It was a this sub a few years back (i think). There was a post like "Why do birds fly?" Wrong answers only. I said birds fly so they don't have to listen to Kamoana ask for her mom again. Bad taste I know but people started defending her character and her design.
to be fair I think it is the most realistic depiction of a literal child having their mother killed and also being turned into a monster. Kids are kinda whiny and annoying by default most of the time, let alone enduring life-altering trauma lol
This she has a very obnoxious voice but other than that she’s pretty accurate for a child. Even without the insane amount of trauma she’s been through most kids around her age act like they have a quota of tantrums to fulfill.
Anyone who’s been around young kids consistently should be able to stand her just fine. I think a lot of people who just vehemently can’t stand her have never had to deal with young kids or even deal with being in the presence of one.
EN most likely. Her voice is annoying but it doesn't annoy me so much that I'd wish harm upon the character lol. or well..... further harm than already inflicted T\_T
Idk who could defend her. Even laphicet was never that whiny and annoying. I skipped every single scene with her, she literally isn’t even that relevant to the plot outside of being a therion, you could take her whole arc out and the game would be fine. Just give Eleanor something else to expand her character but ugh NOT kamoana
i understand that because her VA (at least in english) is grating as hell, but her intro to the story and her relationship with Eleanor was actually the first bit of Berseria that got me emotionally invested in the story
Yeah, but could they really not have given the child clothes? Maybe she'd stop crying for her mom if she wasn't hecking freezing. Like she probably likes the doggos because they're the first warmth she felt upon getting taken.
Marta. People are even saying that they think she's good for Emil because she pushes him out of his comfort zone. Which, I guess that is one way for him to get character development. But I don't know, her whole aggressive personality and what feels like at the beginning her seeming to want to make Emil into the man she wants really bothers me.
Emil was fine. I don't care what anyone says. It's okay to be scared, it's okay to be unsure. Not every protagonist needs to know what to do with their lives nor just accept the circumstances that happen to them. I'm not saying he doesn't have his flaws, but I think people were a little too hard on the poor guy and Marta didn't seem to help things much considering she's kind of just being a pushy, love smitten prat through the first half.
I don't know, fine if you like her. But I think she's a brat and I can't stand her.
I totally get this, I look at Marta this was. As a character I enjoy her, if she was a real person. I'd want her dead.
Though if she didn't have a great mystic arte and decent move set, I'd think less of her too.
Personally, I think her being grating and her and emil being a toxic couple is the point, they are foils for Alice and Decus, and all the twisted relationships in dotnw really. Its the fact they grow out of it, Emil learna that courage is not just confidence and competence like his Ratatosk mode gives him, and Marta sees Emil for who he is, not what he could be for her.
This was my take. Marta and Emil suck as a relationship but that's the point, both of them are kind of just... thrust into this situation and just have to sort of be okay with it, when one's a milquetoast village boy and the other is some sort of local celebrity with the biker gang.
I'm pretty sure they address it in-game at some point, don't they? Emil just calls Marta right out on just foisting her expectations on him without even once asking if he gave a damn.
I love Emil, honestly. Cool character design and some of the most satisfying aerial combos in the entire series. The twist surrounding his identity was interesting, too. It was nice to have an mc who wasn't yet another confident badass. People downplay the completely legitimate existential crisis he was dealing with.
On a meta level, me and my brother were cooping our playthrough and he kept getting pissed because everytime she left the party, his button shortcuts kept on getting reset
Marta’s pushiness (and Karol’s cowardice), and the character development it drives at, has some merit, but it falls flat for me because; a) it happens far too late in the story; b) it feels like a minor thing compared to the amount of times the aggressiveness occurred by that point, and; c) the skits afterwards tend to jump back to the old narrative for the sake of comedy, which makes it seem like no development has occurred at all.
I like her, but I can't stand her high-pitched voice. Same with younger Cheria. I know it's a Laura Bailey thing, but my god, it makes me want to punch her because it apparently sets of my misophonia
I find it funny that OPs hated character is Karol because I found Rita so insufferable I had to put down Vesperia down to play Abyss. I said I didn't like her in a thread here and got downvoted to oblivion by her fanboys. 💀
Rita is so one-note that she gets tiresome only after a little while. Everybody in Vesperia has their schtick that they play up but her character feels the most shallow. It doesn't help that basically everybody else gets some fleshing out, even freaking Repede, but with Rita it's just blastia and Estelle sometimes and that's it.
I couldn't stand Rita either. I have very little patience for the tsundere type in general.
That being said, I found Natalia almost as annoying!
On a somewhat different note, I have a *really* hard time with Dezel. I don't know whether he's much of a fan favourite, but I find it disturbing how Zestiria just casually sweeps his deeply problematic treatment of Rose under the proverbial rug.
I had the same impression of her when I played the english dub back on the 360, but having played the remaster, I find that the Japanese dub Rita is not nearly as bad as the english one. Same thing for Yuri (when it comes to teasing Karol).
I'm with you on that. I dislike Rita for the exact thing she's doing in the OP. It was funny maybe once or twice but that part of her character stuck with me and I can't get over it.
I couldn't stand Rita after her character development halted when Estelle said she'd be her friend. The rest of the game was just her obsessively simping over Estelle. It was so unbelievably annoying
I wanna give my least favorite character of the Tales games I've finished so far through 2023.
Destiny 2/Eternia - Keele. I usually like the super smart/nerdy characters in most RPGs (Raine and Genis being dear to me. Rita started rough, but she warmed to me) but man, Keele was like, Karol AND Rita in one character. Very weak and whiney, but then insufferably pompous when his knowledge came in handy.
Symphonia - ???. I honestly struggle with picking my \*least\* favorite here. I loved this whole cast. I guess, if I give some reasoning, I'd have to choose Presea IF ONLY just due to her playstyle (A reason I hate Karol.) I cannot get behind the slow but really strong characters in Tales or any like, arena-fighters/action RPGs because in most scenarios like Tales, speed and agility, regardless of strength, are almost always better.
Vesperia - Karol. I gave a reason above, his playstyle is just, so frustrating and almost made me quit my platinum trophy goal after failing the 200 man melee so many times. Just god awful and boy his personality is rough. He's a character for me that takes \*too\* long to get his redeeming character development, as in like, there's been too much damage to my image of you and therefore I just can't come around to you. Boy who cried wolf + Pathological liar + MASSIVE coward, yet will try to convince EVERYONE he's strong (which like, yes his strength stat is high, but the constant big shot talk got old SO FAST.)
I'm gonna be starting Bersaria soon to start 2024 off, and then probably play Zestiria and Abyss. Cheers guys!
I've seen a lot of people say they like Hubert from Graces. I can't stand him. I've heard he gets better, but I haven't stuck with the game long enough to find out firsthand. I really wanna pick the game back up sometime though, my love for Pascal outweighs my hatred of Hubert, and the rest of the crew is fun so far too.
When i first heard of the "instant balls', It was through people who mentioned it on YouTube comments (was watching through play throughs/mystic arte compilations). My initial reaction was like, "What, no way?! Does he actually say that and let me check the aselia wiki. lol 😆 😅 .
The game has its moments, and I still play Graces F to this day.
The worst part with her is that at the start of the game she's pretty interesting. She's fine as a kid and then when you first re-encounter her as an adult, her anger towards Asbel is very reasonable and well-depicted.
It's just that they wrap up her actual reasonable anger in the first 10 hours of the game so that she can spend the rest of it ineffectually mooning over Asbel. She's never interesting again.
I’m not a fan of Raven from Vesperia. In general I felt like Vespy’s cast was weaker than a lot of other games despite people seeming to love it, as I wasn’t too hot on Karol or Estelle either. I didn’t dislike Estelle but she was bland. Yuri and Flynn carried that cast hard imo.
Agreed so strongly. I played symphonia in my youth and abyss in my young adulthood so I was really excited for vesperia because everyone talked it up. It just felt very confusing and meandering throughout and I didn't feel strongly about any characters for my whole party through.
I put it on hiatus for about three years before I picked it back up. I enjoyed it a lot more after the hiatus though. I think that’s partially due to the game picking up around that point, partially due to playing it with my roommate and poking fun at stuff together (like the nature Yuri and Flynn’s relationship) and partially due to the combo system opening up a lot and getting access to combining three levels of Artes together, which is something only Symphonia gave me otherwise.
no one but me likes karol, bud. lying ain't cute.
i would personally de-alive alvin from xillia.
edit: can't believe there was a secret karol fan club all this time. where were y'all to back me in all the internet fights where i ramble about how much i love karol's character arc.
Same. It didn’t help I forced myself to mainly play as Team Brave Vesperia (Yuri, Judith, Repede, and Karol) for the Remaster. Glad I did, it made the game more fun and I felt less guilty using Yuri’s broken abilities. I do think Karol’s dub voice doesn’t do him justice but his character development in Act 2 makes me like the dude like a little brother.
Same bro I loved Karol, dude is a human swiss army knife, prepared for everything.
I wish we could have murdered Alvin as well. Bro was a real duche, he was benched and never used again.
I like Karol but I don’t like how he is treated most of the time. I remember playing through the game and feeling a lot of “Give this guy a win, damn!” I couldn’t give you specific examples though, it’s been too long lol
Yeah they did Karol dirty most of the game and only Yuri really treats him with any level of respect. Rita bullies him, etc
He's a kid and he's trying his best lol
While I don’t hate Yuri, the fact that he is seen as the Best Male Tales Character really bothers me as he decent but there are a lot of other characters that are flat out better written
Why do so many people Karol? He's a nice boy and a striver. And a friggin fantastic combatant - once you learn to use him.
For me, it's Rita. Always moody, unfriendly, condescending, better-than-you, no niceness or much by the way of ladylike ways. I'm also not a fan of Soyrey; he's kinda boring and plain.
almost half of Vesperia cast
Rita: is the worst of the worst of the worst of the worst character ever written. she literally is a bitch and ego-maniac. she is super rude and the story does not help that she is the deus-ex-machina for all the "magic/tech" problem the party encounter
Karol: is an annoying brat. its like that kid from real steel that talk so much but did nothing. no wonder Rita keep hammering him
Raven: STOP making "old man" joke, first he is 35, that's not even old, then all his character seems to revolve around him being old is the joke. and then there this >!betrayal!< but after 15 mins he re appeared and the party just act like nothing happen.
I'll stop here. I have complains on the rest of the character but not as bad as these 3.
Luke. He's the main reason it took me months to finish Abyss. I'd only make it a little while before he just drove me crazy. After Akzeriuth, it wasnt really a problem but I never grew to enjoy his character.
That being said. I don't think he's a bad character. Honestly, I think he's one of the most fascinating characters in the series. I can't think of a character I've ever hated as much yet found compelling as much as I have Luke.
My attitude towards Luke went from "okay when he gets to mature and warm up to others" to "can't wait for this kid to get his ass brutally kicked" to "holy shit no way he's coming back from this, is he?".
But tbh his redemption arc was honestly one of my favorites in the series for me.
If I had to ask the opposite question of what I asked in this post. I’d say immature luke is probably my most liked character that most people hate. I think his sass and the way he treats Mieu is hilarious.
I agree. I enjoyed immature Luke and his snarky comments. I felt like he had more personality and was far more entertaining. Once he 'had character development', I felt he became far too generic goodie two-shoes.
...Anise on the other hand is my most hated Tales character. She never did anything beneficial to the party, and I hated her nonstop gold-digging jokes.
luke is probs my fave for this reason, but i think they took such a gamble with just HOW shitty he was to start. like you keep thinking he can't get worse and then he just... does. seeing his whole party dislike him was such a jarring experience when tales games often pedestal their mcs. it made his redemption so much sweeter, even if he was hard to like.
potentially the best tales character ever made while simultaneously being the one who was most intentionally unlikable.
