Anon01/12/26, 18:21No.3908313
Deep into the game, I feel like the devs did not try to balance the characters around what fans would consider a "tier" list--where every character (early, mid and late) can be fairly compared to others and would all have positives and negatives even up until to the end of the game. Part of it is due to the mammoth breadth of the game, where you can go for tens and tens of hours without ever getting the later characters.Instead the devs seemed to take a different path. Instead of rushing to get most characters joined by early to mid game, they spaced out the characters joining you into waves, different phases of the game come with the ability to choose among a somewhat limited but 'varied enough' pool of party members but past members stick around too. The devs seemed to intend for the player to play in a way where they would often but not always move on from early characters like Celsus or Macy, unless you really liked that character, to some of the latest joined characters as the game progresses.A few details that support this is the fact they are leveled when you get them to your party's average level and that it doesn't take much in the way of JP to get them up to speed, and that in a limited way specific 'favorite' abilities from past characters who will have more JP can be passed on to them via skill transfer, seems well suited to this kind of intention in fostering this way of playing.Thus I don't think it even makes sense to compare early game characters (with a few exceptions like the main and some characters with unique abilities that ended up being more powerful than expected) to late game joiners.
