LogFAQs > #979390460

It rather depends on the systems involved, no? Like if you go route of "your party members in battle are essentially interchangable sprites" the overall roster size doesn't matter because everyone can do everything.

but if you slice the skillsets thin enough you're going to end up with somebody that looks neat on paper, might even be written well, but is utterly useless in combat (this is usually applied to mascot characters)

So, mechanically, I'd say it's slightly less than double your normal battle roster - not quite enough for two full parties, but enough to rotate people out to fit particular roles or have a challenging sequence with incomplete parties

in terms of plot? That depends on how good the writers are, ensemble casts can range from "amazing, they're all memorable" to Chrono Cross "half of these characters you will not remember by the end of the story but we made a promise on the back of the box"