Characters / Live A Live - The Seven Heroes

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The seven main protagonists (alongside the Earthen Heart Shifu and his disciples) of Live A Live.

In General

• Infinity +1 Sword: The Dominion of Hate contains special dungeons that hold the ultimate weapon for each hero.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: If Oersted's not chosen for the Dominion of Hate, these very unique individuals, thanks to being torn from their times, are the only hope against the Lord of Dark.

Pogo - Prehistory

"A Young Man Eager to Prove his Worth"

Voiced by: Megumi Ogata (All languages)

"...! L... ... L......! ... Loooove!"

The protagonist of the Prehistory Chapter, "The First". A young boy who's just undergone the coming-of-age rites of his tribe, he looks forward to becoming a hunter until he meets a strange young girl named Beru. Events lead to him being exiled, and soon he finds himself falling in love, battling a rival clan out to sacrifice her, kicking a Tyrannosaurus rex god's ass, and rejoining his tribe. He is assisted by a gorilla named Gori.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: He was very gonkish in the original game, many of his attacking sprites making him into a savage and his official art not doing much to up his looks◊. By the remake, his art makes him look much cuter and the gonk in his sprites is toned down somewhat, although he still isn't much of a looker when using such moves as Big Shout or Yum Bite. In fact, some concepts for how Pogo would appear in key art for the remake depict him with proportions similar to Akira's, befitting of the teenager/young adult he's supposed to be.
• Adaptational Context Change: At the end of his chapter in the original, he says the first word of English the Earth shall know, "Love." In the remake, he simply screams at this moment.^note Although said scream sounds a lot like "ai", which is Japanese for love. His answer to Odio as to why humanity should be spared is repeating the word, to tell him that humanity's love is one of its redeeming qualities. In the remake, he instead hugs Oersted to get the message across.
• All-Loving Hero: He goes out of his way to rescue Beru and if he ends up being the chosen hero for the final level gives Oersted — whose darkness is the reason why Beru was almost eaten by a dinosaur — a well-deserved hug.
  Oersted: Such passion... Nay. 'Tis love. A boundless love.
• Anime Hair: Though it's more because he's a caveman and has unkempt hair, it's looking like the trope.
• Awesome, but Impractical: His ultimate technique, Bing Bang Boom, is instantaneous and does a lot of damage, but it hits Pogo with some nasty debuffs, including damage down and accuracy down. These debuffs are cumulative, meaning each Bing Bang Boom will make Pogo less and less effective. While it isn't an issue in normal fights, where Pogo can clean house rather quickly, it does make this technique a bit counterproductive in long, drawn out boss fights.
• Babies Ever After: With Beru in the Golden Ending.
• Badass Adorable: He's an adorable caveboy who bravely fights an evil Tyrannosaur to protect the love of his life — in an age when they're already extinct — and is one of the heroes who helps take down Odio once and for all.
• Bad with the Bone: His primary weapon is a femur bone that he pulverizes enemies with. His ultimate weapon, the "Great Stone Axe" is shaped like a bone and smells like meat, according to him.
• Beware the Nice Ones: When interacting with anyone other than his enemies or even Gori (though this is more due to their Friendly Rivalry than animosity), Pogo is a sweet boy with a big heart as noted several other times in this list. Also noted several times in this list too, he can kick your ass six ways to Sunday with a variety of powerful attacks.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Often gets into a lot of slapstick with Gori, especially when the goofy ape pushes all his Berserk Buttons and sends him into a ranting fury, but don't think this means he's just some weirdo kid. Pogo can easily pound you flat if you give him enough reason to.
• Boring, but Practical: Of all the characters you can choose to start as in the final chapter, Pogo is regarded as being one of the more solid choices, thanks to his abilities being some of the most well rounded, as well as having the most powerful screen nuke attack of the protagonist when leveled up.
• Calling Your Attacks: In the remake, he sometimes does this with a handful of attacks, calling out their original names. Particularly with Bing Bang Boom.
  Pogo: DOGDESDEN!
• Carpet of Virility: One of the things he can request to be crafted is an Armor piece called "Thick Chest Hair".
• Cooldown Hug: In the remake due to Pogo's first word "Love" being written out and Oersted muses that he lacked love in Pogo's Final Chapter, if selected as the Main Hero of the final chapter he instead hugs Oersted as the latter grieves about the blood he's shed, which seems to drive him to tears.
• Death or Glory Attack: His last learned move, "Bing Bang Boom". It deals about 800 damage on the first time it's used, but it also tends to inflict extreme debuffs on Pogo, often including Power, which makes Pogo just about worthless if the enemy is still standing afterwards (though unless it is a boss, that is not bloody likely).
• Defeat Means Friendship: He has to be beaten in a fight before he joins in the final chapter. Unless you're Lei, in which case he'll join you for free since he blushes madly over Lei being a woman.
• Determinator: And how! As soon as he meets Beru, he falls madly in love with her and not only tries his hardest to stay by her side and win her affection, he doesn't hesitate for a second to face down the entire Kuu Clan in order to get her back.
