Line #145 Main/PartyInMyPocket


1	[[quoteright:280:[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Party_in_my_Pants_by_Inyuo_5667.jpg]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:280:[[https://www.deviantart.com/inyuo/art/Party-in-my-Pants-106975435 ...and everyone's invited!]]]]
3
4	->''"It's a well-known fact that groups look like a distorted version of the most important person from farther away."''
5	-->-- '''Diane''', ''Webcomic/RPGWorld''
6
7	In your typical console RolePlayingGame, the player is usually in control of [[PlayerParty around half-a-dozen characters (at least)]] for a good portion of the game. However, when walking around the world map, in a city, or in a dungeon, usually all that is seen is the main character, even when the rest of the party is supposed to be with him at the time.
8
9	Perhaps he's carrying them [[HammerspaceHideaway in his pockets]].
10
11	Some games allow you to choose which party member, sometimes referred to as the ''active character'', to be visible. In many games, this character may use certain skills when they're active, or will alter the dialogue of certain [=NPCs=] when talking to them.
12
13	If TheLancer, WhiteMagicianGirl or other party members are ever needed, either the screen will FadeToBlack, then [[FadeIn back in]] with the necessary person(s) now standing alongside the Hero, or in some cases, they will simply ''[[HammerSpace walk out of the Hero's body]]'', do or say what they need to, then walk back in.
14
15	Some games avert this to a degree by never showing multiple party members on the world map, such as early ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' games, leaving only the question of where your other party members are hiding.
16
17	Goes in and out of AcceptableBreaksFromReality. Developers in the old days found it challenging to work out animations and pathfinding for multiple party members outside of scripted scenes, or apart from enemy encounters that cut away to a separate turn-based battle mode. In these games, multiple party members clumping around the player could block their view of the environment and become problematic to represent in tight spaces. AllInARow is one way to make controlling a visible party simple, but having all the important characters follow you in a neat line like ducklings can look kind of silly, and create issues such as party members getting stuck in a wall, accidentally setting off traps, or triggering a fight with a RoamingEnemy (or at least forcing them to be conspicuously intangible so they won't). It can even render a puzzle UnintentionallyUnwinnable if one of your party members stands in the way of something and there’s no way to clip through them or command them to move. It’s a lot simpler if everyone just disappears into the player's body until they’re needed.
18
19	Compare with ActuallyFourMooks, which is when a {{Preexisting Encounter\|s}} does this. Related to HammerspaceHideaway.
20
21	The TropeNamer is Toys/MonsterInMyPocket and no, [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant it is not an innuendo]], that's RagingStiffie.
22	----
23	!!Examples
24
25	[[foldercontrol]]
26
27	[[folder: Action Adventure ]]
28
29	* Used confusingly in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin''. You can have both your characters onscreen, with whichever on you're not following close by, and can be used to add to attacks, assist in pushing, or even a handy footstool. Sometimes however, this becomes trouble in itself, as your partner takes MP damage(and only MP thankfully) when hit, and one boss can even turn one against the other. To prevent this, the other partner can be dismissed at any time. The game knows this makes no sense and doesn't really try to explain it. But there's a cute [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]] -- if you hold Up in front of Vincent with just one character out, he panics, fearing that the worst has happened to your partner.
30	--> "They... They KILLED Johnathan?" "Nah, I'm still around." "You're still here?! I thought..."
31	* ''VideoGame/JoJosBizarreAdventureEyesOfHeaven'' has a literal and justified example, since it uses a canon character: Coco Jumbo, a turtle from ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Golden Wind]]'' whose [[FightingSpirit Stand]] lets people enter an extradimensional "hotel room" within his back. For much of the game, [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Jotaro]] carries Coco around in his jacket pocket, pulling him out when new people join the group or when he needs to speak with someone.
