Best characters in the game?

[BarneyEX]

Can anybody recommend the best characters to use in the game? I assume Hakuoro should be good.

[Minneyar]

Hakuowlo is a solid, well-rounded character, and he's in your party more often than anybody else, so it's a pretty good idea to keep him leveled up.

As far as other characters go, you get Oboro early on and he's great after you pump some BP into increasing his attack power. Karulau and Touka join later but are also great (likewise, focus on increasing their attack). Benawi isn't quite as strong as they are, but his extended range still makes him super useful. Aruruu is by far the best tank, and her defense is good enough that you don't really even need to put points into it and she'll still be tankier than everybody else.

Otherwise, most of the characters are pretty well-balanced and you can use whoever you like; the only caveat I'd give is that Ulthury and Camyu are pretty weak and will never do good single-target damage. At higher levels, their spells can hit huge areas, so they're useful for weakening large groups of enemies, but it's arguable how useful that actually is because most of the other characters have combo attacks that can also hit areas.

Also -- I'll spoiler out their names just in case anybody doesn't want to know -- but Teoro, Derihourai, and Genjimaru are all temporary characters who you won't be able to use for most of the game, so I don't recommend relying on them. (which is a shame, because Genjimaru has the potential to be both a great attacker and tank)

[Lapu]

Oboro. He's a beast. Pump everything into attack and ignore defense and m.defense until you have capped attack (only level defense afterwards). This man claps ass and oneshots every single enemy in the game. Walks 5 steps, can attack almost twice a round and somewhere around the second half of the game, you gain an item that increases defense and makes him completely IMMUNE against magic and status effects. He will be unstoppable at that point.