• Dissonant Laughter: Pogo will laugh and giggle during and at the end of fights, seeming to be having the time of his life. In fact, Pogo's laughter is one of the audible responses to a move hitting an enemy's weakness a la "It's super effective!"
• Earthy Barefoot Character: Comes with the territory of being from a prehistoric time. Though the player can either find or fashion footwear for him, his character model will always be barefoot.
• Fartillery: One of the early attacks he learns is a fart. It can poison the enemy.
• Glacier Waif: Despite being the smallest and youngest of the human protagonists, his damage and his HP both get incredibly high as he levels.
• Gonk:
  • Pogo's original character art was...unflattering◊, to say the least...
  • While he's given more realistic proportions in the remake, several of his moves involving his mouth (Yum Bite, Big Shout) give him a ridiculously ugly face for a moment.
• Hot-Blooded: Has a tendency of rushing into battle without a second thought, and of solving most problems with his fists.
• Hypno Pendulum: Sleep Trick attempts to inflict Sleep on all enemies in a very wide area (5x5 in a 7x7 battlefield); the remake's description of this attack clarifies that he's doing this with his club.
• Idiot Hero: By how he acts, he probably isn't the most intelligent of the bunch.
• Kid Hero: In terms of physical age, he seems to be the youngest of the protagonists (other than Cube, a non-humanoid robot who's built right before his own chapter begins).
• Kindhearted Simpleton: Pogo is easily the most straightforward of the protagonists due to being a literal caveman. Despite being a bit rough towards Gori, he does have a good heart. In the remake, if chosen as the protagonist of the final chapter, his response to Oersted grieving about all he's done after being freed of Odio is to just give the man a much needed hug.
• Leitmotif: Native Life out of battle, Kiss of Jealousy in it.
• Love at First Sight: Immediately head over heels for Beru when they first meet.
• Nice Guy: He goes out of his way to save Beru and gives a hug to Oersted.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Him taking in Beru and singlehandedly fighting the Kuu tribe faction that invaded his tribe's home gets him and his friends banished to the wilds out of fear that as long as Beru's present, the Kuu tribe will invade again.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: His ultimate skill "Bing Bang Boom" has him relentlessly beat the target, often landing 999 damage and debuffs on himself in return.
• The Nose Knows: His chapter's main mechanic is using his sense of smell to detect overworld encounters and find clues. This gets used one final time in the Final Chapter in order to find Pogo's dungeon. His sense of smell is so potent that he's able to notice the presence of Odio shortly before he gets spirited to the Dominion of Hate.
• Parental Abandonment: Despite his young age, his parents are never shown, with his tribe's Elder being the closest he has to a parental figure.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He's supposed to be a child and thus smaller than even the Shifu but is also one of the biggest powerhouses of the game.
• Precocious Crush: Beru is probably older than Pogo, but he crushes on her so badly. It ends happily ever after. Also, if Lei is the finale protagonist, Pogo will join the party without a fight, completely smitten with her.
• Say My Name: Sometimes shouts "POGO!!" when leveling up in the remake. Even if it was changed from the default.
• Sexy Discretion Shot:
  • In the remake, giving Beru certain items other than a Haunch of Meat will have her invite Pogo into the haystack she's hiding in and both make love to each other, with Pogo emerging from it a blushing mess.
  • The end of his chapter has him take Beru to his room and promptly kick Gori out. After a few seconds, the screen turns pink and Pogo shouts "L-L-LOOOVE!"
• Super-Scream: Big Shout, a Divine type screen hitting attack that involves him yelling at the top of his lungs.
• Took a Level in Badass: A case of Gameplay and Story Integration as his chapter is all about this, explaining his starting at level 1 as an untested youth finally old enough to go on his first hunt. It doesn't take too long for Pogo to not only catch up, he'll eventually surpass Gori in just about every way by having many available attacks, can wear great equipment to boost his stats, and carries the most HP of his group. It should also be said that Pogo goes from having to work hard early in the chapter in fights to probably handling Odo, the tyrannosaur god and Odio's incarnation in this time period all by himself.
• The Unintelligible: Since he exists in a time before humans invented language. In fact, by the end of his chapter, he invents humanity's first-ever word: "Love" (or "Aieee" in the remake).
• Unskilled, but Strong: As a caveman his fighting style is primarily just hitting the enemy as hard as possible. It works very well.
• Use Your Head: To crash into the enemy head-first.
• Vague Age: His age isn't known, but his tribe leader taking him outside to teach him how to hunt is described as a coming of age ritual, so he could be anywhere from a preteen to nearing 18.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: His primary means of fighting is swinging a bone like it's a club. The large bulk of his special attacks have him swing it harder.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: He must be fought and defeated to be recruited in the final chapter... unless your protagonist is Lei. Then he joins for free, being rather smitten with her.