32
33	[[/folder]]
34
35	[[folder: Beat Em Up ]]
36
37	* Both, the arcade and NES versions of ''[[VideoGame/DoubleDragon Double Dragon III]]'', allowed the player to recruit additional characters in addition to the Lee brothers. In the arcade version, the additional characters could be recruited in weapon shops by [[BribingYourWayToVictory inserting more tokens into the coin slot]] and essentially acted out as extra lives, whereas the additional characters in the NES version were boss characters who join the Lee brothers after being defeated and could be switched to at any moment (the trade-off being that all of the game's player characters were shared by both players in 2-Player mode, whereas each player in the arcade version has his own party). At any case, each player only controls one character at a time.
38	* ''VideoGame/RiverCityGirlsZero'' has the heroes Kunio and Riki being joined by their respective girlfriends, Misako and Kyoko, for a brief period. The player can switch between any of the four characters at any time, but only two of them (depending on whether a second person is player) appear on-screen at the same time.
39	* In ''VideoGame/ZenoClash2'', you travel with two companions (Rimat, and whoever else you've recruited). They appear on the battlefield during climactic fights ([[SmokeOut using a smokebomb to vanish]] at the end), and Rimat shows up alongside you in cutscenes, but outside of these situations they inexplicably vanish into {{hammerspace}}.
40	* The ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage'' series apparently does this, as the characters you didn't select are all present for the endings and cutscenes, especially so in the third game. The fan remake has said characters participate in dialogue during gameplay as well.
41
42	[[/folder]]
43
44	[[folder: First Person Shooter ]]
45
46	* Shooters with both cutscenes and a co-op mode that doesn't remove them end up with a situation like this, where the cutscenes will usually act as though the singleplayer protagonist is the only person there, while none of the actual players may even be using his model.
47	** ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' has some notable aversions - on the occasions where the cutscenes don't assume there's still only the one Master Chief, the ''second player'' will take the place the Chief had in the singleplayer version of the cutscene, with the first player going somewhere else instead. This is most notable in the level "The Silent Cartographer", where two Pelicans drop the player and his allies onto the beach - normally, the player rides in the first one and gets to watch the scenery pass and the second Pelican follow from inside of it, but in co-op the first player rides in the rear one.
48	** ''VideoGame/GhostReconFutureSoldier'' has a [[SarcasmMode similarly-inventive solution]] for this in the one storyline mission where the player character actually is going it alone - if played in co-op anyway, cutscenes have the other player(s) just standing around not doing anything at all while the first player's character pretends they aren't there. The rest of the game averts this where additional players for co-op take control of one of the other three teammates, complete with them carting around whatever primary weapon that player was last carrying during cutscenes.
49	** Particularly odd example in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII'''s Co-Op mode for the campaign; both players operate as separate characters but merge into one for cutscenes, leaving both halves of the screen (for the local split-screen mode) playing the same cutscene at the same time before splitting back apart for gameplay. [[spoiler: Of course this can be justified as none of the events in-universe past the first mission are real, and the ending implies the whole thing ran on a loop]].
50	** ''VideoGame/TimeSplitters2'' mixes this with the first game's SchrodingersPlayerCharacter in that, with the exception of the "Wild West" and "Space Station" levels (more on that later), Player 2's character is never present during a single-player game. For the most part it can be assumed they were either BehindTheBlack during the cutscenes (P2's character usually starts a fair distance away from P1's starting location) or arrived "afterwards" (e.g. Mr. Underwood was waiting for Viola in the sewers in "Notre Dame", Chastity came to rescue Ghost after he was beaten by Sadako in "Neotokyo", Hank's MissionControl said they'd send someone to assist him in the intro to "Planet X", which can be assumed to be Candi). However, there's two levels where P2's presence is inexplicable; in "Atom Smasher" where both players start in a sealed room with no way in, and "Space Station" where P2's character is supposed to be ''dead''.
51
52	[[/folder]]
53
54	[[folder: Hack And Slash ]]
55
56	* ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'':
57	** That dragon can't ''possibly'' be carrying all the people that are talking to you during the aerial sequences, and if they are on the ground, how the hell do they show up when you land there?
