Bismarck.Dracondria said:
»I've played 2 so I'll get 3. Downloading Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 2) and Radiata Stories as well :O I have Disgaea and the sequels already. Suikoden seems to have a ton of characters to recruit, how does that work in the story? I prefer having characters that actually matter a lot in the story. As for Star Ocean, I've played them all.
They are split between characters that are involved in the story and ones that you get via sidequests. Most of them have a story to them though and in 3 all of them can join your party either as fighters or filling the guest slot which grants a passive boost based on the character. I don't own 4 and 5 so never got too deep into them sadly but in 3 I'd say half of them are story related and another half are side quests.
It's also worth noting that not all the sidequests are stand alone, sometimes you will recruit one character and that will lead to more as you follow their plot.