you know what grinds my gears

[Valvalis]

I think the constant party changing helped to make the player more adept at playing with various party combinations, e.g. a knight and three mages (Mt. Ordeals), a knight, monk, engineer and sage (Tower of Zot), etc. I found it quite fun and challenging, way better than being stuck with the same classes the whole way like in FF1, for instance.

This is an awesome point and I agree with it completely. Sometimes in other FFs I do end up with an odd mix for a party anyway, since I always construct it of the characters I like the best personally, with no regard to whether they have complimentary abilities in battle. However, I never just combine all different people for the heck of it to see how they work together, and I love that this game forces you to. I mean, it's kind of odd when you're wandering around a dungeon to think of your non-party characters just hanging back and watching instead of helping out IMO that's not very realistic storywise.

And as far as

Spoiler

people like Edward and Yang, I'm glad

EDIT: The spoiler tags are broken Scroll down only if you've finished the game.



























they stayed alive after their roles in the party were over. It's fairly rare in FFs to have characters leave for reasons other than dying (and come to think of it, fairly few of them even die); and I liked being able to see them again later when they were all wishing for the heroes to succeed.

One of the things I always rave about with IV is that it has such amazing party dynamics (unlike games like XII where everyone just sits in a lump together and the only antagonists are outside the party ), and this is one of the aspects I'm talking about.

 

[Clo-bot]

I always was amused by the revolving door of characters, as I felt it was something specifically unique to FFIV in the way that they do it to the extreme, and the first time you play it it adds a lot of dynamics to your party. In other FF games, I always choose my favorites and stick stubbornly with them.

Though, I was a little annoyed sometimes, with some characters -- I would have loved more actual plot time with

Spoiler

Palom and Porom

for instance. I feel like you go only one/two missions with them, and I don't even remember the scenario in which they come back. Probably the very end.