LogFAQs > #895521133

21. Yuri Hyuga (Shadow Hearts series)

http://rs1011.pbsrc.com/albums/af233/TheStudList/R-Z/Yuri-sh02.jpg~c200

"Bite me. You know where."

There are few RPG main characters more entertaining than Yuri. He's crass, aggressive, and honest. The lines he spouts out are childlishly hilarious. Some villain will act all dramatic or go on a monologue and he deflates their atmosphere with two words. He got Grigori Rasputin to respond with "No, YOU WILL BITE ME!" Yuri is the perfect protagonist for a series like Shadow Hearts, where humor and dark themes mix together in the strangest way. He's enough of a straight man to play off of the weirdness well, but also enough of a weirdo himself to fit well within the universe. He also punches things and there's not enough RPG protagonists that punch things.

The lighthearted aspects of his character help offset his dark and depressing character arcs. Yuri is a Harmonixer who can change into demons when fighting, which is super cool except that his abilities will eventually kill him, much like it killed his father before him. Neat. His internal mental space where he interacts with his literal inner demons is called the Graveyard, and it's not metaphorical. There's a not-so-subtle metaphor of Yuri slowly digging his own grave (which might be the best scene in the series). This isn't a plot point that's ignored - at one point Yuri tries to control the spirit of a demon, fails, blows up part of Japan, and then goes AWOL for months. When they find him, he's barely Yuri anymore, and it takes Alice being awesome to bring him back.

And right after the curse of the Harmonixer takes away the most important thing in the world to him, he gets double cursed at the beginning of Shadow Hearts 2 to eventually lose his memories. All while he's still dealing with the grief of what happened in Shadow Hearts 1. Neat.

I've already made this clear, but Yuri goes through several character arcs, each of them both nuanced and satisfying. His relationship with Alice is one of my favorite romantic relationships in an RPG due to how well they play off of each other and support each other. Yuri's got the likability factor on lockdown and his personal story more or less carried the story of each Shadow Hearts game (the main plot is not so interesting). Shadow Hearts may as well have ended with Yuri when his story did. Sorry Johnny, but you aren't cutting it.
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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.