Is 4 members the ideal party size for JRPGs?

Is 4 members the ideal party size for JRPGs?

For turned based yes. TRPG works well with 8. MMO styles with 6.

6 party members. One offense, one defense, one support, three hybrids/wildcards.

Having a forth slot offers just enough breathing room, so yes.

It is whatever the game is designed/balanced around having.

5 for me with either the 3-2 or 2-3 formation

>4
Yuck. Any number that doesn't end with a 0 or 5 triggers my OCD.

This
What JRPGs have 5 or more party members? I'm in the mood for some.
Maybe I should replay Suikoden 2.

>What JRPGs have 5 or more party members?
SaGa games have almost always 5 party members, some entries have a bit more, like 5 or 7, The Last Remnant has up to 18 active party members.

Is 4 the ideal panty size for RPGs?

I think these days 3 is the standard, but I would argue that 4 is ideal. Having a dedicated tank, healer, dps, and a support role adds a lot more variety than just the standard "holy trinity"

All I know is that 3 party members is not enough. Xenoblade cemented that in my mind. Four is the bare minimum. Five and up is preferable.

>The Last Remnant has up to 18 active party members.

TLR is a bit of a special case though, since you're basically commanding an army. Even then each group acts as the equivalent to a single party member in a regular rpg.

Xenoblade with 4 party members would've been 10 times better imo.

It depends on how the battle system works. You can't generalize it. Personally, I'd like to see more games doing what FF6 did, where there are times where you have to build several teams and switch between them with the press of a button in order to progress in dungeons etc.

Final Fantasy 4

5 > 6 > 3 > 1 > 2 >>>> 4

this is the objectively correct JRPG party size ranking
fight me

I like that idea. If you have a 3 party max and 6 characters, have them split up often and have to use 2 groups of 3.

>Even then each group acts as the equivalent to a single party member in a regular rpg.
It's not exactly like that though, unions have all members act separately on their own, unless you're using an arcana or some unique/weapon art that makes only the leader act, you are effectively using 18 characters by giving general commands to different batches of variable size, each character has their own equipment and development as a single unit, and acts as such.
Oh well, it's pretty hard to describe it to people who haven't played it anyway.

>1
>being anywhere that's not dead last

legit miss that in RPGs where you form teams separated from one another, though I am unable to think of anoher title that did the same like FF6

this. Last remnant gets extremely complex near the end. Every person that goes into each union has to have some use, or they're dead weight. It really is like you're dealing with 18 separate characters.

It's a shame they don't give you access to like half of the systems that are running in the background to monitor all those hidden stats and other shit.

FF8 did it a few times when you were running different story missions. It was done really well imo

I'm a big fan of the way BoF IV and FFX did parties

3 active members, but the rest of the party can be switched in seamlessly so it's like everyone is participating. BoF IV even game party members some abilities that only activated when they were in reserve, like Ershin's rocket punch

I'm actually an oldfag whose first experience with FF was 6. I was really surprised that none of the PSX games did anything like that except a half-assed nod towards it in FF7's last boss fight.

Wouldn't it? Then you could use Shulk, Reyn, Sharla to have your holy trinity with the Monado for hard counters... and still have room for ANYONE ELSE. I literally never used Riki or Dunban because I couldn't figure out a comp to make them work.

>tfw no The Second Last Remnant

the game doesnt even let you equip the party,what the fuck man,i love tlr but shit like this and the low battle rank to grind are big faults

Are there any jrpgs with 1 or 2 man parties?

exactly. And fuck playing it through a second time to use the other characters, that's just bad game design. They should've created situations where you're incentivized to use all of your party members.

I like how FFX did it also (at least with the advanced sphere grid). Every character either has a role use, or is a counter to a specific enemy type. So you end up using and leveling them all near to or at the same time.

That's the standard in Dragon Quest games since the addition of the cart

Don't lie, majority of players play with the MC being an absolute juggernaut while everybody else are supporting roles.

