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Then there's Miitopia, where the player inserts whoever they want and then the story just writes itself

"Maybe the real value is the friends we made along the way" Shin Megami Tensei's protagonists: "ha, I killed all my friends"

>"secret enemies" >Sora and Donald Finally, someone speaks the truth.

"Great parties don't usually start as a group of strangers". That's why I love the cast of Tales of Berseria so much. They start off as total strangers to each other, and generally don't get along for a good part of the game. The main character doesn't join up with the other 5 out of a sense of comradery or friendship, but rather because she thinks that she can use them to further her own goal. As the game goes on, the characters are humanized and do eventually become more of a family by the end, although their personalities might not let them admit it. It's a really unique party dynamic that you just don't see in many other games.

This is why the five man band is such a common party structure. Even if all the members don't fit specifically into one archetype (Hero, Lancer, Heart, Smart guy and Big guy), all the roles that each archetype fulfills will generally be divided amongst all the party members and they will collectively make the party a full entity.

This. This is such a huge part of rpgs to me. Well written and enjoyable characters will make or break an RPG for me

Fire Emblem: Three Houses does a couple of things that get a lot of mileage out of the cast: -The inter-character drama is never *plot* relevant, but is both a direct result of gameplay decisions you make, and also confers a mechanical benefit. -There is a *lot* of it: a lot of characters can interact with a lot of other characters. Because of this, the simple jumping-off points of the characters' individual personalities create conflicts that provide details to what would otherwise be fairly archetypical characters.

Mario & Luigi have such a pleasant bond between each other, truly inseparable and it's something I love about the Mario & Luigi RPGs. They really dial up the brotherly love and care for each other, even down to the mechanics that use both together or their special attacks that can't be used with one K.Oed.

BUG FABLES MENTION, WOOO And I completely and heavily agree with the Team Snakemouth being incredibly well written. They really are just inseparable. The amount of optimal dialogue and polish with the writing is incredible.

One other way you can do this that isn't really mentioned in this video is combat quips, or little bits. The Tales series of JRPGs, for instance, has a ton of post-battle conversations based on who's in your active party, with character dynamics and running jokes being established purely through them. Tales also has Skits, little quick side conversations that appear during dungeon exploration or world map traversal, that also do a ton to flesh out the characters. A personal favorite of mine is a running joke in Tales of Berseria where whenever the party makes it to ruin or dungeons, Eizen, a world-traveling pirate, will dump some lore and background information on the party in a skit, which establishes him as having an interest in history and lets him feel like one of the more mature members of the party... until later on in the game, when Eleanor, a studious and heavily religious knight, also joins the party, and starts correcting his little history lessons. It's a funny bit on its own, it establishes Eizen and Eleanor's dynamic, and it also reframes Eizen's earlier characterization from 'guy who knows a lot to' 'guy who *thinks* he knows a lot. Really recommend the Tales series in general if you want to see this done well.

The Tales of games have one of my favorite ways of doing party dynamics, called Skits. While you're walking around in the world, sometimes the game will give you an optional prompt to watch a scene of character portraits talking to each other about various things, which is a really good way to bring in character dialogue and show things that don't really fit well into scenes, all without sacrificing too much time. If you don't like them, you don't have to watch a single one, but for those who want the extra dialogue they're amazing

I think this is why I love RPGs so much. I’m a sucker for character relationships and development. Games like Kingdom Hearts and Persona have such fleshed out characters that it makes the story so enjoyable

9:07 "Each party member [...] need to stay relevant as long as they're going to be around." *shows Haru Okumura* You didn't need to rub salt in the wound!

I’m so glad you mentioned how Fire Emblem and Valkyria Chronicles handles its casts of expendable characters. Nothing truly hurts more than losing your favorite character due to your own lack of skill, which can be a driving force to replay and get better at the game. I love it.

Yessssss more Bug Fables love! The character writing in it is so strong. While I wish Octopath had a bit more inter party interaction, the way they set up dynamics and who can comment on what depending on your party is nice. Octopath in general is set up to be a very different narrative type game which I know a lot of people dont gel with but I do. If you have Cyrus in one of Primrose's chapters, he'll ask if he can learn to dance, and the tavern conversation combos can be entertaining as well!