Earthen Heart Shifu - Imperial China

"A Kung Fu Master in Search of a Worthy Successor"

Voiced by: Hiroya Ishimaru (Japanese), Qiang Wu (English)

"I must use what time is left to me to find and train a disciple. A young protégé, as strong in body as they are in spirit... A worthy successor to my art!"

Protagonist of the Imperial China chapter, "The Successor". The only living master of Earthen Heart Kung Fu, as he feels himself drawing close to death, he descends from his dojo and seeks pupils to pass it onto. He finds three... but only one of them will carry the style onwards, and aid him with a battle against a vicious rival school.

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• All There in the Script: He is only ever referred to as the Shifu in spoken dialogue. The credits give him the name Roshi.
• Apologetic Attacker: Should he defeat an enemy in one blow, he'll reply with a remorseful "I'm sorry..."
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's a kind old man who is willing to take in young thieves to improve their lives or gather medicine for sick villagers, but is willing to declare war on the Indomitable Fist for killing two of his students.
• Boring, but Practical: The Shifu's moveset is quite standard compared to the flashy original techniques of his students, consisting of nothing more than martial arts techniques aside from a Kamehame Hadoken which will likely see little use by the fragile Shifu as it can only be activated by a counter. This does not stop the Shifu from taking down any opponent that faces him in-universe and during gameplay. The attack Heavenly Peaks Descent averts this trope as it is a very powerful and flashy technique, although the Shifu cannot use this attack in battle.
• Can't Catch Up: He starts at Level 10, but unlike his pupils, he can't level up or gain experience. Any one of them has the potential to surpass him and not only master all his techniques, but create powerful moves of their own.
• Cool Old Guy: He's even older than Sundown! And he's a lot stronger than he looks especially in early-game.
• Crutch Character: A unique example as this trope is applied to the main character rather than a new party member. The Shifu starts out at Level 10, resists five elements and will be dodging almost anything he is hit by. However, he cannot level up, has the lowest HP out of all the protagonists (including Cube who cannot level up without Robotic Enhancements) and his seven attacks can eventually be learned by all the disciples on top of them learning their own unique and more powerful attacks.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Heavenly Peaks Descent is this for him due to his age. When his students learn it however they're far less restricted.
• Dead Star Walking: Although he appears in the cover and is generally used to represent the Imperial China chapter as a whole, he'll not make it past his own chapter, and it's his surviving pupil who'll be in the Final chapter.
• Decoy Protagonist: He is the representative of the Imperial China Chapter on the cover and is playable for its majority, but he passes away at the end and doesn't get to engage in the final encounter. It's his pupil who carries the torch and is playable in the final chapter.
• Dub Name Change: One of the only protagonists to have his name changed in the remake's localization, with the character trailer showing that he went from Master of Xin Shan Quan to Earthen Heart Shifu.^* The 2022 translation originally went with "Heart of the Mountain Shifu", but this was changed during development to "Earthen Heart Shifu". "Xin Shan Quan" literally translates to "Heart Mountain Fist" in Chinese, and "Shifu" is a Chinese word that means "Master" or "Mentor".
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He's only ever referred to as Shifu in dialogue.
• Eyes Always Shut: As part of being the Old Master.
• Flash Step: In some cutscenes he shows being able to move so fast it almost looks like he's teleporting, though only in short bursts.
• Foregone Conclusion: Trailers that spoil the final part of the game will reveal either Yun, Lei or Hong as the Imperial China character, meaning that he'll die at the end of his scenario. And the beginning of the chapter even notes that he was on his last legs anyway.
• Four Is Death: After taking in the three students, his declining health means he only has enough energy to have four battles a day.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Due to his old age and having reached the peak of his potential, his level is hard-capped at 10 while his students will eventually outlevel him. He's also more of a Glass Cannon and can't take many hits, but his years of experience has him with an Evasion stat of 26, which is one of the highest out of all of the playable characters, and he often dodges what's coming to him.
  • During the attack on the Indomitable Fist's fortress, the opponents get stronger the further the stage progresses and the player will likely rely more on the disciple chosen rather than the Shifu. This reflects how his declining health and age affects his stamina as demonstrated where he can only train the students in a battle four times a day.
• Hermit Guru: At first. He lives alone in the mountains before deciding to take on pupils to carry on his art.
• The Hero Dies: At the end of the Imperial China chapter after taking down the assassins, just after declaring his surviving pupil as his successor and knowing that his martial art is in good hands.
• Inconsistent Dub: The reveal trailer gives his title as the Heart of the Mountain Shifu, but the Imperial China trailer changes it to the Earthen Heart Shifu. The game itself goes with Earthen Heart.
• In-Series Nickname: Lei would always call him "Gramps" or "Old Man" so something is seriously wrong when she acknowledges him as "Shifu". In one case she's facing Ou Di Wan Lee, in another said Shifu is dying.
• It's Personal: He goes after Ou Di Wan Lee after he kills off two of his disciples.
• The Last Dance: He knows he's dying, but it doesn't stop him from storming Ou Di Wan Lee's palace. He dies shortly after beating his last two guards.
• Leitmotif: Unto the Birds the Heavens, Unto the Fish the Seas out of battle, Clash in China in it. Applies to his students as well.
• Loved by All: Minus the bandits and everyone under the Indomitable Fist, he's welcomed warmly by the locals and it's implied he helped them out in the past.
• Martial Pacifist: Would rather perfect his art than smack down a school of punks. And then two of his students die because of said school of punks...
• Mentor Occupational Hazard:
  • He passes away at the end of the chapter after Ou Di Wan Lee is defeated.
  • An inversion happens during his chapter. Two of his students are killed in an attack on his school, motivating him and the remaining student to take Ou Di Wan Lee down.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Not obvious in sprites, but official artwork depicts him as significantly shorter than the other protagonists aside from Pogo and Cube.
• Mugging the Monster: On the delivering end. He may seem like an unassuming old man, but Lei, Hong and especially the Indomitable Fist school find out the hard way that he's still capable of kicking ass.
• Nice Guy: A kind old man who takes in three troubled youths with every intention to bring them to a better purpose in life and gives the despondent Hong Hakka and Yun Jou strong advice and encouragement.
• No Name Given: You name the style, rather than the Shifu.
• Old Master: The oldest protagonist (and one of the oldest playable characters tied with Uranus), and certainly one of the most skilled.
• One-Man Army: If Hong is the successor, he rips through most of the Indomitable Fist dojo by his lonesome.
• Peaceful in Death: Dies after avenging the deaths of two of his pupils and passing on his title as Shifu to the surviving pupil, happy that his martial art will survive through the generations.
• Power Copying: He can induce this to his pupils.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After two of his students die, the Shifu decides to wreck the Indomitable Fist dojo for vengeance. The surviving student catches on and follows him. He succeeds and dies at peace.
• Speed Blitz: His ultimate technique, Heavenly Peaks Descent, has him moving so fast it's like he's four people at once while delivering Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs. Unfortunately, due to his advanced age, it's very dangerous for him. His successor has no such restriction, being able to spam it rapid-fire. While not as powerful as other ultimate techniques, it has none of their downsides (long charge time and low accuracy for Sundown's Hurricane, self debuffs for Pogo's Bing Bang Boom).
• Surpassed the Teacher: His goal and what each of his disciples eventually do, the last of them even personally defeating Ou Di Wan Lee and then splitting the boulder he was unable to.
• This Means War!: His reaction when Ou Di Wan Lee's thugs attack his school and kill two of his students.
  Shifu: There will be a reckoning. The Indomitable Fist will answer for their deeds this day!
• Together in Death: Platonic example. After the death of two of his students, he joins them in the afterlife at the end of the chapter.
• Training from Hell: His primary method of passing down his skills appears to be manhandling his students with the desired technique until they reverse-engineer it. Even if he demonstrates them off-screen, this is still a pretty brutal teaching method. Later downplayed as the training montage demonstrates the Shifu doing more traditional training methods for the three students.
• The Unfought: The Shifu is the only protagonist who cannot be fought in any capacity due to not appearing in the Final Chapter because of his death. Because he does not fight the chapter boss either, this includes the Final Chapter if Oersted is the chosen protagonist.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: What he passes down to each of his students. For Yun it's that he's not weak and has great potential. For Lei it's that she has a kind heart despite her aloof nature. And for Hong it's that his body is nothing to be ashamed of.

Lei Kugo - Imperial China

"A Bandit Outcast of the Forest"

Voiced by: Reina Ueda (Japanese), Suzie Yeung (English)

"Fine, I accept! Let's see what's so great about your kung fu!"

Possible inheritor of the Earthen Heart style, and possibly the sole female protagonist of the game. A bandit living in the forest, and an overall impulsive girl constantly looking for a fight.

