Max characters for an RPG?

#1 I say 4 is a good number. No less than 4. 3 characters just isn't enough for me. The battles feel empty and the strategy is slightly dumbed down. Not to mention you have less resources to work with. I feel like I'm playing with one arm tied behind my back. If one character falls, now you have 2 characters which is completley boring. I remember playing Final Fantasy II (IV in Japan) and there were 5 total characters at once. I didn't have a hard time keeping up and I was 14 at the time and it was my very first RPG with multiple characters.

FFIX which was a throwback to the roots of the FF series went back to 4 characters. The Phantasy Star series had 4 and 5 as well. What's hard to keep up about a turn based game? Every FF game has had 4 or 5 characters at a time until FF VII. VII is when they started using 3 (and everybody followed). I feel it's because they had limited power on the PS1 and then suddenly 3 just became the norm and it has stuck ever since.
-Ajari-

#2 If you're talking about a single player game styled like Baldurs Gate or FF where you are more or less playing for your whole group, I would say that FF IX got it right, no more than 4 active in the group at a time. I did however like the part where some members of your party got split up, and you got to play as 2 seperate teams accomplishing 2 seperate tasks.

However if you are talking a Multiplayer RPG, you really only want the player controling a max of 2 characters, the player and his/her pet.

#3 Well in our project we have 10 playable character (2 unlockable/secret ones) with only 4 activelly in a battle only.
The split Dreamer mentioned is also in our project since the beginning already. :)

#4 Yeah, i was thinking of going with 4 for my main party for my project. So i'll probably do that since others feel 4 is good too.

#5 3 is ok with me, but 4 is great. Think about it this way, what are each characters skills. I'm not much of a magic user myself, so in like FF1 I most often go with 2 warriors, a thief, and a Red Mage. If I only had 3 positions I'd feel crampt. Do I go with 2 fighters who hit hard, and have a healer, but then what about monsters who go down only by magic. hmmmmm. If you have 4 spots, most people would feel that they can round out the team better.

I like splits. I liked ff3 (don't know Japan Version, I think 5 or 6) Each character is taken back to a different area, and they have to meet up again.

#6 FF3 was FF6 in japan. Yeah had to do that a few times in FF6. was fun. Yeah i agree.... I prefer to have at least two fighters since they will have more effect on enemies then other characters usualy. Have to have someone who can do magic, either for healing or attacking, but there should also be someone else with a talent unlike the others.

#7 One think I liked a lot about FF4 (2 US) is that, though there were many characters through the story, they entered and left based on the development of the plot, rather than perpetually sticking around just waiting for you to pikachoose them to be part of your party. It made the max characters in combat thing not feel forced, as there were simply never more than 5 characters available based on the plot. Conveniently, 5 was also the number of combat slots that were available.

It also allowed you to have dramatic self-sacrifices, character deaths, etc - which really make a story much more meaningful than the rediculous pokemon character collection that RPGs since FF6/3 have done.

Though I must say, that of the many-character RPGs, FF6/3 probably did the best job of making this system work - the breaking of the world providing dramatic effect that made you worry about whether all the characters had survived as you tried to pull things back together. It also used the larger number of characters in some of the multi-party battle sequences and split party plot segments (FF9 also used this to good effect).

6 also managed to give every character a memorable storyline and unique personality both in and out of combat. Games like Final Fantasy 7 and 8 really failed to make characters feel terribly distinctive in combat due to everyone having the capability to learn just about any ability aside from limit breaks. In those games I felt that party selection was more asthetic than anything else.

I think it is very important to give characters distinctive combat capabilities - developing their personality in combat, as it were. This is honestly where the majority of the time playing the game will be spent, so if the characters do not feel distinct there, it will be difficult to make players be interested in their personalities in other aspects of the game.

A bad example of a many-character game is Chrono Cross, which went way overboard, giving you a rediculous number of characters, with only 3 battle slots - and virtually no development of any of the characters beyond the main few. It really took what could have been an excellent game down a notch (though there were certainly other problems as well).

#8 It really depends on the game (duh!). There are two issues - story / identification, and control.

If you watch movies and TV shows, or read books, that feature an "ensemble" cast - each episode is usually about one or two characters. The hero, or two people in conflict with each other. Oftentimes there will be "B" and "C" plots that give the other characters a few minutes in the limelight, but you can still usually identify one character whom the movie, book, chapter, or episode is ABOUT. It's their point-of-view, even if it's told in the third person and occasionally cuts around to other characters.

That's the storytelling / identification issue. So I'd say either focus on one character, or have CLEAR breaks to switch context. It's up to you as a game designer to figure out how to do it effectively, but we're hardwired to focus in on one person at a time to identify with in stories.

The control issue means you need to make sure the player can simply manage their entire party without getting confused, bored, or frustrated, or feeling like they are losing control in any way. If you want a cast of thousands, controlling everyone RTS style, you will need to sacrifice a LOT of "detail" control in order to allow the player to hurl massive armies at their foes (and realize that most will be nameless blobs to the player). On the other hand, if you are really only controlling one character at a time, you can have a lot more detail and things the player can "tweak." Just don't DARE try to individually equip 1,000 playable characters one at a time :)

I think these kinds of decisions should rarely be made in isolation. Good game design is rarely conveniently modular - it's more holistic. Decide the number of characters the GAME needs to make it happen, and then figure out a way to make it work for the player. Most Japanese-style RPGs that I've played (and precious few haven't been by Square, so I'm hardly an expert on the subject) limit you to controlling around 3 or 4 characters "at a time" in combat because it gives you the best blend of simplicity with tactical options (one character casts defensive / healing spells, another debilitates the foe, while a third is just deals as much damage as possible, for example). Any more than that, and the game becomes hard to control and keep track of everyone and their different powers and stat levels (health / magic, etc), and any less than that and the combat becomes boring repitition with very few options for the player. But you could certainly design a game that had more complex options appropriate for a single character (look at Diablo), or for mass armies.

#9 I tend to agree with everyone. I definately think you need to have less then 10 or so for storyline purposes. Games like Suikoden boasted 108 characters you could collect and store in spherical containers to do battle against the forces of evil. And chrono cross was a good game, but i felt the 48 or so playable characters was just.... too much.

I tend to use characters that i "like" in battle. And that usually spawns from their personality or stuff that occurs in then story.

Final Fantasy X is one of my favorites of all time. I liked all the characters, cept Kimari. ever other character seemed to have their place in battle. Some characters couldn't do "piercing" attacks, others couldn't hit flying enemies... While could devistate you in some games, this one let you swap out characters from the backup party to slay thy enemies.


And while Xenosaga II has an "Improved" battle system. I must say it confused the hell out of me at first. You have "locations" you can attack in A B C related to height. Some characters cannot hit in certain Zones.... some characters also do specific types of attacks Physical/Ether/elemental. If you had the "right" party you were unstopable. but if you aren't focusing... you can't just mash buttons and "win"


Oh yeah, Valkyrie Profile is one of my absolute favorites too... it featured alot of playable characters that have died, and you have to train them and make them strong and send them to valhalla. That made it kinda difficult to get attached to them.


So i guess it's a matter of do it for the story, or do it for the variety.