Radiant historia, a ds rpg with a 3ds remake, does a good job tying the party to the main mechanic both in narrative and gameplay. The game has the main character traveling back between two different time lines, and back in time for both. Because the story plays out differently in both, the party is also different, with party members in one time line being NPCs, antagonists, or not appearing in the other. It does a good job of showing the effect one person can have on the world around them, which is a theme in the game. The downside is that often party members’ primary connection is with the mc, so it has a kind of spoke and wheel group dynamic.

My favorite party is Dragon Quest 11’s. Every character feels like a vital part of the team. The trials and tribulations they go through help them bond despite coming from a variety of situations and backgrounds. Erik & The Luminary feel like the typical “ride or die” bromance that forms between the first 2 party members. Serena & Veronica feel like they complete each other which helps form the second half of the story. Jade & Rab aren’t even blood relatives but you can tell they have a (grand)father and daughter bond after being with just each other for years. Slyvando and the secret 8th character having similar views of knighthood helps with their loyalty for the Hero. What especially makes this is that while everyone has some connection to the MC, they also have dynamics amongst each other. You see how they truly feel with things like Eric’s amnesia, #8’s struggle with an old friend, a certain heavy loss, and Sylvando making amends with his dad. Truly makes things like the reunion and the final boss rewarding because they’ve been through so much together

I've still never finished it but Xenoblade had what, like 8 party members. Most of which you meet fairly early on and they all play some part in each cutscene. The affinity system helps flesh it out, and the heart to hearts make it feel like the group is getting to know each other even better.

One party dynamic I always come back to is Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Having a silent protagonist is hard but Camelot used very clever narrative techniques to have other party members "react" to what the protagonist was supposedly saying. It was a "party dynamic by contrast" where you the player would fill in the blanks based on everyone's reactions. I remember thinking it was very charming and engaging when I played it as an 11 year old.

Urdnot Wrex and Mordin Solus are the most impactful "disposable" characters in Mass Effect solely because their presence in the game determines how the genophage arc ends. And there's a surprising amount of outcomes to that trilogy-spanning storyline. It's absolutely brilliant and both characters are wonderfully memorable for how unique and fleshed out they are.

I was expecting this video to be about gameplay interactions, something like the triangle of support, attacker, and tank, talking about the multiple variants in some games and how some sort of have unique yet interesting gameplay interactions. Still a really good video, but I wanted to say that.

I feel like the Persona 2 games have amazing parties, especially Innocent Sin which completely develops and reveals plot points related to the party throughout the story. I would love to talk more about P2 but a lot of the character moments involve spoiling the story... However there is one thing I could say without spoiling: the game has a mechanic called "contact" which allows you to contact demons. You can pair up on party members during these to get more options as well and at the start of the game there aren't really any as the party is still relatively unfamiliar with each other though there are some pre-established relationships. Over the course of the game, the many different combinations increase as the party establishes relationships between each other and forming unique bonds that can be seen through this contact system.

Whereas I find many of FF8's characters bland, I really like how during the exam your team is Squall, Seifer and Zell: three characters that hate each other but there is also some respect for each other's skills. When Seifer fails the exam due to going against orders he applaudes the others, and if I remember correctly Zell is the one most troubled by Seifer taking the hit for the team.

If we’re talking about expendable party members, you literally have to play Russian roulette in Lisa to progress, with each round being a 50% chance to lose a party member permanently

10:22 this is exactly how I felt about Bug Fables. Neither Vi, Kabbu, or Leif seem like main characters. They all have equal roles in the story. That really just goes to show how great their friendship is

Like many I feel like a good party dynamic makes or breaks a JPRG, which is why I ended up loving Persona 5 Strikers so much for really improving the PTs chemistry. The original kept my attention with its gameplay and style but I always felt the Phantom Thieves never got to really feel like a group, unlike SEES and the Investigation Team. The story was better paced than P4 but so many cutscenes focusing on the main story meant the Thieves besides Makoto and Futaba dropped off after their joining arcs. Strikes did a great job of giving more time for them to hang out as friends without sacrificing the story pacing (something I felt was a problem in P4), and I hope its writers (who wrote for Royal but not vanilla P5) stay on to write Persona 6.

i hate it when a game just straight up murders my healer with a giant freaking sword

The character dynamics in CrossCode are fantastic. I was really invested in the growing friendship between Lea and Emilie, the rivalry turning into respect between Lea and Apollo, and the unique personalities of the supporting cast. Add onto that the fact that the game was built to feel like playing an MMO and pulls it off with great success.