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• Action Girl: The only female character who can potentially be the main character of her story, and an energetic fighter.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: A downplayed version in the remake dub. She refers to the Shifu by his proper title a little more often, though only in dire circumstances. Namely, facing down Ou Di Wan Lee, and when she first realizes the Shifu is mortally injured.
• Anime Chinese Girl: She's got the braids and the dress, though not the accent.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: She's recruited by the Shifu defeating her and she's even introduced as "Cocky Bandit." If she's chosen as the successor, she mellows out (though her speech to Oersted has her admit that she still has a lot of growing to do).
• Badass Adorable: A gorgeous young fighter who laughs warmly at being called a 'girl' by Yun and Hong and can potentially be the one to defeat Sin of Odio once and for all.
• Braids of Action: Wears her long hair in a braid, indicating her warrior nature.
• The Cavalry: Averts this out of the three disciples. If Hong or Yun was chosen as the disciple, they back up the Shifu to avenge the other two disciples who died by breaking into the Indomitable Fist Fortress at different times depending on who was chosen. If Lei was chosen, she shows up before the Shifu gets to the fortress and sticks with him for all the battles.
• Character Development: Lei goes from trying to mug the Shifu to screaming and crying over his body and swearing to carry on his teachings for him and for her fallen peers.
• Defeat Means Friendship: The Shifu has to defeat her to make her follow him, and she has to be beaten, no question, to join the final party.
• Devious Daggers: Due to hiding out in a bamboo forest, she starts with a billhook knife.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: She hates being taken pity upon. She initially takes the Shifu's offer of training poorly after he beats her, telling him to piss off before reconsidering. When she collapses during training she also brushes off help until Hong offers out of respect for a lady.
• Dragons Are Divine: Her learned skill "Sacred Dragon's Temper" is a Holy-element attack which summons several dragons made of light to tear up the entire battlefield, ending with a giant one erupting from the ground.
• Fainting: She collapses multiple times from fighting and overexerting herself, most notably when Shifu leaves his room late at night and finds her passed out cold on the floor along with Hong. It all pays off if she becomes the Successor.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The Thief of the Shifu's three pupils; her Speed stat is unrivaled among all other characters in the game, and her move set mainly revolves around her keeping her distance from her foes and attacking quickly. It also helps that Lei is a bandit, so she naturally fits into this role.
• Good Is Not Nice: She starts off this way, but develops into a much kinder person over time, as the Shifu notes.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: She has a cross-shaped one on her face, and while she's definitely a rowdy girl on the outside, she's a good girl inside.
• Heal Thyself: One of her later moves, Roaring Tiger's Boon, heals her and grants her a few stat-rising buffs.
• Humanizing Tears: When the Shifu dies, it's one of the few times Lei cries and showcases that she has a warm heart just like what the Shifu said, despite being a rowdy girl.
  Lei: Shifu? SHIFU!!!!
• It's All My Fault: She says this word for word if she survives the Indomitable Fist attack and the Shifu refuses to let Lei go with him to get revenge on Ou Di Wan Lee.
  Lei: It's my fault, don't you get it? It's all my fault... Hong and Yun died because of me! I'm to blame! Before I could stop them, they charged ahead... They tried to hold off the Indomitable Fist... Tried to protect me, but they...
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She seems abrasive and insensitive, not to mention she tries to steal from an old man, but quickly reveals that she is truly a kind person the more time that she and her fellow students spend with said old man. She speaks in a tone showing she's on the verge of tears should the Shifu refuse to let Lei come with her due to her believing she's the reason Hong and Yun are dead, and sobs hysterically over the Shifu's death and finally acknowledges him as her master.
• Lightning Bruiser: Among the successors, she's the fastest of the group (she'll actually max out her speed stat around level 16), with good strength and decent defense. She's lacking in elemental attacks, but has a good variety of physical attributes that can inflict status effects.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: With Yun and Hong. Ou Di Wan Lee and his goons attack the Shifu's pupils, and only one of them can survive. Whoever lives carries the Earthen Heart torch through the back half of the Imperial China Chapter and the entirety of the final chapter. Exaggerated slightly with her; the game will favor her over Yun, but Hong over her.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Is the Mean to Yun's Nice and Hong/Sammo's In-Between, being the most abrasive and aggressive student of the three. Fortunately, Lei develops from this but still has a fiery personality which she admits herself.
• "Not So Different" Remark: When picked as the finale protagonist, she will remark that Oersted reminds her of her past self.
  Hurts to say it... But you remind me of me. The old me... I saw what others had and hated them for it. Wondered why they deserved so much and I so little. But I had it all wrong. Most of them hadn't gotten where they are just by asking for it. And what little they'd done was only a fraction of what they'd tried to achieve. That's just how it goes. We don't always get what we want. Sometimes what we wanted was never ours to take. And sometimes all we can do is try to be better. Do the best you can and hope that it's enough in the end! Maybe that doesn't make much sense, but...but... I've made a lot of mistakes. Still do from time to time.
• Please Wake Up: Her sorrowful yell when The Shifu dies has this vibe.
• Red Is Heroic: She wears red pants in her artwork, although her sprite in-game is wearing black ones.
• Reformed Criminal: Lei quits being a bandit after becoming Shifu's student to ostensibly still his techniques before robbing him of his possessions. But she's never seen robbing anyone again.
• Say My Name: She screams tearfully for her shifu when he passes. Take note that she specifically cries "Shifu!" and not "Old Man" like she usually does.
• Skyward Scream: She falls to her knees and cries "Shifu!" to the heavens when at last the Shifu dies. Particularly because this is one of the few times she calls him "Shifu".
• The Smurfette Principle: She's the only woman in the main playable cast, but the usual trends of the trope are largely averted — she can just as easily end up dead, when not chosen as the star pupil, and the game doesn't treat her any differently than the others.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Marketing for the remake leans into Lei's popularity, since she was the first one shown in the reveal trailer and is more frequently emphasized in the subsequent trailers. This includes her being shown fighting Ou Di Wan Lee.
• The Starscream: Planned to be this while as Shifu's student to learn his secrets for personal gain. She eventually decides to forget this.
• Statuesque Stunner: Zigzagged. A promotional art featuring all of the protagonists shows that she's the tallest of the Disciples. While her in-game sprite in the remake depicts Hong as the tallest, Lei is still depicted quite tall when compared to the other protagonists.
• Tomboy: Lei speaks very roughly, and is genuinely surprised when she's called a "lady" by Yun and Hong.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Out of the two playable women, she's the rowdy head-strong martial-arts using tomboy to Beru's passive healing girly girl.
• Took a Level in Kindness: She goes from a rowdy and impulsive thief to a kind and helpful young master of the Earthen Heart martial arts.
• Tsundere: Unlike Hong and Yun, she accepts the Shifu's training begrudgingly and is rough with accepting her fellow students and master. Their deaths break her heart and her master's death makes her scream her heart out.
• Weak, but Skilled: Played with compared to the other two disciples. Lei learns the fewest High or Massive damage skills between herself, Yun, and Hong with only having Sacred Dragon's Temper and Heavenly Peaks Descent (the latter which all three learn anyway) respectively. However, Lei has a respectable Attack and Special Attack stat and very high speed and those two attacks are likely all she needs as Sacred Dragon's Temper is a powerful Area of Effect attack while Heavenly Peaks Descent is a Massive damaging attack with good range, no charge time and no debuff after using the attack.
• Would Harm a Senior: Makes it clear in her introduction that she has no qualms about mugging an old man for his valuables. Unfortunately for her, she bites off a little more than she can chew with the Shifu.
• "X" Marks the Hero: She has an X-shaped scar on the left side of her cheek.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: She abrasively calls the Shifu "old man", so when Lei acknowledges him properly as Shifu it's a sign the situation is dire. As she faces Ou Di Wan Li with the power of Heavenly Peaks Descent, it shows how much she truly respects what he has done for her. When the fight's over and the Shifu is exhausted near death, she rushes to him as he collapses and calls out to him more respectfully. Once he passes away in front of her and she breaks down in tears and screams "Shifu!" to the heavens, the weight of the situation and the loss is made apparent for the players to understand that she truly loved him as a mentor and grandfather figure.

