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One of the rare guilty pleasures I enjoy is having an audience to my video game exploits. Lucky for me, I actually have a few people I know who are more than happy to play the role of observer while I play video games. I had one such friend over the other night and was advancing through the RPG Baten Kaitos: Origins. She suddenly asked me if there was only going to be three playable characters to use throughout the entire game. I didn't, still don't know for certain, but I'm pretty sure that the answer to that question is yes. So now I start to think about the difference between RPGs with many playable characters, and games that give you just a few. Depending on the player, does this add the experience or take something away?
I find the general number of playable characters, at least in the RPGs I've played, is usually somewhere between 6 and 8. There aren't many RPGs I've played that take that number lower. The original Wild Arms had three playable characters, Wild Arms 3 had four, and Baten Kaitos (as I've mentioned) has three. I do think I prefer the higher number to the lower. One of my favorite things to do in an RPG in to get to know my characters, and it's fun to watch the group dynamic that is created when all of their personalities mesh and clash together. I guess I sometimes feel like I'm missing out when I only have a few characters to get to know and train. For example, with Baten Kaitos: Origin, I really like my three main characters. So much in fact that it leaves me wishing the game would throw me another one. What would their presence reveal about the other characters' personalities? How would they enhance the story?
On the other hand, having less characters does make some aspects of the game easier. I'm what you might call an "equal opportunity leveler." I know some people might tend to use the same characters over and over in battle while neglecting the others, resulting in maybe half of their fighters being much stronger and higher in level than the unused ones. But me, I always believe that every character can be made useful if you're only willing to work with them (except for Dunsparce in Pokémon, but that's a totally different topic). You can imagine how much slower this makes games that gives you the chance to earn many characters, like the Shin Megami Tensei series, Pokémon, Radiata Stories, and the Suikoden series. Anyway, I always work with all my characters equally. So it's generally a bit easier to only have to focus leveling up three characters instead of eight. I can get my team to become strong faster, and therefore move through the story quicker without getting waylaid by tough enemies.
There has been instances where the lack of playable characters was compensated by tweaking another aspect of the game. For example, after playing Dark Cloud and starting up Dark Cloud 2, I was disappointed that I would only have two characters to play with, unlike the six in the first game. But, even though I missed having more characters, I found I had plenty to still do with them. All the weapon types that were in the first game were distributed between my two characters, so I wasn't lacking in cool weapons to level up and fuse together. Not only that, each character alternate fighting modes that could be used and improved. Max had his Ridebot that you could build stronger parts and weapons for, while Monica had her monster forms that you had to fight as improve their stats.
In the long run, I can't imagine that the number of playable characters in an RPG has a resounding effect on a game in general. But it makes me wonder how an RPG would feel or play differently. Like, what would have been different in Final Fantasy VII if the only characters you could fight with were Cloud, Tifa, and Barrett, and everyone else had just been NPCs? And also, is small numbered teams in RPGs an occurence that we'll continue to see, or just a random thing that pops up once in a while?
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