I'm playing Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition at the moment (~20 hours into it), and while I will take the time to share my thoughts on the game as a whole when I am done with it, right now I want to take this time to talk about hearththrob Yuri Lowell, the protagonist of the game.
Yuri is fantastic, y'all. I don't know if you've played the game (if you have, you know exactly what I am talking about), but he's amazing. He's like an anime Han Solo. he has a no-nonsense, rogue with a heart of gold personality, where he can be ruthless because of the shit he has seen, but he will always look out for the little guys. His mentoring of Karol is heartwarming, and the kind of thing we see very rarely in a game like this, or in a game, period. Essentially, he's the "cocky dude who knows shit" template from the other games, but where in the other games, that cocky dude is a mentor to the protagonist, here, Yuri is the protagonist. It works very well, because Yuri ends up acting as a center of gravity for all the people around him, helping them grow and realize what they each want from their lives.
Yuri is aided by amazing writing (it's surprising how much restraint Tales of Vesperia shows for an "anime game"), and a superlative performance by Troy Baker (if I'm not wrong, this and Kanji were his breakout roles). He's absolutely fantastic, and I really wish more games would have protagonists like him.
