LogFAQs > #973842661

#4 Agate

If Loewe is the edgy anti-villain, Agate is the edgy hot-headed shonen hero. No wonder the two become rivals so easily.

At first, Agate is just a tsundere. He doesn't have time for those naive newbies, he is a serious man with serious worries. Because the plot goes after Estelle/Josh and not him, he is forced to work with them, but resists it at every step. He is the less lenient mentor, compared to Schera and Zin. That makes him annoying, but I think the game managed to make it work, because often Agate was right about the risks, and he gave Josh proper respect for his smartness when the later showed it. Hot-headed heroes tend to be stupid, but Agate is very smart, and that works in his favor.

The game proceeds to use Tita to mellow him out, and after the initial scene where Tita asks stupid and Agate tells him off, he gets poisoned, and she becomes his little sister. Unfortunately, he doesn't get much mandatory screentime again.

In SC, Agate is more willing to recognize Estelle, now that she is a senior. That lets him fall into a more balanced position, where he is still the voice of reason, but the dynamic is more balanced, and now characters take turns at dunking him out for being too serious. So Agate is just fun to have around. He is pretty fun in battle too, screaming in anger before dealing devastating blows to enemies. There is something about the skinny but macho dude with a sword the size of a door that just works.

His character really achieves greatness at the dragon chapter, though. That's when we learn he has always been broken. He made efforts to fix himself, and find a direction, but he never quite got there. The fear of losing people again and the shame for the disaster he wasn't able to prevent are too great. But new bonds form, Tita becomes his little sister, and Agate eventually heals.

Agate is pretty straightforward for a character. He works because he is just written well, being rather likable from the start and then just getting organic development until he becomes a well rounded character. I couldn't ask for more, really.

#3 Renne

Renne is one of the most raw things in this game. And I love what they did with her.

Chapter 3 is one of the best in this game, and it's not just because of the reveal with Renne at the end, but because she engineers the entire thing. From the letters, to the tank, to her own disappearance, it's all part of her Tea Party, which we discover was made just for fun, to add a little flavor to an otherwise boring gospel test. Renne is nothing but intense.

She is also a little girl, in every sense of the way. Like I said before, it's easy to design a kid character and tell the audience they are a genius to justify them acting like an adult. Renne does not act like an adult, ever. She is a genius alright, but her emotional growth is stunted, and she has been twisted into enjoying murder and bloodshed as if they are child's play. Even her theme of dolls and puppets alludes to the way she sees the world, a playground. Her only parental figure is a mecha, and everyone else are things she can break. The end result is one of the scarier characters in the game, like a horror movie villain. Her declarations of how she will gut the party members, her s-craft at the start of the battle (with the little girl voice saying "Ready or not, here I come!"), her emotional swings, it's all off-putting. Renne competes with Weissmann for the scariest villain in this game, because while Wiessmann tries hard to make a great presentation, Renne achieves it just by being who she is.

The character arc is not complete, of course. We just saw the beginning of what will be Renne's conflict phase, to be seen in the next few games. But damn, just what I saw already puts her at 3rd place. Can she beat the top two? Maybe, maybe not.

God Tier

1-
2-

Very High Tier

3- Renne
4- Agate
5- Joshua
6- Weissmann

High Tier

7- Kloe
8- Kevin
9- Nial
10- Tita
11- Zin
12- Anelace
13- Scherazard

Mid Tier

14- Dorothy
15- Dunan
16- Gilbert
17- Richard
18- Mogran
19- Cassius
20- Campanella
21- Kilika
22- Loewe
23- Amalthea
24- Maybelle

Low Tier

25- Bleublanc
26- Walter
27- Don
28- Luciola
29- Hans
30- Julia
31- Sieg
32- Cid
33- Mueller
34- Kurt

Bottom Tier

35- Kyle
36- Josette
37- Aina
38- Queen Alicia
39- Russel
40- Jill
41- Anton
42- Clem
43- Ricky

Unranked:

Estelle
Olivier