58	** At one point it's mentioned that those with pact partners can speak to each other from a great distance - this is the only advantage Verdelet gains from his pact, since his partner was turned to stone.
59
60	[[/folder]]
61
62	[[folder: [=MMORPGs=] ]]
63
64	* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' characters can carry any amount of pets and mounts in their inventory. A couple of mounts have the player carrying just an item to summon it.. but most of them have you apparently stuffing them into your bag and carting them around.
65	** This has been changed as of October 2008; now the carriers, mounts, and items are destroyed on use and apparently teach you ''skills'' of ___ summoning. Which is arguably weirder, but does avoid this specific trope.
66	** That was also {{Hand Wave}}d when it was implemented. The lore explanation was that the ''mount'' wasn't in your bag, just the reins, which were magical and could summon the mount.
67	** In MUD ''VideoGame/{{Achaea}}'', mount carries you. ''And'' the other way round.
68	* In ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', companions disappear while PlayerCharacters ride speeders and reappear upon dismounting.
69	* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has a similar workaround to ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' with regards to mounts: the item that bestows a mount is usually a fife, remote control or other method of ''summoning'' a mount rather than the mount itself. Meanwhile, a separate problem came with certain duties that require the player to assemble a party via the Duty Finder despite taking place in remote locations, with some inconsistency as to when characters in story would suggest recruiting 'fellow adventurers' and when a party would simply just appear in time for the dungeon or boss fight. Perhaps to finally address this, [[spoiler: halfway through the ''Shadowbringers'' expansion, the Warrior of Light is given a crystal dedicated to their unsundered self Azem, imbued with a powerful magic that allows them to summon allies from across time and space. From that point on, it can be assumed that even if they're not explicitly shown using it, it's how they got their party for the current duty.]]
70
71	[[/folder]]
72
73	[[folder: Pinball ]]
74
75	* In ''VideoGame/SonicPinballParty'', only one character is active at any time, and shooting the Big Target Hole is required to swap characters.
76
77	[[/folder]]
78
79	[[folder: Platform Game ]]
80
81	* In ''[[VideoGame/LittleSamson Little Samson/Seirei Densetsu Lickle]]'', any inactive character has to be kept inside a bell for some reason. The dragon character, unamused, challenges the hero to a fight because of this.
82	* In ''VideoGame/SonicMania [[UpdatedRerelease Plus]]''[='s=] Encore Mode, you can control all five playable characters at once but only have access to two at a given time (one leading and one active partner, which you can freely swap between). Whenever the lead character dies, the partner becomes the active character and the next character in queue becomes the partner. Run out of characters and it's Game Over. The other three characters wait as icons in the life area and certain monitors let you pull the next character in the queue into active status or randomize which pairing is currently out.
83	* ''VideoGame/{{Trine}}'' had an interesting twist on this; the three main characters are SharingABody due to the titular artifact, and can switch form based on the situation at hand.
84
85	[[/folder]]
86
87	[[folder: Roguelike ]]
88	* ''VideoGame/DiceyDungeons'': [[spoiler:In the Backstage round, your dice class is always the one moving around on the map as you recruit more enemies to defeat Lady Luck.]]
89	[[/folder]]
90
91	[[folder: Role Playing Game ]]
92	* In ''VideoGame/AidynChronicles'', other party members only appear during cut scenes.
93	* ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'': If you talk to an NPC and the game fades to black, you know the conversation will be important since your party members will appear once the scene fades back in.
94	* The ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuest'' series:
95	** ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheShiftedSpires'': Catie represents the whole party, the other members walking out of her as needed to deliver dialogue.
96	** ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm'', the party members walk into and out of Catie as they’re needed. This gets played with a few times, like when the others take turns leading after Catie gets tired walking up a long flight of stairs. Or when a {{Bouncer}} refuses to let Catie into a concert, because she only has one ticket and “[he] can tell a nested party when [he] see[s] one.”
