I don't think the main Character's role should be the most important. Standard sword fighter works fine. What I would like would be more focus on the support characters. Not all of them, maybe just the lead love interest, and best friend. For example more focus on Zell in FFVIII during Seifer battles. I watched Sahara the other day, and whilst the film itself got ridiculous, the interaction between the two lead males (despite one being more clearly the lead) was very entertaining.

Fairly tough, melee fighter as a lead, with a long range, fairly humourous best friend. I always pick the lead and love interest in a team, it'd be nice to have a bit more story driven influence over my selection of other characters.