I love Final Fantasy V's party a whole lot, more than any game in the series until XV, V's cast is just a group that quickly becomes friends who legitimately enjoy each other's company, and even with how early on it was in the series the game still does a great job selling the camaraderie and friendship between the group both with the big story events and smaller moments like Bartz and Galuf getting drunk at a bar, Bartz bonding with Krile, the moments of Lenna and Faris connecting as family, etc. Also what I think makes Bartz a particularly great protag, despite being kind of the most simple character of the group early in the game, is that he has a distinct dynamic with each other character that's rly endearing. Perhaps it's not much of a surprise given how small the party is, but FFV easily has the best main cast of the snes games (and also my personal favorite of the series)

I thought Moneybags’ motivation was gems.

The fact that Bug Fables got some more recognition gives me l i f e.

Tales of Berseria, a mish mash cast of characters, that after learning of impending doom, band together, each with their own reasons of course; revenge, a decent challenge, stopping the main villain from achieving their plans, a relative working with the main villain, etc. I find this to be one of my favourite reasons for characters to work together; personal goals, although you guys may not agree with it. Any Berseria fans out there?

I love persona 4 not for the plot itself, but for the conections i made with each character in the social links. Was wonderful to see why they are what they are, their motivations and fears, it was like i was actualy talking with friends.

I feel like some RPGs expected the player to have a theater of the mind where interaction between characters does happen but the player has to fill in the gaps themselves. there's a cutscene in final fantasy XII that I really like where two characters talk to each other and they look at other charcters who talk to each other and you don't get to hear what the second set of characters say, it just implies that the characters do talk to each other more than what the player sees.

While Yakuza: Like a Dragon has some memorable characters, I do agree that it does feel like not all the characters had their time in the spotlight. Zhao is an especially big offender, since he plays a big part in the story where he's initially introduced as a potential antagonist, but when he does join the party, he stops being important despite being, y'know, the (ex)leader of a Chinese mafia gang. And while there are a couple of optional scenes that really flesh out his character, the problem is that he's not relevant to the main story once he becomes playable, despite the story taking twists and turns that would have been prime opportunities to flesh out his reasons for remaining a member of the party, as well as exploring the unique skills he could have brought to the table. That being said, the interpersonal connections between the main party are very well done and feel very fleshed out relative to other RPGs. No one is defined by any one trait or personality quirk, and it does feel like the cast interact with each other outside of the time the player spends playing the game.

The Bug Fables mention warms up my heart so much

One of the biggest reasons I really loved _Final Fantasy VII Remake_ is because of how well they handled every single character. Honestly, my favorite parts of that game are not even combat-related (although boss battles are _amazing_); I just really enjoyed seeing characters interacting with each other. The cast is so fleshed out, even the support cast (Marle, for instance). I can't wait to see future entries and how they'll tackle characters like Cid and Vincent.

For me, Persona 4 is my favorite party just because there friendship feels more genuine than any other game I've played.

I really like the party in Nier Replicant because their banter is so hilarious and all their personalities clash in the best way. Especially between Kaine, who swears like a sailor and wears lingerie 24/7 and Weiss, a sassy ancient tome. Their arguments were the best part of the game alongside the amazing story. Also of course the persona games always have great parties with great conversations.

The amount and quality of dialog in Bug Fables is astounding to me. Man I love that game.

"It's not all about the ships." woah, Woah, WOAH! Let's not say anything you'll regret. Maritime craftsmanship is serious business.

Some rare Tales of Symphonia love! Highly appreciated.

This is actually particularly relevant to a hobby project I'm working on. I have my own thoughts I've come to, but I'm super interested in your thoughts on character gameplay interactions, too!

With the way each Deltarune chapter is going, it seems like it's on it's way to be a shining example of enjoyable RPG party dynamics. Ralsei is the one who knows all the lore and is the walking hug dispenser of the group, Susie is mean and rough but is slowly learning to be nice, and Noelle is a sweetheart who has no idea how the Dark World works but is trying her best. Even characters who, in gameplay terms, aren't part of the party act like members. (Lancer, and more recently Berdly) Lancer's Susie's best friend, and causes her to openly show empathy for the first time when he turns to stone. Berdly starts out an annoyance but over time becomes an ally and comedic relief. Damn, Toby really knows how to make RPGs.

