You can read the transcript here if you'd like too:
Party Size in the Japanese
Role-Playing Game
Y'know, it's
actually been a decade or so since the last time anyone asked me
about the size of a party in a JRPG. When I was a little kid, like 5
or 6, I remember one of my reasons for liking Final Fantasy IX
better than FFVII or
FFVIII because it
allowed you to have more characters, which in particular meant that
when you added Eiko to the party you could have two
healers instead of one. That really carried me back in the day. Other
people I knew had similar reasoning.
But
since then it's been a non-topic. Some games have three, some games
have four, it's not really anything to care about. But then I
remembered something about FFIX:
it doesn't really have a “main” character. Now granted, you
control Zidane most of the time, and he ends up being the most
important character in the endgame since the story of his creation
also ties in with Kuja's creation and thus he is arguably the
character with the closest ties to the villain, but you could also
make a strong argument for Vivi.
Point
being, not that this is new to people or anything, that Final
Fantasy IX has mostly an
ensemble cast where everyone gets to be under the spotlight at some
point, which was one of the reasons it sat in stark contrast to Final
Fantasy VII and Final
Fantasy VIII which unarguably
center on their main characters, Cloud and Squall respectively.
What
this means to me when we consider the party size is that, especially
in comparison to the previous two games, party sized is used to
enforce . . . not so much the “themes” or even “motifs” of a
narrative, but to more strongly emphasize the tropes
at play. FFIX doesn't
use it's 4-member party to communicate anything in particular about
it's ensemble cast, but it does use it's 4-member party to
communicate that it has
an ensemble cast, rather than a story focused on a main character.
This is consistent with how FFVI
approaches the 4-member party, more on that in a bit.
Final Fantasy
VII and Final Fantasy
VIII by comparison use the
three-person party to achieve the opposite effect: by throwing the
main character into the center of the party, those games communicate
how those characters are also at the center of the story.
In the cinematic composition of the battles, Cloud and Squall are
centered between the other two party members because the attention is
on them, and this is consistent with both the story and the battle
systems, wherein the traditional roles of “tank” and “damage
per second” tend to be focused into the same character with the
other two characters being placed in support roles for a mage/utility
character and a healer.
This goes back to Final Fantasy IV, which had a five-member
party, but placed Cecil, the obvious main character and primary
damage dealer, at center.
This is fairly consistent in other Square RPGs of that era as well,
such as the vastly-underrated Chrono Cross as well as in
Xenogears where Serge and Fei respectively stand at center, do
a lot of the big damage, and are at the centers of the stories of
their respective games.
FFIX
disallows this and separates the roles to where each of the four
party members you will be controlling will play a key role in battle.
To name one example: Steiner is a tank, Vivi is a mage character and
Dagger is a healer, with Zidane, the closest thing to a main
character, oddly enough acting as a thief, a utility role, and
secondary physical attacker.
This is not new to IX of course, which was very intentionally
a pastiche of elements from classic games in the series, but is
structurally most similar to Final Fantasy VI, especially in
this regard. VI also has no main character, has a four-member
party, and like IX often switches perspectives between
different small groups for much of the early game, decentralizing the
focus from any single character either mechanically or narratively.
Techniques vary wildly outside of Final Fantasy of course.
Breath of
Fire IV
has a three-person party, but it also allows you to have three people
in the back to substitute folks in and out a la
Final Fantasy X, and
outside of combat it often puts Nina in your control rather than Ryu,
the series designated protagonist, in an effort to emphasize that the
main story really doesn't
revolve around Ryu.
FFX
by comparison, makes the serious mistake of diegetically emphasizing
that “This Is My Story” when it could not be more apparent that
that story is about Yuna, and on top of this, the game will always
allow you take either of those characters out of the party . . .
before immediately putting you back in the control of Tidus on the
field. Oh and did I mention that Tidus, the main character, Mr. “This
Is My Story”? You can name him whatever you want, and nobody ever
even says his name out loud.
So
here we have Breath of Fire IV
decentralizing the focus around the assumed protagonist, and FFX
using similar systems in a way that undermines it's supposed
narrative.
There are some games that use the three-person party in conjunction
with a small ensemble cast, the two that immediately come to mind
being the under-loved Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter and it's
philosophical bastard descendant, the equally under-loved End of
Eternity (Resonance of Fate in the US). Both games employ
three-person parties, but the cinematic framing that would center any
given party member dissolve as battles get moving, given the balance
and equal functionality of each party member performing very specific
roles: no single member of the party in Dragon Quarter is more
important than the others, especially since each have the possibility
of strong damage output and none are designated healer. Most of End
of Eternity outright requires precise execution of team-based
tactics where everyone is of inherently equal measure.
The Tales series (Tales of Symphonia, The Abyss, Xillia)
conversely uses a four-member party, but they each feature a strong
DPS/Tank as the main character, which focuses those characters
mechanically, and the camera always follows that character closely,
focusing them in the narrative as well.
Suikoden
features absolutely massive parties, not to mention a silent
protagonist, mechanically defocusing the main character and also
making that main character more of a window into the lives of others.
Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Disgaea also
have the sort of large battle parties that, for turn-based RPGs,
would work to decentralize particular characters, but instead focuses
the primary characters by having gamers fill out their parties with
hired grunts to fill the ranks and the space of massive battlefields.
Before I wrap this up I'd like to note: JRPGs very rarely explore the
narrative possibilities created by the rare two-person party.
FFVIII is one of the only games I can think of that has done
this, pairing Squall at first with Quistis as a teacher in the early
game, then Irvine during the assassination mission in Galbadia to
develop his relationship with a character very unlike him, and then
with Rinoa aboard the Ragnarok to emphasize their newly realized
closeness and to put it to something of a stress before their
relaxed, romantic scene on the bridge. The camera even seems to place
these characters more at the 2 and 4 of a 5 block line rather than
the first 2 or last 2 of a 3 block line, if that makes sense. Those
scenes emphasize pairings over the individual.
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, the only JRPG I can think of that
enforces a two-person party across the entire game, totally whiffs on
the possibility of meanings it can communicate by removing the second
character from player control.
There's still a lot of narrative possibilities to be explored with
just the two-person party, and I hope more games explore it in the
future.
I guess I'm rambling a little, so my point is thus:
There's still a lot about the presentation and narrative content of the much maligned JRPG battle, especially the turn-based battle that remains yet to be considered. JRPGs, especially some of the more established series, have shown strong itentionality to how they use both the amount of party members and in general how they frame the action of their battles to convey narrative ideas. This, I think, is one of those things to decode that will help us better understand how the JRPG battle of yore, a tradition most seem to want to throw out the window in favor of conventional action playability, functions not as design for it's own sake, but a form of design that intends to communicate ideas, and this is a topic I'll be exploring more in the future.
There's still a lot about the presentation and narrative content of the much maligned JRPG battle, especially the turn-based battle that remains yet to be considered. JRPGs, especially some of the more established series, have shown strong itentionality to how they use both the amount of party members and in general how they frame the action of their battles to convey narrative ideas. This, I think, is one of those things to decode that will help us better understand how the JRPG battle of yore, a tradition most seem to want to throw out the window in favor of conventional action playability, functions not as design for it's own sake, but a form of design that intends to communicate ideas, and this is a topic I'll be exploring more in the future.