This fucking guy gets it.

Breath of Fire IV's battle system is probably the best I have seen in a jrpg, genuinely fun as fuck to experiment with different combinations of characters and spells.

13-2 and 13-3, respectively.

Dragon Quest. Ys.

>It's a shame they don't give you access to like half of the systems that are running in the background to monitor all those hidden stats and other shit.
You totally do, the problem is that you have to know how to get access to those, which is how you learn to build characters, and consequently unions, you have access to every single stats, art and behaviour, but not directly.
That's what makes the difference between good players and casual players, good players know how to do stuff like forced arcana spam, solo runs and low BR stuff, casuals don't.
TLR gives you a lot more control on your characters than other JRPGs, all SaGa games do.
The latest SaGa has many homages and cameos from TLR, just like TLR did with SaGa, it does play a bit differently though.
>Are there any jrpgs with 1
Last Ranker
>2 man parties
Frontier Gate, get the Boost+ version

wich game is your pic and why it looks like a weapon from tlr?

>The latest SaGa has many homages and cameos from TLR, just like TLR did with SaGa, it does play a bit differently though.

Yea but its not coming over here and I don't know moonspeak. Also I really want more rpgs built around commanding whole troops rather than a single party. Still need to give Soul Nomad a play.

>wich game is your pic
SaGa Scarlet Grace, for PSV
>why it looks like a weapon from tlr?
Because it is.
TLR is a SaGa game and since almost all the Remnants were references to SaGa items like weapons or armours, Scarlet Grace has many returning weapons and systems from TLR as a homage.

that sounds fun

Xenoblade 1 nails this much better. FFX is just select wakka to hit the bird. Xenoblade autolevels your reserves but changing party members totally changes HOW you play. There's no boss I beat by grinding. Every time the answer was to switch strategy. Stacking poison like effects, real or dodge tanking, all out damage, defending up to a point then going full Melia lightning, full topple exploiting or just topple as an interrupt. I beat the last boss by dropping all that Dunban Rikki optimised shit and just playing as Reyn.

it is. One of the most underrated games of the ps3/360 generation IMO. Pick up the PC version on sale when you get a chance if you wanna check it out for yourself

Vagrant Story?

DQI is a 1 man party, and all the Mario RPG's except Super Mario RPG has 2 man parties.

nice,i never played a saga game but i absolutely loved tlr, wich one you recomend i play first?

>wich one you recomend i play first?

Check out the Chaos Rings games too. They alternate between 2-man, 1-man, and 3-man parties in different games. I think they might be mobile only, but they're full-fledged jrpgs, and they're surprisingly good.

It's a lot of fun, get the PC version though, it's vastly better than the 360 original.
The gameboy games(except the third one), SaGa Frontier and Romancing SaGa 3 are the best games for newfriends, though since you played TLR you're already used to most of the basic stuff, I guess you can already dig in more complex games like Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song on the PS2.
The original SaGa III for gameboy isn't a SaGa game though, due to the series' director not working on it, play the DS remake, that's what the original should have been.

how playable is this game for someone that only knows kana?

can it be pirated?

>using Sharla
lmao

What if the game doesn't have a definite MC like FF6 and FF7?

Live A Live.

This tbqh.

Did your post number here trigger you? I bet you really love dubs of 5 or 0.

>how playable is this game for someone that only knows kana?
Not much, most parts are pretty kanji heavy.
>can it be pirated?
Nope, it's a 3.65 game, buyfag only.

Instead of worrying about whether you'll know all the characters, why not use it to help you learn to read new characters?

damn, guess I'll ask my buddy in japan to buy it for me someday if he sees it cheap in a used shop, and pick up a second cheap used vita too

actually, does it work on vita TV?

3>5>4>6>6+>1>2
any other opinion is wrong

>cloud doesn't exist

nah, play the Japan only remakes of saga1 and 2. there's fan translations

>does it work on vita TV?
Nope, you need a normal Vita too.
On the bright side, Vita has access to a lot of SaGa games, so if you like the series and want to learn runes it's a good investment, there's plenty of quality JP titles on it.
Scarlet Grace is also really good if you like surumege.

