Also, you're very limited in what playable characters are available. You're allowed to use only 5, three active and two inactive. For some dumb reason the inactives do not receive xp so you have to try to swap them in and out to get them leveled up (unless you just modify the save file to get everyone to level 99 which I definitely recommend. The random battles are too annoying to grind this much).
The available characters are Lightning, Tifa, Terra, Rydia (only inactive for the first half of the game) and Yuna. The bastard devs tease you with a bunch of other characters but you can't use any of them for some nonsense reason. That means no Aeris or Yuffie (probably more popular than any of the other non-FF7 characters) nor can you use Rikku (another popular one). There is nobody from FF8 nor FF9 in the game despite that those two had at least one or two relatively popular female characters.
It really doesn't make sense. I get that they give you a limited active roster, but it seems like pure laziness to not let you swap in who you want.