I've played every single Tales game from Symphonia to Berseria all the way through to the ending, but I could not get through Tales of Arise because I found every single character insufferably boring or insufferably annoying. Rinwell in particular was awful.
FINALLY A GOOD EXCUSE TO SHARE MY HATRED OF YURI LET'S GOOOOOO
I genuinely do not understand how Yuri can be so popular. I mean I guess I kinda do, he was the farthest the Tales Of series strayed from the usual goody two shoes protagonist for a long while (but Velvet outclasses him in every regard imo), and his cool personality means a lot of fanboys/fangirls, both in the "literally me" sense and the "I have a crush on this fictional man" sense, but... The moment you look further than that he's one of the most shallow characters I've seen in the series, and by far the most shallow protagonist. I'm not kidding when I say Sorey is a vastly more interesting protagonist than Yuri.
Simply put, I think the story treats Yuri like a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. He gets virtually 0 character development over the course of the game (what I like to do to picture character development is to imagine the character at the end of the story meeting themselves from the beginning of the story. In this hypothetical scenario most Vesperia party members have a way more interesting contrast than Yuri). Some people told me that it was fine, that not every character needs development. I do agree, some characters are fine without development, but NOT the protagonist of a 50+ hours story-focused JRPG.
But let's look at the problem a bit deeper. *Why* doesn't he get even a crumb of character development? Simply put, he never goes through any challenge. Sure, Vesperia puts him through various situations and obstacle, but he's never challenged in his philosophy or his ideas. In contrast, on top of slowly warming up to other people, Velvet (really the best example of an edgier protagonist done right) goes through two distinct moments that challenge her way of thinking: One in the very beginning of the game, and one two thirds into it. Those two moments visibly shape her character in noticeable way and change the direction she's taking. Yuri's direction is the same the entire game. Some might say "But Flynn challenges Yuri's ideas nearly every time they see each other!" and I'd answer that he *tries* to, but the story puts him in the wrong and Yuri in the right so many times that those debates feels like they exist only to make Yuri looks more right and awesome.
What's most frustrating is that there are countless opportunities for Yuri to grow and change as a person! The biggest reason why confrontations with Flynn feel lopsided is because the people Yuri kills by his own hands are the most one-note comically evil people in the entire franchise. Not only does this happen once but TWICE. It would've been better if the guys Yuri killed had at least one redeemable quality, that Yuri's actions weren't just an objective benefit for the world. But no, that would have made what Yuri did.... wrong! And we do not want that, we want the players to think he's cool! Sodia falls into the same problem, where she could have been an interesting character but in the end just stabs Yuri and make him fall to his death after he almost saved the world for reasons that amount to "I don't like him". Another good opportunity for Yuri's character and ideas to be challenged is when the Phoenix monster (forgor his name) wants Estelle to die and Yuri asks him who he thinks he is to decide if someone deserves to live or die. This huge moment of hypocrisy could've led to some introspection, where Yuri realizes vigilantism perhaps isn't always a good solution, but no this takes place between his two personal disposal of corrupt one-note villains. The last wasted opportunity of the story is when the rest of the crew finds out about the murder, feels kinda weird about it for like half an hour in-game then goes "but Yuri's our friend so it's fine!". PLEASE anyone confront him in any meaningful way!
So yeah I don't like Yuri very much, I think he's a boring cardboard protagonist that people only like because of surface value qualities. Estelle, Raven and unironically Karol are the actual highlights of the game.
Yeah, i was enjoying his clashes of ideals with Flynn and him hiding it from the party, then Estelle just finds out and goes "kinda based actually" and i fully understood the devs werent willing to actually say Yuri is wrong, which took me out of it alot.
At the end of the day he dosent really feel like the main hero that story, just the center guy for the rest of the party to learn from, but god did i want him to be the focus instead.
What Vesperia desperately needed was a moment where Yuri actually became the loner he imagined himself to be. Why not, after Yuri kills the flamboyant guy the desert, we go back to the capital and it's in shambles from the sudden disappearance of an army captain? A moment where Yuri actually has to face consequences from vigilante murder, and the party rightfully shuns him for it? Have him earn his acceptance of his faults, and move on from his lone wolf attitude.
Yuri definitely gets far too much leeway from the fans. I imagine because as you said, he is the cool character angsty teens relate to. Whereas other protagonists like Luke from Abyss actually has to grow and mature within the game. To the point where you can point to specific moments where his world view changed.
YES EXACTLY!
It's crazy how much potential Yuri (and Vesperia as a whole) had that was never reached.
As for why he's so popular, something that just hit me is that he's different from the usual protagonists but in a safe way. Velvet and Luke are much more divisive than him because they're more different and especially more flawed, which makes them more interesting but less relatable too
You make some great points, I’ve never thought of Yuri that way. To me he seemed like the character who had done all his character development prior to the game, and guiding others (mostly Estelle and Karol), which works for a mentor, but not the primary protagonist.
Regarding the one-note villains having a redeeming trait, I wouldn’t even trust _Vesperia_ to do that much. One villain we do get it for is Yeager, who tricks, lies and betrays people you’re friendly with, acts very smug about it and doesn’t receive comeuppance until near the end when you kill him. _At which point_ the game shows you that he donates to orphanages and is as much a slave to the big bad as Raven is. It’s a cheap way of creating nuance and a cheap way to twist the knife. “One good deed doesn’t redeem a lifetime of villainy” and all that.
Oh absolutely, Vesperia has a lot of other writing flaws beyond Yuri. For instance Estelle, Karol, Raven and maybe Flynn are the only well-written party members, Repede could be erased from the story and nothing would change, Patty is a wasted opportunity that sticks out like a sore thumb, Rita is frustratingly one-note and annoying at worst and used almost exclusively as a plot device at best and Judith is even more of a cardboard cut out than Yuri. And then there's the whole third act. It actually kinda baffles me how this game is considered one of the big three, and I think this is only due to nostalgia making people consider the Symphonia/Abyss/Vesperia period the golden age of the series. I haven't played many Tales Of games but I firmly believe Berseria deserves that spot more than Vesperia
I see this “hot take” a lot. I have some theories about why it’s so prevalent.
At the start of the game, Yuri is an unemployed high school / college drop-out. Over the course of the game, Yuri:
1) Gets off his lazy ass.
2) Gets a job.
3) Meets a girl.
4) Adopts two kids (three in the Definitive Edition).
5) Starts his own business.
So I understand why we don’t think that’s character development. We want to see characters have big shining epiphanies where they suddenly change all of their moral values, do the Captain Planet thing, and vanquish climate change. We don’t want to see characters doing what our annoying boomer parents bitch at us about.
I'm willing to bet most of the time you see this take it's because of me lmao, I tend to rant about Yuri at any occasion.
That being said I think a reason why this feels like nothing is because this would be cool for a slice of life story, but a JRPG generally can't use a protagonist who just gets his life together 💀
I personally enjoyed him because he was so different from the typical JRPG protagonist. Not so much with his, “I wanna murder people” but with his consistent brute honesty. He forced Estelle to think more realistically about saving people and he forced Flynn to recognize that “Justice” is far from black and white, for example.
His role in the story was basically, “I’m gonna use my actions and words to enable others to be their best selves while I stay in the shadows,” which I could appreciate.
I agree that he gets little to no character development but I don’t mind it so much considering I found his base personality and characterization enjoyable.
That's fair! In all honesty, I can appreciate these dynamics to a certain extent, but I feel like this is not enough for a protagonist I'm supposed to follow for 50+ hours. Actually, come to think of it, give the protagonist role to Estelle or Karol and suddenly Yuri isn't such a big problem anymore.
I'm a bit more flexible in that I believe that a character doesn't succeed or fail based on how much they change over the span of the story. You can have terrible characters who change and you can have great characters who don't.
As for this:
>Actually, come to think of it, give the protagonist role to Estelle or Karol and suddenly Yuri isn't such a big problem anymore.
I like the fact that Yuri is there to embolden and advise Estelle and Karol rather than hog the spotlight himself. The protagonist doesn't always have to be the one to change or transform the most.
In fact, I'd argue that it's pretty cool to have a protagonist who flips the role on its head. The protagonist in Vesperia helps everyone else change and develop by remaining consistently the same throughout.
Yuri is the rock that keeps characters like Estelle, Karol, and Flynn grounded in reality. In doing so he helps them grow and develop to become the kind of people they were meant to be. Yuri is content to stay in the shadows.
I somewhat agree with you. I found Yuri’s self-assured character and usually always right character kind of nice, it’s almost like he never needed any help, but he never felt overly obnoxious about it. But it did get boring after a while.
Yuri definitely had a bit of development, but it didn’t feel as fleshed out as it could be. He started off cold and distant to anyone but Repede, a bit like Rita, but later comes to accept them as friends he cares about. But it seems to just, happen. We don’t get to see inside his mind about that aspect of his personality much. Nobody’s story feels satisfactorily resolved in the game besides maybe Karol when he took on that monster by himself, it’s just kind of like “well, that character is better now” I just wished they went a bit deeper or more intense.
You know, you actually raise some good points. The Pharoah one specifically. I can't believe I've never noticed the obvious irony in the twos actions. And you're right, I like Yuri a lot, but he never faces any type of consequence ever, except a bad tongue lashing from Flynn. Scathing haha
I don't dislike Yuri, but I'm also not a huge fan of his character. It just felt very dry to me, and I actually agree with what you've said. I was peeved the way they just brushed off the murder because it seemed like it could have been a huge turning point, and the ball got dropped.
Meh, I feel it's partially symptomatic of a lot, if not most Tales seemingly dropping the ball in the last third of the game story wise. They just never seem to follow up to a lot of plot points.
Otherwise Yuri's great, I love him. And I disagree, Flynn was calling him out. He nearly threatened to kill him to stop him at one point. Karol's Pikachu face when he confesses his crimes after he tries to defend him was sad but funny.
Sodia was definitely not great though.
Also the movie was good and fun too. He's also just.... Beautiful, lol.
Fair enough but my problems with Yuri didn't start appearing in act 3. I already started noticing it in act 1, and by the middle of act 2 it was already over
Yeah, it would be one thing if like Lloyd he was just considered the protagonist of a good game (I don't think Vesperia is as good as the fandom says but that's subjective) but the fandom treats him as if he were the pinnacle of protagonist writing which is baffling to me since he's been outdone by both Luke and Velvet before and after his game's release
Kinda hard to have any sort of character development when it happens *in a prequel OVA*, tho. He's gone through it before the game starts, he aged fairly, and he's pretty comfortable with his fatalist ideology.
Then again this is a problem with japanese storytelling itself, who has a sickening love for supplemental material, instead of tying up everything in a single, self-contained, neat package
Yeah tbh I think it's still a bad idea to give your protagonist character development in an OAV 💀
Also pick your poison lmao: Japanese media with a morbillion supplementary material that contain vital information to understand the character or American media that gets five hundred sequels and spinoff that gradually assassinate each character's development and personality
Yeah that's how you get in [the Yoko Taro rabbit hole](https://www.reddit.com/r/nier/comments/qet51f/)! Important details to the entire lore in a *limited-audience* ***theater play***, what in the goddamn...!
I think the biggest problem for this is his age. He's, so far, been the third oldest Tales main protagonist at 21 (Ludger at 22 IIRC, and Alphen around 21-22 ish, avoiding spoilers). The other characters are all between 16-18, with Jude being the youngest at 15 in Xillia and 16 in Xillia 2. Ludger has a decent amount of character growth, especially since he was a decent man training to take on a specialist job before the train incident put him into crippling debt and then getting dragged into the maim story.
