So, I said I'd give my feedback, and I'm sorry for the wait, but here it goes!
Now, regarding enemies. As mentioned above, MC is sent to study weird beings that have inhabited the wasteland, which also appear during MC's quest to find the 24. These beings are the personifications of the emotions, traits, and trauma of the 24 and are named as such (Greif, Depression, Pride, Wrath). As the story progresses, the MC will have a better understanding of them. I may do a better description of them later.
I like the Persona-esque personifications of the 'bad' emotions, and it can certainly bring up interesting ways of fighting.
The story I find hard to comment on at this point... It doesn't seem like a bad idea in either way, but it'll be the execution of the premise that will in the end determine its quality.
Toby Malcolm - Loving this character! The people presented to him can bring up many cool scenarios, with deceit as an obvious plot twist here: someone that may seem a victim, could turn out to be the perpetrator instead. And what if someone's both? Cool stuff.
Jasmine Tajiri - Ooooh the psychological struggles, the inner conflict, the guilt for ruining one's own life! Awesome potential for good story stuff! Does she, in the fight, get punched in the stomach, killing the baby, though? I think it would be a stronger aspect if, perhaps by a deflected stab or whatever, she ends killing the baby with her own hands as well. Just to add to the bad stuff.
Karen Azor - Hmmm... having doubts here. I find the connection with presumed PTSD and the obsession hard to find, and the obsession with the fellow centaur makes the PTSD backstory seem somewhat redundant... At the same time, you already have a 'bullied because different' story, so I'm not sure what
could lead to the obsession though... At the same time, depending on how you play out the growing obsession, it could still work.
Murphy Willows - What's he guilty of though? It's not like his deserting the friend killed the guy... Perhaps the friend committed suicide out of loneliness, having been left twice, once by his mother, once by Murphy? Would explain the guilt feeling better I think. Besides that, I think it's a cool character. There is something interestingly pathological in people's behaviour when left with guilt for having done something to someone that died, in a way that it couldn't be resolved.
Eli Gyan - Cool one! Not much to say, although I'm curious what role him being the race he is will play in the story.
Leila Fernandez - Whoa... STELLAR EXPLOSIONS?! While the backstory depicts a steady but certain decay of a loving woman into what perhaps becomes a desensitized woman caring out of habit, the stellar explosions ability just changes everything!
So, final feedback, as a whole:
This is huge, man... You've got SO MANY characters, all with backstories that make up a 24 episode anime each, a full on visual novel, a sort manga series, etc. I fear you might not be able to do the characters' potential justice by squeezing it all into
one game. So, if you indeed intend to go with this overhauling story, it feels like this needs to be episodic, and GIGANTIC to properly exhibit each storyline. It'd be incredibly amazing, 3D or 16-bit 2D to see it all worked out, but that feels more like a life work than it does a 'first-time' project.
I got three options that may seem like the best options you got now:
The one that is not included in the list is the one I least like, and therefore is not one of the best options, and that is making a single game, even if it's a 100+ hours long one, with this story and these characters. We know from Kingdom Hearts that, for that many characters to work well within one game, you
need some other way of becoming familiar with them. If you don't know one of the Disney movies a planet is from, you probably will not end up caring for the characters there either, as the game just can't be too much attention to their stuggles. Now, as for better options:
1. This is your lifework. Make it a multi-media project à la VD, and certain backstories will be 16-bit style games, others will be 3D adventures, whereas others may even just be a small light novel set, a streak of comics, or hell, go creative and make it a music album, a book of poetry, etc. Then, in the end, you can make the crown on the whole sequence with the final game that will combine all those characters in one single game, following the story as you have it here. This seems beautiful of course, but also unrealistic, sadly enough.
2. Same stuff as 1, but cut some characters. Make it more workable by working with, ugh, 6 perhaps? You may not be able to give these 6 the attention they would've gotten in 1, but at least it won't feel like a waste for requiring to rush through a backstory good enough for a whole franchise in a flashback of 2 minutes.
3. Choose your favorite character from these, and go with a single format to tell your story in. I personally would recommend a visual novel, as it allows for beautiful artwork, but also for calm, well-paced story telling, whereas both a game and an anime require a faster pace to keep the audience interested, and a book doesn't allow for all the aesthetic beauty to be displayed. Hell, contact Nitro+ with some of your ideas and maybe Gen Urobuchi (From Magica Madoka (or howeer that name goes), Psycho Pass, Kikokugai~ The Cyber Slayer, Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom and even a LN adaption of Black Lagoon) might help you setting it up! Well, chances are small but some of your character designs remind me of some of his, especially the more nutsy characters. And that's a VERY positive thing.