FFIX's got an extremely strong cast and gameplay wise they all bring something to the team.
@ThatGuyMikey
I've been thinking of some more things based on where you are so far and you're meeting more characters so few more things.
Tip for Freya, one of her later Dragon abilities' strength of it is based on how many dragon type enemies you defeat. you'll naturally defeat some the game goes on but if you want to max the ability its worth doing some grinding of dragon type enemies at stages in the game.
You will have favourites on the team, my personal favourite team is always Zidane, Garnet, Vivi and Steiner but there will be parts of the game where you will be required to use all of the main ones and also where not every party member will be available, there'll be instances where you have a set team and can't change them for some time so it's important to balance out each character as well and not just focus on maxing out and giving the best equipment to favourites, they all bring something really good to the team, there's not one character who is useless in battle, there are certain instances where certain characters will work better than others. I will suggest to keep Vivi and Steiner always on the same team where available so Steiner can avail of the Sword Magic ability alongside his Sword Art.
There some FF games where you can get away with having a certain team the entire time but FFIX does require you to use the full roster at many times during the game.
Later in the game without spoiling anything you will need to split your main characters into two teams for two different locations, it may be worth asking on here if you're not sure who to bring to one location and keep in the other as there are some restrictions that may impact certain characters in battle depending on who you pick.
Again without spoiling, If you've met Freya then you'll also have the option to meet another main character very soon when you leave Lindblum, they are optional at this stage but will be a permanent party member at a later stage, I highly recommend you take the detour and meet them now to have an extra party member to help out.
This character is a blue mage so you need to learn their spells via their eat command (you'll see why its eat when you meet them) with regular enemies, generally it's best to knock the monster's HP down a bit first to give you a better success, some of those spells are VERY potent and incredibly useful so I highly recommend you build up a repertoire of their spells and have a look into which monsters provide which blue magic spell as not all of them do.
if you're currently at Lindblum also once you get access to outside again also take another detour head to the chocobo forest and spend a bit of time playing Chocobo Hot and Cold, some people find it really tedious and it is in the beginning but as you play more and the speed picks up, its really worth it. The Treasures you can get from it are unreal in the later stages when you have more access and it does become and addictive game,
If you come across any 'friendly' monsters, you'll know by the change in battle music and they're accessible in certain areas, you may have already met one of them on the way to Dali, but if not DO NOT attack them, instead wait for them to request a material from you and give them it, they give you quite a nice amount of AP as well and a clue on where to find the next friendly monster, there's 9 of them in total accessible as you progress through the game, they are optional but necessary to meet if you want to complete a late sidequest.
There's also the Ragtime mouse, optional sidequest he has the same battle music as the friendly monsters and he'll do a true or false answer, most of the answers are available if you've been paying attention to things in the game but i's probably just say go look up the answers on ahead if you do come across them, he's only encountered if you go into a forest and I think you then have to visit a town to reset the encounter so you can find him again, its a random chance to encounter him so you won't always get him everytime you go into a forest.
I think thats my lot at the moment.
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