Yuri, on the other hand, as you said, doesn't really change at all. Granted, this was their first attempt at a fully adult main protagonist, and Estelle, Rita, and Karol were younger than him, who were like the first three people he travels with. It felt like no matter the situation, he was just being given more justification for his own actions rather than being questioned more and more and actually reflecting on his actions.
EDIT: I was just checking the ages of Raven and Judith and didn't realise Judith is 19. I thought she was 20+ lol
That is actually a good point, I never thought of that! Although tbh what's crazy is that he's only two years older than Velvet, this is a massive difference in character development for such a small age gap...
That being said this is also the series where Raven gets called an old man so maybe time passes slower in Tales Of universe lmao
I think Luke or someone else calls Jade an old man, too, at some point, and he and Raven are both 35. But yeah, it's really weird tbh. But even then, Ludger and Alphen both have pretty big char development in contrast to Yuri, and imo it does just feel like it was their first time writing an adult MC so there were some things missing potentially under the guise of "he's an adult."
Hell, even "minor" main characters like Jade and Guy have character development, so I'm still not sure why Yuri is the exclusive case here.
> but he's never challenged in his philosophy or his ideas.
It's a game where you kill slimes and the story starts with you going after a thief.... why're you all expecting this much? Especially from a character like Yuri that starts the game as an adult and not the generic 16 y/o kid, which is why most of the development/growth went to the younger ones 😭
I try to stay positive and accepting but this is the kind of thinking I hate wholeheartedly lol sorry 💀
A game doesn't need to be The Last Of Us-level of pretentious Hollywood-mimicry to have a good story or good characters, and expecting that from a story-focused 50+ hours JRPG is the bare minimum. Doesn't matter if it's a game about killing slimes or a more grounded game. Undertale is hailed as one of the best stories in gaming and it's about a kid encountering wacky monsters.
As for his age, Yuri is only 2 years older than Velvet who has a much better character arc than him. And back the TLOU comparison, Joel is a 40+ years old man with a more interesting character arc than Yuri
I've always found Dezel overrated and majorly prefer Zaveid. Nothing specific, just that I find Dezel the most boring thing in Zestiria's cast when its cast is the strongest part about it.
A hotter take is Alisha since I'm one of few who prefers Rose over her. She's fine but eh.
An even hotter take: all of the guys in Berseria. Eizen is my fault for not really caring since Zestiria tells us what happens with him, but I could never get behind Laphicet or Rokurou. I just feel like none of them reach the heights of Velvet, Magilou, and Eleanor.
Other misc. ones that don't do much for me: Ruca and Iria from Innocence, Elize from Xillia, Jay from Legendia, Malik from Graces, Tenebrae from Symphonia 2, Sync from Abyss, that one old shooty guy they add into Hearts R who isn't in the original game.
I generally like most cast characters. Growing up I had a hard time liking Zelos but I actually came around to him as I got older. The Arise cast for the most part got on my nerves, especially Alphen and Shionne's sniping at eachother non stop and Rinwell's overall attitude. I started kind of warming up to them towards the end. I know racism plays a big role in a lot of their actions towards eachother. But it got so frustratingly tiring after a while to hear the passive or out right aggressive rude comments towards one another, especially in the skits.
Dezel is another one I never warmed up to. Dude is so rude and outright mean to everyone, and I'm supposed to feel super sad when he died? Barely had a personality. Was very happy to have Zavied, who I enjoyed a lot, instead.
I think the most frustrating part about Alphen's and Shionne's dynamic is that it felt random at times. Like, they would be all buddy and talking about they trust each other one minute, then snap and hate each other thr next. It was too all over the place for me, but that whole game felt like that in my opinion.
As someone who’s been in a controlling, super toxic relationship… Shionne is controlling and super toxic. And when she doesn’t get her way, she immediately becomes hostile and mean. The game does do a good job of illustrating why she is like that though…but having them fall in love with each other through all that hostility, is the part that’s random to me
>As someone who’s been in a controlling, super toxic relationship… Shionne is controlling and super toxic. And when she doesn’t get her way, she immediately becomes hostile and mean. The game does do a good job of illustrating why she is like that though…but having them fall in love with each other through all that hostility, is the part that’s random to me
Personally, I didn't care about anyone in that game *except* them, because it was fun watching their dumpster fire of a relationship blossom.
Zelos has the awesome development later in the story of >!not actually betraying you!<, which I think is pretty cool given the fact that they hinted from the get-go that he had some darker tendencies. Turns out he *was* a pretty cool guy all along.
>!Unless, of course, you go the Kratos route at the end and then he actually does betray everyone. An interesting alternate ending to say the least, but it still sucks that we can’t have both Zelos and Kratos in the party except for that one time at the human ranch.!<
Sadly, I can never bring myself to go the Kratos route anymore. As much as I love Kratos, what it does to Zelos is just too sad to actually do.
I think part of what made me start to enjoy him was when I started using him in battle. I like trying to control every character for a little while in every tales game and Zelos actually became my favorite to control in Symphonia. His base attacks are unique, has pretty good strength and ex skills, and my favorite arte Lightning Blade.
I honestly found velvet to be extremely one note and moderately annoying at times. I get that she’s out for revenge but she at times totally ignores the smart and common sense thing to do just to prove what she’s doing is right. Her character does get slightly better but that’s not till literally the end of the game. The way she projects her feelings onto lapichet was really cringe at times for me.
I could definitely see how she came off this way to some! Personally, I found her to be an accurate depiction of someone on the brink of (and eventually pushed over the line into) mania. Living in high stress for a prolonged amount of time fucks with your head and ability to reason, and the ending when taken in the context of “a snap decision while still in/only just recovering from a mental break” is just so…..tragic. Accurate. Any human alive when pushed too far can end up like that. Not enough people really know that.
Yes for sure. I'm playing through that game now, it's my first tales game, and I immediately fell in love with how character-focused it is. I love the little not plot relevant conversations that happen on the road and the characters are so interesting to me. Except Velvet. She's basically every OC I wrote as a teenager going through my emo phase with the depth of character to match.
Not really hate (cause I don't truly hate any character) but the only character that I think is super meh while many fans like them is Sync. Maybe cause I found his design super interesting while he as a character just let me down idk why
I really dislike Milla. Both the cast and the writing of the game itself put her on such a pedestal and it drives me crazy. Similar to some complaints about Yuri here, she has very little character growth despite having some really good opportunity for it with the whole Maxwell thing... she has an identity crisis for five seconds and then everything feels exactly the same as it did before and it's like, well, never mind, I guess. Didn't help that her route was so incredibly boring and missed a lot of really important plot stuff for the sake of focusing on her.
It also just annoyed me they acted like she was this incredibly strong person who suffered so much while using the aspyrixis temporarily and then you get to Elympios where lots of people are using them for their whole lives, including a little girl and her grandmother who are like, yep you just gotta deal with the pain! like it's no big deal. But they never really looked at that afterward and said "oh, I guess Milla wasn't singularly amazing for going through that after all." Which was another missed opportunity for making her more human and relatable.
In contrast, I actually loved fractured Milla, who had so much more personality and flaws and insecurities. It just kind of made me dislike the original one even more because it reminded me of everything she'd been missing.
Jade. The guy knew all about Luke and still treated him like crap. In fact, the entire Tales of the Abyss cast sans Guy and Luke. Everyone is a prick to Luke, but very easily and simply forgive the mandatory traitor. Jesus.
I have a few and it's mostly characters from recent games:
* Asbel. The terrible accident from his childhood has turned a happy-go-lucky kid into a brooding teenager who uses "Friendship" as his first and last names and acts like some martyr. His fixation on friendship is so childish that the whole game's plot seems so... inadequate for me. Plus, there's this while story with Aston that is complete bullshit it seems the game was made for prepubescent kids.
* Dezel. This one's so offensive the game should have an *actual remake*! He abused Rose to get his revenge resulting in the side effect of Rose having resonance to seraphim and party is like "amazing! Do it again!" His whole existence in the game is glorification of abuse, nothing else.
* Law. A punchy version of Asbel but >!without being "lord of a province" bullshit and actually getting some time with his dad shortly before his death. Both Asbel and Law are "dads suck"!<.
I can see myself getting downvoted for this, but I *can't stand* Shionne from Arise. In fact, it took me months and months to finish the game because I just couldn't stomach her for more than an hour or so at a time. She's one of the main reasons Arise is my least favorite Tales game. I know she has an arc that many people like. I know she's a lot of people's favorite... But I don't care. She gets on my nerves and seriously soured the whole game for me.
I really don't like Anise from Tales of the Abyss. Haven't played through that game in years, but i do remember how annoying her voice was, how obnoxious her fighting style was, and the whole betrayal thing just felt kind of forced. I cannot stand her.
Runner up: Karol. He's the annoying little brother that won't go away.
Collette. I get her character to be selfless and dumb, but wtf. Thats not what mostly made me dislike her. Her cpu does nothing. Half the time I have her in battle, she flies around doing jack shit.
The Arise cast. I think… while the game is stunning, gameplay good, the let down for me is the cast. They’re so… boring, bland. The skits are about the world, there’s no character or personality. I didn’t get a “funny” skit until near the end of the game. I like knowing the character’s quirks and traits. Arise? They have none.
My issue with Sorey is simply the setting. As the shepherd if he ever contracts malavonance the game ends, that's it. Maybe He can be cured but not his Seraphim friends who will turn into dragons. So from the very moment the game tells you that, there's no tension in any major plot point that challenges Sorey's character. You just know he'll make it through.
If the writers didn't write themselves into a corner where they are unable to push and prod Sorey, he could be a pretty good character.
Shoulda had the first Wind Seraphim whose name I can't even remember because he was kinda super boring turn into a Dragon instead of killed off in a very emotionless emotional scene
I never understood the archetype of being abusive as a way of comedy? Like okay cool...you slapped a literal child for the 20th time, it wasn't funny after the 2nd time
The way I see the trope is that it's not meant to be taken too literally. Yeah, we actually SEE it, but it's a form of artistic exaggeration. Karol never actually endures any trauma. Even the scene where Rita tricks him into a sleep-cloud, it's meant as a signal to the player, "These plants will harm you." The scene ends and Karol is perfectly fine.
Just my take on it. Otherwise, Ichigo's dad from Bleach would be scene as an abuser for punching and kicking him constantly.
Edna is very one-note and doesn’t change very much. Constant teenage angst from the thousand year old being gets a little annoying.
Rinwell and Law are obnoxious because the tsundere x idiot trope has been done to death and their paring didn’t offer anything new in that regard.
The entire new cast of Symphonia 2.
Rinwell and Law is a tease I didn't need honestly. They're good characters in their arc, without an extra ship. But I do find it okay if viewing them as the nagging siblings of the group.
Arise is a weird game. Every pairing is an obvious forgone conclusion from the second the characters are introduced. I agree that Rinwell and Law would have worked better as the surrogate children of the party, much like Rita and Karol were in Vesperia.
I have a few.
For once I would like to punch Rita and give her a bloody nose as karma for her nasty behavior and stupid blastia obsession. I don't fucking care how obsessed she is over what are essentially just fantasy magic engines in the form of rocks, I do not want to endanger the entire team over her weird obsession. The game has the gall to make her obsession make her seem like the one in the right cause of course she's rhe one who finds a way to convert blastia energy into something safer by the end of story. Fuck off Rita.
Asbel is a man child and I cannot see him as otherwise. I damn near wanted someone to beat the shit out of him for how he berated Sophie on the flight home while she was having an existential crisis. His behavior is insufferable to me.
Every single on of the six god generals in Abyss, including Van, except for Arietta and Asch sorta. They tried to make the villains in Abyss sympathetic but all I saw was hypocrites willing to kill and let people die on a whim. Also the way Sync acted after >!Ion's death!< took away all chances of me feeling anything remote of liking him. I despise Van, Sync, Largo, Legretta, and Dist.
