HOW MANY IS ENOUGH!!

GalaxyFlare

GalaxyFlare

Ego Et In Arcadia........
Veteran
Joined
Nov 19, 2007
Messages
2,241
Location
Surf Coast, Australia
Gil
0
Final Fantasy games have had many and varied character list with some very inventive ways of recruiting these guys and girls to your team but at the end we are left with a number of characters to choose from, in other threads ive read of how some people find characters like khimari and cait sith even quina
to be quite useless and they are left unused to wallow in obscurity whilst guys like Sqaull and Cloud , Tidus are treated like allstars.

FF8 gaves 6 characters to ultimatley choose from FF7 had 9 and if I remember right FF6 had 11? how many characters does it take to tell a good story and how many are ultimately superfluous?

I dont really care either way I'm just interested in what my FF breteren have to say?
 
Check your figures for FF6 because you are exagerating way too high. But as far as how many characters is enough, I would say as many as the writers are willing to decently support in the story. For example, FF6 had 12 main characters (14 but Gogo and Umaro really didn't have stories or much connection to the game, and really 29 if you want to also count in every other character you can play as) but all had well flushed backstories and quite a few interactions with each other, while some might argue that FF7's 9 (10 if you count Sephiroth, though he is in your party in the false flashback he is not in your control) characters were one-dimensional and difficult to relate to (I did not experience this so much or otherwise it did not dramatically damage the gameplay experience for me). From this example one can draw that 12 characters was within range for 6's story but 7's story may have been too narrow to properly flush out the persons of 9 characters.

One sort of unrelated idea I have been toggling around is why there should be a limit to how many party members can be present at one time when the story does not adequately provide a reason. Then again, this would obviously be overkill as most battles are geared towards fun factor rather than challenge or if the bar was raised to where all party members being present at once would be understandable too much micromanagement would take place which many casual gamers could not handle. IDK, maybe FFX got it right with their character switch at any time system, though I have heard people talk about how this makes 10 way too easy.

Anyway, may FF13 have just the right amount of characters for them to be important to the story and have meaningful existences, however many or few they may be. Cheers :)
 
I don't think there needs to be a limit. The amount of characters needed should depend on the story and how creative the writers are feeling. If it feels right to have a large cast, and if all of them or most of them can get the spotlight for a short time to get their character fleshed out, then there is no harm in having more characters in a party.

FF6, the game which pretty much had the largest party in any FF, managed to develop character a lot better than most other FF's, if not better than all. Most characters had a portion of the game where they would face their pasts and troubles which have haunted them. Those that didn't still had a significant part of the plot centred around them.

The only exceptions are, as said above, Gogo and Umaro who are essentially bonus characters. However it didn't feel like they were just thrown in there. Umaro had appeared and been referenced to earlier in the game. There is also a good reason for them not getting much story too. Umaro doesn't talk because he is a Yeti, and Gogo is meant to be a mysterious mimic, whose identity is puzzling and continues to puzzle people today.

So with FF6 as an example I don't support the idea of putting a limit on characters. I think most FF's have felt right with the numbers they have each chosen. If they were to add more and give them equal development, then I don't see a problem with larger parties. However if they fail to achieve what 6 did.... I wouldn't want to see 12 generic characters running around in a Final Fantasy game for example. I don't think it would work unless the characters were actually good.
 
how ever many it takes to play the game efficiently, I suppose.

But for the story? Well, that's something I'll leave up to the developers. It's their game's story.... Far be it from me to tell them they need less / more than X number of characters to tell their story.

But it doesn't really bother me except for when I'm forced to use those characters that I do not often use... I can't count how many times I've had to go back and level up Khimari so I could get through mount Gagazet... Would normally just bust out codebreaker, but I don't seem to be able to find it lately.
 
I don't know how many characters is the right number. I think VI is the highest, with its 14. The lowest is V, I think, which had 5 (except for I and III, where there are four, but your characters are really just templates). Well, then there's X-2, which I won't count.

VI does a really good job fleshing out its characters, with the exception of Gogo and Umaro, and maybe Mog. Even so, I never really used Relm, Stragus, or Gau much when I had the option. I think that's okay, because the game gives the option of which characters to use, and every player is going to have their favorites. (As well as the ones who annoy the hell out of them) Having lots of characters usually makes the game better, makes it potentially appeal to more people, and gives it a little more replay value.