97	* Although the ''VideoGame/BreathOfFire'' series usually Averts this with AllInARow, the series often does use this trope's secondary function of active characters, with the first character in the row (who can be switched with the press of a button) having abilities they can use in the Overworld.
98	** ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'' takes this a step further -- anyone who isn't in your party at the time will generally just be hanging out back at their house in Township.
99	** ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV'' could even avert this in combat -- with the screen sometimes panning to show the reserve characters a few paces away doing something if they had an reserve-only ability.
100	* In ''VideoGame/CodeVein'', you can only have one partner fighting with you, but cutscenes will show everyone traveling together.
101	* Averted in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'' where your other three [[VirtualPaperDoll fully customizable]] party members follow behind the hero. This is played straight in cutscenes, where only the hero is visible. Impressive for a DS game, considering the number of options and clothing items you and your party members have available.
102	* ''VideoGame/EternalSonata'''s party balloons to about ''twelve'' characters, but you only walk around as Allegretto or Polka. Beat also gets a turn in one chapter. The only time Chopin is shown as the lead is in a cutscene. (So much for the game being about him).
103	* Used in the ''VideoGame/{{Exile}}'' series. Since the games lacked FightWoosh, switching into combat mode causes your party to instantaneously decompress near the leader's position in a somewhat random fashion, sometimes popping up on the other side of monsters, furniture, doors and walls when adjacent tiles were full.
104	** Ending combat recompressed the party also in a more or less random location between them. This was occasionally exploitable, and could be used to teleport the party across some obstacles (such as barriers and traps) by entering and leaving combat.
105	** The manual/readme actually explained the reasoning behind this. Out of combat, the party travels as a tight group in order to keep track of each other while exploring; once a fight starts, they fan out so they can focus on hitting enemies instead of each other. The oddities mentioned above are due to the programming limitations of the day. Indeed, the remakes of the Exile games in the ''VideoGame/{{Avernum}}'' series avoid the trope.
106	* Most ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games:
107	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' plays with this a bit. Pressing Select switches the "active" character, and a few abilities, such as the Thief's lockpicking, only work with that character active. (This isn't made too clear in the game.) When your party is escorting someone, that character [[AllInARow follows your party]] instead.
108	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'', at least in the DS remake, does the same, although as there aren't any opportunities to use skills outside of battle beyond cutscenes, who your active character is doesn't have any effect except on the line in their thought bubble on the pause menu.
109	** In one scene early in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', prior to a certain boss battle, a hostile NPC [[GoombaStomp stomps on]] your party leader, causing all three party members to spill out onto the field while he asks about a certain character not yet added to the party.
110	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' uses this trope unabashedly. In most cases, when your current party members have something to say, they will run out of Cloud's body, say or do whatever they need to, and promptly walk back in, as though Cloud is some sort of MobileSuitHuman. Then, after taking a moment to recoup before heading down the train tunnel to the Sector 5 Reactor, Cloud and Tifa enter Barret, Barret speaks one line of dialogue, and abruptly transforms into Cloud. In addition, a deleted scene would have had Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge try to do the same thing (and fail). Cait Sith's joining of the party is signified by him forcibly walking into Cloud's body, despite Cloud's protestations.
111	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII''
112	*** This one tried having the other two members of the team follow you around... proving why this trope is so common, as they were always moving around in a perfect column and looked really artificial doing it. This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] at least once in the game where an NPC comments that the [[ElaborateUniversityHigh military academy]] they attended sure did a good job of teaching them how to walk AllInARow. They still vanish on the world map.
113	*** It's then played straight in a number of ways, such as guardian forces crafting items and spells while not equipped (the game says they take space in your brain while they're equipped; where they are otherwise is never addressed) and are still invisible to all despite being "in your party;" Rinoa's apparently invisible dog, whom you're constantly "walking" while Rinoa's in the party; and the chicobo and moogle you adopt later on, who appear in certain circumstances, but vanish the rest of the time.