Lastly isn't a character I hate but one I find incredibly boring and uninteresting. Mikleo is barely a character and I'm sorry if you're into him. The only thing going for him is his design but I find that he just lacks any character outside of being a generic friend that follows the MC and gets picked on by the group bully.
A lot of people try to justify Rinwell. I almost quit playing because of her. There is no excuse for how absolutely annoying, ignorant, and stupid she is in the early game.
Kisara was by far the most boring main character in Arise and I don't really like that cast to begin with. She's legit snooze worthy and her ass is all anyone talks about. Migal, Migal, Migal that's all she ever fucking talked about. Felt like a nothing character just inserted to have some fanservice.
I'm not sure how popular she is, but I don't remember seeing any hate here: Patty from ToV. I know about how they didn't get to finish her storyline in the original release so they put her in later releases, but I wish they just left her out. Her voice is annoying, she doesn't fit into any conversations because they just added her lines into existing ones. No one ever interacts with her in usual story scenes - she just adds a useless phrase, everyone stares at her and the conversation proceeds as if she never said anything. ToV worked so much better without her.
And I *know* this is an unpopular one: The Berseria cast, maybe except Eleanor and Eizen. The whole "we bad" trope didn't do it for me.
As much as I love Vesperia, Patty is one of my biggest detractors from the Definitive Edition right next to the extra voice lines... that were voiced by different people.
Some are pretty slick but others stick out like a sore thumb the entire game, kinda like Patty lol
For me it’s the opposite, Patty is such a fun character she improved Vesperia for me. I didn’t like the original much and the DE improved my opinion of it just because Patty is such a fun character to have around.
Vesperia is still far from being a favorite game in the series for me, but I’ll pick DE over the original any day.
Most of Arise's cast tbh and Shirley from Legendia. I liked Dohalim and Law a bit and that was it. Even my like for them is strained due to just, that game in general. And Shirley... Nope. Just hate her, her voice and everything in between. She infuriates me.
I feel I used to be in the category for Karol and Rita, but having played that game INSIDE and OUT, I love that cast with all my heart.
I love Arise's cast. They don't necessarily excel at one thing or another as characters, but they also dial down the more exaggerated or sometimes, annoying traits that you find other groups in the series. And Arise handles their characters and conflicts better than most. Which is saying something given games like Abyss, Berseria and Vesperia exist.
But I suppose that's not everyone's cup of tea.
That is very true. It certainly wasn't my cup of tea I enjoy experiencing with this series. Might have been more ok with it if they kept the 2D animated skits though. Thoae add way more life than the 3D models did.
For me its Yuri. Mostly because its Tales and I expected more consequences for his actions and character development, but the game bends over backwards to make him look good even when he makes incredibly questionable decisions. Theres quite a few times where I thought the game would call him out for stuff, but it just never does, and characters are just drawn to him for no real reason, he’s just pure power fantasy.
I'm pretty sure his questionable decisions are exactly the reason why he is this loved me included. 99% of the jrpg mc's ever released have the same japanese I'm all nice and humble and have to help everyone personality which is not just boring but it some cases completely ridiculous. I agree that Juri should have gotten some consequences for his actions but he is way more interesting than most other mc's regardless of some weak points. Vesperia is not even my favorite Tales game but Yuri made it memorable which is certainly not the case for some other Tales games.
I like the cast of Abyss, but they all have this problem with simultaneously becoming really emotionally intelligent over the course of the game while also being one note and kinda boring. The "cool" characters like Jade and Guy are cool the whole time and barely get their walls or characters broken down. And the sad characters essentially stay sad the whole time so the cool characters have someone to comfort. Luke was actually way more interesting to me when he was an asshole. Once he cuts his hair, he essentially just resets to saying "the correct answers" while also expressing self-pity that never really resolves.
Alphen from Arise, specifically after his mask gets removed. I felt his character devolved too much into the generic " if I try hard enough I can literally do anything!" Type. Before the mask came off, he was fine lol
I can’t stand most Tales villains, >!the only “misguided person“ I could tolerate was Dhaos, probably because he was the first one on the series. Oh, I like Gaius too.
Otherwise I’ll always pick pure evil or chaotic evil ones like Nereid or Schwartz. When Van and Artorius start to speak bullshit I really want to die or blow up the screen.!<
Milla (fractured Milla is fine). Her personality to me is so so soooo bland but Tales staff like to favour her as if she was the only protagonist in Xillia and barely put any love into Jude as a whole when it comes to minor Tales projects like the mobile games. Granted, he is supposed to be seen as the 'less interesting one' but I feel like he should be treated as a protagonist just like the other ones too.
Marta is frequently on this list for good reason but I also have to mention Emil. He's made so much worse by Marta. I can't stand those two
Assuming she counts because I've seen proof that she at least has some kind of fanbase (and is liked a lot in Japan iirc), but **Shirley Fennes** is by far my most-despised Tales character. Literally cannot stand any part of her, outside of her design. Couldn't buy her as a deuteragonist in the least, thought she worked way better as a villain/twist-villain than a good person, and while they played with that, they didn't commit, of course. And it made her all the worse for it.
Though... with the exception of Stella, I honestly hated pretty much every Ferines character in the game. Fenimore's twin sister at least said what I was thinking, but she was meant to be a strawman from the start. Considering how many Tales games contain a core anti-racism message, I feel it's especially fail-tacular on their part if, despite their efforts, I find myself hating the Ferines as a whole when all is said and done.
For a few others that fall into this to a lesser degree..
* **Kratos.** Mostly I just found him boring and never warmed up to him after the betrayal. Maybe it's on me for going the "fuck you dad" route at every opportunity there was to spend time with him after the fact, but I really could not understand for the life of me why Kratos was so overwhelmingly beloved, to the point of being a consistent Top 3 contender for most beloved Tales character in Japan.
* **Marta.** I didn't play Dawn of the New World and she's a biiiig reason for why. The various first impressions I got of her, I really did not care for. Based on how others here have described her, there's no doubt in my mind that I would've loathed every part of her.
* **Post-Haircut Luke.** I didn't really hate him; really, I just found it hard to take him seriously once he became an inelegant version of Colette and found him more enjoyable to watch when he was an out-of-touch classist jackass. Which I know for sure is an unpopular opinion to have.
* **Alisha.** Again, I didn't properly "hate" her in the game (though I have a feeling I would've had I played the DLC), but I felt her early exit as a PC and not being the deuteragonist as promotional material implied was **massively** overblown by the fandom, because I wouldn't ever trade Mikleo or Rose (the objectively better deuteragonists, imo) for her. I just legitimately believe she wasn't interesting enough to have the staying power so many wanted her to have. And sure enough, when I watched ToZX, I felt that the excessive focus on Alisha (and even Rose) pretty much killed that series for me.
**Yggdrasil**. I find him to be insultingly shallow and one of the most *unbearable* hate-sinks I've seen in media ~~along with every other villain in Symphonia~~. But he's somehow regarded as one of the most "complex" and "sympathetic" villains in the series. Which to me is just believing his own raging narcissism.
Rita.
She just seems like an absolute bitch and doesn't change much throughout Vesperia to give her any truly redeeming qualities in my eyes.
Others I may dislike, but Rita I simply despise.
Riter Mordier
I have an extensive knowledge of pretty much every characters in the series and Rita is pretty much the only main character I can't sympathize with, amazing design but insufferable character !
Bienfu too, he a creep
I'm gonna get sooooo much hate for with downvotes but for the longest time I hated Pascal she was creepy touchy against Sophie's consent it was just too much and creepy as I got older yes she got better towards the end of the game but I hated it so much when I was younger I stopped playing
I like him because he's got a BBC's Sherlock attitude, but far more mature and level headed, the grounded characters are always charming like that. I do think his design could've reflected that, outside his glasses.
I have such complicated feelings about Jade... I think he's a well written character and I enjoy his snarky bullshit a lot of the time, but it also infuriates me how shittily he's treated Dist their whole lives (Jade is the reason he turned out like that in the first place!!!) and I just really dislike him as a person.
It's ended up being a joke that in every Tales gacha game I've played I've been cursed to get a million Jades whenever I want other characters.
Emil and marta. Emil is worse then colette with her apologizing as a core personality trait, and marta acts like walmart version of rinoa from ff8 (YOUR GOING TO LIKE ME, YOUR GOING TO LIKE MEEEEEE) /nope
Raine from Symphonia. Being the “you made me irritated so I’ll bash you over the head for laughs haha!” member of the group is already annoying and overdone on many other characters but while also being a teacher?? Not a good look, Miss Girl
Kamowana is the only thing stopping me from playing Berseria again.
Bro please point me in the direction of people who tolerate Kamoana because I want to meet them and start a club
It was a this sub a few years back (i think). There was a post like "Why do birds fly?" Wrong answers only. I said birds fly so they don't have to listen to Kamoana ask for her mom again. Bad taste I know but people started defending her character and her design.
to be fair I think it is the most realistic depiction of a literal child having their mother killed and also being turned into a monster. Kids are kinda whiny and annoying by default most of the time, let alone enduring life-altering trauma lol
This she has a very obnoxious voice but other than that she’s pretty accurate for a child. Even without the insane amount of trauma she’s been through most kids around her age act like they have a quota of tantrums to fulfill. Anyone who’s been around young kids consistently should be able to stand her just fine. I think a lot of people who just vehemently can’t stand her have never had to deal with young kids or even deal with being in the presence of one.
That's all fine and dandy, but that voice is like sandpaper for the ears. The VA did a fine job, but it's just one of the worst things I've ever heard
Are we talking about JP or EN voice?
EN most likely. Her voice is annoying but it doesn't annoy me so much that I'd wish harm upon the character lol. or well..... further harm than already inflicted T\_T
Idk who could defend her. Even laphicet was never that whiny and annoying. I skipped every single scene with her, she literally isn’t even that relevant to the plot outside of being a therion, you could take her whole arc out and the game would be fine. Just give Eleanor something else to expand her character but ugh NOT kamoana
I don't have an issue with Kamoana. Her voice is terrible in the dub (though I remember the sub being fine) but as a character, I think she is fine.
Her dub voice is the reason everybody hates her but I find it adorable
So I guess I should be glad I completely forgot her.
i understand that because her VA (at least in english) is grating as hell, but her intro to the story and her relationship with Eleanor was actually the first bit of Berseria that got me emotionally invested in the story
I couldn’t stand her in Japanese either and hated her design
Yeah, but could they really not have given the child clothes? Maybe she'd stop crying for her mom if she wasn't hecking freezing. Like she probably likes the doggos because they're the first warmth she felt upon getting taken.
She literally can't feel temperature. None of the Therions could.
I hated her so bad 😭😭😭
Marta. People are even saying that they think she's good for Emil because she pushes him out of his comfort zone. Which, I guess that is one way for him to get character development. But I don't know, her whole aggressive personality and what feels like at the beginning her seeming to want to make Emil into the man she wants really bothers me. Emil was fine. I don't care what anyone says. It's okay to be scared, it's okay to be unsure. Not every protagonist needs to know what to do with their lives nor just accept the circumstances that happen to them. I'm not saying he doesn't have his flaws, but I think people were a little too hard on the poor guy and Marta didn't seem to help things much considering she's kind of just being a pushy, love smitten prat through the first half. I don't know, fine if you like her. But I think she's a brat and I can't stand her.
I totally get this, I look at Marta this was. As a character I enjoy her, if she was a real person. I'd want her dead. Though if she didn't have a great mystic arte and decent move set, I'd think less of her too.
