the power of 4

so whats the deal with a lot of videogames having groups of 3-4 characters? Most I've played have 4 to play at a time, and I'm curious if this number is just a space/programming thing or is the number culturely(sp?) symbolic of something?

Nope, it's just that people generally can't keep their attention on more than four protagonists simply because once you go above this number things become too complicated. Below this, and it's too simplified. It's certainly not a "golden number" or anything, but it's kinda an unwritten law that major characters generally come in fours.

It becomes way to hard to create balanced battles when you hit a number like 8 charaters. They all need to be doing something but can't be so strong that 3 hits beats someone and blah blah blah. It gets overly complicated on the user and the developer. What you end up with is a game where everything becomes so simple and easy just to make things fun.

3-5 is optimal. 2 isn't really easy but it doesn't give you a lot of options. Say one of the characters gets turned to stone or killed. No one else to heal up after a revival. It can increase difficulty but it is unbalaced just like too many characters.

Breath of Fire 4 had six characters. They did a fantasic job of balance in that game. It was more complex than most though due to how they had to set things up to keep it balanced.

FFIV had five at once, which at first, I thought was insane...but the characters are very balanced, as they have limited abilities

8+ in a battle at once are for games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Onimusha Tactics etc...

but I wouldnt mind seeing it from that in a turn based FF style battle system.... being in control of eight at once.... wow.

I actually think that having 3 characters worked pretty well in FF7, FF8 and Koudelka.