My Comfort Characters
Image Credit: Atlus
It isn’t very often that I get to do a sequel to one of my own articles. I think the only ones that would count are the yearly top 6 games of the year articles that me and my co-hosts all put out. Last July I put out an article about my Confront Characters, basically the four characters that I hate.
Today we’ll be looking at the other side of this coin and talking about my four favorite comfort characters. These are the characters that I find myself gravitating towards for one reason or another. Some of my choices are probably expected if you’ve read my previous articles, but I think that there will also be a couple of surprises here. Let’s get into it!
Cornet Espoir (Rhapsody Trilogy)
Image Credit: Nipon Ichi Software
That’s right, it’s time to push more Rhapsody propaganda!
Kicking off this list is the protag from the series that really started my articles in the first place. Cornet Espoir is the spunky main character from Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a very hidden gem in the PS1’s library, and you can read more about the trilogy in this article.
Anyways, Cornet is a fantastic protagonist. She’s got a lot of your typical anime character tropes. She’s typically calm and cheerful throughout the game, always trying to stay positive with those around her. But when confronted with other characters like her rival Etoile, or the game’s villain Marjoly, she’s not afraid to stick up for herself. Not to mention that the banter between Cornet and her puppet friend Kururu is just top notch, and is one of the highlights of the game.
I also just think that Cornet is a very well-written teenager. She’s 16 years old in the first game, and our introduction is her singing about how she’s waiting for a prince to come and save her from her boring village. And when her prince is taken away from her by Marjoly, Cornet decides to take action and go save him, thus fully kickstarting the events of the first game.
And given that Rhapsody is a trilogy, we also get a glimpse at what Cornet is like as an adult and a mother. At the start of the second game, Cornet had settled down with Prince Ferdinand and they had a child; Kurusale. This child inherited a lot of Cornet’s troublesome and tomboyish nature. Cornet is very supportive of her daughter, being somewhat strict while still giving her enough freedom to explore the world and have her own adventures.
I also need to give some appreciation to Cornet’s voice actresses. In Rhapsody 1, the only voice acting is in the musical numbers, but Sara Thomas did a really good job. There’s virtually no information about her online, and as far as I could find, this was her only voice acting role. Nevertheless, she absolutely crushed her performance, and I find myself humming a lot of her songs. And the credits song “Thank You” never fails to give me chills. In Rhapsody 2 and 3, Cornet is voiced by Kira Buckland. Yeah, from Cris Tales! It should come as no surprise that Kira does a fantastic job.
Eevee (Pokemon)
Image Credit: Game Freak, The Pokemon Company
When it comes to RPGs, you’re going to gravitate towards certain party members. Whether it’s because of certain builds in turn-based games like Octopath Traveler, or certain units in strategy games like Fire Emblem just being really strong. And if you replay an RPG enough times, you’ll certainly pick out your favorites. Personally when I go back to Final Fantasy 6, Celes and Sabin never leave my party in World of Ruin. Celes gets favorite character privilege, and Sabin is just too good to leave on the bench.
Anyway, all of this brings me to where it always does: Pokemon! Whether it’s casual playthroughs or building teams for competitive play, there are always my go to Pokemon that I use just for familiarity. And no Pokemon shows that familiarity better than Eevee!
Eevee is a Pokemon that really needs no introduction. It’s been around since the very beginning. Originally sporting three different evolutions, the number of paths that your Eevee can walk has ballooned into eight! Seven of which are very good and could all easily fit into any team composition. And one of them is Flareon.
Do you need a speedy special attacker? Jolteon and Espeon are what you want. How about something a little bulkier that can still deal good damage? Vaporeon and Sylveon will fill that role. Need a dedicated supporter? Umbreon’s utility is unmatched. And for dedicated attackers with some bulk, the Sinnoh duo of Leafeon and Glaceon are there for you.
Eevee really is just the ultimate comfort Pokemon. With its versatility, and the points that you’re able to get it in game, it can round out any team quite nicely. Plus some of its evolutions like Sylveon have seen competitive use in official VGC tournaments. I’ve talked about Sylveon in a previous article, but other Eeveelutions have seen competitive success. Notably Umbreon was on the 2nd place team at the World Championship in 2019. Sadly it lost to the stupid cat as the premier Dark type support Pokemon, but that’s a rant for another article.
Terry Bogard (Various)
Image Credit: SNK, Nintendo
When it comes to fighting games, I know what characters I tend to gravitate towards. I typically tend to play more rushdown oriented characters. In Guilty Gear Strive I play May and Leo. In Granblue VS Rising I play Vira and Zeta. In Dead or Alive 6 I played Kokoro. I want to be the one pushing buttons and dictating the flow of the match. My opponent needs to follow MY rules! But there’s one of my mains that doesn’t quite follow this mold. And that’s the every man and fighting game crossover king: Terry Bogard!
