? whens a brotha gonna get some love? (there are no fansites dedicated to barret!! people are racist!):choc:

lol, no but seriously, ffvi was great because of its diverse characters. that would be amazing if ffxiii had like 15 main characters, but alas...I doubt it.

[The Space Pope]

Quality over quantity, I'd rather have a few interesting characters than a dozen of them and have all but two be nothing more than filler material, which FF is notorious for.

[Dante WolfWood]

Quality over quantity

Though for some reason I doubt FF13 will have either.

give 15 characters with interesting back-stories and everyone will have atleast one fav. character.

have only three interesting characters, then alot of people will most likely hate those three.

I kinda look at it has SE getting 15 darts to hit medium sized balloons rather than a few large balloons. if you miss the big ones...ya just look like a failure (hence ffxii)

stupid analogy I know:love:

[The Space Pope]

But the problem with that is time constraints. It would take a group of good writers quite a bit of time to come up with 15 characters that had detailed backstorys, motives, and development, not to mention how characters interact with one another and play their rols in a story without them feeling shoehorned in.

Also what about an interesting villain or the plot itself? A game can have only one playable character and still be quite deep and interesting, mostly because s/he's the focus of the game, even though yes that's not FF's style.

I mean, if I were a game developer, I'd much rather people praise the game for it's story and depth rather than having people say "X was a great character".

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

Doesn't really bother me since I usually stick to 3-4 characters (depends on party sizes) and use them religiously. :/

EDIT: I do pay attention to other characters but I tend to favour certain ones over others making me care about them more.

I am obliged to agree with Space Pope though, quality over quantity.

[Crimson]

No I hate large casts, I prefer just a handful, it makes character growth sooo much less frustrating.


Granted FFVI is an exception because it actually did the huge party idea RIGHT.

[Loony BoB]

FFVI to me was possibly a bit too much. I prefer something like eight, maybe up to ten, playable characters. Six is probably too few to really enjoy variety and also can limit you a bit much when you're splitting parties up for any reason.

[VeloZer0]

What I dislike is that they now have every character in every cut scene. I have problems with this for two reasons. One you are always forced to see the characters you aren't that fond of even if you always keep them on the back bench (then again they could just start making better characters again).

Two is that if you only actually have your three characters with you for most conversations it increases replay value because the dialog will be different if you chose different characters (Though I understand this is alot more difficult to do with voice acting).

[Raistlin]

FFVI to me was possibly a bit too much. I prefer something like eight, maybe up to ten, playable characters.

No way, 60+ is the way to go.


I'm actually more concerned with the game falling into my main gripe of having a small cast and still only being able to focus on one or two characters.

I really, really agree with this. I would be happy if the smaller number of player characters led to some real development for more than one or two.

[Formalhaut]

i think a good balance is great, Id say around 7-10 is plenty. If they do that then that would be great.

Isint Sacz (cant spell!) The one with the chocobo in is afro hair? Awwww thats AWESOME! I hope hes good in battle, imagine it, having a baby Chocobo in your hair, thats just class.

[Loony BoB]

I just hope they don't put in too much silly stuff like that, though. I mean, one character with gimmicks and stuff is funny but too much and it's overkill. No reason to assume that yet, though.

[Formalhaut]

Agreed one slightly eccentric playable character is enough, MAYBE even two, but thats too much, makes it seem silly.

You can still have plenty of eccentric villians though.

[qwertysaur]

Eccentric temporary characters are always fun. :D

[Shiny]

I don't believe what we've seen so far for the list of playable characters is it. But anywayz, there are pros and cons to having a small list of playable characters. On the plus side, it gives me less choices and therefore less of hard time trying to decide who to use. It also makes leveling up each character to the limit far easier. On the negative side, there's not as much diversity in who I want to use and also not as many back up characters who can take the hits for my strongest characters. For this reason, I usually like larger groups best. I tend to only use five characters tops with the rest as back-up.

[Quindiana Jones]

I imagine they'd stick to the one eccentric character thing. It seems to be something they do, and I doubt they'd just randomly change something like that.

Also, I like anywhere from 6-10. It just depends on the quality of the writing etc. I'd rather have 6 good ones than 10 alright ones. And then there's the obvious fact that you can only have so many people in your party anyway. To be honest, I always hated that. If you've got 6 mates all striving for the same thing, why don't they all fight? Just seems silly. Silly in terms of real life logic, not in game terms. Makes sense for a game, I guess.

[Jaffer]

Final Fantasy IV did it best, they always made excuses for partymemebers no coming along and you could have five of them at any one time which no other Final Fantasy could match. Anyway we 5 right now, plus Sazh's son, the new girl and the rumored cool person, that's 8 which is fair enough.

[Shlup]

I don't like having a lot of playable characters 'cause then I feel bad for neglecting them!

[Madame Adequate]

Unless you're getting a really big pool of characters like FFVI or Suikoden, I dislike getting more characters than you can actually have in your party. It makes little sense and is usually handwaved away with "Oh ho ho ho, better split up guys, there's weakness in numbers :smug:"

[The Space Pope]

No way, 60+ is the way to go.

ugh Chrono Cross

Half of the characters were about as useful as taking aspirin for AIDS.


If you've got 6 mates all striving for the same thing, why don't they all fight? Just seems silly. Silly in terms of real life logic, not in game terms. Makes sense for a game, I guess.
That and, when you switch your party, where did the other characters appear from? Did they jump out of your back pocket?

That's one thing I liked about games such as Grandia 2, the whole party fought and was on the field screen as well, rather than the one guy and having the other characters conveniently appear (I'm looking at you, ff7.)

[McLovin']

Making 10+ playable characters isn't the same as it was in the old days when there was just sprites and generic text. They have to change so many graphics and text and more voice acting just because there are 10+ characters instead of a solid 5 or 6.

[Jessweeee♪]

I agree, 6-10 is a nice number. It's nice having a number that's divisible by the maximum amount of active party members.


Final Fantasy IV did it best, they always made excuses for partymemebers no coming along and you could have five of them at any one time which no other Final Fantasy could match. Anyway we 5 right now, plus Sazh's son, the new girl and the rumored cool person, that's 8 which is fair enough.

That's one thing that really annoyed me about FFIV, actually, you couldn't really choose yourbecause it was all "Hey wait, there's six of us no--OH NO HE EXPLODED!" then ten more hours into the game: "I got better. Oh I see you have a gap in the party. How convenient!"

[Jaffer]

I prefer it to FFVII where they just go "Hey Cloud Welcome back, Make a party of three."

[Northcrest]

Final Fantasy IV did it best, they always made excuses for partymemebers no coming along and you could have five of them at any one time which no other Final Fantasy could match. Anyway we 5 right now, plus Sazh's son, the new girl and the rumored cool person, that's 8 which is fair enough.

w8 r sazhs son da new girl playable? n whose da new rumored character i've never heard of him, sounds good though.