114	** Simultaneously used and ''kind of'' averted in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'': Usually you would only see Zidane in the field areas, and the rest of the party would materialize through a quick in-and-out fade to black when they're needed, but at other times Zidane is simply travelling by his lonesome while the rest of his party are doing other things, and the game even lets you see what they're doing with the Active Time Event system.
115	** This was played with interestingly in a meta sense in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX''. Right at the beginning of the game, when Tidus first joins with Yuna et al, the party averts this by walking in a group in actual gameplay: Everyone else walks along, while the player just controls Tidus, and when you get to the next town, they all hang out doing their own thing while you explore, and in fact go to the plot sensitive area ''without'' Tidus. Then, once Tidus officially becomes a Guardian, the trope is played straight, signifying he's really a part of the party, and not just tagging along.
116	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' almost averted it; your two active party members follow behind you, as a function of the game's lack of a transition between travel and battle. What's not explained is where the ''other'' three members presumably traveling with you are hanging out while this is going on. Also, played completely straight in that in-town sequences show only Vaan except during cutscenes.
117	** And averted completely (within the active party) in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'', where the two backup characters in your active party kinda wander around on their own, usually in the general direction of the one you're controlling. Like ''XII'', the other three characters kinda vanish in the meantime, unless the plot needs them on the field.
118	* Used heavily in ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' where several scenes involve your extra 3 party members morphing out of you so they can be in the cutscene. Got worse in the sequel where 8 characters popped out from your...pocket. Outside of battle, the 'utility' psynergy abilities are all performed by the hero, even if it's actually one of the other characters that has the skill. Early in the first game Ivan demonstrates that if he's touching Isaac, then Isaac can mind read and presumably do everything else he has, so it's actually explained.
119	* In ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheLance'', the player controlled the eight main characters of the original Literature/{{Dragonlance}} novels, but only one active character was physically present at a time, and if the active character died, the next character in line took his place. This meant that if, say, the thief tried to take out an enemy with his sling but the enemy managed to close to melee range, the seven other characters would stand around and watch poor Tasslehoff get beaten to death before one - and only one - of them would step forward to take a shot at the monster. If someone tried to jump over a pit and fell to their death, the next person in line could give it a shot, but if someone cleared a pit, they'd bring everyone else with them - even the characters who couldn't jump that far.
120	* Gets pretty ridiculous in the freeware game, ''VideoGame/HerosRealm'', with the player eventually controlling sixteen people, who only take up a single tile, at one time!
121	* In ''VideoGame/HolyUmbrella'', the SideView stages let you switch out the hero for anyone in the party.
122	* ''VideoGame/InazumaEleven''; three members show up on the map [[AllInARow to follow the leader]], but the other twelve are still available to swap in.
123	* ''VideoGame/{{Indivisible}}'' uses it, justifies it ''and'' makes it a plot point; the protagonist Ajna is able to absorb certain people into herself, and summon them to battle whenever she needs. Figuring out why she can do that, among other powers, is part of the reason she sets on her journey to begin with.
124	* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'' and ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', lacking a FightWoosh, have your party members simply follow you around visibly, but when you have an additional character in your party, (Jack Skellington/Sparrow, Simba, etc.) the extra 4th member simply seems to not be anywhere. Likewise during Limits not involving a character, they will simply disappear.
125	** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' completely [[AvertedTrope averts]] this trope by not only expanding the max possible active party members in a given world (including [[PlayerCharacter Sora]]) from 3 to [[SerialEscalation 5]] but having all of them be on the field and/or in battle at once.
126	* ExaggeratedTrope in ''VideoGame/TheLastRemnant''. Rush wanders through fields and caves all by himself until he starts a battle, at which point he gets ''an entire army'' to fight with him.
127	* Party members in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfDragoon'' dutifully walk out of the hero Dart when a cutscene starts up, and then proceed back inside him when it ends.
128	* In the ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' games, your party is four active members and either two or three reserves. You can change the party member you control on the field with a push of a button, but you only see the chosen member when navigating the field.
129	* Done as well in ''VideoGame/{{Lunarosse}}'' with the old "fade out and party members appear" trick.