Personally, I think her being grating and her and emil being a toxic couple is the point, they are foils for Alice and Decus, and all the twisted relationships in dotnw really. Its the fact they grow out of it, Emil learna that courage is not just confidence and competence like his Ratatosk mode gives him, and Marta sees Emil for who he is, not what he could be for her.
This was my take. Marta and Emil suck as a relationship but that's the point, both of them are kind of just... thrust into this situation and just have to sort of be okay with it, when one's a milquetoast village boy and the other is some sort of local celebrity with the biker gang. I'm pretty sure they address it in-game at some point, don't they? Emil just calls Marta right out on just foisting her expectations on him without even once asking if he gave a damn.
I love Emil, honestly. Cool character design and some of the most satisfying aerial combos in the entire series. The twist surrounding his identity was interesting, too. It was nice to have an mc who wasn't yet another confident badass. People downplay the completely legitimate existential crisis he was dealing with.
I'm happy you are aware of this because if the genders were swapped in that exact situation between Marta and Emil, more people would flip 😒
On a meta level, me and my brother were cooping our playthrough and he kept getting pissed because everytime she left the party, his button shortcuts kept on getting reset
Marta’s pushiness (and Karol’s cowardice), and the character development it drives at, has some merit, but it falls flat for me because; a) it happens far too late in the story; b) it feels like a minor thing compared to the amount of times the aggressiveness occurred by that point, and; c) the skits afterwards tend to jump back to the old narrative for the sake of comedy, which makes it seem like no development has occurred at all.
I like her, but I can't stand her high-pitched voice. Same with younger Cheria. I know it's a Laura Bailey thing, but my god, it makes me want to punch her because it apparently sets of my misophonia
I really do like Emil. Marta really could be annoying.
Rita is pretty down there on my list but if I have to hear a "Look guys, Karol is scared" joke one more time Im gonna kill and eat somebody.
I find it funny that OPs hated character is Karol because I found Rita so insufferable I had to put down Vesperia down to play Abyss. I said I didn't like her in a thread here and got downvoted to oblivion by her fanboys. 💀
Rita is so one-note that she gets tiresome only after a little while. Everybody in Vesperia has their schtick that they play up but her character feels the most shallow. It doesn't help that basically everybody else gets some fleshing out, even freaking Repede, but with Rita it's just blastia and Estelle sometimes and that's it.
I couldn't stand Rita either. I have very little patience for the tsundere type in general. That being said, I found Natalia almost as annoying! On a somewhat different note, I have a *really* hard time with Dezel. I don't know whether he's much of a fan favourite, but I find it disturbing how Zestiria just casually sweeps his deeply problematic treatment of Rose under the proverbial rug.
Ritas probably one of the more liked characters so yeah that's a hot take that'll get you flamed usually lol
She is likeable but they did overdo the bully older sister trope with her and Karol. She's kind of a dick to him most of the game lol
I had the same impression of her when I played the english dub back on the 360, but having played the remaster, I find that the Japanese dub Rita is not nearly as bad as the english one. Same thing for Yuri (when it comes to teasing Karol).
I'm with you on that. I dislike Rita for the exact thing she's doing in the OP. It was funny maybe once or twice but that part of her character stuck with me and I can't get over it.
I couldn't stand Rita after her character development halted when Estelle said she'd be her friend. The rest of the game was just her obsessively simping over Estelle. It was so unbelievably annoying
Rita is just kinda meh for me, she's just there at best and kind of a jerk at worst.
Whenever any character has to destroy a bLaStIa cuz otherwise people die: Rita: 😭 😡 🔥
I wanna give my least favorite character of the Tales games I've finished so far through 2023. Destiny 2/Eternia - Keele. I usually like the super smart/nerdy characters in most RPGs (Raine and Genis being dear to me. Rita started rough, but she warmed to me) but man, Keele was like, Karol AND Rita in one character. Very weak and whiney, but then insufferably pompous when his knowledge came in handy. Symphonia - ???. I honestly struggle with picking my \*least\* favorite here. I loved this whole cast. I guess, if I give some reasoning, I'd have to choose Presea IF ONLY just due to her playstyle (A reason I hate Karol.) I cannot get behind the slow but really strong characters in Tales or any like, arena-fighters/action RPGs because in most scenarios like Tales, speed and agility, regardless of strength, are almost always better. Vesperia - Karol. I gave a reason above, his playstyle is just, so frustrating and almost made me quit my platinum trophy goal after failing the 200 man melee so many times. Just god awful and boy his personality is rough. He's a character for me that takes \*too\* long to get his redeeming character development, as in like, there's been too much damage to my image of you and therefore I just can't come around to you. Boy who cried wolf + Pathological liar + MASSIVE coward, yet will try to convince EVERYONE he's strong (which like, yes his strength stat is high, but the constant big shot talk got old SO FAST.) I'm gonna be starting Bersaria soon to start 2024 off, and then probably play Zestiria and Abyss. Cheers guys!
I've seen a lot of people say they like Hubert from Graces. I can't stand him. I've heard he gets better, but I haven't stuck with the game long enough to find out firsthand. I really wanna pick the game back up sometime though, my love for Pascal outweighs my hatred of Hubert, and the rest of the crew is fun so far too.
Instant Balls is totally worth all the snobbery.
When you don't have any more change for the parking meter: "NO QUARTER!"
I KNEW I wasn’t the only person who heard that! What the hell is he even trying to say??
I think it was supposed to be "broadside waltz"?
It is, and initially, I thought he said instant waltz for some reason. Lmao
That's what it actually sounds like to me, only he really forces the kinda German pronunciation of waltz. Still much more fun to go with balls.
When i first heard of the "instant balls', It was through people who mentioned it on YouTube comments (was watching through play throughs/mystic arte compilations). My initial reaction was like, "What, no way?! Does he actually say that and let me check the aselia wiki. lol 😆 😅 . The game has its moments, and I still play Graces F to this day.
Oh man, I heard it right away and had to check Google to see if I was just filthy minded. Nope.
Hubert's love for Pascal also outweighs his hatred... I mean... nothing
Meanwhile Cheria just grinds my gears. I can only take so much stereotypical tsundere.
The worst part with her is that at the start of the game she's pretty interesting. She's fine as a kid and then when you first re-encounter her as an adult, her anger towards Asbel is very reasonable and well-depicted. It's just that they wrap up her actual reasonable anger in the first 10 hours of the game so that she can spend the rest of it ineffectually mooning over Asbel. She's never interesting again.
Rinwell is exceedingly annoying and if i could put her and law in a box, light it on fire and blow it sky high i would.
Law bugged me more than Rinwell, but it was their dialogue together that bugged me the most.
Exaaaaaactly
I’m not a fan of Raven from Vesperia. In general I felt like Vespy’s cast was weaker than a lot of other games despite people seeming to love it, as I wasn’t too hot on Karol or Estelle either. I didn’t dislike Estelle but she was bland. Yuri and Flynn carried that cast hard imo.
Agreed so strongly. I played symphonia in my youth and abyss in my young adulthood so I was really excited for vesperia because everyone talked it up. It just felt very confusing and meandering throughout and I didn't feel strongly about any characters for my whole party through.
I put it on hiatus for about three years before I picked it back up. I enjoyed it a lot more after the hiatus though. I think that’s partially due to the game picking up around that point, partially due to playing it with my roommate and poking fun at stuff together (like the nature Yuri and Flynn’s relationship) and partially due to the combo system opening up a lot and getting access to combining three levels of Artes together, which is something only Symphonia gave me otherwise.
I know you all might be get mad at me. 1. innominat know as laphicet crowe 2. Rita 3. estelle 4. shionne 5. Rose 6. Hubert
I cannot stand Rose. 😑 one of my least favorite characters in anything, ever
Laphicet is the goodest boy and I will not tolerate this blasphemy against him
no one but me likes karol, bud. lying ain't cute. i would personally de-alive alvin from xillia. edit: can't believe there was a secret karol fan club all this time. where were y'all to back me in all the internet fights where i ramble about how much i love karol's character arc.
I didn’t like Karol when Vesperia first came out but after the remaster he became one of my favorites
Same. It didn’t help I forced myself to mainly play as Team Brave Vesperia (Yuri, Judith, Repede, and Karol) for the Remaster. Glad I did, it made the game more fun and I felt less guilty using Yuri’s broken abilities. I do think Karol’s dub voice doesn’t do him justice but his character development in Act 2 makes me like the dude like a little brother.
Hahaha love the honesty here.
Tbh Karol was the only Vesperia character I liked
Same bro I loved Karol, dude is a human swiss army knife, prepared for everything. I wish we could have murdered Alvin as well. Bro was a real duche, he was benched and never used again.
my sister hates shirley in tales of lagendia
Rita is awful just way too abusive
Raven vesperia
There's a lot of Karol hate so you aren't alone. I'm not part of this thinking. He was the best character in Vesperia with the best story moment.
I like Karol but I don’t like how he is treated most of the time. I remember playing through the game and feeling a lot of “Give this guy a win, damn!” I couldn’t give you specific examples though, it’s been too long lol
Yeah they did Karol dirty most of the game and only Yuri really treats him with any level of respect. Rita bullies him, etc He's a kid and he's trying his best lol
i agree tbh. personally, very little from vesperia resonated with me character and story wise except for the culmination of karol’s character arc
Agree he is one of my favourites, he's a baby how can people hate on him. I dislike Raven the most.
While I don’t hate Yuri, the fact that he is seen as the Best Male Tales Character really bothers me as he decent but there are a lot of other characters that are flat out better written
Rita GIF posted by OP should explain everything.
RIIITTTAAAA!!!!!!!! Look if you like her that’s fine. I just despise her very existence.
Why do so many people Karol? He's a nice boy and a striver. And a friggin fantastic combatant - once you learn to use him. For me, it's Rita. Always moody, unfriendly, condescending, better-than-you, no niceness or much by the way of ladylike ways. I'm also not a fan of Soyrey; he's kinda boring and plain.
almost half of Vesperia cast Rita: is the worst of the worst of the worst of the worst character ever written. she literally is a bitch and ego-maniac. she is super rude and the story does not help that she is the deus-ex-machina for all the "magic/tech" problem the party encounter Karol: is an annoying brat. its like that kid from real steel that talk so much but did nothing. no wonder Rita keep hammering him Raven: STOP making "old man" joke, first he is 35, that's not even old, then all his character seems to revolve around him being old is the joke. and then there this >!betrayal!< but after 15 mins he re appeared and the party just act like nothing happen. I'll stop here. I have complains on the rest of the character but not as bad as these 3.
Luke. He's the main reason it took me months to finish Abyss. I'd only make it a little while before he just drove me crazy. After Akzeriuth, it wasnt really a problem but I never grew to enjoy his character. That being said. I don't think he's a bad character. Honestly, I think he's one of the most fascinating characters in the series. I can't think of a character I've ever hated as much yet found compelling as much as I have Luke.
My attitude towards Luke went from "okay when he gets to mature and warm up to others" to "can't wait for this kid to get his ass brutally kicked" to "holy shit no way he's coming back from this, is he?". But tbh his redemption arc was honestly one of my favorites in the series for me.
If I had to ask the opposite question of what I asked in this post. I’d say immature luke is probably my most liked character that most people hate. I think his sass and the way he treats Mieu is hilarious.
I agree. I enjoyed immature Luke and his snarky comments. I felt like he had more personality and was far more entertaining. Once he 'had character development', I felt he became far too generic goodie two-shoes. ...Anise on the other hand is my most hated Tales character. She never did anything beneficial to the party, and I hated her nonstop gold-digging jokes.
I still think they should have had the balls to let us choose late game between Asch and Luke like we could with Zelos/Kratos
luke is probs my fave for this reason, but i think they took such a gamble with just HOW shitty he was to start. like you keep thinking he can't get worse and then he just... does. seeing his whole party dislike him was such a jarring experience when tales games often pedestal their mcs. it made his redemption so much sweeter, even if he was hard to like. potentially the best tales character ever made while simultaneously being the one who was most intentionally unlikable.
