haha... ok, odd title but i think it sums up the question quite well...

Do you prefer your main character to be a hand to hand strength charater (think Auron/) a mage (think Lulu) or a summoner (think yuna) (FFX makes good examples!!)

Now obviously I think we'd probably all agree that a well rounded party is the best.. or one with maxxed out stats so they kick ass at everything... probably even better!! But that's not the question I'm asking... what I want to know is.. when it comes to you're personaly preference and when you have the chance to be able to customize youre main characters more (some FF's dont really let you... especially summoning wise) Do you bulk up the strength, the magic or rely on summoning?!

Personally, Im a strength girl myself... I'm not sure if it's because I tend to find it more effective or just coz i like hitting people!! But when a character has high stength... I just feel like ive got a better chance coz as a general rule more enemies seem to be effected by a hit, than a magic spell.. eg. they might lose 100hp from a hit, they would have lost maybe 150hp from the right element magic hit, but only 50hp from the wrong element magic hit... so to me it makes more sense to just hit everything as hard as i can!!!

hahaha.. I sound like a thug whose never heard the word tactics!!!! But i just like a main character who can fight their way out of a situation... not magic their way out.... thats what my buddies are for!!

Oh, and as for summons I very rarely use them.. i think that goes for pretty much every FF ive played, although in VII and VIII my main character would have alot of summons, not to actually use but because they helped boost the stats!!!

I like the brute strength of a Warrior like Auron in my opinion. When it comes to casting magic, I only do it when I need to and like to save it for emergency uses only. Summoners are alright, but I like to use them only when needed as well. With a Warrior with awesome hand-to-hand combat, mainly swords, I can attack and attack without wasting any MP and junk.

Sword-wielders FTW!

I'm the same way. Cloud, Squall and Auron are my main guys. Swords tend to be more reliable because they don't need to be continually refreshed to be used... and early in the game, your MP is so low having a magic user is pointless.

Of course, bythe time your mage is leveled up enough he is, again, useless because every monster from that point forward is almost immune to magic. Unless there are enemies that are elemental based around, I only use magic for healing.

Getting slashed with a sword will hurt always. Getting attacked by Fire will hurt sometimes. Easy choice.

EDIT: FTW? Seriously? Not everything needs to be translated into chatspeak!

Really depends on the game.

FFX was def melee, only because my Rikku could Quick Hit 21x at 99,999 each.

FFX-2 was well...melee...but not really. 2 Dark Knights using their dark magic skill thing...and an alchemist using mega pots each time.

FFIX was melee.

FFVIII was magic for me.

for me its always physical atk 2 reasons its free and im hella lazy n its easier to just atk, now i do use magic on monster that requiire it ie those annoying flans (i think thats what they are called) and elemental ones, and ill use everything i got at bosses n such but 90% of my batttles are with basic atk so my traveling parties generally are people who excell in that

Physical. You don't need MP that runs out just when you need it to attack.

I'm a lot like Leona, I like strengthening up my girl characters. I've done it in pretty much all of the FF's I've played. In FFVII I always moved Aeris to the front row straight away and I always beefed up Tifa and Yuffie so they could pretty much match the male characters.

I did the same with Rikku in FFX and it look like I'm heading towards the same with Fran in FFXII. I also like being able to go in and know that my characters are all fairly even in strength and could all put in some powerful punches.

I did however made Yuna a lot stronger magically just because she was more suited towards that. She now makes an awesome black mage.

Every FF game i like the main to be more melee. But in FF 8 i had to rely more on the summons because getting new weapons was hard when you always had to find items to synth them.