I think this is a very interesting way to make a character selection happen. (Though with unlockable characters their items should just be omitted from the list entirely until successive play-threws so as not to spoil stuff. ) There are a lot more choice options than I thought you were going to have too! That's not really a bad thing though, just surprising since usually visual novels only even have a few. 

In any case this is super cool that you're starting this! I think in terms of characters you may want to keep it to those that have vastly different perspectives in terms of the full scope of your story. Too many similar ones might just be tedious for you. (For example, we get a lot of Nick's background from Yasu already, so Nick's isn't totally necessary unless you've vastly changed it from what I know. Same thing with Quincy, as much as I like him. If he's involved heavily in Ren's then his own isn't particularly needed. in fact I *might* go so far as to say Ren's perspective might not be that needed as well and would build more over-all mystery but at the same time it could be interesting to see his in terms of world building) That's just my thoughts anyway, and of course it is up to you and how much you wanna tackle.  Regardless of which this is super cool and I'm looking forward to see where you go with this!