Suporting Team during Big Climax

[MetalSkulkBane]

You know how it is, Main Protagonist is about to face The Big Bad, climax to entire arc, if know whole franchise. Avatar Aang fight with Ozai, Sonic and Chip stopping Dark Gaia, Optimus Prime reaching Unicron, Simba faces Scar, Korra Vs Kuvira. Time for epic duel...

Oh right. We have dozen more characters, Hero's friends and allies. They must be here, because this is Big Epic Climax, but we want to focus on Hero VS Villain small narrative. I mean, what can we do? Make them sit on sidelines and cheer for hero? That would be Genera...., I mean silly

Solution: they give them pointless tasks. Fight the evil minions, stop the doomsday machine, act as decoy. Something that in theory is important, but usually looses any meaning the moment Big Bad goes down.

My questions are:

1) Is this even a problem or it is just me?
To use example most people should know, in Archie Sonic Unleashed adaptation Sally and Freedom Fighters just get to fight Badniks. Not Metal Sonic or Egg Bosses, Badniks. And they don't even get to win, when Dark Gaia awakes, all robots shut down.

2) How it's done right?
And I know one option would be "let all heroes fight Big Bad at once" ala Sonic IDW  end of Year One, but I think sometimes writers really have cool idea that only involves two or three people. I don't think She-ra 2019 would been improved if her horse was there when *spoiler for She-ra 2019*.

Thoughts?

[Kuzu]

Depends on the story. Its less about making everyone important and more like everyone having something to contribute.

Like yea, the main character is the most important by default but that doesn't mean everyone else's contributions don't matter.

It all comes to framing.

[Sega DogTagz]

It'd be great if every character could have a role to play in the larger theme, or at least have something to contribute, but to be honest even if you wanted to send them to the sidelines and limit them to cheer leader status there are a million ways you could do that better too.

Take the time eater for example. Each character did little more than offer praise or warn of an attack. A few small tweaks could change everything. If you make the rings available during the fight intentionally scarce, then each character could contribute 15-20 rings whenever they chime in with their motivational quips. The constant stress of running low on rings ups the intensity and stakes of the battle, while making you more appreciative of the supporting cast despite them still doing technically nothing. 

You don't have to default to the SA2 or 06 route which bends over backwards to give most of the supporting cast time to shine, but some effort needs to be put in so that at the very least these guys and gals Arn't just standing around with their hands in their pockets. Sometimes that makes sense, like in Shadows game, but most of the time it's patronizing. 

[Kuzu]

Well a simple solution is to simply not have stuff every character and their mother in a game if its functionally only about about three. Games like Shadow, 06, Generations, and Forces didn't need the large cast that it did, because the game was more concerned about the actual main characters. 

Conversely, games like the Adventure titles, and Heroes function better because they're designed around having all of those characters involved.