Party Questions

[Kelson]

Hi everyone,

I tend to enjoy turn-based JRPGs and this one seems to be well-reviewed. I'm curious about a couple things:

Do you get to choose from a selection of party members, or are they set?
Do you get to keep party members once they join, or do they come and go based on the story?
How many party members do you have max? I can see 4 in the screenshots, but it looks like there's room for a 5th in the UI on some of the screenshots.

Thank you!

[[NGNS-SWE] ⚡ Quezkatolen ⚡]

first time I play this game, but sometimes you escort people and they take part in the battle as well.

so that might answere the 5th spot...

[rikuroa]

Estelle and Joshua are permanent, the other party members change depending on various events in the game.
For the final dungeon you can choose your party members though.
There is also no room for 5 members.
Don't worry about your faves leaving, every character has a great personality!

[Kelson]

Thank you both for your helpful answers!

Regarding skills/roles - do you get to choose those too, or are they determined by which party members you have? Thanks!

[ladynadiad]

For most of the game they are going to be set because party members will not be available due to plot reasons typically. For the final dungeon you do get to choose two people to accompany Joshua and Estelle though. There will be six people in total you can choose from for the final dungeon but for the rest of the game they join up and leave as the plot demands. This will change in SC and the 3rd when afte the prologue there you'll get more choices on party members and some new people will join up as well, some of whom you do actually meet in this game.

Also you do get escort quests that have NPCs to protect in them. The NPCs are in the battle and you do have to make sure that they do not go to 0 HP because that's going to end the battle and give you an option to retry. If they do get hit though, they heal fully for the next battle. NPC AI is actually pretty smart and tries to stay out of it and some of them even have things they can do to help you out. You'll only run into trouble if you get surprise attacked while escorting people because there's a much higher chance of the NPCs getting hit before they can move away.

[Erpy]

Regarding skills/roles - do you get to choose those too, or are they determined by which party members you have? Thanks!

Aside from using physical attacks and items, characters can do two more things:

1) Arts: this is like magic. You equip each character with a maximum of 6 materia-like orbs which, in addition to raising your stats or giving you other benefits, give you elemental points in 7 different categories. Different combination of elemental points give you different spells. So you basically determine yourself which characters can use which spells. (with certain character-specific restrictions, I might add. Only mage-type characters can get access to advanced spells) Spells use EP which are basically magic points. Each spell in the game has a casting time, some of them longer than others.

2) Crafts: these are like special moves, usually physically-based. Each character gets between 2 and 5 crafts that are unique to them. (as well as 1 or 2 S-crafts which are like limit breaks) Crafts can be used instantly and are usually stuff like hitting several enemies at once with a physical attack, hit enemies in a straight line, apply a stat buff to a character or inflict a certain status. Crafts use CP which you get by hitting or getting hit in battle.

[Kelson]

Thank you all very much. I'll be getting this game once it goes on a better sale. Sounds right up my alley.