Characters / Fear Effect

Hana Tsu Vachel (Mei Yun)

• Abusive Parents: Her adopted "mother" Madam Chen, who raised her coldly and even made her become a Sex Slave. Hana has no love lost for her when she encounters her in the first game.
• Action Girl: Routinely fights and wins against thugs, criminals, robots, soldiers, demons, and zombies.
• Anti-Hero: She kills people for profit, but she also willingly gave up the EINDS cure for free.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: Rain is Hana’s one true girlfriend, but Hana is often using her feminine wiles to get what she wants from men associated with the missions she is taking part of, that could be excused as Hana just using men without being really attracted to any of them but Hana has made honest observations about finding guys to be hot; also had Inferno been released Hana would have gotten romantically closer to Glas.
• Berserk Button: Harming Rain in any way is a good way to set her off.

• But Not Too Foreign: She is a mix of French and Chinese.
• Characterization Marches On: The first game, Hana outright calls Jin a friend, and when they run into each other in Hell, she is glad to see him. Retro Helix meanwhile, which is a prequel, she's downright hostile to him.
• The Chosen One: She was handpicked by Yim Lau Wong to escort
• Comically Missing the Point: Hana's rejoinder to Rain's statement about her dress. "Don't be silly. I'd only be able to hide one gun naked."
• Cruel and Unusual Death: While being eaten by rats, gunned down, and incinerated aren't pleasant ways to go, the elevator death has to get special mention. As Hana climbs an elevator shaft, she notices the elevator speeding toward her. She tries to jump into a small indentation in the shaft, but all she can do is look on in horror and shock, realizing it's too late. Hana screams as the elevator turns her into an unrecognizable paste, spewing bloody chunks of her body everywhere, and leaving a massive smear of blood on the shaft wall.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Her parents were murdered by Triads and she was sold as a sex slave at the age of 5.
• Deadpan Snarker: She readily fires off quips all throughout the series, but especially in Retro Helix.
• Eye Scream: In Sedna, one of her deaths involves her getting shot in the chest, then the eye, leaving a smear of blood and brain on the wall behind her.
• Fan Disservice: Hana is exceptionally beautiful and has a gorgeous body, often exposing impressive cleavage. Those things won't stop her from being reduced to a bloody paste or from getting shot through the eye and having her brains splattered against a wall.
• Femme Fatale: Has used her good looks to invoke Distracted by the Sexy which has saved her life from time to time.
• The Hero: She's the main character of the series, she is the one who moves the action and plot forward and is the one with the biggest moral compass, and a personal connection to the series Big Bad Yim Lau Wong.
• Ms. Fanservice: Hana's a Head-Turning Beauty and the designated sexpot of the franchise.
  • In Fear Effect 1, she changes outfits more often than anyone else (sometimes with Sexy Silhouette shots of her changing), gets a gratuitous Shower Scene with Toplessness from the Back and Censor Steam and is soon forced into running around in nothing but a Modesty Towel for most of the chapter, until she's forced to drop said towel to distracted a soldier.
  • Fear Effect 2 has her wearing some revealing outfits, such as a Navel-Deep Neckline dress. Her relationship with Rain is also played as Girl on Girl Is Hot.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Hana's green party gown in Fear Effect 2 has such a revealing plunging neckline, it makes it look like she's wearing a bikini instead. As Rain says: "You're wearing that?! Why don't you just walk in there naked?!"
• Oh, Crap!: Flying off a bridge in a train or facing a guy with a semi-auto rocket launcher elicits this response.
• Only Sane Woman: Subverted, she's prone to making reckless decision fueled by emotion, which contrasts and puts her into conflict with Glas, who thinks much more coldly and logically.
• Plucky Girl: She has elements of this. She has a lot of bad stuff happen to her, but she does not quit. She also displays optimism before going out on missions, unlike pessimistic Glas. She tends to give people the benefit of a doubt, which Glas would certainly not do.
• Reluctant Fanservice Girl: Is not above using the Honey Pot to accomplish her goals, but clearly doesn't enjoy doing it, and even admonishes Deke for Eating the Eye Candy when he sees her naked and demands him turn around while she gets dressed. The fact she was forced to be a Sex Slave has likely made her bitter about being objectified.
• Sex Slave: In her backstory, she was sold into sexual slavery by the Triad at a young age.
• That Man Is Dead: After the demonic Madam Chen calls her Mei Yun one too many times, Hana introduces her to a circular saw.
• Universal Driver's Licence: Hana either drives or flies in order; a gyrocopter, a military helicopter, a limo, a train, a speed boat that doubles as a submersible, and a motorcycle.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Until her parents were killed in front of her and she was sold into slavery by the Triad.
• Villain Takes an Interest: She has unique supernatural powers that made Yim Lau Wong take a personal interest in her, leading to the death of her parents and subsequent upbringing at the hands of Yim's servant Madam Chen.

