Welcome to Gaia! ::

There are 8 playable characters in the game but only 4 can fight in battles.
The player (you) has access to each character's inventory and information regardless of who is in the Top Four places. So what does this mean for the player?

1. Switch battlers at any time outside of battle. If you're in a dungeon that has creatures weak or strong against a certain Savage Arts member you can switch them around to make it easier on yourself.

2. Everyone gets experience anyway. Those not in combat only get about half of those in the battle get. So while not in the fight they are still close to the other players in level. No minions left behind.

3. There is no perfect party set. While you may love having a lot of physical damage there are enemies that are highly defensive to weapons but weaker to magic and the other way around.

I'm locked except for certain sequences. Why would you not want the glorious leader around? :3

As the character page shows, yeah. I didn't just do it for my ego. I think about these things.
Also it frees players to only have to think about what the other three battlers will be.

Depending on equipment and how you play them you can have a great party set up with everyone and everyone has niche to fit into. Avaxis is very much like Maeth actually, only Light sided and with a few more support options for the party.
Maeth is mostly self-sufficient to compensate.

As am I! The game's sounding incredibly fleshed out and I'm stoked for it~