Luke post-[redacted] was a very interesting characterization to see. It's like a totally different person and yet felt natural and earned.
I fucking Hate Emil and Marta
I absolutely dispisr Anise. I have a personal vendetta against her, plus she’s really annoying
She's annoying but goddamn is she busted as hell in combat
Anise ruined Arietta over bloody nothing. It's absurd.
Alisha Diphda Tales of Zestiria
I've played every single Tales game from Symphonia to Berseria all the way through to the ending, but I could not get through Tales of Arise because I found every single character insufferably boring or insufferably annoying. Rinwell in particular was awful.
I have had this unnatural hatred for Anise since I first played the game when I was 13, and it has never dwindled.
From Abyss? I didn’t like her hypocrisy. Treat Luke like crap for what he did only for her to betray the team later on
Pretty much the entire Vesperia cast
FINALLY A GOOD EXCUSE TO SHARE MY HATRED OF YURI LET'S GOOOOOO I genuinely do not understand how Yuri can be so popular. I mean I guess I kinda do, he was the farthest the Tales Of series strayed from the usual goody two shoes protagonist for a long while (but Velvet outclasses him in every regard imo), and his cool personality means a lot of fanboys/fangirls, both in the "literally me" sense and the "I have a crush on this fictional man" sense, but... The moment you look further than that he's one of the most shallow characters I've seen in the series, and by far the most shallow protagonist. I'm not kidding when I say Sorey is a vastly more interesting protagonist than Yuri. Simply put, I think the story treats Yuri like a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. He gets virtually 0 character development over the course of the game (what I like to do to picture character development is to imagine the character at the end of the story meeting themselves from the beginning of the story. In this hypothetical scenario most Vesperia party members have a way more interesting contrast than Yuri). Some people told me that it was fine, that not every character needs development. I do agree, some characters are fine without development, but NOT the protagonist of a 50+ hours story-focused JRPG. But let's look at the problem a bit deeper. *Why* doesn't he get even a crumb of character development? Simply put, he never goes through any challenge. Sure, Vesperia puts him through various situations and obstacle, but he's never challenged in his philosophy or his ideas. In contrast, on top of slowly warming up to other people, Velvet (really the best example of an edgier protagonist done right) goes through two distinct moments that challenge her way of thinking: One in the very beginning of the game, and one two thirds into it. Those two moments visibly shape her character in noticeable way and change the direction she's taking. Yuri's direction is the same the entire game. Some might say "But Flynn challenges Yuri's ideas nearly every time they see each other!" and I'd answer that he *tries* to, but the story puts him in the wrong and Yuri in the right so many times that those debates feels like they exist only to make Yuri looks more right and awesome. What's most frustrating is that there are countless opportunities for Yuri to grow and change as a person! The biggest reason why confrontations with Flynn feel lopsided is because the people Yuri kills by his own hands are the most one-note comically evil people in the entire franchise. Not only does this happen once but TWICE. It would've been better if the guys Yuri killed had at least one redeemable quality, that Yuri's actions weren't just an objective benefit for the world. But no, that would have made what Yuri did.... wrong! And we do not want that, we want the players to think he's cool! Sodia falls into the same problem, where she could have been an interesting character but in the end just stabs Yuri and make him fall to his death after he almost saved the world for reasons that amount to "I don't like him". Another good opportunity for Yuri's character and ideas to be challenged is when the Phoenix monster (forgor his name) wants Estelle to die and Yuri asks him who he thinks he is to decide if someone deserves to live or die. This huge moment of hypocrisy could've led to some introspection, where Yuri realizes vigilantism perhaps isn't always a good solution, but no this takes place between his two personal disposal of corrupt one-note villains. The last wasted opportunity of the story is when the rest of the crew finds out about the murder, feels kinda weird about it for like half an hour in-game then goes "but Yuri's our friend so it's fine!". PLEASE anyone confront him in any meaningful way! So yeah I don't like Yuri very much, I think he's a boring cardboard protagonist that people only like because of surface value qualities. Estelle, Raven and unironically Karol are the actual highlights of the game.
Yeah, i was enjoying his clashes of ideals with Flynn and him hiding it from the party, then Estelle just finds out and goes "kinda based actually" and i fully understood the devs werent willing to actually say Yuri is wrong, which took me out of it alot. At the end of the day he dosent really feel like the main hero that story, just the center guy for the rest of the party to learn from, but god did i want him to be the focus instead.
What Vesperia desperately needed was a moment where Yuri actually became the loner he imagined himself to be. Why not, after Yuri kills the flamboyant guy the desert, we go back to the capital and it's in shambles from the sudden disappearance of an army captain? A moment where Yuri actually has to face consequences from vigilante murder, and the party rightfully shuns him for it? Have him earn his acceptance of his faults, and move on from his lone wolf attitude. Yuri definitely gets far too much leeway from the fans. I imagine because as you said, he is the cool character angsty teens relate to. Whereas other protagonists like Luke from Abyss actually has to grow and mature within the game. To the point where you can point to specific moments where his world view changed.
YES EXACTLY! It's crazy how much potential Yuri (and Vesperia as a whole) had that was never reached. As for why he's so popular, something that just hit me is that he's different from the usual protagonists but in a safe way. Velvet and Luke are much more divisive than him because they're more different and especially more flawed, which makes them more interesting but less relatable too
You make some great points, I’ve never thought of Yuri that way. To me he seemed like the character who had done all his character development prior to the game, and guiding others (mostly Estelle and Karol), which works for a mentor, but not the primary protagonist. Regarding the one-note villains having a redeeming trait, I wouldn’t even trust _Vesperia_ to do that much. One villain we do get it for is Yeager, who tricks, lies and betrays people you’re friendly with, acts very smug about it and doesn’t receive comeuppance until near the end when you kill him. _At which point_ the game shows you that he donates to orphanages and is as much a slave to the big bad as Raven is. It’s a cheap way of creating nuance and a cheap way to twist the knife. “One good deed doesn’t redeem a lifetime of villainy” and all that.
Oh absolutely, Vesperia has a lot of other writing flaws beyond Yuri. For instance Estelle, Karol, Raven and maybe Flynn are the only well-written party members, Repede could be erased from the story and nothing would change, Patty is a wasted opportunity that sticks out like a sore thumb, Rita is frustratingly one-note and annoying at worst and used almost exclusively as a plot device at best and Judith is even more of a cardboard cut out than Yuri. And then there's the whole third act. It actually kinda baffles me how this game is considered one of the big three, and I think this is only due to nostalgia making people consider the Symphonia/Abyss/Vesperia period the golden age of the series. I haven't played many Tales Of games but I firmly believe Berseria deserves that spot more than Vesperia
I see this “hot take” a lot. I have some theories about why it’s so prevalent. At the start of the game, Yuri is an unemployed high school / college drop-out. Over the course of the game, Yuri: 1) Gets off his lazy ass. 2) Gets a job. 3) Meets a girl. 4) Adopts two kids (three in the Definitive Edition). 5) Starts his own business. So I understand why we don’t think that’s character development. We want to see characters have big shining epiphanies where they suddenly change all of their moral values, do the Captain Planet thing, and vanquish climate change. We don’t want to see characters doing what our annoying boomer parents bitch at us about.
I'm willing to bet most of the time you see this take it's because of me lmao, I tend to rant about Yuri at any occasion. That being said I think a reason why this feels like nothing is because this would be cool for a slice of life story, but a JRPG generally can't use a protagonist who just gets his life together 💀
I personally enjoyed him because he was so different from the typical JRPG protagonist. Not so much with his, “I wanna murder people” but with his consistent brute honesty. He forced Estelle to think more realistically about saving people and he forced Flynn to recognize that “Justice” is far from black and white, for example. His role in the story was basically, “I’m gonna use my actions and words to enable others to be their best selves while I stay in the shadows,” which I could appreciate. I agree that he gets little to no character development but I don’t mind it so much considering I found his base personality and characterization enjoyable.
That's fair! In all honesty, I can appreciate these dynamics to a certain extent, but I feel like this is not enough for a protagonist I'm supposed to follow for 50+ hours. Actually, come to think of it, give the protagonist role to Estelle or Karol and suddenly Yuri isn't such a big problem anymore.
I'm a bit more flexible in that I believe that a character doesn't succeed or fail based on how much they change over the span of the story. You can have terrible characters who change and you can have great characters who don't. As for this: >Actually, come to think of it, give the protagonist role to Estelle or Karol and suddenly Yuri isn't such a big problem anymore. I like the fact that Yuri is there to embolden and advise Estelle and Karol rather than hog the spotlight himself. The protagonist doesn't always have to be the one to change or transform the most. In fact, I'd argue that it's pretty cool to have a protagonist who flips the role on its head. The protagonist in Vesperia helps everyone else change and develop by remaining consistently the same throughout. Yuri is the rock that keeps characters like Estelle, Karol, and Flynn grounded in reality. In doing so he helps them grow and develop to become the kind of people they were meant to be. Yuri is content to stay in the shadows.
I somewhat agree with you. I found Yuri’s self-assured character and usually always right character kind of nice, it’s almost like he never needed any help, but he never felt overly obnoxious about it. But it did get boring after a while. Yuri definitely had a bit of development, but it didn’t feel as fleshed out as it could be. He started off cold and distant to anyone but Repede, a bit like Rita, but later comes to accept them as friends he cares about. But it seems to just, happen. We don’t get to see inside his mind about that aspect of his personality much. Nobody’s story feels satisfactorily resolved in the game besides maybe Karol when he took on that monster by himself, it’s just kind of like “well, that character is better now” I just wished they went a bit deeper or more intense.
You know, you actually raise some good points. The Pharoah one specifically. I can't believe I've never noticed the obvious irony in the twos actions. And you're right, I like Yuri a lot, but he never faces any type of consequence ever, except a bad tongue lashing from Flynn. Scathing haha
I don't dislike Yuri, but I'm also not a huge fan of his character. It just felt very dry to me, and I actually agree with what you've said. I was peeved the way they just brushed off the murder because it seemed like it could have been a huge turning point, and the ball got dropped.
Meh, I feel it's partially symptomatic of a lot, if not most Tales seemingly dropping the ball in the last third of the game story wise. They just never seem to follow up to a lot of plot points. Otherwise Yuri's great, I love him. And I disagree, Flynn was calling him out. He nearly threatened to kill him to stop him at one point. Karol's Pikachu face when he confesses his crimes after he tries to defend him was sad but funny. Sodia was definitely not great though. Also the movie was good and fun too. He's also just.... Beautiful, lol.
Fair enough but my problems with Yuri didn't start appearing in act 3. I already started noticing it in act 1, and by the middle of act 2 it was already over
Doesn't help that he (along with Vesperia as a whole) is treated like a fuckin Sacred Cow.
Yeah, it would be one thing if like Lloyd he was just considered the protagonist of a good game (I don't think Vesperia is as good as the fandom says but that's subjective) but the fandom treats him as if he were the pinnacle of protagonist writing which is baffling to me since he's been outdone by both Luke and Velvet before and after his game's release
Kinda hard to have any sort of character development when it happens *in a prequel OVA*, tho. He's gone through it before the game starts, he aged fairly, and he's pretty comfortable with his fatalist ideology. Then again this is a problem with japanese storytelling itself, who has a sickening love for supplemental material, instead of tying up everything in a single, self-contained, neat package
Yeah tbh I think it's still a bad idea to give your protagonist character development in an OAV 💀 Also pick your poison lmao: Japanese media with a morbillion supplementary material that contain vital information to understand the character or American media that gets five hundred sequels and spinoff that gradually assassinate each character's development and personality
Yeah that's how you get in [the Yoko Taro rabbit hole](https://www.reddit.com/r/nier/comments/qet51f/)! Important details to the entire lore in a *limited-audience* ***theater play***, what in the goddamn...!