The archetype that Terry falls under is what’s known as a Shoto. Basically he has a well rounded kit with good buttons and special moves that consist of a projectile, some kind of forward advancing attack, and an invincible reversal. These characters are usually seen as the starter character for 2D fighters. They exist to show new players the ropes so that they can learn the game’s controls and mechanics. My problem with them is that they’re usually really boring.
Characters like Ryu, Ky Kiske, and Gran Blue have no sauce to their character designs. They look boring and I don’t want to play as them. Then you have other characters like Katalina from Granblue or Hyde from BBTag who I like, but they’re so basic that I get bored playing as them. When I got Katalina to master in GBVSR, all I really did was bully my opponents with her far Medium and crouching Medium buttons.
But when it comes to Terry Bogard, something just feels different with him. I was hyped when he got announced for Smash Bros Ultimate. Of all of four fighting game characters to be added to Ultimate, Terry is easily the one that was implemented the best. He came out while I was in college, and I used him to win or place well in a bunch of tournaments on my campus. I’ve since moved away from Smash Bros, but I still have the memories with Terry.
Then in Street Fighter 6, Terry and Mai were added to the roster in the game’s second season. And while I didn’t really play a ton of Street Fighter 6, but Terry being added got me to come back for a little while. I liked Street Fighter 6 fine enough, but until Terry was added, I didn’t really have a character that I liked playing.
And to top it off, Terry’s character is just great. He’s not some martial arts master, or a fated protagonist destined to save the world. He’s just a regular guy who entered a tournament to fight the man that killed his father. Terry is just some guy that likes hanging out at arcades and playing basketball. Terry’s a bro. We love Terry in this house.
Roxas (Kingdom Hearts)
Image Credit: Square Enix
I don’t think that Kingdom Hearts will ever be out of my life. As a series that I played when I was a kid, this series will always keep a special place in my life, no matter how bad or dumb the series gets. A lot of the characters in this series are very close to me. The characters that didn’t make the cut for this were Sora, Riku, and Axel. But ultimately this had to go to the Key of Destiny: Roxas!
Roxas is far and away the best written character in the Kingdom Hearts series (though the competition is very stiff). He is the Nobody of Sora, born after Sora became a Heartless in KH1. Roxas was recruited into Organization XIII solely for the fact that he’s able to use a Keyblade, just like Sora can. Almost immediately after he was born, he was already being used for his powers. Throughout 358/2 Days, he’s being ignored and neglected by most of the Organization members, or being lied to in the case of Axel withholding what he knows about Xion from him. This leads to Roxas defecting from Organization XIII, getting demolished by Riku going full power, and being taken by Ansem the Wise who wants to use Roxas to help bring Sora back quicker.
Roxas is a tragic character through and through. At every point in his life, he’s either being taken advantage of for his powers, or being compared to Sora. For most of the series he’s viewed as a means to an end for a lot of the characters. And that’s part of what makes his return in KH3 oh so satisfying to watch.
When playing KH3 for the first time, I was completely blindsided by his return. Going through the Keyblade Graveyard boss rush, Roxas wasn’t even a thought in my mind. But when he crash landed into the fight with Xemnas and Saix, I popped off. Getting to watch Roxas kick the everliving shit out of the people that abused him was oh so satisfying. And after he beat my ass in his KH2FM boss fight, it was nice to see him do that to someone else.
And this is all without mentioning the external factors that I love about Roxas. First of all, Jesse McCartney has done an incredible job with his voice throughout the series. Between all of the different games, he provided a great performance with everything. From his anger towards Ansem the Wise, to the melancholy of leaving the Organization, to the smugness he shows Xemnas in his return in KH3. And his theme song: “The Other Promise”. I’m a sucker for piano ballads, and bonus points if you turn that piano ballad into a battle theme.
Also, Roxas is the only native dual wielder in the series. The shots of him with the Oathkeeper and Oblivion Keyblades are just iconic.
Closing
And there you have it! It was a lot of fun to try the inverse of one of my previous articles. I don’t think that any of my other articles could really fit doing a reverse. As funny as an idea that Video Games Franchises that should Stay Dead would be, that doesn’t sound like something I’d want to do.
One thing that I do want to try and do is more articles like my Chrono Trigger article from last year. Just a longform essay about a topic that I like. I have ideas for some of those, but I also know that they’ll take a lot more time, effort, and research than the usual articles. But stick around and you may see a couple of those pop up this year. We’ll see what happens. I don’t plan this stuff out in advance.