How many party members should a JRPG have?

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has five

HOW DARE YOU CALL THE BLADES MERE WEAPONS!

...From a narrative/characterization perspective, thats disingenuous, since it's actually 11, which is bloated (yet, it worked out). 5 is only true in gameplay.

 

I'd voted 7-8, but 6 is fine too. Allows for gameplay differences and the potential for everyone to be relevant and fleshed out in the story too.

If the game is using a class-system like Final Fantasy V or some other highly flexible system independent of the characters themselves, then I see it as less necessary to have more characters than you can field in a single battle. You don't need multiple characters to keep it entertaining if you can easily radically retool your arsenals on everyone.

For number of active characters in every battle, I prefer 4, it grants significantly more flexibility than 3. I would think 3 suddenly became popular in 64-bit generation because the fourth 3D character was too much strain on the processors. But if a game can be really busy, I'm fine with 3 combatants. 5 characters I've seen Etrian Odyssey do, and I love it there, but I'm not sure if it'd work anywhere else.

[Lightchao42]

25 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

HOW DARE YOU CALL THE BLADES MERE WEAPONS!

...From a narrative/characterization perspective, thats disingenuous, since it's actually 11, which is bloated (yet, it worked out). 5 is only true in gameplay.

That's true, but you don't directly play as the Blades outside Torna so I didn't count them. You can say that XC2 has twelve main characters (Rex, Pyra, Mythra, Nia, Dromarch, Tora, Poppi, Mòrag, Brighid, Zeke, Pandoria, and Azurda), and the plot generally does a good job giving them all attention even if some characters have less focus than others.  Though this topic was specifically about playable characters, parties can have NPCs too; I've heard that Dragon Quest VIII has characters who don't participate in fights but accompany the party for the entire game.

In fact, this topic was partially inspired by the Iwata Asks for Xenoblade Chronicles, which had one of the writers saying that it was hard to write dialogue for every character since they're all always present and they all have to react to the plot. Some people say that XC2 does a better job at balancing its cast than the first game despite having several more characters, so I suppose he improved in the meantime.

[Eltosian Kadath]

There should be as many as there are combat spaces. No characters left to chill on the bench, every character is forced to be relevant. If you need to add gameplay differences, add in through customization like a job system, or the djinn system of Golden Sun, or choices with level ups, etc.

[Slumber]

7-8 is the ideal if you've got a JRPG longer than 40-50 hours.

Otherwise 5-6.

[Ottservia]

9 hours ago, Etheus said:

I think the fix to that is pretty simple. Have the remaining party members serve as logistical support or resource gatherers. You could send them off on timed passive missions to gain xp and resources. Or you could have them as background actors that randomly buff your party, attack enemies, etc. (like Futaba in Persona 5).

Persona 5 also has a skill where background part members can randomly help "down" a foe if Joker fails to do so giving them a bit of extra utility. It requires like rank 5 of the star confidant but it's there

[Eltosian Kadath]

I wonder how many people who chose 13+ were thinking of the 108 stars of destiny from the Suikoden games.