Hello! Not sure if you answer asks like this but I was curious if you'd be willing to share your thoughts/opinions on the characters that were at one point considered to be party members (the ones that can be added to your party through cheats)? Also, is there somebody else not on the list that you'd like to have seen made playable?
Sorry it took me so long to get to this. I wanted to give a coherent answer without rambling too much but I probably did that anyway so I'm just going to post this as-is.
It's a shame we never got to use characters like Zane, Cairn, Cross and others in our party but I understand the reasons for removing them--most of them story-related.
It would have been cool for Jack to have been able to recruit his dad after beating him in the bonus dungeon and for Zane to have a more combative involvement in the nonhuman path and they likely could have made that happen. I know that Nogueira's and Hap's death would get in the way of them joining your friends list for the entirety of the game but at least Nogueira could have been a temporary, one-time-only party member for the blood orc fight similar to how Dynas briefly joins your party for the wind dragon fight even though he dies later on in the path. It's unfortunate that because of this, we never get a friendbook entry for any of these characters.
As you may (or may not) know, you can hack pretty much any character into your party--it's just that some don't necessarily have the ability to fight or take damage. Take Belflower for instance. She and a lot of the castlefolk who aren't equipped to fight and will just call guards if you kick them can't do anything in battle. They just stand there. However, there's a 5th party member slot most don't know about. You can't see their stats or command them in battle but they will still be in your party and will just act independently. James believes that this invisible 5th member slot was intended to be a passive role escort missions like the one involving Belflower. Even still, it would have been interesting to see her try and fight. I'm sure she'd be totally incompetent but regardless.
I also wish all characters had volties they could unlock rather than just a few.
Thanks for asking!
