The final blacksmith has surprisingly good stats IIRC. That said given the lack of good physical runes in S1 I don't see any reason to use pure fighters ('cept Viktor who is forced) which the blacksmiths pretty much all are.
And yeah, the "characters attacking at the same time" is kind of a series staple; no matter how much they change up the battle system, it's a constant.
S4 has a lot more flaws than just "only four PCs" but it's playable. Pretty easily the worst Suikoden game. I've only played like an hour of Tactics but it's a SRPG so it's gotta be better than 4.
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