Party Size

[Jiro]

What's your preferred party size? I've been spoilt now and going to three member parties feels restricted and :bou::bou::bou::bou:.

How about you, what party size do you like best?

[f f freak]

I voted 5, but 4 person parties also work as well. I think those sizes give enough people to cover all the bases. Any bigger and it feels crowded. Any smaller and it feels restricted.

[Jiro]

I agree with you entirely. I find that, on occasion, four-man parties make me sacrifice having an extra cool character. I plead and plead but have to make a choice :(

That being said, you can still get the job done. Plenty of room for customisation that I just feel three-man parties are lacking. Anything smaller and it's just too difficult.

[Remon]

7, it's the perfect number.
But I'm a party pooper so it doesn't matter.

[Heath]

4 for me. For my RPGs and my shooters, it's the perfect size. Though I'm perfectly happy with 3 too.

[blackmage_nuke]

For Rpgs with choosable parties: Number of playable characters divided by 3 with a leeway of +1 but nothing over 6 or under 3. Also any game with choosable parties should have atleast 6 playable characters.
Chrono Cross had a terrible party size especially since one of the characters was compulsory for the entire game, they shouldve taken a leaf out of Suikoden's book.

For Rpg's with unvarying or selfvarying parties: 3 or 4, I lean more towards 3.
Legend of Legaia has huge nostalgia value for me

Puzzle/Adventure Platformers: 2
Portal 2 and Ico are some of the best games I've ever played

Shooters: The more the merrier
I dont play many shooters but I love a good 6v6 soldat game

[Depression Moon]

Is this just talking about RPGs, FF?

[VeloZer0]

For RPGs 3-5 doesn't make a big difference to me, provided they are properly set up. If each character has to be more narrowly defined then you need more to fill all the roles in combat. If each character is more versatile then you need less.

For SRPGs I strongly feel 10 is to many. (and also apparently the standard). With a party size like that your characters movement range is so limited you spend half of the level gridlocked by your own party. Just moving across the map is a chore. It also promotes lack of diversity in party composition. If I have 10 guys I know I am going to have to have 2 mages, 2 archers, 1-2 healers, 2 heavy melee, 2 light melee. (or close to). With less party members there is usually considerably more ability to mix them up, as it goes hand in hand with giving them more versatility.

[Jiro]

Is this just talking about RPGs, FF?

Any game, really. I had RPGs in mind, but then I considered shooters as squad sizes vary too. WoW has massive raids and that's pretty sweet I guess.

EDIT: And Velo brings up a good point with SRPGs, I forgot about those lovely things.

[Skyblade]

SRPGs can do wonders with larger parties. The Shining Force games had a standard of a dozen party members, but still worked brilliantly. Fire Emblem also has battles with large parties, yet the combat system is still fun. It's all about balance and level design. I'm not saying that FFT was wrong for cutting back to six party members (far from it, FFT is a great game), but larger parties can certainly work.

[Crop]

3 or 4 seems fine to me, I did like how FFX enabled you to bring anyone in through the battle. Granted it was only 3 at a time, but I think that system could be used more, maybe even with some adaptations.

[Bunny]

It depends on the size of the cast.


WoW has massive raids and that's pretty sweet I guess.

Clearly you've never played WoW.

[Jessweeee♪]

3-4 is best. I liked FFX best in that regard.

[Remon]

7+ parties are sort of uncool because you kinda don't feel like using the rest of the cast. If they could arrange a system like FFX, where you can switch characters mid battle, then it would be fine. But in games like Persona or previous fantasies, I only leveled one main team and left the rest rotting in reserve.

[VeloZer0]

40 man raids in WoW were wicked awesome. (playing wise, not talking about logistics).

I've only played one Fire Emblem game (one of the GBA ports), but I vividly remember after a few battles I determined it was a better strategy to just use two characters the entire game. And it work marvelously. And kind of dulled my interest in exploring the rest of the series.

[Jessweeee♪]

7+ parties are sort of uncool because you kinda don't feel like using the rest of the cast. If they could arrange a system like FFX, where you can switch characters mid battle, then it would be fine. But in games like Persona or previous fantasies, I only leveled one main team and left the rest rotting in reserve.

Yeah, Persona 3 I leveled everybody up, because you needed to make sure all your bases were covered for every boss fight, but in Persona 4 they added Defending, so you weren't totally screwed if you took someone who would be vulnerable. Characters I really liked just got left behind because it was more rewarding to keep them out :(

[Iceglow]

Sometimes you just can have too many characters in a party (here's looking at you Sukioden series, with your 108 stars of destiny) I remember in Sukioden 4 I never managed to level up all of the actual battle characters because it took so damn long. This meant that when I tried to go through a later naval battle I ended up dying. I didn't even have all 108.

[Raistlin]

Six is ideal, as long as the cast is sufficiently large enough. After playing a game like Suikoden, it feels annoying, restrictive, and boring to go back to a three-member party. Five is also acceptable.

EDIT:
I remember in Sukioden 4 I never managed to level up all of the actual battle characters because it took so damn long. This meant that when I tried to go through a later naval battle I ended up dying. I didn't even have all 108.

No one levels up all the battle characters (what is that, about 60 characters?) -- although I probably came relatively close in end-game S3, as it's so damn easy at that point (and in S5 you need 18 battle-worthy characters for the final dungeon). Especially not in Suikoden IV, which is probably the easiest in the series (instant healing after battle + obnoxiously overpowered magic characters). But if you skim through the game and don't bother recruiting many of the characters, the major battles are definitely more difficult.

[Yar]

If it's FF I'd stick with 4 but if you mean like FFT, I'd say 7 or 8

[Jiro]

It depends on the size of the cast.


WoW has massive raids and that's pretty sweet I guess.

Clearly you've never played WoW.

Clearly. To be honest I have played it for like three hours on a mate's pc. But that's semantics. In theory, huge raids are cool.

[qwertysaur]

4 Active. :p

[Depression Moon]

VI had too much IMO. 13 characters is odd and a good deal of them really don't add much to the story. The story of the game wouldn't change without Gau, Relm, Mog, Umaro, and Gogo.

As for in battle parties I prefer 4 in FF games and the next one better have 4. I don't care in other games. In Uncharted 2 I like the size of the parties and it's crazy when you have a custom match with ten people. Love it!

[Shauna]

and in S5 you need 18 battle-worthy characters for the final dungeon

I remember having to do that. Barely scraped myself through the final couple of boss battles. xD Good times though.

I dunno about optimum party size. Depends on the size of the cast, as Bunny said. But, if I've been playing Suikoden, going back to a small party is just no fun. :{