Put in a good chunk of time last night. I've changed my mind on some characters. I've recruited two new characters with one being the Hunter Ward, and the other being the Zorro expy Robin.

After getting my ass handed to me by both the Dragon pet and in the Zweig tournament. I finally ventured to the local town dealing with a monster demanding sacrifices. Only to get locked and murdered by said monster. I couldn't even figure out what to do for that quest as the monster is a little BS with that Bubonic Plague attack and having no less than nine target spots, so I did cheat and look it up. Before that though, I ventured to a snowy town and recruited Ward by helping him clear up the monsters by the frozen lake. With a full team, I was able to go back and finish the pet quest. I simply needed the extra DPS and the journey through the Frozen Lake after handing Souffle a Bow garnered some extremely useful techs. With that done, and a better clue of what to do this time, I retired the Sacrificial Cave quest and was able to escape and get the Rat Poison from the Wonderful, Fabulous, and certified GENIUS The Professor which allowed me to take down her fifth "pet". Afterwards I headed to Lance where I waltzed into a weapon shop and was asked to make a delivery to a nearby town, which automatically sent me onto the road between the villages where I was harassed by thieves who may have stood a chance had I not completed the above three quests. I reached the following town where I was introduced to Robin. Robin, next to Boston and Flurry, was one of the recruitable characters I learned about a way back when I was mildly looking into the series. Having grown up watching a bunch of the old Zorro cartoons, and being a super hero comic book fan, I had to recruit him. So I wandered around the town activating all of his little scenarios. Learned that their was actually two of them, and saved them both during the big clash against the local corrupt merchant group giving me a chance to recruit the chap. I then returned to Lance, where I went back into the weapon shop and was propositioned to deliver stuff to another town. I was propositioned in this town to do some mercenary work, but chose not to so I could return to Lance a third time, ignored the dude in the weapons shop so I could finally get explore the town. Learned some good info about the Abyss Gates and higher tier magic. I took the ship to sail to Pedonia which is the town I vaguely remember Thomas and Sarah said they were heading to when they ditched me. I left that place, but then checked out the shrine of the Matriarch and then decided to call it a night. I really want to go back and try the Zweig tournament since my whole team is competent at this point.

Ellen - She's not doing too bad. She's been a little slow to level up magic, but I often forget to use it so its really more of my fault and she's doing better than Khalid in this regard. My big issue with her is that she's slow to spark new moves and she has a tendency to spark moves that are difficult to master like Counter. Axes and Fists are serving her well, but she's maybe sparked one new move since the initial intro party split up which is frustrating. I will say that Lunar and Byakko magic are working out well for her build as one starts with a move that raises strength while the other has a speed boosting spell, two stats she excels in. She's doing good with stat upgrades though her Axe weapon is a bit lower than I wish, but that may be due to me trying to master Counter so I could remove it from her skills set. She is at least falling into her role easier than some characters I've played during the series.

Khalid - He's a beast, and while its annoying that he insists on having a Scimitar permanently equipped, especially since its already getting obsolete, I finally got him a silver sword I use all his attack with making him back into another powerhouse with Ellen. I did start making him use that spear he carries and the asshole managed to spark some really powerful moves including Windmill (which I'm already dreading to master), Double Strike, and freaking Aim. Sadly, he is not been such a good boy when it comes to sparking sword techs, but I blame a lot of that on myself again and the fact that the Scimitar's innate skill was easily his best move for the longest time. So now I'm going to try and get him to start living up to that swordsmen moniker he has. I've taught him both Soryu and Solar magic, but he's really slow to grow in this field which isn't terribly surprising.

The Minstrel - Is now the new dead weight of the team. He may start with good stats, but he seems like he grows pretty slowly. He's mostly been successful with Mace weapons, and while they are nothing to scoff at, they're one of my least favorite weapon types and they always seem to spark less often than I would care for. His biggest contribution now was teaching him Genbu magic and learning that healing magic will actually bring downed characters back up, so he's been team medic, though I've had to transfer the self healing martial art tech to him to keep him alive more often than I would care. He's a good support character, but he's lacking in offensive capabilities and even trying to switch him to another weapon has been a slow process. The annoying thing was learning that he won't leave my team until I take down an Abyss Gate (which I haven't even reached the point in the game where they are an issue yet) or simply letting him get perma-killed in battle which I'm less inclined to do.

Souffle - I learned from the TV Tropes page her real name is Tatyana. She's gone from being the dead weight of the team to being my badass archer. She is still a glass cannon who tends to get KOed the fastest on my team, but switching her to a bow from her crummy rapier was a godsend as she was able to not only spark most of the skills Sarah had done in the intro, she managed to spark two super useful skills with Flash Arrow (hits all enemies and inflict Blind) as well as Beast Slayer (does extra damage to beast type enemies, a godsend against the current crop of bosses) so she's done a serious 180 on me. I also taught her Suzaku magic, but I haven't tried it out to see if she's any good with it. I was originally going to drop her, but now I'm growing a bit more attached.

Ward - His character art and sprite are amusing. The guy looks like Slash from G&R. It was nice to have a character who specializes in Great Swords, especially since that weapon type served me really well in the two previous entries. He's sparked a few really good skills like Sunder and Riposte. He second uses maces but seems to be awful with them for some reason. Not going to teach him magic, but it is nice to have a real meat shield on the team.

Robin - I have not really had much of a chance to really figure him out. He start with a rapier, but I'm hoping he'll be able to spark some actual techs with it. Rapiers were pretty troutty in RS1 but were surprisingly more useful in RS2 if you bothered to use the Mole People to spark their move sets. I'm hoping RS3 carries this tradition, though I know not to expect and high damage coming from him. I'm glad I got to recruit him, but not sure if he's going to be a long haul character yet.

I feel one of the biggest issues with RS3 at the moment is that it has too many cool characters to recruit. My team is largely falling into place, so the idea of switching people out for new characters that will need to be broken in doesn't sound appealing. At the same time, there are a lot of cool characters I wouldn't mind recruiting, including some of the other main heroes. Whenever I get around to a second playthrough, I'll probably choose Mikhail next since I'm getting plenty of Khalid (he was my original second choice behind Ellen) in this playthrough. The other thing that slightly bothers me is the magic system names cause the four elements are mixed up except Suzaku. Genbu is water, Soryu is Wind, and Byakko is earth, but traditionally, and even going all the way back to the first SaGa game no less, Soryu is suppose to be Water, Byakko is Wind, and Genbu is Earth. Was a little confusing in the beginning. I also have no idea what the Crown that appears next my SP stat means, so I'll have to look into that. Oh SaGa and your refusal to ever explain yourself.