Royce Glas

• Aesop Amnesia: Sedna oddly makes him distant from the team through contrived circumstances, rewinding Glas’ characterization closer to how he was in Retro Helix rather than what he would become in the first game, the result is Glas and Hana putting some distance between each other.
• An Arm and a Leg: Loses his left arm in Madam Chen's brothel, courtesy of Mr. Lam cutting it off with a sword. It grows back in the good ending though, without explanation.
• Badass Normal: Out of the four playable characters, he's the only one that doesn't have anything to do with the supernatural.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: After mocking one of the Eight Immortals for challenging him to a simple child's game by asking if he should also be crawling through lava, she looks ready to make it so. Glas responds "look I'm rolling!"
• Butt-Monkey: He tends to take the most abuse between the four playable characters.
• Character Development: He starts off Retro Helix as a borderline suicidal alcoholic, cleans up his act and develops a purpose by the end, and becomes a true friend of Hana's by the first game.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His past life in the military is filled with tragedy and regret, to the point he's something of a Death Seeker.
• Deadpan Snarker: He bounces off a few jokes with Hana.
• Death Seeker: Well, let's think for a minute. He engages in binge-drinking (more like drinking himself to death). He plays Russian Roulette. He engages in these activities in his spare time. What do you think?
• Drowning My Sorrows: He has 7 empty whiskey bottles with him in the opening scene in Retro Helix.
• The Dutiful Son: His father was apparently his commanding officer when he was still a spy.
• Handicapped Bad Ass: Glas won't let a little thing like a severed arm stop him from storming the very gates of Hell itself.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In the second game, one of the Eight Immortals notes that "[his] cold face can not hide the warm heart that still beats beneath." He tries to dismiss it, but she still points out he was kind to her when he didn't need to be.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Glas justifies slitting Wee Ming's throat thinking that would end the madness he and Hana had been subject to over the last 24 hours. It doesn't take however.
• Knight in Sour Armor: He claims he is hardened beyond caring, but his actions speak louder. In fact, one of his deaths in Fear Effect is shooting an innocent woman, and being so stunned he allows a mook to shoot him.
• Nietzsche Wannabe: Glas definitely is this. When Hana said that she has faith in Rain not being a backstabber, he goes off on this rant about how "Faith is for the weak!" Would it have killed him to explain why he thinks that?
• Only Sane Man: Glas comes across as this during the second game. Quickly and correctly deducing it's a setup at the Temple of Xi'an, he tries to leave on several occasions, but keeps getting pulled back in, and voices his disbelief during some of the more absurd moments while everyone else just acts like talking to an Immortal is an everyday occurrence.
• Perma-Stubble: He has the "2 day growth permanently painted on" look.
• The Lancer: Only Rain has Hana's trust more than him.
• Sanity Slippage: He starts to lose it when he has his arm cut off.
• Shoot the Dog: He tried to kill the young girl and Anti Anti Christ (Wee Ming) to save the world as well as try to get revenge for Deke's death (that, and Glas seemed to have become mentally unhinged). He shot his brother Drew, but it was an accident, as Drew was going to shoot him first (For money and for leaving him with only one arm).
• Sibling Rivalry: His brother was on his squad, until he lost his arm on a suicide mission, who then betrayed Glas by killing his surviving men.