130	* Zig-zagged with the ''[[VideoGame/LunarSilverStarStory Lunar]]'' [[VideoGame/LunarEternalBlue games]] - this is in effect in dungeons, but the games revert to AllInARow for all other areas. You can usually tell if a boss is coming up (and, thus, that you should be healing up and saving) if you come to a new area in a dungeon and all your party members are suddenly walking behind you.
131	* Used briefly in ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork 2'' during the camp scenario. Since this is the only time in the series it's used, it's very jarring; apparently players were just expected to know what it meant when all the other kids walked into Lan. (Standard ''Battle Network'' procedure when Lan's in a group is just to have everybody hang around somewhere, checking things out, until you trigger a cutscene that moves the party).
132	* ''VideoGame/MimanaIyarChronicle'' lets you press a button to switch between Crais and other party members while wandering, so different party members can talk to the [=NPCs=] for different results. Crais has pissed off a lot of people, but his party members are cute girls to which most people respond much better.
133	* Justified in the video game ''VideoGame/MrRobot''. The secondary party members have all been uploaded into the primary character and all the combat sequences take place in a virtual reality.
134	* ''VideoGame/OracleOfAskigaga'': The person listed the first in the party is who's used to represent the whole party when walking around.
135	* ''VideoGame/TheOtherAirisAdventure'': The person listed the first in the party is who's used to represent the whole party when walking around.
136	* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'', as your party is ''literally'' in your pocket (hence the name "Pocket Monsters"), or on your belt, or wherever the characters keep Poké Balls. The only exception to this occurs in the ''Yellow'' version, in which the Pikachu you receive at the beginning of the game refuses to go in its Poké Ball (unless it faints or is being healed at the Pokemon Center) and follows you around through the game, in an obvious reference to the anime.
137	** Not to mention that Poké Balls [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration are a key part of capturing new Pokémon]].
138	** ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver HeartGold and SoulSilver]]'' allow you to let the first Pokémon in your lineup follow you around, though the rest of the party remains in their Poké Balls. They even move in front of the player when called upon to [[MundaneUtility use an HM move]].
139	* ''VideoGame/RadiataStories'' is quite ridiculous about this. It plays the trope ''so'' straight that, unless a character is in your party for story reasons (and they're usually not), party members you recruit don't even appear in ''cutscenes''. One has to wonder where Jack's three companions are at all, as they're clearly not accompanying him during gameplay or story events. The only time you ever see them is during battles.
140	* ''VideoGame/RakenzarnTales'' also plays it straight with the fade-out maneuver. While it's justified for the party members, as Kyuu explicitly has the power to teleport them in and out at will with his book, allowing them to suddenly be there as needed, it doesn't quite explain where the [=NPCs=] you start gathering show up from.
141	* ''VideoGame/{{Shadowcaster}}'' was a strange case, as technically you controlled only one character that could morph into six other creatures. Each one had skills that were essential at some point in the game, so playing felt like having a party of seven and frequently switching between them.
142	* Different ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games change it up with varying levels of justification for when they do use it:
143	** Several games are first-person perspective and you're presumably in the lead, so the question simply isn't addressed when you have human party members.
144	** Most third-person perspective games play it straight, but with the justification that most (if not all) of your party are demons you summon for each battle. ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'' and the ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' duology play it dead straight, though, as your party members are most definitely not summoned but are nowhere to be seen when in a dungeon. The ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'' games also count, as you only see each squad's leader on the map.
145	** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' notably avert it, as party members follow after you in the dungeons, and can even get separated from you or get in your way while you're trying to maneuver (that one's mostly in P3, though). Also averted in ''VideoGame/Persona5'', where active party members follow Joker both in and out of dungeons. Inactive party members are stated to be following "at a safe distance" because having them too close will make it harder for the group to remain stealthy.
146	* The ''VideoGame/StarOcean'' series have the party members off on their own when the main hero enters a town. In cutscenes, usually the members relevant to that scene only pop up.
