During the course of the story you will encounter the other three heroes. They will offer to join your party and aid you in the fight. Your party members can be raised and trained just as the main character; they will earn experience points even if they aren't in the active party. The AI normally controls your ally, a second player can also jump in. This can be further exploited, as the second player can freely select from the three heroes, even if they have not been met during the campaign. Additionally, when the second player drops out of the game, the character they played as will remain by the first player's side. This cheat may allow you to gain all party members right from the start of the game.

You first need to understand how your character fights and how to train them. Each character has two offensive stances and one defensive stance. The main offensive stance may be more powerful or hit more enemies, but requires getting in close. As you land normal attacks, you'll build up Focus to use special abilities. You will also gain Power which is needed to use your defensive abilities. Your defensive stance will allow you to block, dodge, and use Power to cast buffs.

As you level up you'll gain access to nine different abilities: Recruit, Legionnaire, and Master skills for your three stances. After gaining one of these nine abilities you will need to customize it with Proficiencies. There are always two options of how to build up your skills, but you can only spend five points total in either. Decide what works best for you: For example do you want Lucas' Shield Pummel to deal double damage, a guaranteed chance to knock down, or a medium combination of the two? In general you will want to focus on your favored attack stance and a defensive stance that heals. Once you have extra points to spend, go for buffs that improve your damage and Focus, followed by increasing your secondary offense.