If you're going to have a lot of characters, though, I think there needs to be the option to take the lead out of your party, so you get a better chance to use everyone and level everyone up. (I'm looking at you, Crono Cross)

I'm a fan of the Suikoden series, where there are of course 108 characters per game, where maybe 60 or so are going to be playable. You also have a six member party, so you get a chance to at least try out more people. Some of the characters are important to the plot, while some are cool but totally irrelevant, and some are a joke. It's a fun system, but I don't want to see that kind of thing in a Final Fantasy game.

VIII's cast of 6 is probably enough. You're given a pretty wide range of skills and personalities.

So, I guess in summary the size of the cast doesn't matter so much, but if you're going to have a really large cast, you need to have a bigger party size and/or the ability to switch the hero.
 
I think they are a blessing compared to Chrono Cross D:

Mod Edit: Please be sure to put a bit more effort to your post. Thanks. =]
 
I think overall the best number I've run into so far has been about 7. I'll take FFX for example since it uses that number. It's a fair number to not feel like you're leveling up or need to level up a bunch of unimportant characters. Like with FFVI you had to split up into teams and at some points if your 12th or 13th characters weren't leveled up that good, that group struggled late in the game.

By having 7 you get to know a good variety of characters, but not feel over-burdened by having a lot of dead-weight being drug around or "players riding the bench".
 
Glass2099 said:
Check your figures for FF6 because you are exagerating way too high. :)
Click to expand...

Uh I believe I greatly underestimated my figures dude, there are 14 characters in FF6! but whatever, another point and qeustion is that in most FF games there is a love story and I wonder who or what is going to be Lightnings love interest???
 
I would have to say between 6-8 and enough for me. I think that is just the right amount so that your storyline doesn't get too confusing and you have enough choice of characters that you wont feel bored with either to little of characters or too many. I really enjoyed FFVIII, and FFIX for those reasons, I think both of those games had the perfect amount of characters for there individual game and it worked out great.
 
I agree with Busta, 7 would do me nicely, there's a enough characters to choose from, yet there isn't so many that the storyline can't intertwine them altogether and with the storyline. As long as there's a good storyline that they all fit into nicely and that they all have a solid character development then I'm fine with any amount of characters.

It's when there's too many with a poor background which is the problem.
 
I guess it would take as many characters is needed to tell the story, for example, FFX had 7 or 8 characters, and that worked! I used all the characters efficiently and they all tied in nicely with the story. Whereas FFX2 had only 3 characters, it still worked! 3 characters throughout the whole game was good fun, as you could concentrate on leveling with every job.

So, my answer is:
As many as Square Enix feel fit to put, As long as they tell a story I'm happy.

And yes, FFXIII is going to be a picture of perfection.
 
I don't like when there's too many characters in your team. I think 6-7 is a good amount. I'm a perfectionist sometimes and like to have all my party with relatively similar levels/stats. What can be annoying is when you have to use a certain character in a one on one battle and you haven't really used them much. When there's too many characters I doubt they'll all be very important to the storyline and add much to the game. Each of them should have good stories and be good worthwhile characters to have in your team. Not just feeling like they've randomly been put in, it can get boring that way.
 
I think about 6-7-8 characters is good qualiity over quantity but i dont think Square have ever made a mistake with the amount of permernant partys members (with the exception of VI which had alot of characters but the story was told a very different way to normal Final Fantasys so it worked)
 
Any number of characters will do, as long as they are provided with depth and dimension. Even if it's 12 characters with depth to each character, I'm okay with it. FF6 was a great experience for me and I enjoyed the backstory for each character.
 
Personally i believe that just 4 characters is enought, (I preffer 4 character teams) This is infact because there are only 4 characters you really need.
1: Black mage
2: White mage
3: Summoner
4: a warrier Or a phsically strong character prefferably weidling a sword and shield or spear, or something.
 
I like nice even numbers, like 3 guys and 3 girls. 6 is a nice round number for a main group of characters for me. Anymore and I end up forgetting either their names or just forget their background and personality.
 
I like larger casts. Maybe 6's 14 was a bit too extreme, but I wish they would go back to larger parties-7 to 9 characters-instead of just having five or six. Especially since the amount of development doesn't seem to go up with a smaller cast: XII had only six characters and two of them, Vaan and Penelo, had little importance to the plot and received very little development. Of course, that was because Vaan was a late addition because they felt that a older hero like Basch wouldn't sell, so it works out.

But then again, I prefer large casts in general.
 
Around 8 or 9 characters can make a good game. Too little and there isn't much variety. Too much and the story can't be centralized. The numbers in the games that I have played and liked were close to this number, so they were good. FF XII had a good number, and still the likes of Vaan and Penelo were left out of the story. It might not even matter in some games :hmmm:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top