147	* Played with in the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' role playing games:
148	** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'':
149	*** Among many other things, in a scene where everyone goes to merge with Mario, an NPC shouts something, resulting in everyone ''smashing into Mario'' instead. He gets his dazed look, then, when everyone goes to merge with him again moments later, he holds out his hands to stop them ''until he's ready''.
150	*** Also [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]]. In a certain scene Mario is explaining something to the mushroom people, and suddenly Bowser (and the other party members) emerge from him, causing surprise and terror to everyone present.
151	*** There is a scene where an annoyed Mario pulls Mallow back into [[HammerSpace Hammer Space]] to silence his whining.
152	** ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' has Partners switching in and out of Mario as they are needed. The Pixls in ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' are, considering their size, more realistic... but you can also exchange Mario with other characters out of nowhere.
153	*** In cutscenes where at least two of the playable characters are scripted to be onscreen, the characters not in control will appear or disappear BehindTheBlack. This is especially weird in the cutscene where Peach rejoins you during the Overthere Stair -- Peach's abrupt awakening knocks the character you're currently controlling (either Mario, Luigi, or Bowser) off camera. All three characters then walk on camera and talk with Peach. When someone offscreen addresses Peach, the camera shifts left, putting Mario, Luigi, and Bowser off camera again while leaving Peach on screen. When the cutscene ends, Mario, Luigi, and Bowser are nowhere to be found, while the player is suddenly controlling Peach.
154	** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'':
155	*** Mario runs afoul of a [[GrandTheftMe body swapper]]. The impostor successfully fools Mario's party, forcing the real Mario to fight them before he can get his body back. Even though the impostor is not controlled by the player, he is still bound by the restrictions of this trope and must battle you with only one party member at a time, in addition to his team losing if he loses all his HP (whenever or not his party members can still fight).
156	*** Averted another time during the same part of the story, however - there is an optional cutscene one can see while a shadow that has [[spoiler:Doopliss]] and the partners all taking part at once, and this is also the case in the cutscene before the given fight.
157	** ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story]]'' may count as a bizarre variant of this, in which Bowser is on the overworld and the two titular party members remain inside him. Bowser can use the Vacuum Block to swallow flying enemies and parts of large enemies, allowing Mario and Luigi to fight that enemy inside his belly. This is, in fact, part of several Bowser boss fights, [[spoiler: including the final battle where Mario and Luigi must fight Dark Fawful]].
158	* ''VideoGame/SwordDancer'' employs it as a "Leader" system, and the player can change him/her in the in-game menu, you will only see the designed leader in the overworld and in-battle, however (and no, you can't change characters in-battle).
159	* Most ''VideoGame/TalesSeries'' games use this trope, to the point where later ones even let you set the party leader and the battle leader as totally different characters. The party leader doesn't even have to be ''in'' the battle.
160	** Later games like ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' make heavy use out of switching characters in order to trigger sidequests and cutscenes.
161	** In ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'' (PSX), when certain [=NPCs=] (Rhea and Brambard) join your party, they actually show up in the party screen, though they don't show up in combat and their stat screen simply says "NPC".
162	** ''VideoGame/TalesOfZestiria'' has a justified example with the Seraph characters, who are usually hanging out in Sorey's body outside of scenes. Averted with other human characters, who just follow him around.
163	* ''VideoGame/UltimaIII'' was the first game in the series to use this, with a party of 4 characters. ''VideoGame/UltimaIV'' [[PlayerCharacterCalculus pushed this to 8]], and ''VideoGame/UltimaV'' settled on 6 as middle-ground. The next few games used AllInARow and the last two were solo games.
164	* ''VideoGame/ValkyrieProfile'':
165	** Justified in the first game, with the Valkyrie actively ''summoning'' in the Einherjar with her own energy. (Note that if the Valkyrie dies in combat, so does the party unless she is revived in three turns.)
166	** In the sequel it gets even more bizarre; Alicia contains the Valkyrie Silmeria within her, while a number of Einherjar reside within ''Silmeria''. Alicia might as well buy herself a "NO VACANCY" sign with that many people to deal with.
