Shane
My reasons for liking him are WAAAAY more personal than I'm comfortable sharing publicly so I'll just say 13-year-old me needed a character like Shane in a game like Stardew Valley.

Ishmael
She's sarcastic and impatient and thinks being the sane, rational one makes her better than everyone and I see myself in her. I love that, even with her massive character development in her own Canto, it's clear she's making a conscious effort to be a better person and it isn't just some switch in her brain that makes her better. Even after her Canto we see her making snide remarks and losing her patience, but you can see the cogs turning in her head as she realizes she's falling into her old patterns and makes a conscious attempt to correct them. Change isn't easy and I love the way that's reflected in Ishmael post Canto V. Project Moon character writing is consistently stunning and so human.

And what a Canto it was. Her song, Compass, is gorgeous and encapsulates her arc nicely. She was held back by her obsessive hatred and was more like "that bastard" than she wants to believe. It's only when she chooses to put aside that hatred and find her own meaning in life, by "piercing through the rope that strangled you and me," that she can truly be free.

The fault lies with you, Ishmael!

Angela
I have so much to say about her. I'm collecting my thoughts on the theme of free will in Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina and how it ties into Angela's character, and I can already tell it's going to spiral into a behemoth of an essay. She's such an engagingly flawed person who ends up being one of Project Moon's most human characters in a cast full of beautifully written, gripping, human characters. String Theocracy and Poems of a Machine bookend her arc so well. Look at how much she's grown!

"A malfunction
Only this time I'm smiling at your side
To know that I would someday be gratified
So here I lie in our imperfect paradise
A eulogistic lullaby"

Aigis
"AI learns what it means to be human" is one of my favourite tropes. I love the subtle ways Aigis' tone shifts from stiff and robotic to more emotional as the game goes on. There was one mundane quote that stuck with me where you talk to her in class after school and she says something like "I'm really good at math and science, but I'm not doing very well at language" or something silly like that and it perfectly captures what I love about her as a character. She's a robot created for destruction and here she is sitting at her desk musing about her test scores. It would be so easy to write her as a genius performing at the top of the class because she's a robot but I love that her grades are just average, it's such a humanizing touch. I also love her development in The Answer as the one person that actually likes The Answer. I'm kind of disappointed she canonically goes back to the Shadow Operatives in Persona 4 Arena and I choose to headcanon she has a fulfilling career as an engineer instead.

(Spoilers)





Morgana
She did NOTHING wrong she's just a girl. She's messy and I love that for her. I have my grievances with A Requiem for Innocence, but Morgana's character development isn't one of them and that's where most of my appreciation for her characters comes from. Her trying to grapple with the conflict between her faith and her lived experiences, trying to reconcile her perceived status as daughter of God and her living in a brothel, is engaging. She's cold but has a heart of gold and is always willing to support those in need, which makes her all the more tragic when she snaps and her pent-up grief and anger overtake her. Love the way her story handles trauma, and that she's given the space to forgive when she's ready.

The Whole Party Family
I'm counting them as a package deal. It's my list and I get to do what I want. My review on this game is centred on Siffrin's character arc and explains why I like him so much! His inability to show even the mildest vulnerability feels real and the way the time loop causes him to slowly spiral is really engaging along with his efforts to resist his growing disillusionment and nihilism. I like everyone in the game though! The character writing is phenomenal and they have perfect chemistry. They all care for each other and support one another. Shout-out to Odile, she's great.

Charlotte/Anri/C
It's hard to talk about characters in this series for reasons obvious if you've played the games. I really like Episode 2's incarnation of these three most, and they're kind of inseparable so I'm picking them as a trio. My love for these characters is tied heavily into my personal interpretation and I'm not gonna do a whole series analysis here so I'll just be vague.

Charlotte's naïveté and anxiety make her a relatable protagonist headed for a car crash you know she can't swerve away from. She's kind to a fault and as a result she's easy to take advantage of. I also love the whole dichotomy between this sweet, innocent protagonist against The Horrors. The way Episode 3 recontextualizes Charlotte's identity and her relationships with the other characters is fascinating.

Anri is a horrible friend and a bully, but it's clear she does actually care about Charlotte in a twisted, childlike way. She reminds me of my emotionally immature attitudes as a kid as well as those of my friends and how we would treat each other. Kids are cruel. Love the contrast between her in Episode 2 versus Episode 3 and Heaven's Gate.

C is weird because we see him in an idealized way as a tortured artist figure and almost "too good for this world"? In some ways he's a caricature of himself, but it's the main piece of evidence for my reading of a certain other character's relationship to him.

Maya Fey
She's fun. Shrimple as.