u/HornetsaysSHAW

I personally didn't end up using him much in my playthrough of Calvard, so I won't comment on gameplay. But I'll shout out his Shard Command in Horizon for being the best for boosting physical attack. Sadly later on, it was just more worth it to just keep Altera up instead, but it was great in the early and mid game.

Risette lives up to her Service Concierge description by being an incredible support, debatably the best in Daybreak 1 and 2. Cobalt Curtain is THE shield craft, extremely cheap and very effective. The wind locked slot on the drive line, while not as good as a mirage slot, is still decent for activating Ark feather. I never really found much use in the rest of her crafts, but Cobalt Curtain was good enough that she always had an active slot in Daybreak 1 and 2. In Horizon, Shard Commands mostly replaced the utility of shields, and Risette's Crystal Shell, I found to be the best one before getting access to Pater-Mater or Altera. Horizon also gave her access to Skuld Raider, which is the AOE turn accelerator of Calvard. She synergises well with Altera to let the party get even more turns.

The Prodigy of Langport is pretty good gameplay-wise, especially in Daybreak 1. A self-buff, strong positional and S-craft make him a great physical attacker. He mainly just falls victim to the power creep of Calvard, where Judith and Shizuna just end up having much stronger crafts and self-buffs, arts become a lot better for damage dealing from Daybreak 2 onwards and the greater availability of Grendel certainly doesn't help. So he can certainly dish out damage, others just end up better at it than him, so I didn't really use in my playthroughs of Daybreak 2 and Horizon.

Feri's kit has always felt like it was all over the place, and she doesn't really have a clear identity in terms of gameplay.

Her orbment has two locked fire slots, but then the mirage slot on the Drive Line makes her the best for getting Ark Feather in the early to mid game, especially in Daybreak 1.

Her CP regen craft is very helpful in Daybreak 1, but Daybreak 2 is much more reliant on arts, and A-Impassion Guard makes CP barely an issue in Horizon, so Ishtar's Blessing didn't see much use outside of the early game. Ignis Rampage is also good for building chain in the early game, but arts with Feather end up stronger later on. Her physical crafts are nothing special, and I never found much use out of her magical debuff craft on Nightmare.

Overall, she's fine. I mostly found use for her in early to mid game for Daybreak 1, and past that, she was mostly just a sub-in CP battery.

Moving onto ASO's first part-timer, and Agnès has always remained a fairly helpful support caster.

Her orbment slightly holds her back for pure casting since the water-locked slot on the Drive Line makes it harder for accessing Ark/Judgement Feather compared to others, especially in the early to mid game, and in my playthroughs, she was mostly relegated to support for the main caster.

In terms of crafts, Althea Heal was especially helpful in Horizon where ailments felt like more of a threat, Jibril Guard was decent in a pinch, but way too expensive compared to the other shield crafts and Holy Bloom was helpful for EP regen in Daybreak 2 before getting 0EP whale up, and in Horizon, it was very helpful for Boost Recovery when Elaine wasn't available. Brilliant Halo is always useful as a panic button, and Horizon adds Cerise Fantasia which can be useful for fitting in damage with a strong chain, especially since Calvard lets you choose which S-Craft to use when S-Breaking.

(Horizon Spoilers) >!The big question for her in Horizon 2 is her availability, and whether she'll be an early-game rescue like Rean or a mid/late game one like Joshua. I also hope that her Tuner-Diva mode is reflected in her crafts in some form, and the Witch's Medallion should show up again as well, even if it gets nerfed.!<

I'll be taking over to finish the discussions for the remaining playable characters from the Calvard arc, should be about 12 more days of posts.

With that said, we start off with the head of ASO himself. In his base form, Van's kit had remained pretty much the same from Daybreak 1, with the addition of Azure Sunray in Daybreak 2. He's a fairly good physical attacker in all three games, but in especially Daybreak 1, Coin Bullets alongside the Guardian shard skill make him a very powerful face tank. Shard Commands in Horizon make tanking much less necessary, however, it also allowed Van slightly better access to Bear the Nightmare, which is where he truly shines.

Grendel is busted, and absolutely the strongest unit in the games. In my playthrough of Horizon, he was dealing 50% stun in "1 turn" (Zillion Impact ftw) and dealing insane damage with Radiant Sunray. None of the other characters came anywhere close, and I'm interested to see how he plays in Horizon 2.