Story Characters vs Mercenaries Question

[50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey]

Hello,

Quick question; does using the story characters vs the random mercenaries change anything with the game, particularly regarding the story?

For example, are there dialogues between characters that you won't see if your party is mercenaries as opposed to the story characters, or maybe items that can only be acquired if you have story characters in your party, anything like that?

I'm a bit of a min-maxer, and the idea of getting new mercs every so often so I can control their stat growths more optimally is appealing to me, but not at the cost of missing out on story elements or other things like that.

Thanks in advance, hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

[Conan The Librarian]

For basic answer, this question comes up a lot, so see here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/699170/discussions/0/1753520224838844645/

Originally posted by Conan The Librarian:

To quote from the pinned FAQ post:

Are the story characters important to use, or can I pretty much ignore them and use just generic recruits? On one hand, the game is designed to be flexible in terms of "playing how you want", however, there are some caveats to this: 1. The main character (Kyrie) is mandatory on many story missions. 2. The game is designed for players to utilize the various story characters, and while there aren't many moments where a story character is automatically in an encounter, they do exist, so it is not recommended to completely ignore them.

So yes, Mechalibur is correct, but there are a couple of instances where story heroes other than Kyrie are mandatory, but not many.

[50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey]

Thanks for the quick reply Conan, I had read that in the FAQ, but that question was more oriented towards being forced to use them in your team, while my question was more about whether there was additional 'flavor' type dialogue/cutscenes, or even potentially hidden items or things like that which you needed the story characters to access.

Good to know the game is flexible in that regard, appreciate your help.

[Melodia]

I ignored everyone but Kyrie and never had an issue where the other mandatory story characters being ignore screwed me over.

[Conan The Librarian]

Originally posted by 50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey:

Thanks for the quick reply Conan, I had read that in the FAQ, but that question was more oriented towards being forced to use them in your team, while my question was more about whether there was additional 'flavor' type dialogue/cutscenes, or even potentially hidden items or things like that which you needed the story characters to access.

Good to know the game is flexible in that regard, appreciate your help.

Basically, it’s not that kind of game where you have to have X, like I said, most things which are important are already mandatory. There’s only very few exceptions (see below) which TLDR: just don’t neglect doing story missions forever:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/699170/discussions/0/2673382644947479841/

This isn’t Fire Emblem, or something, where you need a specific person on the battlefield for that one conversation — story scenes are mostly not in-battle.

[Flux]

Originally posted by Melodia:

I ignored everyone but Kyrie and never had an issue where the other mandatory story characters being ignore screwed me over.

You know, except for that one fight where Reinier is forced into your team and he must be kept alive. Now that it has happened once I am not sure I can trust replies like this.