final fantasy: the 4 heroes of light

do we get to take control of some of the characters we lost again? i left their inventories full believing we'd continue playing them but every time i do they end up leaving my party. i don't like losing one of a kind items.

As far as I can tell, the only characters you get back are the ones you named at the beginning. If you left anything in anyone else's inventory, you won't see it until way after you care about it, if ever.

Characters split up with one another like it's a fucking disease. I'd love to strategize with different class setups, but it's pretty hard when I don't usually have more than 2 people in the party, and sometimes a third character that can't change class. Some of the parts where they force you to travel alone (especially after *someone* doesn't jump far enough and falls. Hint: Be a Ranger, wear an anti-sleep cape and the fire bow, and make sure to get the 6 def armor from the shop) are pretty brutal and unfair. I'm now even more angry at the lack of a more comprehensive and in-depth status screen, because I can't for the life of me figure out why the princesses magic is hitting for 13 and the magic of the guy next to her hitting for 60, and the magic of another guy later on hitting over 100.

What little of the story that's actually there is alright I guess. Every now and again the main characters have to remind us what our original goal is because we seem to have forgotten it while we're doing pretty much everything but that. They still never said much about the magical crystal that talks to us, calls us heroes, and gives us hats every now and again. Seems like that would be a pretty good topic of conversation. There's really not much in the way of lore or information in this game at all, really. Townspeople never say much except their local advance-the-story rumors, and there doesn't seem to be any over-arching plot except the still-unexplained talking crystal. Luckily though, all 4 characters are converging on one point, and that point is supposed to have the magical solution to our original problem, so maybe something will happen there. And maybe I can finally have a party of 4 for the first time since the beginning of the game.