Hong Hakka (Sammo Hakka) - Imperial China

"An Agile Thief with a Voracious Appetite"

Voiced by: Yuu Mizushima (Japanese), Eric Yang (English)

"You think I have potential?"

Possible inheritor of the Earthen Heart style. A portly bum who spends most of his time dining and dashing... which has given him incredible reflexes.

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• Acrofatic: Not initially, but just by being the Earthen Heart inheritor at the end. The Shifu took him in while impressed by his skill at running, stating that he moves with the speed of a man half of his size.
• Alliterative Name: Hong Hakka in the remake.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Hong lived a life of being ridiculed for his fatness and how he's hated for dine-dashing because he's always hungry and thanks to his fatness, no one would give him a damn (compared to Yun who had his grandma, or Lei who lived in the forest away from human settlement, Hong had no one and had to constantly live with the humans that shunned him). This is his counterpoint to Oersted if he's the successor; he learned to endure all the ostracization given to him and never acted on his thoughts of paying back with more hatred, which was exactly what Oersted did after he became Odio.
• And This Is for...: Hong dedicates his first use of the Heavenly Peaks Descent to Lei and Yun, who died in the Indomitable Fist's attack. Whenever it's used ingame, he dedicates it to the Shifu.
• Appearance Angst: Hong is embarassed by his portly physique as it's a constant source of mockery, leaving him penniless and jobless as he's too busy trying to feed himself to ply a trade. Shifu tries to disabuse Hong of this angst, remarking that it is a gift that makes him wonderful and unique. Under Shifu's tutelage and provided that he survives the story, Hong learns to be Fat and Proud.
• Be Yourself: Shifu's lesson to him is to accept his body and skills as something to embrace and to have faith in himself.
  Shifu: Hong, never be afraid of who you are. Have faith in yourself. Let none deny your worth.
• Big Eater: So much that you have to feed him in the final chapter to get him to join. The trailer for the remake says he has a "voracious appetite".
• Defeat Means Friendship: Optionally. The Shifu can beat him up for dine-and-dashing before recruiting him as a student.
• Dine and Dash: He's introduced doing this, and it's apparently not the first time.
• Dub Name Change: In the international release he's called Hong Hakka instead of Sammo, likely to downplay his obvious homage. The homage still exists for keen ones though: Hong is basically changing the vowel of the surname of Sammo Hung, or one of his original, non-international name, Hong Jinbao.
• Dynamic Entry: His entrance for the assault on the Indomitable Fist School is him punching his way through a stone wall.
• Edible Theme Naming: Fitting for his appetite, most of his base moves are named after food.
• Establishing Character Moment: His dine-dashing incident in the market has him dodge Hoi's attacks with ease, while clumsily ramming into everything.
• Eyes Always Shut: Only ever seen with his eyes open in Yoshihide Fujiwara's original illustrations of him, where he is drawn with red eyes.
• Fat and Proud: Character Development takes him from being embarrassed at his weight to being proud of it, thanks to his Shifu, provided that he survives the scenario.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The Fighter of the Shifu's three pupils; Hong's stats are built for him to be a physical tank, and most of his move set mainly involves around him fighting enemies up close.
• Fixed Damage Attack: His "Pork's Second Cooking" attack does a randomly-calculated amount of damage that if it lands, always deals a flat amount while ignoring all defenses.
• Kevlard: Hong is the fattest and biggest of Shifu's disciples. He also has the most physically oriented stat-spread of them, including the highest physical defense.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: If selected as the protagonist of the Dominion of Hate, the point of his speech to Oersted takes the latter aback by how simple, yet earnest it is.
  Hong: "I've been judged... Mocked by men... I thought about doing the same. Hurting them. Hurting others. But... I couldn't. I know that pain. Others shouldn't."
• Late Character Syndrome: In the Imperial China chapter, each surviving student rejoins at a different portion of the second half. Lei joins before the Shifu even arrives at the Indomitable Fist Fortress, Yun joins for the second scripted battle (while also taking out half of its enemies before the fight), but Hong doesn't join until the table fight, which is the last scripted battle before the gauntlet of mini-bosses that ends the chapter. His high starting level means that he won't exactly be far behind, but it's still a noticeable experience disadvantage compared to the number of encounters the others get.
• Mighty Glacier: Hong's speed is pathetic, but between his tremendous health, defense, and physical power, it doesn't bother him much. This goes into Gameplay and Story Segregation where his introduction scene is dodging the restaurant owner that he dine-dashed implying that he's got speed; although considering the animation of the ultimate technique of Earthen Heart require tons of crazy fast movement animation-wise, perhaps he does have speed when it counts or he is only slow in comparison to the other playable characters.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: With Lei and Yun. Ou Di Wan Lee and his goons attack the Shifu's pupils, and only one of them can survive. Whoever lives carries the Earthen Heart torch through the back half of the Imperial China Chapter and the entirety of the final chapter.
• Nice Guy: Generally polite even though he dine-dashes on a regular basis, and treats Lei with respect.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Is the In-Between to Yun's Nice and Lei's Mean but definitely leans more towards the Nice end. He can be greedy and is not afraid to start a fight when confronted for his dine-and-dashing. However, this was because he had no choice and would rather run than get into a confrontation, nor does he use his size and strength to terrorize people for free food. He is also respectful of Lei and generally a nice person.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: With a fat stature like that and that name, he is definitely based on Sammo Hung.
• Non-Elemental: Hong's signature "Pork's Second Cooking" attack, which deals completely random damage, is one of very few moves any of the primary playable characters can use that has the "Void" damage type, and is mutually exclusive with one of them. Despite the name, it functions more as this trope in practice.
• Not Me This Time: When the restaurant owner comes back to the Shifu's dojo to request his help against the Indomitable Fist disciples, Hong is at first frightened because he thinks the owner is accusing him for dine-dashing again. The owner agrees on that.
• Ocular Gushers: When the Shifu dies, Hong's tears really flow, rivaling that of any Watanabe incarnation.
• Playing Possum: If he's the survivor, he states that he pretended to play dead from the Indomitable Fist students.
• Reformed Criminal: Becoming Shifu's student gives him purpose and a goal to strive for along with enough food to give up his dine-and-dashing ways.
• Story Branch Favoritism: It's actually possible to give an equally fair attention to all students until the moment where two student dies. If this happens, the game will favor Hong as the survivor (Lei would be the most favored only if Hong is neglected but she has equal attention with Yun). Additionally, Hong being chosen is the only way to see the Watanabe scene in the Imperial China chapter.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: In the original, Hong takes his vest off during battle. No longer the case in the remake, though.
• Weight Woe: In the beginning, he felt greatly ashamed of his weight, seeing it as a curse due to how he constantly needs to eat a lot to keep it sated and how people pick on him for being overweight. His Character Development has the Shifu teach him to not be ashamed of his body, but embrace it and the skills he has, and have faith in himself. Should he live long enough to become the new Shifu, he'll grow out of his shame and become Fat and Proud.

