Preferred Party Number/Total Group?

[Cz]

The early FF's traditionally had parties of 4 (with FFIV being an exception), but in the Sony incarnations, have leaned towards commanding a trio of characters (again, FFIX being an exception).

It hasn't taken quite as uniform an approach to the total number of characters in the group, though. Although I,III and V all stuck with 4 selectable characters during the game, other games have ranged from 6 to 14 total party members.

I like the job system, which works most effectively with a larger party. So a party of 4 or 5 would suit me best. I also like my team to level up at a similar pace, so I'd want a group of 8/12 for a party of 4, and 10 for a party of 5.

Of course, this system would only work without the hindrance of a permanent main character, which really screws up the levelling process. If you want a good example, look at FFVIII.

How many characters do you like in your party, and how many in the group as a whole?

[MagicKnight Locke]

in a party itd be 3

As for characters that would tag along with me id have much

[Angel_Reaper]

more the merryer . gives me a challenge in battle and i love to see more characters come on my side

[Outsider]

A party with 5 people is very cool...

And I like more characters in the whole the group... But they should have history and background, not like in Chrono Cross, with its more than 30 characters with no history or anything. It was boring.

[Xander]

For my party I prefer 4, I found this useful and enjoyable in FFIX. In FFVII 3 doesn't feel enough. I'm trying to have a physical fighter with no magic materia, a black mage, and a white mage/support person. But I'd like to have someone I can make fully white mage/summoner, then a support/extra fighter. So I'd like to have 4 characters there.

Also 4 characters allows more choices and so on, but isn't necessarily easier.

For the group as a whole I'd prefer about 8 characters, not too many, just some I can get to know well.

Also VII seems very limited on choosing chars for your party as Cloud usually has to stay and you can only choose two. *can't decide between Yuffie and Tifa*

[Strider]

Four is good.

[Kenshin IV]

Depends on the game. They usually choose the party member limit pretty well in most RPGs.

[i90east]

I don't like 5. Each person is individually very weak. You find your self reviving and curing your characters after every battle. That was the case in FFIV.

3 isn't good either. Like Xander said, it's just not enough. There's a lack of character presense, strategy is reduced, and it's just kinda boring. That 4th character adds a lot to each battle.

I think 4 is perfect. The characters can be individually strong (to the point of sending them out solo). There's enough people presense there to prevent a feeling of loneliness.

[Sefie1999AD]

I like having 4 party members. Having 3 is alright, but sometimes I'd want one more character in the party, and having 5 is too much. For the whole cast of characters, I think 7 or 8 characters is a good amount. Seven if you can't remove your main character from the party or eight if you can remove him/her from the party. This is because if there's more than two groups worth of party members, I won't use the rest (FF6 is a good example of this, so is FF9's Quina).

Let's take an example. FF9 has 4 party members and 8 characters. If I didn't have to take Zidane with me all the time, 8 would be a good amount of characters because I could switch between two groups. Zidane-Dagger-Vivi-Steiner and Freya-Amarant-Eiko-Quina, for example. But you have to keep Zidane, so 8 is too much, and I'd rather have 7 characters since I keep switching between Zidane-Dagger-Vivi-Steiner and Zidane-Freya-Amarant-Eiko (Quina gets left out).

[PhoenixAsh]

That's odd, Quina kicks ass.

I like your system points, but with recent games it hasn't mattered. In fact with all the games I've played it hasn't mattered (FF1, 6-10). I never needed to rotate. Without character classes it's particularly pointless.

I think VII got it almost perfect. I would like a flexible system though. As in choose how many between one and four with certain advantages. There are a lot of instances in VII and VIII where I want to take one person into battle because it's a personal fight.
But VII was near enough, all the characters were important, two bonus characters, noone felt tacked on. Gameplay wise VI also kicked it, espescially in the WoR.

[crono_logical]

Depends on the battle system. 4 at most for the more traditional style FF system, but as many as possible and as outnumbered as sensibly possible in games like FFTactics/Tactics Advance

[Cz]

FF's VIII and IX got it so near perfect, only to screw it up by having a constant main character. It was a real disappointment.

I suppose that VII, VIII and X used a three character system because their ability systems allowed individuals to be more powerful. A party of four would have simply obliterated anything in it's path.

[black orb]

>>> 5 in party and 10+ in group; just like Tactics.

[Quistis79]

I like a party of four, having white and black mage and two fighters. It's a good balanced party and no need to spend hours upon hours to level up all those characters. FFVI was a total pain, it had way too many characters. I love FFI-FFV where you don't have to change mambers all the time to keep them all up in decent levels.

[m4tt]

Party of 4, 10+ in group. Just like FF6. <3