I feel like Vyse from Skies of Arcadia should be my answer, just because I know if I played that game when I was 14, he would have been my entire personality.
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Probably not surprising that i like Dana from Ys VIII. She is in my profile picture and in the banner of the community. Sure Adol is the silent protagonist, but he has a character, but i always think he is rather boring. Having a dual protagonist system like in Ys VIII helps a lot. Dana has a lot character developement, being just the maiden of the great tree until... ok here i come into spoiler territory. But i think at the end of the game she has shown how much willpower she has.
I really like Dana too. She and Tia from Ys Seven are the women I tend to think about the most in the series.
Cid from Final Fantasy
(I know what I said)
I'm not sure if that counts as one character. But he often has more or less the same behaviour... So..
That's a really hard question, actually. A few characters come to mind, but it's entirely possible I'm blanking on my actual favorite.
Luke fon Fabre (Tales of the Abyss) has one of the best character arcs, I think. He starts out quite low and can have a lot of growth because of that, there's also just so much stuff happening to him.
Axel (Kingdom Hearts 365/2 days) is somewhat similar. I really like characters who struggle to find themselves.
Ichiban Kasuga (Like a Dragon) definitely makes the top cut. Although his writing did get worse with Infinite Wealth, sadly. The overall writing for him and the story in his first appearance are almost flawless, I'd say.
Rex (Xenoblade Series) gets the meme nomination. I actually really like him, but some of it came down to how memeable he his. Naturally, I had a field day with his adult appearance later on.
Both Jin and Noah would be other solid picks from the series.
Kefka Palazzo (Final Fantasy VI) gets the nomination for the best antagonist. There's nothing I don't love about him.
Kefka gets even better once you dig into the original dialogue, since there's some hard-to-translate quirks on his speech.
For example, he uses ⟨ぼくちん⟩ bokuchin as the first person pronoun, in hiragana. Typically this pronoun is only used by very young children, it feels out-of-place and creepy when an adult does it. And at the same time that ⟨ちん⟩ chin can be also understood as ⟨朕⟩, a royal we-like pronoun (Japanese emperors used it up to WW2). If you catch this early it's pretty much a spoiler - "Kefka will backstab the current emperor and seise the power for himself".
Rixia Mao from Trails. I connect with her story on so many levels and she's a wonderful portrayal of mental health struggles.
Dhaos, from Tales of Phantasia. Rather complex anti-villain; it's hard to disagree with his goals, and his means start rather peaceful. He only takes the mantle of the Demon King once labelled as such... and, sure, he becomes ruthless and cruel, but you'd get like this too if you're trapped for years in an alien planet, after your wife died so you could achieve a goal, and the goal is now unachievable.
Until recently I would have said Joachim/Grand Papillon from Shadow Hearts Covenant, but I've been playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Monoco has stolen my heart. Best boy.