Do JRPGs with Small Rosters Have More Character Depth Than Fire Emblem?
The Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) genre is renowned for its rich storytelling, intricate worlds, and memorable characters. Among its many subgenres, two distinct approaches to character representation stand out: games with small, tightly-knit parties and those with expansive rosters, exemplified by the Fire Emblem series. While Fire Emblem has perfected the art of weaving together large ensembles, a compelling argument can be made that JRPGs with smaller rosters often achieve greater character depth through focused narrative techniques, intimate character interactions, and dedicated development arcs.
The Fire Emblem Approach: Breadth Over Depth
The Fire Emblem franchise, particularly its modern iterations like Three Houses and Awakening, is celebrated for its massive casts. These games often feature 30 to 40-plus recruitable characters, each with unique designs, personal backgrounds, and support conversations. This design creates a vibrant, living world where players can explore numerous relationships and storylines. The support system—a mechanic where characters bond through battles and conversations—allows for hundreds of potential interactions, revealing hidden facets of personalities, shared histories, and even romantic developments.
However, this breadth comes with inherent limitations. With so many characters to manage, most receive only a handful of focused story moments outside optional supports. Central narrative arcs are often dominated by a core group—like the house leaders in Three Houses—while the majority of the cast serves as secondary figures. Their development is frequently relegated to optional, player-triggered dialogues, meaning that those who do not engage deeply with the support system may perceive these characters as one-dimensional. For instance, a character like Bernadetta von Varley (Fire Emblem: Three Houses) has a compelling fear-driven personality, but her growth is almost entirely confined to support chains, leaving her role in the main plot minimal.
The Power of a Small Cast: Focus and Nuance
In contrast, JRPGs with small rosters—typically featuring parties of 4 to 8 core characters—leverage their limited size to deliver profound, non-optional character development. Games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy X, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Persona 5 (which, while having a moderate-sized party, focuses intensely on each member) exemplify this approach. Here, every character is integral to the central narrative, and their growth is woven directly into the main story arc.
Take Final Fantasy X as an example. The party consists of only seven characters, each undergoing a transformative journey closely tied to the plot’s themes of sacrifice, faith, and defiance. Tidus’s evolution from a brash youth to a tragic hero, Yuna’s shift from a self-sacrificing summoner to a defiant rebel, and Auron’s revelation as an unsent spirit guiding the next generation—all these arcs are mandatory and pivotal to the experience. The game’s linear structure ensures that players witness every step of this development, creating an emotional investment that is hard to achieve with a larger cast.
Similarly, Xenoblade Chronicles uses its compact party to explore complex themes through each character’s personal struggles. Shulk’s quest for vengeance evolves into a deeper understanding of coexistence, while Melia’s story of loss and resilience is told through main story beats rather than optional content. The narrative does not allow players to miss these moments; they are essential to the experience.
Narrative Techniques: Mandatory Arcs vs. Optional Content
A key differentiator lies in how character development is delivered. In small-roster JRPGs, backstories, conflicts, and resolutions are typically embedded into the main plot. In Persona 5, for instance, each party member’s Palace—a dungeon representing their inner trauma—is a required story segment that forces players to confront their companions’ psychological struggles. This integration ensures that every character’s depth is explored uniformly for all players.
In Fire Emblem, however, much of the character development is optional. While support conversations add richness, they are not guaranteed to be seen in a single playthrough. Players might never uncover critical aspects of a character’s personality or history if they do not pair specific units repeatedly. This design encourages replayability but sacrifices consistent narrative impact. The main plot rarely spends time developing characters outside the lords or main antagonists, leading to a disparity between central and peripheral figures.
Emotional Resonance and Player Attachment
The intimacy of a small party often fosters stronger emotional connections. When a game has fewer characters, each one receives more screen time, dialogue, and narrative weight. In Final Fantasy IX, Zidane, Vivi, Steiner, and Garnet are all given extensive, emotionally resonant arcs that are central to the story. Vivi’s existential crisis and acceptance of mortality, for example, are hauntingly beautiful and unavoidable, leaving a lasting impression on players.
In Fire Emblem, emotional highs are often distributed across the cast. The death of a unit in classic mode can be poignant, but the impact varies based on how much time the player invested in that character. Conversely, the death of Aeris in Final Fantasy VII (a game with a relatively small core party) is iconic precisely because every player experienced her integration into the story and formed a bond with her through mandatory scenes.
Exceptions and Hybrid Approaches
It is important to acknowledge that some JRPGs blur these lines. Fire Emblem: Three Houses made significant strides by incorporating character-specific events into the main narrative through the academy phase and route splits. Characters like Dimitri undergo dramatic, plot-central transformations that rival any small-roster JRPG. Similarly, Trails of Cold Steel employs a large cast but ensures that core party members receive substantial development through both main and side content.
However, even in these cases, the development of non-core characters remains largely optional. The burden of exploration falls on the player, whereas in small-party JRPGs, the burden is on the game to deliver depth to everyone.
Conclusion
While Fire Emblem games offer a broad tapestry of characters and relationships, their expansive rosters inevitably lead to uneven development, with depth often locked behind optional mechanics. JRPGs with small rosters, by contrast, excel in delivering consistent, nuanced, and integral character arcs through focused storytelling. They prove that limitation can be a strength—by dedicating resources to a few well-crafted characters, these games create deeper, more emotionally impactful narratives. Ultimately, the choice between breadth and depth depends on player preference, but for those seeking profound character-driven stories, small-roster JRPGs hold a distinct advantage.
