FF6: This is a bit of a funny one as it's the Final Fantasy game where I've made the least progress in (got to the Floating Continent and got wasted) and the part of the game prior to that has a lot of split parties, so I wouldn't say I've ever 100 percent fixed on a party - I think there are actually some characters I never got to getting, too. With that in mind, my party was generally Edgar/Sabin/Celes/Cyan - I think it might potentially be Edgar/Sabin/Celes/Gau these days, depending on how patient I'm feeling with the Veldt! I always like to have some form of healer around (I don't use offensive magic a lot in Final Fantasy games, I preserve MP for bosses only) but it's nice to have offensive magic as a bit of an option. Edgar/Sabin have useful skills although as a kid I completely failed to use Blitz and got stuck on my first playthrough. Cyan's ability just felt easy to use but can feel like a bit of a waiting game, and Gau is versatile depending on if you get favourable skills from the Veldt, and useless if not.
FF7: When I was a kid, this was Cloud/Aeris/Vincent, because Cloud is mandatory, Aeris is best healer (and healing wind best limit break), plus I just thought Vincent was cool as hell. (How much of that was character design vs character I don't know!) Since I don't like to use Aeris nowadays so much because it feels like a waste of levelling, sorry Aeris I still love you! Nowadays I tend to favour Cloud/Barret/Cid, who are possibly the most bad-tempered party ever, but I like their skills/limit breaks.
FF8: This was definitely Squall/Rinoa/Selphie as a kid, although when Selphie is out of commission for what feels like forever I drafted Irvine in. Nowadays it's pretty solidly Squall/Rinoa/Zell. Angel wing is the best limit break and nobody will convince me otherwise! I still love both Squall and Rinoa to quite a ridiculous degree as characters.
FF9: I always struggle with an FF9 party as I want to fit more people in than I have slots. As a kid, I went with Zidane/Vivi/Eiko/Freya - the party of small children and cool Irish dancers. As an adult, I go with Zidane/Steiner/Garnet/Vivi, although I always feel like I need to try and get Freya in there as I really like her dragoon abilities. Steiner and Vivi have the good combination (sword magic) and sometimes you just need offensive magic, but I also need access to a healer. When Garnet is absent or ...ing in battle, I draft in Eiko. To be honest, if I could, I'd take Zidane out and put in Freya! I like Zidane as a character but he's not my favourite combatant by a longshot!
Final Fantasy 10: Before we get onto the superboss bit, my preferred party is Tidus/Auron/Wakka (Yuna would definitely be in there but this game gives me a system where I can sub in and out my healer so not have to compromise on losing DPS, so I use it!). Like you, however, I'm a bit hampered by the time you need to upgrade Celestial Weapons and when I want to fight the dark aeons, I need break damage limit. This means I can only choose between Tidus/Auron/Yuna/Rikku, so I normally go with the former. I feel like the celestial weapon for Wakka and powerups is within reach, but by the time I've played like 50 blitzball games and it doesn't want to appear as a prize (think a crest or sigil rather than the weapon itself?) I'm so done with it. Lulu's is just impossible. I think my brother helped me get Tidus' celestial weapon and/or power up - he helped on the chocobo race that you have to finish in less than 0 seconds or something stupid like that!
FF12: I feel like with the Zodiac Age you could say anybody because you can control the versatility of the characters, so first I'll talk original FF12. I used to use Vaan/Balthier/Ashe. I always feel like the main character should be in the party (-cough-even though I said what I did about FF9) or it feels wrong, and technically Vaan is our main character (even if sometimes it feels like it should be others) so felt I had to have him in. In Zodiac Age, I could finally put Fran in my party (the archer skills had never interested me) so it became Balthier/Fran/Ashe, with sometimes bringing in Vaan, because it just felt wrong to never use him, even though the other three characters are much more interesting to me.
FF13: I swapped people in and out depending on what set of paradigms I wanted to have available, but when I wasn't specifically strategising for big fights or needing abilities that only certain characters got, I typically went along with a Lightning/Hope/Sazh party: aka, the party of synergists. ALL OF THE BUFFS. Hope's a great healer too even though his health isn't great. They were mostly my favourite characters and then I found the paradigm set up worked quite nicely for me, although it's probably not an optimised party.
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FF7: When I was a kid, this was Cloud/Aeris/Vincent, because Cloud is mandatory, Aeris is best healer (and healing wind best limit break), plus I just thought Vincent was cool as hell. (How much of that was character design vs character I don't know!) Since I don't like to use Aeris nowadays so much because it feels like a waste of levelling, sorry Aeris I still love you! Nowadays I tend to favour Cloud/Barret/Cid, who are possibly the most bad-tempered party ever, but I like their skills/limit breaks.
FF8: This was definitely Squall/Rinoa/Selphie as a kid, although when Selphie is out of commission for what feels like forever I drafted Irvine in. Nowadays it's pretty solidly Squall/Rinoa/Zell. Angel wing is the best limit break and nobody will convince me otherwise! I still love both Squall and Rinoa to quite a ridiculous degree as characters.
FF9: I always struggle with an FF9 party as I want to fit more people in than I have slots. As a kid, I went with Zidane/Vivi/Eiko/Freya - the party of small children and cool Irish dancers. As an adult, I go with Zidane/Steiner/Garnet/Vivi, although I always feel like I need to try and get Freya in there as I really like her dragoon abilities. Steiner and Vivi have the good combination (sword magic) and sometimes you just need offensive magic, but I also need access to a healer. When Garnet is absent or ...ing in battle, I draft in Eiko. To be honest, if I could, I'd take Zidane out and put in Freya! I like Zidane as a character but he's not my favourite combatant by a longshot!
Final Fantasy 10: Before we get onto the superboss bit, my preferred party is Tidus/Auron/Wakka (Yuna would definitely be in there but this game gives me a system where I can sub in and out my healer so not have to compromise on losing DPS, so I use it!). Like you, however, I'm a bit hampered by the time you need to upgrade Celestial Weapons and when I want to fight the dark aeons, I need break damage limit. This means I can only choose between Tidus/Auron/Yuna/Rikku, so I normally go with the former. I feel like the celestial weapon for Wakka and powerups is within reach, but by the time I've played like 50 blitzball games and it doesn't want to appear as a prize (think a crest or sigil rather than the weapon itself?) I'm so done with it. Lulu's is just impossible. I think my brother helped me get Tidus' celestial weapon and/or power up - he helped on the chocobo race that you have to finish in less than 0 seconds or something stupid like that!
FF12: I feel like with the Zodiac Age you could say anybody because you can control the versatility of the characters, so first I'll talk original FF12. I used to use Vaan/Balthier/Ashe. I always feel like the main character should be in the party (-cough-even though I said what I did about FF9) or it feels wrong, and technically Vaan is our main character (even if sometimes it feels like it should be others) so felt I had to have him in. In Zodiac Age, I could finally put Fran in my party (the archer skills had never interested me) so it became Balthier/Fran/Ashe, with sometimes bringing in Vaan, because it just felt wrong to never use him, even though the other three characters are much more interesting to me.
FF13: I swapped people in and out depending on what set of paradigms I wanted to have available, but when I wasn't specifically strategising for big fights or needing abilities that only certain characters got, I typically went along with a Lightning/Hope/Sazh party: aka, the party of synergists. ALL OF THE BUFFS. Hope's a great healer too even though his health isn't great. They were mostly my favourite characters and then I found the paradigm set up worked quite nicely for me, although it's probably not an optimised party.
-timydamonkey