Yun Jou - Imperial China

"A Kind-hearted Young Pickpocket"

Voiced by: Hiro Shimono (Japanese), Alex Mai (English)

"How can you say that? I stole your money..."

Possible inheritor of the Earthen Heart style. A Street Urchin forced into thievery thanks to a gang leader, but is actually a rather shy and compassionate boy.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Shifu initially turns Yun away because he believes that Yun would grow stronger regardless of whether or not he teaches him. But Yun shows up again on the way to Shifu's home before getting down on his knees and begging to become Shifu's student. If Yun is declined every single time, he sits in front of the Shifu's home and refuses to let him enter unless he takes him in as a student.
• Armored But Frail: Yun's Special Defense is quite high which helps defend him against magic attacks. However, his Physical Defense and HP is low.
• Badasses Wear Bandanas: His brown hair is covered by a purple bandana at all times. While he's unsure of himself for much of the story, Shifu senses great potential in Yun to become a worthy successor.
• Cowardly Lion: He has great potential as a martial artist but lacks confidence and is frequently unsure of himself. Shifu's lessons to him are as much about helping Yun harness his inner courage as it is about getting stronger. Should he survive the Indomitable Fist's attack, Yun can be found huddled in the corner of Shifu's home, terrified and ashamed of hiding while his fellow disciples fought to their last breaths. But when Shifu leaves to fight the Indomitable Fist, Yun makes his entrance in the last leg of the chapter by instantly defeating four men with one kick each. Yun then finishes off Ou Di Wan Li by himself after helping Shifu fight his way through hordes of martial artists and trained tigers.
• Cowardly Yellow: His outfit is primarily yellow and he's the least confident and most skittish of the three disciples. But he's also a Cowardly Lion with great inner courage he just needs to learn to harness. Should he be the favored disciple, he survives the Indomitable Fist's atttack by hiding while Lei and Hong fight and expects to be cast out for his cowardice.
• Difficult, but Awesome: His Level 14 move, Tempest's Torment, is even stronger than his final technique but it is the longest technique to charge in the game. As long as Yun isn't interrupted or gets KO'd due to lower health, the damage he pushes out will likely OHKO the enemy in furious punches.
• Establishing Character Moment: He first appears stealing from the Shifu's wallet before being pressed by Sun Tzu Wang and his gang. When Sun Tzu Wang orders Yun to steal from his own grandmother, he hesitates before refusing to do as this bully says. This proves that even though he's pressured to do bad, and how nervous he is, he will stand up against evil.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The Mage of the Shifu's three pupils; Yun's IQ stat is the highest, and his moveset mainly revolves around casting magic spells.
• Forced into Evil: Yun is so desperate to support his grandmother that he starts pickpocketing people on behalf of Sun Tzu Wang. He clearly hates what he's doing but feels he has no choice lest he gets a beating from Sun Tzu Wang or his family starves. He finally manages to work up the courage to tell Sun Tzu Wang off when he's ordered to steal from his own grandmother, but it's not until Shifu beats up the gang that Yun has a chance to turn his life around.
• Grew a Spine: His Establishing Character Moment has him stand up to Sun Tzu Wang despite how nervous he is, deciding that he won't steal money or anything else from the elderly ever again.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: He believes that he lacks innate talents like Lei's agility or Hong's strength, so he trains even harder than them to make up for his perceived weakness. One cutscene shows him practicing well into the night when his fellow disciples are sleeping on the floor from exhaustion. Despite this, he will still die fighting the Indomitable Fist if he's not the favored disciple. Subverted should he survive, as his Magikarp Power potentially makes him the strongest of the three.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: He calls himself a weakling and believes he Can't Catch Up to either Lei or Hong. Take note that he's doing this while absolutely kicking ass.
• It's All My Fault: If he was the survivor, he blames himself for hiding away as the Indomitable Fist students killed Lei and Hong and thinks that this makes him unworthy.
  Yun: Please forgive me, shifu. It's all my fault. Disciples of the Indomitable Fist came. Angry, violent men. Lei and Hong tried to fight them off but... I... was too scared. And now they're both dead... Because of my cowardice. It's all my fault!
• Kiai: In the Japanese dub, he will sometimes shout "ATATATATA!" while performing the Heavenly Peaks Descent, a clear Shout-Out to both Bruce Lee and Kenshiro.
• Kid Hero: Yun is continually referred to as a "young man" and is still living with his grandmother when the story begins. Art from the remake depicts him as being about the same height as Shifu, a Miniature Senior Citizen, implying that Yun is significantly younger than Lei or Hong. Despite this, he's more than capable of kicking ass as well as any adult with Shifu's guidance. Depending on who is the favored disciple, he either dies defending himself from the Indomitable Fist or becomes the new Earthen Heart Master who helps save the world and passes on Shifu's art to the next generation.
