Was it to make protagonist more popular?
Those moments that you get to control some other character just for a short time were always the most memorable to me.
Maybe forcing you to play with with main character in overworld until game opens up might be the best balance of things. I liked the way FF13 did it.
I only like this when the party is still together. I don't care about playing a segment where you only play as Lulu or Hope. I like the way 12 does it
>I only like this when the party is still together.
Yeah I think it's better if it's not available in the beginning.
>Swapable overworld characters and alternate costumes at the same time.
It is strange, costumes were not something that Final Fantasy was thinking about adding. Back in FF7, Tifa's cowgirl attire should have been selectable. However, they also ignored the pregnant Lulu model in FFX-2. Pregnant woman wearing corset might still be the dumbest thing in Final Fantasy.
>why cant the entire party just follow behind me the entire time
It doesn't even have to be all the time. Just enabling it at certain points would have been more than enough.
>stop giving me a party of 9 people if i can only use 3 in combat
I don't think that's doable without going tactical rpg route.
>it feels like shit to have benchwarmers and it always feels disjointed from the narrative
That's another reason I praise FFXIII. Maybe devs have felt the same way themselves? Many developers between FFX and FFXIII are the same right? I also liked party members explored around themselves. FFX modding is improving. I'm not sure how it would work given the smaller locations and camera, but maybe something similar could be added.
>tactical rpg route
This is the correct route for JRPGs.
This was one of the reasons why I was such a big fan of Tales back in the day. Swapable overworld characters and alternate costumes at the same time.
why cant the entire party just follow behind me the entire time
stop giving me a party of 9 people if i can only use 3 in combat
it feels like shit to have benchwarmers and it always feels disjointed from the narrative
having NPCs auto follow you like that looks like a stupid conga line
Then have them follow you differently
I know this is really minor, but it annoys me when the game gives you uneven party compositions relative to the active party size.
Take Persona 4 for example. You have eight party members in total, and four active members. The protagonist is always required, and Rise is always backline support, so you have six members to fill the remaining three slots. This is great, since you can just swap between two different parties of three, or use different groups for different playthroughs.
But in other games, the numbers don't work out as evenly, so there's always a spare party member or two who's left out.
I got stuck in Breath of Fire 1 because I didn't knew I had to change characters positions in the party to use their abilities in overworld until I read a guide
I remember Arabian Nights: Sabaku no Seirei-ō doing that, and when you do the overworld theme also gets changed
>I remember Arabian Nights
Yeah I remember how the best shoes for the little girl made NOISE with every step
I'll play both of them, thank you.
Back in the day I was really annoyed that you couldn't switch to you school attire in ff8. Features like this are actually nice to have. It wouldn't have been hard to include.
It's kinda fricked up that companies only caught on to how awesome alternate costumes are after the advent of DLC.
They were adding them before DLC but then when Todd started selling horse armor DLC they figured out they could also make money from it. Now we have day 0 DLC, gachashit, season pass and all sorts of other rotten shit to milk money from you.
I think they always knew that. Resident Evil series , DOA Ultimate etc. It's just too much work as pregnant Lulu model indicates.
Even the older FF games were allowing this. It was only once they got to the playstation that they took the option away for some reason. And it's not like the characters didn't have walking animations either so I really can't understand why they didn't allow it.
Costumes were always a thing depending on the game. Tales used to give you a lot in game. But of course after DLC got big they took all that away to sell you generic outfits that have no side quest or story attached to them. Oh they might keep in a few but they're really boring compared to others. I think Vesperia was the last one where they had any really decent ones.
I remember when Tales was a real series. I bought and played every one in jap because they had full voice and came out 2~3 years before NA release.
Still, the last real game was Graces F. The series is a farce any more.
RIP Wolf Team
In the older FF games the party is treated as a monolithic entity outside of cutscenes. In the newer FF games outside of "dungeon" areas party members are treated as NPCs that have their own separate presence on the map so it's easier to give them more characterization. That's particularly applicable to FFX, where there is some areas where you walk alongside the other party members even.
I always wanted this in Golden Sun 1 and 2. In the first game there is a point where you get to control the 4 party members individually so its kinda weird there isn't an option in the overworld.
only played them for a few minutes, but i remember the lego MOVIE_GAMES did this? like lego star wars, lego harry potter, etc
It's really not that big of a deal
You can ask devs to include a million additional options for play and customisation, at some point less is more and the game just has to be made. Each idea that sounds individually good is feature creep if crammed together
>It's really not that big of a deal
It really is that a big of a deal given the amount of support it has as you've seen in this thread. On Square's case, they also included it in their later and earlier games.
Should have been in Suikoden
OP you should try Neopets: The Darkest Faerie, it does this pretty well.