Mass Effect didn’t just place generic characters to fill holes, the characters they replaced to fill gaps were very fleshed out, but unfortunately people seldom got to meet them as a lot of players were meticulous about saving everyone they could or reloading. Another great example is Dragon Age Origins, not everyone could die willy-nilly but characters could go in different directions and change the story. I worked on how to maintain those save states and mapping them into future games at BioWare and the scope of doing things like that was even larger than I suspected initially, and I suspected it was going to be damn near impossible. Temporal dependencies are something that’s is often overlooked in open world games and was a source of huge complexity in BioWare games due to the ability to do different adventures in different orders - it’s not something people actively notice but in a lot of BioWare games you can do whole sections of the game in different orders with different access to party members and at different points in their development... there is a lot of work that goes into keeping those issues cohesive.

Persona 2 and Digital Devil Saga has to be some of my favorite and most well developed parties in games I have ever experienced. Especially with just hoe well interconnected they are.

I started playing octopath traveler with the merchant, who hates thieves and her first quest revolves around getting stolen things back from her city. The third character I recruited was a thief who wanted to steal from a mansion just cause he wanted to be the best thief (no robinhood-like or vengeance justification or anyting), and the merchant just goes with him and helps, no questions asked. Dropped the game instantly

God I love ffxv's party and how close they are. You can FEEL the stress put on them when shit hits the fan, and even characters that have known each others for less time (Prompto comes to mind) still have a great balance with the others. I just love the animations where Prom helps Ignis while Gladio and Noct have a more... Sad, distant approach to it all. That's probably why I like FeMC more than MC in persona 3, too.

I feel Tales of the abyss has one of the best party dynamics where each character has a connection to each other's story and its enhanced since the main villan team is similarly connected to each character.

"Each party member needs their own time in the spotlight, but also needs to stay relevant." *Shows Haru's Related Palace* I still shed a tear to this day.

While its status as an RPG is debatable, Paper Mario: The Origami King had an interesting twist to the partner system. Mario gets Olivia right off the back who gets to be relevant throughout the whole story and gets a bit more fleshed out, but every major story beat gives you a new temporary ally that gets their time in the spotlight before the story moves on. They manage to make an impact and do their part, then make way for another character later on to do the same. So at least they avoid the characters being present but not contributing. Bobby's a real one.

You showed a few Tales clips but I wish you had talked about the skits in the series. Skits provide so much interaction between party members between talking about the actual plot to silly banter. It's the one thing that keeps me coming back to the series as skits give me that feeling that the party members are actually a party and get along and joke around. Star Ocean does a similar thing with its private actions. Contrast this with DQXI, where I felt the party members weren't a group at all. You could almost split them into separate groups: the Hero and Erik, Serena and Veronica, Rab and Jade, and Sylvando. While each party member did have their own arc, the party barely interacted as a whole. I understand that's just how the DQ games are, but it made me care a lot less about the characters in the game since they hardly seemed to care about each other.

The Trails series and more specifically the Trails in the Sky trilogy has some of my favorite character interactions in RPGs, they’re so well written

I always liked the dynamics around the Tales party members. It's usually due to the skits for the occasional side conversations they have when travelling around. I've found them the perfect way to characterize party members without having an entire loyalty mission set up for each character

I love the party dinamics of braverly default, all of them have a distinc personality and all of them interrelates pretty well with each other, and you pick them at the early stage of the game. Also the mechanics of the job change with the asteriscs helps making a dynamic and adaptable team battle party without changing the party members.

One thing that octopath does really well is the background storytelling, Is true, the interactions between characthers are varely anything to point out, But The key elements on everyone story is connected in some way or another.

Persona 3 cast does this well. The cast feels somewhat disconnected at first, since they don't all know each other but are forced to work together, but they all have ties to each other. Junpei and Yukari are friends, Mitsuru and Akihiko are friends, Ken and Shinji know each other, and aigis has ties to the MC as well as Mitsuru. Fuuka is kind of the odd one out, but she's not particularly disconnected either. What really sells this dynamic though is how during the 100+ hours of the game, more connections develop and by the end, the cast ends up feeling like they really developed over time.

Ive been looking for articles about just this subject. Like you mentioned, FFX has what all great parties need, having characters as a proxy for larger factions in the world. My favorite RPG trope is 'group of diverse characters who should be enemies become best friends and fight the whole damn world'. And at some point in a game visiting an important part of someone's backstory, like Barrett in Corel Prison, or Frog vs Magus, those magical character moments that make these games worth remembering.

