[General Discussion] RPG Elements: Characters

I said both...Fully customizable is lame. You might as well have four 'bots out there that all look and think the same on their own and need you to hold their hand. You should want individual abilities and having to compensate for strong magic with weak armor and no attack power...That's one of the few gameplay-related strengths JRPG's have. I mean, if I'm getting to the halfway point and my wizard isn't pulling her weight and dying every step, I need to find a replacement (sorry Celine). So I'd say unique (innate abilities, ability to combo with others) with elements of customization (materia, espers). My ideal preperation system is the one in Suikoden V: Individual character strengths and combos and mostly ways to customize their stengths (but you can also do other things). And that's on top of the whole fact you're running six characters on an ingenious formation set-up. Unfortunately, the game is fairly easy if you know what you're doing...I had far more fun prepping for battle than actually participating.

Jam it back in, in the dark.