Right on! Some interesting rankings here, surprised to see Osvald and Temenos so low (I loved Temenos' story, it was top 3 for me). And by gameplay do you mean combat? Because for me, it was basically Osvald = Hikari >>>>>>> everyone else, lol. They were pretty much unstoppable gods of destruction while everyone else just sort of played support. Well, actually, Ochette is right up there as well but I found her beast summons to fall off a bit when you get close to the endgame, but for a while she's very very good as well.
Yeah, when I say gameplay, I mean how they work in combat. Castti and Partitio are just... broken. By the end, Castti had the most HP, the highest attack, the highest defence, started with an extra BP at the start of each battle, was capable of keeping everyone topped up to full SP, HP, and BP
without wasting any materials at all, had an ability that would keep her at 1HP instead in case she got a fatal hit, and had an ability where she would auto revive if somehow in spite of all of that she did get knocked out. She was proficient with axes, swords, and daggers, debuffed enemies when she was hit thanks to Ensnare, and used that plus Poison Axe + Drastic Measures to
debilitating degrees, like a single hit from Castti would do 25,000+ damage. It was nuts.
Partitio was always charged up with his latent powers at the start, had similarly high HP and defence to Castti (not the attack stats though), also had the extra BP at the start of the battle, as well as the 1HP survival,
and the revival if he did get knocked out. I gave him the inventor job, which, combined with his BP always being topped up, meant he could basically break all enemies within the turn.
Thanks to the combination of Castti and Partitio,
six out the eight final boss fights didn't even get to their second phase with me lol; I kept breaking them before they could trigger it, and ended the whole fight before they could even start their combos/charges. They completely broke the game lol. Ochette was great as well, and I made Osvald a Warmaster along with Scholar, which was another good combo (meanwhile, Throne was Apothecary plus Thief, which gave her great coveage).
As far as the story, I like all of them to be clear! But Temenos and Oswald are played far more straight than the other ones. What you think is what you get for all of them. I love the swerves that Castti, Throne, and Ochette take, and while Partitio's story is the dumbest fucking thing imaginable, he is such a charismatic character I am all for it. Agnea's is just the sweetest and most wholesome thing, and Hikari's is also what you see is what you get, but way more epic and done much better (IMO).
But yeah, definitely splitting hairs here, I love all of them!
Throne was HoH's starter, so I think they may be a bit biased towards her. As someone who got her relatively late, I'd rate her far lower across the board, but otherwise am largely in agreement with the placement of the rest of the cast.
Many characters can be extremely powerful. Partitio can wipe out mobs with fully boosted catapults immediately at the start of each battle (very early on) and later on can hire multihit 9999 assassins every turn (as well as make the entire party invincible to physical damage with sidestep + arcanist). Castti can give everyone infinite BP plus other bonuses via concocting. Ochette can glitch-provoke multiple "once per battle" monsters each round (subject to BP). Scholar Temenos can blow through 10 shields with his latent and elemental barrage. Some of Hikari's learned skills like Sentencing Gavel are extremely damaging as well, and his base divine/latent damage is outstanding. And so on.
Definitely love Throne since I had her the longest, yeah. I do like her design, she is very fun to play as, her story is very interesting, and the ending is just a total mindfuck. Not in the top tier, but I did like her!
And yes, you are right, there is so much scope to break so many characters in this game. The builds you can make are amazing, the mechanics in this game allow for so much player expression.