Ever heard of radiant historia? It's about time travel. It has has 7 party members, but only 3 can be used in battle and depending on where you are in the timeline you won't be able to use them. The first 6 are integral to the story and actively determine events in the game, while the last one is uhhh... just there to forward the plot once. It also doesn't help that in battle he doesn't really synergize with anyone. My main takeaway from this character is to not force a character archetype in the main party when the story nor other characters really benefit from it

Wild Arms 3 does a great job at integrating the evolving party dynamic via gameplay. Gallows is a lazy slacker but he has training in magic. Initially he's a tanky character whose normal attacks are pretty good, but as the game goes on, his gun isn't nearly as useful for combat as anyone else's. But he has the best magic stats. As his story has him come into his own and gain confidence for his family history, you witness him become your magic MVP. Jet is an all-around party member who can do anything, which suits his lone wolf nature. But that also means he doesn't specialize in anything. As the game progresses, Jet becomes a character who you use with the party to support where the others can't, and in his own arc he is still moody but has embraced them as his comrades. Clive is a more mature adult whose arc is fairly short but that also is reflected in his gameplay. He's always your heavy hitting, slow tank. As you get more mediums, Clive's best use doesn't really change much. But that's because he is the responsible, well-adjusted member of the team. He doesn't really need to change. And then there's the main character, Virginia, who is frail, not very strong, but she is extremely fast, fast enough to go first against even bosses. She is adaptable, always able to keep your party healthy (she has the best means of AOE healing tied to an ability Gallows can't access). Being able to count on Virginia going first makes her a super flexible party member even if she needs everyone else for damage, tanking, magic, etc. which does well to emphasize her character as the group's leader due to her mental fortitude.

This is helpful for writing, but can you also do an episode about mechanical chemistry- how party members synergize in combat to allow for interesting gameplay situations? The way a party is built is important to the structure of the entire game, so it would make a good topic for analysis.

the mario and luigi rpg's are great for using the mario bros as a strong comedy duo and the party chemistry is especially good because of the bros moves you can use in battle, so its kind of affected by the gameplay the whole battle system itself in those games is good for making them feel like a real team

Can't believe the Suikoden series shown but not discussed, those games party dinamics deserve a video of their own, not only do you have a huge cast but most of them have their own motivation and part to play in the main story and there really is enough main story characters that it doesn't really matter that a lot of the optinal ones are pretty shallow, you even have groups that already know each other that can perform special unite attacks

Final fantasy 15 really did this the best out of any game I have played. It was truly the little things like prompto taking the strangest pictures inaginable, to gladio getting mad and saying “watch where you’re going!” when you would attack him with no enemies around that made the whole experience memorable. I barely followed the plot and kind of just went to point marker and did x thing, but really what made that game so enjoyable was the party dynamic. It reeled you into feeling like you were the main character and made it feel immersive despite all of the game’s flaws.

In my opinion bug fables has one of if not the best party dynamic both in gameplay and in the story

This sort of thing is the key virtue of Tales of Xillia, I find. It's why I wound up invested in that particular entry of that franchise over any other game in the series.

OMG, I know it was just a short clip but thank you for including Wild Arms 3! I love that game and very rarely anyone I talk to have heard of it

I’m surprised I’m not seeing nearly as much love for the Mass Effect party as I thought I would in these comments. It’s probably one of if not the best written party out there Also I gotta disagree with how the video talks about their deaths. Someone dying does a lot more than just replace or skip people, like how the krogan and Eve will be entirely different if Wreav is in charge, or how Kirrahe will become a bigger character again if Thane can’t carry out his mission of protection. Things like Miranda not being there being the only way for her father to survive, or getting a ton more character development for Raan and the other admirals since Tali isn’t there to support peace. The only one where someone dies and is simply replaced is Legion, which makes sense since they are a collective intelligence that tried to replicate him based on his prior experiences. There are a ton of consequences for most things in Mass Effect, deaths especially. It’s one of the things that make the trilogy one of the best games of all time

Great video. I also think it's useful to connect all the party members thematically. For instance, all of the Returners in FF6 are linked through the idea of healing after a great loss.

Man, been following your content for well over a year now. Can't believe this channel hasn't blown up! Love your work

I love that you included the Highland Village theme from Okage in your intro! It's such a great song, and I love seeing the appreciation!

