This game is massive, I found two new things in the game recently,

Paralogue's have unique dialogue for each route even if you attempt the same paralogue for a different route, the dialogue is slightly different,

Also you can find very powerful magical spell books in dungeons that you can make characters learn, for example you can make any character use magic that would otherwise be exclusive to dark mages such as fabio.

@XenobladeKisekiFan it’s worth doing every dungeon that is reachable (use right shoulder button in map view to filter and mark) because some of them have cursed A level weapons or books as you write and all of them have upgrade material and one advanced license in act one in that level 35 cave.

@wooferjones You can pick up a few extra Advanced Licenses from a vendor in Megaira who restocks them every month. Otherwise, they'll be very common during Part 2. Just try to get around a dozen characters up to around the level and skill requirements for the classes you want them in.

The prize for recruiting a huge roster in Part 1 is that most of them will get to warm the bench. I did my blind run with eighteen and that was probably a few too many.

Part 3 does start making more use of having spare people hanging about, but yeah, the game really doesn't feel like it is designed for you to be recruiting absolutely everyone in Part 1 on every single route.

@NintendoByNature
Yea, I have that feeling too, especially with games like RPGs that are story-heavy. But I just hit a wall in terms of my interest; I'm playing Sonic Crossworlds Racing now to cleanse my palate lol

@Losermagnet2
Sounds like we're at similar places: I'm right at the end of Act 2 for Theodora, and this feels like where a normal-length (but still fairly long) RPG would end. I just don't have it in me to do another 20ish hours right now.

@Matt_Barber thanks for the heads up, will keep that in mind for my last flame lord, Theodora. There’s just enough difference in story for me to want to try each one. Dietrich’s story combined with the optional paralogues is such a different story than Cai and Leda, and I think the OCD part of my brain just likes to see how many recruits I can get along the way. I was just annoyed that they went to the trouble of recording positive and negative feedback for each character for after them passing a certification test and they throw salt on the wound by auto saving - that’s just mean IMHO, so you have to save scum with your Nintendo online backup save to recover from misusing a vital Advanced license.