• Magikarp Power: He starts out the weakest of the three possible apprentices, and knows the least moves. However, this also means that he has less to unlearn, and becomes a powerful Magic Knight if properly focused on. Not only that, he uses the Heavenly Peaks Descent the best among the three along with having the strongest attacks in terms of raw power.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: With Lei and Hong. Ou Di Wan Lee and his goons attack the Shifu's pupils, and only one of them can survive. Whoever lives carries the Earthen Heart torch through the back half of the Imperial China Chapter and the entirety of the final chapter.
• Nice Guy: He's so nice that he won't even ask for anything to join your team in the final chapter, unlike Lei (who you have to fight) or Hong (who you have to feed).
• Nice Mean And In Between: Easily the Nice to Lei's Mean and Hong/Sammo's In-Between. Even as a thief, Yun is always a polite and kindhearted boy who only stole because he was forced to so that he can support his grandmother. In the Final Chapter if he becomes the Shifu but not the protagonist, Yun does not ask for anything in exchange and joins the party on the spot compared to Lei who you need to fight and Hong/Sammo who needs food.
• Non-Elemental: Yun is one of few primary playable characters to have an attack which has Void as its element, in the form of Whirlwind's Dismay. As stated previously, despite what it may imply, Void is essentially non elemental damage. Because Hong's "Pork's Second Cooking" attack deals fixed amounts of damage rather than be calculated by a standard damage formula, Yun is the only one who can use the Void element for standard damage. This is worth noting due to being mutually exclusive with one of the other characters who can access the Void element, Hong. If Oersted was chosen as the protagonist for the Dominion of Hate and Lei is the surviving disciple, the Gamahebi and OD-10 is the only way to access the Void element.
• The Pig-Pen: Design-wise only. The 1994 character artwork of Yun depicts his cheeks and clothes stained with mud and dirt, possibly reflecting him being a poor pickpocket who is barely getting by. The other artworks of Yun omit this feature.
• Raised by Grandparents: Yun was raised by his grandmother after his parents passed away when he was young. Although she tried her best, her declining health meant that she wasn't able to provide for all his needs. This led Yun to become a pickpocket in an attempt to support her.
• Reformed Criminal: He was Forced into Evil by his desperation to support himself and his ailing grandmother. But after being taken under Shifu's wing, Yun gives up his pickpocketing ways for good.
• Shrinking Violet: A male example. There's a scene where he complains that he's not as good as Lei or Hong... as he's beating his way through Ou Di's goons.
• Squishy Wizard: Yun's move set mainly revolves around magic, and most of his stats (especially his IQ) are high, but his health is puny, at first.
• Story Branch Favoritism: Of the three disciples, Yun tends to get the most focus in the cutscenes prior to two of the disciples being killed. The Shifu specifically notes he has the greatest potential of the three disciples, the game makes a point of showing how hard he's training to keep up with the others, and he's the only one of the Disciples to have a prior beef with the Indomitable Fist school, as the bandits that forced him into thievery enrolled there. This isn't even going into his Magikarp Power in regards to the other two Disciples. The denouement, however, leaves this up in the air, as Lei has the longest, most detailed cooldown speech with Oersted, which reflects their similarities and drives how the two had to make a similar choice in their pasts while Hong is the disciple that is favored if all students received equal training and is the disciple needed to see the Watanabe cutscene in the chapter. The remake's larger marketing focus on Lei and her buffs to gameplay letting her start strong and end stronger, without needing to suffer through Yun's early issues with growth, further muddies the waters, as does Lei's stronger affection for the Shifu.
• Token Good Teammate: Heavily downplayed as all the Earthen Heart students develop but pre-Character Development, Yun is the only one out of the three with no malicious or selfish intentions behind what he did. Lei was a thief who regularly stole from people and Hong dine-and-dashed frequently (although downplayed as he mentioned he would like to work but he did not have any skills to offer), Yun only stole because he was forced to by Sun Tzu Wang and needed to support himself and his sick grandmother.
• The Unfought: Is the only thief who upon encountering the Shifu, can't be battled since he was Forced into Evil and chooses not to fight back. He can remain this if not battled by the Shifu as part of his lessons all the way until his death. If he makes it to the Final Chapter, he joins the heroes free of charge instead of being fed like Hong or fought like Lei.
• Weak to Fire: Inverted. Yun naturally resists Fire elemental attacks in the remake but he also has high Special Defense, letting him take fire attacks significantly better than other attacks despite his low HP.