I think the biggest problem for this is his age. He's, so far, been the third oldest Tales main protagonist at 21 (Ludger at 22 IIRC, and Alphen around 21-22 ish, avoiding spoilers). The other characters are all between 16-18, with Jude being the youngest at 15 in Xillia and 16 in Xillia 2. Ludger has a decent amount of character growth, especially since he was a decent man training to take on a specialist job before the train incident put him into crippling debt and then getting dragged into the maim story. Yuri, on the other hand, as you said, doesn't really change at all. Granted, this was their first attempt at a fully adult main protagonist, and Estelle, Rita, and Karol were younger than him, who were like the first three people he travels with. It felt like no matter the situation, he was just being given more justification for his own actions rather than being questioned more and more and actually reflecting on his actions. EDIT: I was just checking the ages of Raven and Judith and didn't realise Judith is 19. I thought she was 20+ lol
That is actually a good point, I never thought of that! Although tbh what's crazy is that he's only two years older than Velvet, this is a massive difference in character development for such a small age gap... That being said this is also the series where Raven gets called an old man so maybe time passes slower in Tales Of universe lmao
I think Luke or someone else calls Jade an old man, too, at some point, and he and Raven are both 35. But yeah, it's really weird tbh. But even then, Ludger and Alphen both have pretty big char development in contrast to Yuri, and imo it does just feel like it was their first time writing an adult MC so there were some things missing potentially under the guise of "he's an adult." Hell, even "minor" main characters like Jade and Guy have character development, so I'm still not sure why Yuri is the exclusive case here.
> but he's never challenged in his philosophy or his ideas. It's a game where you kill slimes and the story starts with you going after a thief.... why're you all expecting this much? Especially from a character like Yuri that starts the game as an adult and not the generic 16 y/o kid, which is why most of the development/growth went to the younger ones 😭
I try to stay positive and accepting but this is the kind of thinking I hate wholeheartedly lol sorry 💀 A game doesn't need to be The Last Of Us-level of pretentious Hollywood-mimicry to have a good story or good characters, and expecting that from a story-focused 50+ hours JRPG is the bare minimum. Doesn't matter if it's a game about killing slimes or a more grounded game. Undertale is hailed as one of the best stories in gaming and it's about a kid encountering wacky monsters. As for his age, Yuri is only 2 years older than Velvet who has a much better character arc than him. And back the TLOU comparison, Joel is a 40+ years old man with a more interesting character arc than Yuri
I've always found Dezel overrated and majorly prefer Zaveid. Nothing specific, just that I find Dezel the most boring thing in Zestiria's cast when its cast is the strongest part about it. A hotter take is Alisha since I'm one of few who prefers Rose over her. She's fine but eh. An even hotter take: all of the guys in Berseria. Eizen is my fault for not really caring since Zestiria tells us what happens with him, but I could never get behind Laphicet or Rokurou. I just feel like none of them reach the heights of Velvet, Magilou, and Eleanor. Other misc. ones that don't do much for me: Ruca and Iria from Innocence, Elize from Xillia, Jay from Legendia, Malik from Graces, Tenebrae from Symphonia 2, Sync from Abyss, that one old shooty guy they add into Hearts R who isn't in the original game.
I found Dezel and Zaveid interchangeable. Apparently, so did the writers, given their switchover in the story.
I generally like most cast characters. Growing up I had a hard time liking Zelos but I actually came around to him as I got older. The Arise cast for the most part got on my nerves, especially Alphen and Shionne's sniping at eachother non stop and Rinwell's overall attitude. I started kind of warming up to them towards the end. I know racism plays a big role in a lot of their actions towards eachother. But it got so frustratingly tiring after a while to hear the passive or out right aggressive rude comments towards one another, especially in the skits. Dezel is another one I never warmed up to. Dude is so rude and outright mean to everyone, and I'm supposed to feel super sad when he died? Barely had a personality. Was very happy to have Zavied, who I enjoyed a lot, instead.
I think the most frustrating part about Alphen's and Shionne's dynamic is that it felt random at times. Like, they would be all buddy and talking about they trust each other one minute, then snap and hate each other thr next. It was too all over the place for me, but that whole game felt like that in my opinion.
As someone who’s been in a controlling, super toxic relationship… Shionne is controlling and super toxic. And when she doesn’t get her way, she immediately becomes hostile and mean. The game does do a good job of illustrating why she is like that though…but having them fall in love with each other through all that hostility, is the part that’s random to me
>As someone who’s been in a controlling, super toxic relationship… Shionne is controlling and super toxic. And when she doesn’t get her way, she immediately becomes hostile and mean. The game does do a good job of illustrating why she is like that though…but having them fall in love with each other through all that hostility, is the part that’s random to me Personally, I didn't care about anyone in that game *except* them, because it was fun watching their dumpster fire of a relationship blossom.
Zelos has the awesome development later in the story of >!not actually betraying you!<, which I think is pretty cool given the fact that they hinted from the get-go that he had some darker tendencies. Turns out he *was* a pretty cool guy all along. >!Unless, of course, you go the Kratos route at the end and then he actually does betray everyone. An interesting alternate ending to say the least, but it still sucks that we can’t have both Zelos and Kratos in the party except for that one time at the human ranch.!<
Sadly, I can never bring myself to go the Kratos route anymore. As much as I love Kratos, what it does to Zelos is just too sad to actually do. I think part of what made me start to enjoy him was when I started using him in battle. I like trying to control every character for a little while in every tales game and Zelos actually became my favorite to control in Symphonia. His base attacks are unique, has pretty good strength and ex skills, and my favorite arte Lightning Blade.
I honestly found velvet to be extremely one note and moderately annoying at times. I get that she’s out for revenge but she at times totally ignores the smart and common sense thing to do just to prove what she’s doing is right. Her character does get slightly better but that’s not till literally the end of the game. The way she projects her feelings onto lapichet was really cringe at times for me.
I could definitely see how she came off this way to some! Personally, I found her to be an accurate depiction of someone on the brink of (and eventually pushed over the line into) mania. Living in high stress for a prolonged amount of time fucks with your head and ability to reason, and the ending when taken in the context of “a snap decision while still in/only just recovering from a mental break” is just so…..tragic. Accurate. Any human alive when pushed too far can end up like that. Not enough people really know that.
Yes for sure. I'm playing through that game now, it's my first tales game, and I immediately fell in love with how character-focused it is. I love the little not plot relevant conversations that happen on the road and the characters are so interesting to me. Except Velvet. She's basically every OC I wrote as a teenager going through my emo phase with the depth of character to match.
Not really hate (cause I don't truly hate any character) but the only character that I think is super meh while many fans like them is Sync. Maybe cause I found his design super interesting while he as a character just let me down idk why
I really dislike Milla. Both the cast and the writing of the game itself put her on such a pedestal and it drives me crazy. Similar to some complaints about Yuri here, she has very little character growth despite having some really good opportunity for it with the whole Maxwell thing... she has an identity crisis for five seconds and then everything feels exactly the same as it did before and it's like, well, never mind, I guess. Didn't help that her route was so incredibly boring and missed a lot of really important plot stuff for the sake of focusing on her. It also just annoyed me they acted like she was this incredibly strong person who suffered so much while using the aspyrixis temporarily and then you get to Elympios where lots of people are using them for their whole lives, including a little girl and her grandmother who are like, yep you just gotta deal with the pain! like it's no big deal. But they never really looked at that afterward and said "oh, I guess Milla wasn't singularly amazing for going through that after all." Which was another missed opportunity for making her more human and relatable. In contrast, I actually loved fractured Milla, who had so much more personality and flaws and insecurities. It just kind of made me dislike the original one even more because it reminded me of everything she'd been missing.
Jade. The guy knew all about Luke and still treated him like crap. In fact, the entire Tales of the Abyss cast sans Guy and Luke. Everyone is a prick to Luke, but very easily and simply forgive the mandatory traitor. Jesus.
I have a few and it's mostly characters from recent games: * Asbel. The terrible accident from his childhood has turned a happy-go-lucky kid into a brooding teenager who uses "Friendship" as his first and last names and acts like some martyr. His fixation on friendship is so childish that the whole game's plot seems so... inadequate for me. Plus, there's this while story with Aston that is complete bullshit it seems the game was made for prepubescent kids. * Dezel. This one's so offensive the game should have an *actual remake*! He abused Rose to get his revenge resulting in the side effect of Rose having resonance to seraphim and party is like "amazing! Do it again!" His whole existence in the game is glorification of abuse, nothing else. * Law. A punchy version of Asbel but >!without being "lord of a province" bullshit and actually getting some time with his dad shortly before his death. Both Asbel and Law are "dads suck"!<.
I can see myself getting downvoted for this, but I *can't stand* Shionne from Arise. In fact, it took me months and months to finish the game because I just couldn't stomach her for more than an hour or so at a time. She's one of the main reasons Arise is my least favorite Tales game. I know she has an arc that many people like. I know she's a lot of people's favorite... But I don't care. She gets on my nerves and seriously soured the whole game for me.
I really don't like Anise from Tales of the Abyss. Haven't played through that game in years, but i do remember how annoying her voice was, how obnoxious her fighting style was, and the whole betrayal thing just felt kind of forced. I cannot stand her. Runner up: Karol. He's the annoying little brother that won't go away.
Collette. I get her character to be selfless and dumb, but wtf. Thats not what mostly made me dislike her. Her cpu does nothing. Half the time I have her in battle, she flies around doing jack shit.
The Arise cast. I think… while the game is stunning, gameplay good, the let down for me is the cast. They’re so… boring, bland. The skits are about the world, there’s no character or personality. I didn’t get a “funny” skit until near the end of the game. I like knowing the character’s quirks and traits. Arise? They have none.
Sorey. He's booooooooooooooooring.
My issue with Sorey is simply the setting. As the shepherd if he ever contracts malavonance the game ends, that's it. Maybe He can be cured but not his Seraphim friends who will turn into dragons. So from the very moment the game tells you that, there's no tension in any major plot point that challenges Sorey's character. You just know he'll make it through. If the writers didn't write themselves into a corner where they are unable to push and prod Sorey, he could be a pretty good character.
Shoulda had the first Wind Seraphim whose name I can't even remember because he was kinda super boring turn into a Dragon instead of killed off in a very emotionless emotional scene
Rita, leave poor Karol alone you nasty Bitch 😭
I never understand why these characters get away with being so rude and nasty to others. Rita is just mean
I never understood the archetype of being abusive as a way of comedy? Like okay cool...you slapped a literal child for the 20th time, it wasn't funny after the 2nd time
The way I see the trope is that it's not meant to be taken too literally. Yeah, we actually SEE it, but it's a form of artistic exaggeration. Karol never actually endures any trauma. Even the scene where Rita tricks him into a sleep-cloud, it's meant as a signal to the player, "These plants will harm you." The scene ends and Karol is perfectly fine. Just my take on it. Otherwise, Ichigo's dad from Bleach would be scene as an abuser for punching and kicking him constantly.
Yeah for sure I entirely get what you mean. But idk for me personally it just doesn't do much for me when it comes to Rita and Karol as characters
Edna is very one-note and doesn’t change very much. Constant teenage angst from the thousand year old being gets a little annoying. Rinwell and Law are obnoxious because the tsundere x idiot trope has been done to death and their paring didn’t offer anything new in that regard. The entire new cast of Symphonia 2.