Jacob 'Deke' DeCourt

• Awesome Aussie: To the point didgeridoos start playing once he breaks out the sawn-offs. Although according to his character biography in the manual he was born in Christchurch, a city in New Zealand, that was presumably annexed to 'New Australia'.
• Body Horror: His face after being killed in Fear Effect is not a pretty sight.
• The Big Guy: He ain't fat, he's stocky. His words.
• Demoted to Extra: In the second game, to the point that the last time you play as him it's actually a demon in disguise. Averted if you get the Bad Ending as he’s the one that defeats the final boss.
• Face–Heel Revolving Door: Probably because there is more than one of him running loose. Each one of him would have a different personality.
• Hidden Depths: He definitely has this. One of the Eight Immortals reveals to Glas that Rachel Kazra dabbled in Creating Life, and there were a number of failures. A lot of the failures were flesh-eating zombies that Glas and Hana fought against. Deke is one of the failures. The Immortal points out to Glas that Deke is a puppet of greater forces, but that is not explained or expanded on. Besides, he cannot be all bad if he truly likes Hana, Glas, and Rain. He has not tried to kill them at any rate.
• Losing Your Head: Is killed in the first game when he has his throat slit by Madam Chen, then is thrown out a window onto a pointed statue face first.
• Oh, Crap!: He has a very terrified expression on his face in the first game when he is ambushed and killed by Madam Chen.
• Psycho for Hire: A frequent description of his personality, as a Sociopathic Hero who is Only in It for the Money.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Deke spends most of Retro Helix in a green tank top.
• Sociopathic Hero: He really only has two motives; getting paid, and sating his blood lust.
• Token Evil Teammate: When this applies to a team mostly made up of protagonists listed under Sociopathic Hero, that's saying a lot about how brutal this guy is. Deke ends up as a boss fight in both games.
• Unexplained Recovery: He comes back in the canon ending of the first game, complaining of a bump on his head.

Rain Qin

• Action Girl: Starts to come into her own towards the end of Retro Helix, single-handedly stopping her sister Mist from taking over the world.
• Amnesiac God: A demigod at least. After she left the Void, she has no memory of her past.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Rain comes from one. To wit:
  • Her mother, Rachel Kazra, injects herself with the DNA of Qin Zhang in a bid to create the perfect being and inadvertently releases the EINDS virus. By the time Fear Effect 2 rolls around, she's become an Abomination.
  • Rain's father, Qin Zhang, is the immortal first emperor of China.
  • Her sister Mist, is an Evil Twin demigod with plans to take over the world.
  • Rain herself is an amnesiac demigod gun for hire. It says a lot that the mercenary is the most normal of the bunch.
• But Not Too Foreign: Rain and her sister Mist are the children of the White archaeologist Rachel Kazra and the first emperor of China. However both of them resemble their mother more.
• Damsel in Distress: She tends to get captured in Retro Helix a lot.
• Girly Run: Rain definitely runs like this. Hana does not. This serves as a contrast between the characters, with Hana being more masculine and Rain being more feminine.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Rain drops a few "darn its" when everyone else is saying something much stronger.
• Honor Before Reason: The final boss fight in the good ending of Fear Effect 2 has Rain fighting her twin sister Mist one on one, when it could have been 4 on 1 if she had allowed it.
• Lipstick Lesbian: She only has eyes for Hana.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: She is a hacker extraordinaire, and a first rate biologist.
• Physical God: On an important note, her last name is Qin. She is the daughter of 秦始皇 (Qín Shǐ Huáng), the very first emperor of China, the same one who burned books and buried scholars in the name of stability in the country, wanted immortality, whose tomb contains an army of soldiers made of terracotta, and, in this game, who became a god, but is basically in an And I Must Scream state.
• Remember the New Guy?: Her character debuts in a what is supposed to be a prequel to the first game, Rain is quickly established as the most important person in Hana's life through the second game, yet in the first Fear Effect there’s not even a hint of Rain ever existing, even during the later parts of the game where Hana faces some trials that forces her to relive past memories and needs to find determination to move on, Rain simply doesn’t cross Hana’s mind as a motivation to keep going; Retro Helix just makes an excuse at the end that Hana told Rain to stay at home to justify Rain’s absence from the first game. Interestingly, when Hana encounters her five-year-old self in Hell in the first game (to which Retro Helix is a prequel), she reacts very positively to Young Hana's reminder that they both "flowered like a branch under the rain". Coincidence, or was the choice of Rain's name for the second game connected?
• Sibling Rivalry: With her twin sister Mist, who tries to take over the world.
• The Smart Guy: Is the group's tech head.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the beginning of Retro Helix, she spends quite a bit of time as Damsel in Distress and needing Hana's encouragement to do anything on her own. In Inferno, she becomes a blonde Hana.