“Tales of” first comes to mind

You showed Suikoden 2. And as the law of the universe dictates, you must now make a video on it!

I’ve been working on an RPG with my brother, and this is really handy for me since I’m doing the writing! Thanks for the video!

Since you showed it, I want to mention Wild Arms 3 here. In terms of party dynamics for battles, you see where each character shines. As for their chemistry, you see it build from complete strangers to a tight knit group of allies, all with a common goal to accomplish.

I would like to see a follow-up video about parties mechanically. How diverse do you make the different characters?

Might be a weird favorite, but I love Final Fantasy XIV's "party", The Scions of the Seventh Dawn. You don't really get to go through dungeons and raids with them (at least until Shadowbringers), since you do those with other players. But there are times where you play with them in solo instances, or even as them. They are some of the most well-written and lovable RPG characters I've ever seen.

I love the Wild Arms 3 mention in 9:44! Not a lot of people know about the JRPG and I really love their dynamic so much

Another one of my favorite partys is the party fro persona 3. Compared to 4 and 5s partys i like how the characters in 3 clearly have a life outside of the main character with each of them going to different clubs and hanging out with each other outside of cutscences also the fact the each of them evolve there persona with out the main characters help really pushes them forward. I also think that living with them and seeing how at the beginning of the game every ones pretty indifferent to each other really helps you see them grow compared to 4 and 5 were everyone's best friends from the moment they join the party

one key question for a party as well is to ask why is this character here in the group. Sometimes its that they get swept up into the larger conflict (usually the protagonist from a small town) other times they are just like yea sure I'll come with. The party in FF12 is interesting to look at. Vaan and Penelo have zero reason to be in the plot, other than Vaan being the protagonist allows him and us the audience to learn about events as they come. Balthier is a better choice for the leading man, as he calls himself, but since he knows about the world already and specific events and characters it would have been trickier to write I suppose. Also have to consider in the party who is the protagonist and who is the main character since they are not necessarily the same. The protagonist is our main player character, and it can shift as the story goes on, but the main character is the one who's motivations drives the plot forward. For instance FF10 and FF12, Vaan and Tidus are the protagonists since we play as them and start off the game as them but Ashe and Yuna are the main characters since they're the ones with the quest off to quest it. FF15 Noctis is both the protagonist and main character.

Omori is a great example of a good party. Everyone is so meaningful and important to the plot somehow, it's amazing.

I put so many hours in FFXV precisely because of the party dynamic, I was always searching for that next bit of banter or that next version of the various hotel/camper/camping site scene. I honestly had a ton of fun.

The song at the end of the video reminded me of something i quite liked about Tales of Symphonia. While not all characters get the same degree of attention on the plot (either because they joined late or their tale is a tad shorter), I really enjoyed the skits that we'd get by pressing Z on the overworld. It would show the character portraits and have dialog between them, showing off traits of their personality or how they reacted to event A or B. It also allowed for a lot more interactions between different characters that didn't really get to talk much to each other during cutscenes. At the time it felt like a really nice way of embracing the party as a whole rather than "two/three main characters plus a bunch of tag-alongs"

To this day, I consider FFVII to be the gold standard for the "pacing" aspect here. Most of the members get a scene to get them into the party to help introduce them, and they all get a (sometimes optional) scene in disk 2/3 to conclude their arc. Some characters are forced into the party once in a while, and the game doesn't waste that opportunity to develop them when they do. Most of the time you're free to select which two accompany Cloud at any given time, so you'll hear more dialog from the team members you like; with a portion of that dialog not being generic like the Chrono Cross example. In addition, there are quite a few scenes where the main plot stops to bring the party together as a whole to have a conversation and share their views and insights about what is happening. These include the haunted hotel in the gold saucer, near the crater at the end of disk 1, numerous scenes on the Highwind, Cosmo Canyon a couple of times, etc. This makes sure that even party members you've been neglecting still get to infrequently chirp in and remind you they exist. This is pacing as opposed to something like Paper Mario. When a companion's personal quest is completed, and they join the party, they essentially stop being relevant as a character. The spotlight hovers over them once, and then not really anymore after that. As the video said, they turn into glorified items.

Octopath’s lack of party interaction really bothered me. I just wished they forced you to recruit all 8 of them so that they could allow Chapter 2 onwards make a bit more sense. The cutscenes made no sense when you factor that there’s seven more people behind the spotlighted character.