>playing child of light
>stuck with TWO party members
Sure swapping out is sweet because the member that jumps in starts at the act section of the bar as well as Aurora not being required in party, but still. Enemies get 3 and it would help during the times you don't have multi target spells.

>MMO styles with 6.
what do you mean
3rd person 6 char party FF12 ?

two party members should be outlawed and punishable by death

Xenoblade X has 4 party members, it's a shame Xenoblade 2 is going back to 3

Six just seems like a good number for MMO games. I just wanted to post something that sounded like I knew what I was doing.

If the game gave you any other direct healer, I would have used them, too. But Sharla is the only healer, and Reyn is the only actual tank. Can other characters fill their roles somewhat? Yes, but not as well as they can.

>hating on best girl
>yfw your girl will never be as loyal as Sharla
>implying Shulk/Reyn/Sharla isn't the GOAT team

Amen to that.

I'd say MMOs can vary up to that number (2manning with a good bro is nice for instance) but otherwise this is true

no,thats shulk reyn and dunban,the 3 niggest of the niggas in the whole bionis

3 or 4. 2 isn't enough, 5 is too many.

Suikoden had the right idea with 6 characters, but keep in mind you also have about ~70 usable characters in total.

XII really should've let you utilize your whole party by splitting them into teams and having both explore the map.

FFXII would been perfect with a world map

>georg in the party

Good taste.

three slots is optimal for games where you build characters however you want, 5 is optimal for games with a rigid class system, 4 is optimal for games that do a bit of both

I'd say XII presented a decent compromise. Besides, you weren't exploring the whole world anyway, just a section of a continent.

Coincidentally, this happens to be correct ranking of Final Fantasy games.

>4 that low
kill yourself

4 Part members at a time, and your full party size should be equal to (In Battle Party Size)*2 + 1

yes. jrpgs are slow as fuck as it is because of muh honor in taking turns attacking each other.

What is the optimal way to Suikoden? Emulate the PS1 version?

I really like 5 for the option of 3front/2back or 2front/3back

Sure. Play the PAL version, though. It received additional fixes. Just keep in mind when importing saves 1->2->3 they have to be all from the same region.

So, Etrian Odyssey?
I'd rather have actual formations like SaGa games, or the more solid Wizardry standard of six party members at that point, Elminage games do that pretty well, especially since you can also have an extra slot for your summoners/ninjas to use and make a party of seven characters.

actually if I had to pick a specific game I'd choose Ogre Battle 64

Any games that are good with 2/1-member parties?
Any uniqueness that made them decent

4 > 3 > 5 > anything else

As I said before, Last Ranker works on a single character system and is a mix of action and turn based, it's pretty fun and short, nothing extraordinary but has pretty good production values, possibly the last good capcom RPG.
Frontier Gate has a 2 party member system that works similarly to all Tri-Ace turn based games, see Valkyrie Profile/EoE, pretty great game and you can create your playable character, which is extra good, unfortunately the game never came out of japan, which makes it a bit of a hidden gem.

Sorry, must've missed that post by mistake, but thanks for those. I'll look into them

You baka gaijin might not rike it but this is what peak performance rooks rike

>no 6 - 9

They should allow you to switch in party members during combat seamlessly

>Any FF
>Peak performace

Etrian Odyssey series

>Two summoners with overlapping utility
>A black mage and a thief
Nigga wut

>hating on ff
when did this meme start?

When you stopped being an underage casual.
If you seriously think FF is even remotely "peak" performance you either haven't played many JRPGs or have terrible taste.

FF has always been seen as the single most low-level JRPGs there is. Practically the Halo (or CoD, if you're too young to remember this) of JRPGs.

Everyone has played at least one, everyone recognizes their existence but they're kind of all cut and dry where most people simply picked something else to play and obsess over.