167	* ''VideoGame/WildArms4'': Main character Jude has SuperSpeed, with many of the game's puzzle and platformer elements heavily relying on it, but party members still somehow manage to keep up with him. The most notable episode happens when Jude [[RacingTheTrain catches up with a train]] using both a bike ''and'' SuperSpeed, and nearly fails, if not for outside help. Not even a minute later, the rest of the party shows up from off-screen ''in a cutscene'', despite not having any vehicle, and the train showing no signs of slowing down.
168	* In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' and ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'', you can only have three party members active in the field and battle at a time, even though the extra party members are shown to still be in your company during important cutscenes. Disengaged [[BondCreature Blades]], in contrast, are shown hanging out at Garfont Village waiting for you to take them out into the field again. ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'' instead went with a more realistic approach, requiring you to seek out party members at their normal hangout spots to put them into your party.
169	[[/folder]]
170
171	[[folder: Simulation]]
172	* Literally in ''VideoGame/{{APICO}}''. You can hammer [=NPCs=] into FunSize dolls of themselves and store them in your pocket until you place them somewhere else, where they regrow back to their normal selves. Their item description even finds it weird.
173	--> ''Ummm... what??? Try not to think about it!''
174	[[/folder]]
175
176	[[folder: Turn-Based Strategy ]]
177
178	* In ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'', only the leader unit of a squad (containing up to nine people) appears on the mini-map. There's actually a bit of give-and-take with regard to the Player's units. When the unit is first summoned onto the map, the player has to have the space for the "Room's" full numbers and formation available on the map. This means that, while a full nine-person Room can be extremely powerful, the unit may be hard to summon onto some maps.
179	[[/folder]]
180
181	!!Non-video game examples:
182
183	'''Web Comics'''
184	* ''Webcomic/{{Adventurers}}'' averts and lampshades this [[http://www.giantrobot.club/adventurers/2016/6/15/201-300 in a scene beginning in strip #201.]] The hero is walking along apparently by himself when he is ambushed and captured by the villain; when the villain attempts to depart, he runs into the rest of the party, who were apparently just off-panel the whole time. When questioned, he admits that he thought the party somehow merged into one body when traveling and that capturing the hero would be capturing all of them.
185	* Lampshaded in ''Webcomic/RPGWorld'', where it's claimed to be a law of physics that "any group of people, when viewed from a long distance, looks like a distorted version of the most important person in the group".
186	* In ''Webcomic/CaptainSNES'' Alex [[http://www.captainsnes.com/2011/02/23/639-party-time/ uses it to his advantage here.]]
187	** It's shown again [[http://www.captainsnes.com/2013/07/08/827-proper-gratitude/ with Samus and Golbez.]]
188
189	'''Other'''
190	* This can literally be done in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 3.5 edition, if the entire party is good enough at the Escape Artist skill. It can also occur simply if one or more players are playing as Tiny races, such as fairies or sprites, as they can quite comfortably fit into a normal-sized backpack or even belt pouch.
191	** Or if you're really creative, you can do... [[http://i.imgur.com/ID5lmnT.png this.]] (NSFW text)[[labelnote: For those who can't read.]]An epic level [[{{Hobbits}} Hafling]] rogue hid inside a hired concubine's ass for the entirety of the campaign just so he could slip into the BigBad's asshole and kill him from the inside out. Being epic level, the halfing has the Escape Artist skill "Extremely Tight Space" which lets them slip into extremely tight spaces, one inch square for them. That explains why they could plan this attack for this long.[[/labelnote]]
192	* Played straight in the fan made video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMerTgmSn5w Final Fantasy Solar Crystal Legend]] at around the 2:25 mark.
193	* The trope is played humorously in ''WebAnimation/FinalFantasyVIIMachinabridged'' when every time the party enters or leave Cloud, it makes a squelching sound, grossing him out.
194

Context Main / PartyInMyPocket