I just found your channel recently and it's pretty good as an go to tutorial on several game design choice! I also want you to have a thought more deeper on Suikoden II where the characters have numerous number, 108 to be exact but you still have decent connection with each of primary party member. It also add some spices and mini-story by having the random party member, though they didn't really affecting that much to the entire game.

This is my absolute FAVORITE thing to discuss when it comes to game design! My dad and I were just discussing the dynamics of Final Fantasy casts the other day, but I have to say, I think the first four in FF9 (Zidane, Dagger, Vivi, Steiner) have one of the best dynamics ever seen. Too bad the rest of the cast feels half-baked (looking at you, Amarant...). I'd also give Dragon Age II and Tales of Xillia a shoutout for how tightly their groups intertwine, for both good and bad. Thank you for making this for all of us - watching it was a wonderful use of my Memorial Day ❤

I fully agree with what you've said about Bug Fables. The main characters' interactions in that game are amazing and way better than anything Paper Mario has ever done! Though, to Paper Mario's credit, the way Origami King handles partner stories is very interesting.

You know what would be a good companion piece to this? Designing for party balance with characters that are designed to specialize in what they do and how to keep one character form becoming basically mandatory (either by being overpowered or being the only good option for a specific role).

Im planning to go into the game development/design for my job and these videos are really really helpful

Tales of Berseria's team. That's one of mine. Beyond the first three, who all escape the same prison together (one of them not even playable until WAY later), we've got: >An essentially brainwashed kid who was on the enemy side, but accidentally winds up with the party after escaping a fight. >A pirate who pretty much holds your ability to progress over you, since you have no way to get past that particular point without accepting his help. >An outright member of the enemy faction who is pretty much trying to spy on you, and you are now holding hostage. And that's just the initial join conditions. Berseria is complete moral grays, and it's awesome.

This video shows the difference between DQIX and DQXI. IX doesn't have party members with backstory or personality, and with the bland MC, it was very much a bore for me.

Grandia is a good example how an old story can still be good when it's told well.

One of my favourite RPG parties is from the Trails of Cold Steel series, mostly because they do start as a group of strangers, but also keeps everyone relevant by having only certain members available to you in different chapters, forcing you to use everyone and to experiment with setups. The other thing I like is that, unlike some other RPGs set in high school, they all are shown to have lives separate from the party rather than revolving around them. Also, it does what good RPG parties should do and make you feel like they are growing as people rather than just remaining as static characters

I'll try to keep some of these tips in mind for my own project. Thank you for the great video :)

I've actually thought about that Paper Mario vs Bug Fables thing for a while now. It took me a while to admit it to myself since I love Paper Mario, but I ended up loving the party in Bug Fables way more than the partners in paper mario because the Bugs had much longer and more interconnected stories that lasted for the entire game, instead of having smaller more contained stories that are quickly forgotton. I think that when people say that they want partners back in Paper Mario, I think that's just a surface level observation. What I think we really want is actual characters with real stories and interactions. Even if it means not getting a new party member with every chapter. I mean hell just look at the Mario and Luigi RPGs. They didn't have any partners like paper mario but their stories were way more interesting and they had a ton of fun side characters that they could bounce off of despite being silent protagonists. So basically, Bug Fables is objectively superior to Thousand Year Door come fite me

I will say that I've always enjoyed the banter and storyarcs in the Tales of.. games. Symphonia was my gateway into it but Abyss, Vesperia and especially Berseria all grabbed me with how the party play among each other, both in combat and outside. The over-arching stories are usually good to show most sides of the characters, but the side-quests and various smaller interactions in the skits are interaction gold.

I'm just happy to see Tales of Symphonia and Vesperia in this video. Love those games, especially the party. The skit system really help flesh some characters out while you play the game. Edit: What I really like about the skits in Tales is that they are optional, you almost never have to see them. Some of them have the characters talking about something that just happened, or it could be about some other thing you've done outside the main plot, like how one character's a terrible cook or how you've improved you skills. What ever it is about, it helps build the party up and flesh them out. It's one of the aspects that makes Tales the series it is.

smt games make me feel like a boss of all my demons. When the game gets hard and your demons keep dying and you lose from that, it just means your demons werent expendable enough, so you create backup demons and backup of backup demons until youre basically walking about with an army, that you'll later fuse together to make fewer stronger demons when you level up and repeat the cycle. Its a total power trip