Jin (Yim Lau Wong)

• Big Bad: The one behind everything in Fear Effect, he's also a minor antagonist in Retro Helix. Inferno also would have had him involved in some way.
• Beard of Evil: In his true form. his villainous beard actually reaches the floor.
• The Chessmaster: He grants Mr. Lam his massive wealth, but only if he takes on Wee Ming, so that in 16 years, he can bring Hell on Earth so that he no longer has to judge every person who comes into his domain.

• Disney Villain Death: Both his defeats in Fear Effect 1 see him falling down a pit.
• Everybody Hates Hades: He's based on the Chinese God of Hell of the same name, and of course he's the Big Bad.
• Japanese Ranguage: His preferred manner of speaking in human form. Quite odd, considering that he is Chinese (Which is far different from Japanese).
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He puts on a buffoonish persona as Jin
• Physical God: The literal king of Hell, he is able to interact with people on Earth.
• The Unfought: Despite being the overall series Big Bad, he's never physically fought, though he does get "killed" in Fear Effect 1 after the Final Boss is defeated.
• Villainous Breakdown: Has a pretty big temper tantrum towards Hana in the Golden Ending.
  Yim Lau Wong: You ruined everything, you meddling bitch! Until you met me, you were nothing but a whore!
• You Have Failed Me: Turns Mr. Lam into a monster for not killing Glas when he had the chance.

Wee Ming Lam

• Anti Anti Christ: She runs away from home as soon as she learns the truth about her existence, so she can try to prevent the apocalypse.
• Ambiguously Evil: Glas’ bad ending has implications of her being Evil All Along but Hana’s ending and the true ending has her willingly return back to hell, the latter even has her bringing Deke back to life and restoring Glas’ arm.
• Apocalypse Maiden: She was created from a paper doll to basically make Hell on Earth.
• Body Horror: Wee Ming has the power to turn people into monsters just by looking at them.
• Final Boss: In Glas' ending, her demonic form is the last threat in the game.
• Unexplained Recovery: Wee Ming bounces back from having her throat slit remarkably fast.

Madam Chen

• Evil Matriarch: Essentially raised Hana, but also forced her (and the other girls at her brothel) into the sex trade at a very young age.
• Smug Snake: Even after being defeated and chained up in Hell, she still is arrogant and condescending.

The Foreman, aka The Planner

• Ax-Crazy: He massacres almost his entire work force, tried to blow up the entire downtown district of Hong Kong, and straps Rain to a device straight out of the most demented doujinshi.
• Dirty Old Man: Creepily calls Hana and Rain "kitties", strips Rain down to her underwear after knocking her out and straps her to a device for the sole intention of raping her, and tries to do the same to Hana.
• For the Evulz: Just about everyone of his actions is done for seemingly no other reason than because.
• Gonk: Living in the sewers has not been kind to him.
• Implacable Man: Even after being shot into an electrified wall 3 different times, it takes blowing himself up to actually kill him.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Just look at what all he does.
• Rape as Drama: He straps Rain to some kind of bug machine that rapes her.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His pupils are red, and his scleras are so bloodshot that they are yellow.
• Wrench Whack: He carries a wrench the size of Hana and Rain in his boss fight.

Mist

• Evil Twin: Clearly evil to Rain's Anti-Hero.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Kills a good portion of the world's population via EINDS as part of her scheme.
• Take Over the World: Her ultimate goal after killing off a good portion of the population with the EINDS virus.

Mr. Lam

• Body Horror: He is subjected to Wee Ming's power to turn people into what they see themselves as, and it's not pretty.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He seems to genuinely care for Wee Ming, despite her not really being his daughter. Or even really human.
• Meaningful Name: Named after an alien that was a spiritual guide to occultist Alistair Crowley.
• Money to Burn: He literally burns money to accumulate his wealth.
• Papa Wolf: He does not care for mercenaries attempting to ransom his daughter back to him.