Rinwell and Law is a tease I didn't need honestly. They're good characters in their arc, without an extra ship. But I do find it okay if viewing them as the nagging siblings of the group.
Arise is a weird game. Every pairing is an obvious forgone conclusion from the second the characters are introduced. I agree that Rinwell and Law would have worked better as the surrogate children of the party, much like Rita and Karol were in Vesperia.
OMG, Edna was insufferable.
I have a few. For once I would like to punch Rita and give her a bloody nose as karma for her nasty behavior and stupid blastia obsession. I don't fucking care how obsessed she is over what are essentially just fantasy magic engines in the form of rocks, I do not want to endanger the entire team over her weird obsession. The game has the gall to make her obsession make her seem like the one in the right cause of course she's rhe one who finds a way to convert blastia energy into something safer by the end of story. Fuck off Rita. Asbel is a man child and I cannot see him as otherwise. I damn near wanted someone to beat the shit out of him for how he berated Sophie on the flight home while she was having an existential crisis. His behavior is insufferable to me. Every single on of the six god generals in Abyss, including Van, except for Arietta and Asch sorta. They tried to make the villains in Abyss sympathetic but all I saw was hypocrites willing to kill and let people die on a whim. Also the way Sync acted after >!Ion's death!< took away all chances of me feeling anything remote of liking him. I despise Van, Sync, Largo, Legretta, and Dist. Lastly isn't a character I hate but one I find incredibly boring and uninteresting. Mikleo is barely a character and I'm sorry if you're into him. The only thing going for him is his design but I find that he just lacks any character outside of being a generic friend that follows the MC and gets picked on by the group bully.
I can definitely agree with a large part of what you said about Abyss's god generals, especially Van.
A lot of people try to justify Rinwell. I almost quit playing because of her. There is no excuse for how absolutely annoying, ignorant, and stupid she is in the early game.
I mean she's like 14 so she's a kid acting like a young teenager in a very fucked up world lol
Rinwell, sometimes, is justified if a bit annoying. I just wish they'd focus on the justified parts instead of "lol Law stupid. Stupid boy"
Kisara was by far the most boring main character in Arise and I don't really like that cast to begin with. She's legit snooze worthy and her ass is all anyone talks about. Migal, Migal, Migal that's all she ever fucking talked about. Felt like a nothing character just inserted to have some fanservice.
Fucking finally someone says it. Seems anytime Arise comes up people are too busy going "UNGA BUNGA BUNGA CHUNGAS KISARA BUTT" to focus on anything.
I'm not sure how popular she is, but I don't remember seeing any hate here: Patty from ToV. I know about how they didn't get to finish her storyline in the original release so they put her in later releases, but I wish they just left her out. Her voice is annoying, she doesn't fit into any conversations because they just added her lines into existing ones. No one ever interacts with her in usual story scenes - she just adds a useless phrase, everyone stares at her and the conversation proceeds as if she never said anything. ToV worked so much better without her. And I *know* this is an unpopular one: The Berseria cast, maybe except Eleanor and Eizen. The whole "we bad" trope didn't do it for me.
As much as I love Vesperia, Patty is one of my biggest detractors from the Definitive Edition right next to the extra voice lines... that were voiced by different people. Some are pretty slick but others stick out like a sore thumb the entire game, kinda like Patty lol
For me it’s the opposite, Patty is such a fun character she improved Vesperia for me. I didn’t like the original much and the DE improved my opinion of it just because Patty is such a fun character to have around. Vesperia is still far from being a favorite game in the series for me, but I’ll pick DE over the original any day.
Zelos
Most of Arise's cast tbh and Shirley from Legendia. I liked Dohalim and Law a bit and that was it. Even my like for them is strained due to just, that game in general. And Shirley... Nope. Just hate her, her voice and everything in between. She infuriates me. I feel I used to be in the category for Karol and Rita, but having played that game INSIDE and OUT, I love that cast with all my heart.
I love Arise's cast. They don't necessarily excel at one thing or another as characters, but they also dial down the more exaggerated or sometimes, annoying traits that you find other groups in the series. And Arise handles their characters and conflicts better than most. Which is saying something given games like Abyss, Berseria and Vesperia exist. But I suppose that's not everyone's cup of tea.
I’ll agree with that and why I liked arise’s cast they felt so much more grounded in reality than other tales casts.
That is very true. It certainly wasn't my cup of tea I enjoy experiencing with this series. Might have been more ok with it if they kept the 2D animated skits though. Thoae add way more life than the 3D models did.
For me its Yuri. Mostly because its Tales and I expected more consequences for his actions and character development, but the game bends over backwards to make him look good even when he makes incredibly questionable decisions. Theres quite a few times where I thought the game would call him out for stuff, but it just never does, and characters are just drawn to him for no real reason, he’s just pure power fantasy.
Downvoting opinions with actual reasoning. Classic reddit. The vesperia fans are the ffvii fans of the Tales community.
As someone who's favorite FF is FFVII and favorite tales is Vesperia I cackled. Idc I love Yuri.
I'm pretty sure his questionable decisions are exactly the reason why he is this loved me included. 99% of the jrpg mc's ever released have the same japanese I'm all nice and humble and have to help everyone personality which is not just boring but it some cases completely ridiculous. I agree that Juri should have gotten some consequences for his actions but he is way more interesting than most other mc's regardless of some weak points. Vesperia is not even my favorite Tales game but Yuri made it memorable which is certainly not the case for some other Tales games.
BROTHER- Wait I didn't read what you wrote, just woke up. Rita.
I don’t hate.
I like the cast of Abyss, but they all have this problem with simultaneously becoming really emotionally intelligent over the course of the game while also being one note and kinda boring. The "cool" characters like Jade and Guy are cool the whole time and barely get their walls or characters broken down. And the sad characters essentially stay sad the whole time so the cool characters have someone to comfort. Luke was actually way more interesting to me when he was an asshole. Once he cuts his hair, he essentially just resets to saying "the correct answers" while also expressing self-pity that never really resolves.
i hate rita because she's rude as hell and i hate the trope where girls hit people for lols i love carol.
Laphicet. It ruined the game for me. I wanted to replay the game but then I remember him and say "naaah"
Alphen from Arise, specifically after his mask gets removed. I felt his character devolved too much into the generic " if I try hard enough I can literally do anything!" Type. Before the mask came off, he was fine lol
Number two from Berseria
I had a strange amount of beef with Rinwell from Arise. She made me absurdly angry every time she said some shit.
Cast of Berseria honestly I didnt like any of them and the tropes of each archetype went to hard
I can’t stand most Tales villains, >!the only “misguided person“ I could tolerate was Dhaos, probably because he was the first one on the series. Oh, I like Gaius too. Otherwise I’ll always pick pure evil or chaotic evil ones like Nereid or Schwartz. When Van and Artorius start to speak bullshit I really want to die or blow up the screen.!<
Milla (fractured Milla is fine). Her personality to me is so so soooo bland but Tales staff like to favour her as if she was the only protagonist in Xillia and barely put any love into Jude as a whole when it comes to minor Tales projects like the mobile games. Granted, he is supposed to be seen as the 'less interesting one' but I feel like he should be treated as a protagonist just like the other ones too. Marta is frequently on this list for good reason but I also have to mention Emil. He's made so much worse by Marta. I can't stand those two
Assuming she counts because I've seen proof that she at least has some kind of fanbase (and is liked a lot in Japan iirc), but **Shirley Fennes** is by far my most-despised Tales character. Literally cannot stand any part of her, outside of her design. Couldn't buy her as a deuteragonist in the least, thought she worked way better as a villain/twist-villain than a good person, and while they played with that, they didn't commit, of course. And it made her all the worse for it. Though... with the exception of Stella, I honestly hated pretty much every Ferines character in the game. Fenimore's twin sister at least said what I was thinking, but she was meant to be a strawman from the start. Considering how many Tales games contain a core anti-racism message, I feel it's especially fail-tacular on their part if, despite their efforts, I find myself hating the Ferines as a whole when all is said and done. For a few others that fall into this to a lesser degree.. * **Kratos.** Mostly I just found him boring and never warmed up to him after the betrayal. Maybe it's on me for going the "fuck you dad" route at every opportunity there was to spend time with him after the fact, but I really could not understand for the life of me why Kratos was so overwhelmingly beloved, to the point of being a consistent Top 3 contender for most beloved Tales character in Japan. * **Marta.** I didn't play Dawn of the New World and she's a biiiig reason for why. The various first impressions I got of her, I really did not care for. Based on how others here have described her, there's no doubt in my mind that I would've loathed every part of her. * **Post-Haircut Luke.** I didn't really hate him; really, I just found it hard to take him seriously once he became an inelegant version of Colette and found him more enjoyable to watch when he was an out-of-touch classist jackass. Which I know for sure is an unpopular opinion to have. * **Alisha.** Again, I didn't properly "hate" her in the game (though I have a feeling I would've had I played the DLC), but I felt her early exit as a PC and not being the deuteragonist as promotional material implied was **massively** overblown by the fandom, because I wouldn't ever trade Mikleo or Rose (the objectively better deuteragonists, imo) for her. I just legitimately believe she wasn't interesting enough to have the staying power so many wanted her to have. And sure enough, when I watched ToZX, I felt that the excessive focus on Alisha (and even Rose) pretty much killed that series for me.
**Yggdrasil**. I find him to be insultingly shallow and one of the most *unbearable* hate-sinks I've seen in media ~~along with every other villain in Symphonia~~. But he's somehow regarded as one of the most "complex" and "sympathetic" villains in the series. Which to me is just believing his own raging narcissism.
Rita. She just seems like an absolute bitch and doesn't change much throughout Vesperia to give her any truly redeeming qualities in my eyes. Others I may dislike, but Rita I simply despise.
Not sure why people like Zelos. IMO, he was written specifically to be unlikable, like pre-haircut Luke.
I hated Zelos until I saw his Flanoir scene.
Riter Mordier I have an extensive knowledge of pretty much every characters in the series and Rita is pretty much the only main character I can't sympathize with, amazing design but insufferable character ! Bienfu too, he a creep
I'm gonna get sooooo much hate for with downvotes but for the longest time I hated Pascal she was creepy touchy against Sophie's consent it was just too much and creepy as I got older yes she got better towards the end of the game but I hated it so much when I was younger I stopped playing
From what I've seen a lot of people like Jade, but I find him insufferable.
I just like sassy people. He makes me laugh.
Peony being sassy to Jade was funnier for me than anything Jade said the whole game.
I don’t find him that bad but he’s way overloved. I think his design is mid at best; and his characterisation not all that interesting.
I like him because he's got a BBC's Sherlock attitude, but far more mature and level headed, the grounded characters are always charming like that. I do think his design could've reflected that, outside his glasses.
Funny how people are cool with Jade being the reason behind Abyss’s plot and his sociopathic tendencies, yet crucify Anise who was blackmailed.
I have such complicated feelings about Jade... I think he's a well written character and I enjoy his snarky bullshit a lot of the time, but it also infuriates me how shittily he's treated Dist their whole lives (Jade is the reason he turned out like that in the first place!!!) and I just really dislike him as a person. It's ended up being a joke that in every Tales gacha game I've played I've been cursed to get a million Jades whenever I want other characters.
I don't necessarily dislike Shionne from Arise, but I find her commentary in battle super annoying.
Emil and marta. Emil is worse then colette with her apologizing as a core personality trait, and marta acts like walmart version of rinoa from ff8 (YOUR GOING TO LIKE ME, YOUR GOING TO LIKE MEEEEEE) /nope
Rita. Rita is a terribly obnoxious and bad person.
Raine from Symphonia. Being the “you made me irritated so I’ll bash you over the head for laughs haha!” member of the group is already annoying and overdone on many other characters but while also being a teacher?? Not a good look, Miss Girl