Oboromaru - Twilight of Edo Japan

"A Humble Prodigy Who Keeps to the Shadows"

Voiced by: Tomohisa Hashizume (Japanese), Stephen Fu (English)

"One day, the sun shall rise. One day, we will greet a new dawn."

Protagonist of the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter, "The Infiltrator". An untested ninja, he's sent into the castle of a tyrannical daimyo on a secret mission: to rescue a valuable person and prevent Japan from falling into constant warfare. How he does so is up to him, either keeping to the shadows or painting the walls with blood.

---

• Are You Sure You Want to Do That?: Attempting to leave the castle without the Prisoner and thus aborting the mission will have Oboromaru ask himself three times if he wants to betray his clan and risk getting hunted down.
• Anime Hair: Courtesy of Goshow Aoyama. Oboromaru actually looks a bit like Shimamura Joe in his official artwork◊, in fact.
• Anti-Hero: Oboromaru is the most ruthless of the seven protagonists, not counting Oersted who ends up being the Villain Protagonist, although this is largely dependent on player's actions. He used to think of killing for the order as a rightful thing to do, although he changed his ways into thinking that killing people for the wrong reasons is not. Regardless of this, Oboromaru is perfectly capable of going on a pacifist run, but is not above slaying his enemies either, if only when he counts his kills.
• Been There, Shaped History: Well, alternate history. If he joins Ryoma as his bodyguard, he thwarts what would've been his assassination.
• But Thou Must!: If he frees the Prisoner and thus fulfilled his mission, attempting to bolt straight out of the castle with him has the Prisoner refuse to leave until they meet Ode Iou, so he has to fight him no matter what happens.
• Calling Your Attacks: Will call the names of his casted jitsu at times, although it's downplayed in the English dub.
• Geo Effects: His specialties among the cast are his elemental attacks and covering the field in elemental panels, helped by a lot of his unique equipment allowing him and his party members to absorb said elements to recover health.
• Glass Cannon: Oboromaru is fast and attacks very well at range, and his chapter involves him running around very quickly. However, he can't take many hits even against his own enemies.
• Hero Secret Service: If he chooses to follow Ryoma Sakamoto at the end of his chapter, the final credits show Oboromaru fighting off an assassin who intended to kill Ryoma.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: He can avoid certain battles by answering with the correct password, the guard asking it assumes he's one of Ode Iou's ninjas and lets him pass.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Subverted. While he wears gold clothing with a red scarf and has a wild mane of bright purple hair, he can also easily turn invisible to evade detection or just claim to be one of Ode Iou's ninjas with the right password.
• Invisibility Cloak: Is given one just before the start of his chapter, alongside two extras for his party members.
• Karmic Jackpot:
  • If he hadn't killed any women (provided they weren't dead already like Yodogimi), he'll be rewarded by a maid for his kindness before meeting Ode Iou with a Maid's Obi and a Lacquered Medicine Box if he waits for the maid to rectify her mistake.
  • If he manages to reach a late-chapter Minister with no kills, he's impressed by his kindness and gives him 10 castella cakes.
• Katanas Are Just Better: His weapons. Depending on how you finish his story, you can even get a really nifty one too!
• Leitmotif: Shadowed Duty out of battle, To Arms! in it.
• Magic Knight: He has some physical techniques in his kit, but the rest of it is elemental jutsu.
• Mistaken for Quake: In the remake, Oboromaru expresses concern that an earthquake has begun as Odio is powering up to summon Sin of Odio. Akira is able to sense the hatred and darkness being drawn to him, so he is quickly proven wrong.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He comes to this realization at some point regarding the fact that he possibly slaughtered everyone in Ode Iou's castle. This becomes more pronounced in the remake's ending of his chapter, with clouds forming under a clear morning sky, depending on how many people you killed, and a dark thunderstorm starting, completely blocking the sun, if you went full genocide and killed everybody in the castle.
• Nerf: In the remake, Oboromaru loses the ability to run fast in the overworld. This means he will have trouble outrunning some of the enemies in his chapter, particularly the ninja in one of the attics who has significantly faster running speed compared to his own. Slightly downplayed as said ninja can easily be escaped from during battle.
• Ninja: Has a number of the associated supernatural powers and fights with a short sword and shuriken.
• Not So Above It All:
  • He can join in on the antics of a Dirty Old Man spinning a geisha around, the latter actually enjoys it. If he kills the geisha and takes her place being spun around 10 times outside of battle or just through experience otherwise, he learns "Demented Spin" based on this incident.
  • After overhearing a group of guards go over the password system, one accidentally blurts out "Potato" and is immediately taken away. "Potato" then becomes his go-to option to deliberately fail a password check to start fights.
• One-Hit Kill: One of his skills, Deepest Dark, has a chance to inflict petrification, which does this. It's one of only three skills the player can gain access to that do this, the others being Chick Shot from the Showa Chick Launcher, and Akira's final skill, Judgement Day.
• Pacifist Run: Can opt to do so in his scenario. Doing so will impress the Prisoner and convince him to give him his family katana.
• Playing with Fire: He starts out with a move that spawns fire tiles and learns Flame Arts later on.
• Pretty Boy: Although not to the extent of Akira, his hairstyle, facial and body structure make him pretty attractive.
• Resignations Not Accepted: Aborting the mission will result in his clan hunting him down. Even if they can't kill him, Hayate will. Averted if Oboromaru chooses to follow Ryoma Sakamoto as his bodyguard, as he had fulfilled his mission and it's likely the Enma let him continue safeguarding Japan's future.
• Rule of Symbolism: During his chapter's ending in the remake clouds form, the amount depending on how many people he has killed, clearly representing the blemishes on his conscience for commiting murder. If he went the genocide route and killed everyone in Ode's castle the clouds form a dark thunderstorm which completely blocks the morning sun, implying Oboro doesn't feel quite so good about his actions.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: The remake considers this as what separates him from Oersted by choosing instead to actually think about what he's doing instead of just blindly following orders without considering the consequences and believing that choosing to show mercy is better than arrogantly changing the world through slaughter.
  "Once, I would have obeyed orders without question. Taken a man's life without regard for the reason. But no longer. We who wield the power of life and death... wield not the power to shape the world and its people as we see fit. And though there is great risk, there is great reward to be found in trust and mercy. Ryoma shared with me this wisdom, and the sorrow that follows if it is ignored. That a blade unsheathed must draw blood."
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He can just abruptly quit his mission and go away, but in the process, he would be branded a traitor and marked for death via a rather impossibly difficult battle (it's still doable, but it's still counted as a game over; Hayate swore that Oboromaru will die, even if it kills him).
• Skilled, but Naive: Oboromaru is a very skilled ninja with a lot of potential but the Enma Ninja Clan believes that he is not ready for the mission as he is an untested ninja who has not completed his training.
• Technical Pacifist: While one can play his chapter as a pacifist and avoid fighting, he will inevitably duke it out against Ode Iou and kill him, although the fact the latter is a demon makes this more justified. Arguably less justified is how he takes out the monk guards in a pacifistic manner, with the Mimic Mammet blowing them up after being scared of some mice. Although, from a technical and in-universe perspective he never expected that to happen...
• Token Evil Teammate: Out of all the heroes aside from Oersted who becomes the evil the heroes must fight, Oboromaru is the only one who can kill humans in his chapter without just cause. Zigzagged as whether he kills or not is decided by the player's choice.
• Vocal Dissonance: The Japanese vocal track in the remake gives Oboromaru a surprisingly deep voice.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: His mission is to get to Ode Iou without killing a single human. Ghosts, yokai and demons are fair game, though, and killing them is practically necessary to gather the strength needed to beat Ode. Even Ode himself turns out to be a demon, giving Oboromaru full clearance to just kill him.

The Sundown Kid - Wild West

"A Vagabond with a Bounty on His Head"

Voiced by: Akio Ōtsuka (Japanese), Reagan Murdock (English)

"It's been a long, long time... since I had the chance to do something good and decent."

Protagonist of the Wild West chapter, "The Wanderer". Once a prodigious gunslinger, one of his duels involved a group of outlaws, and soon what followed cost him his very hometown and everyone he held dear to their wrath. Because of this, he put a bounty on his head and vanished, looking for death to make amends for the grave tragedy he accidentally caused, except no one was able to take that bounty. He stops by a village, saves them from the wrath of a bandit gang, and slowly opens up, being reminded of what it's like to protect the innocent.

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• Adaptational Heroism: The remake states that he was actually a lawbringer rather than just a gunslinger.
• The Aloner: Part of his Character Development. Sundown used to avoid companionship and became a lone Death Seeker out of guilt. In the Final Chapter, he actively avoids your party until he's pestered enough. By the end of it and especially if he's picked as a protagonist, he reveals that he has started longing for companionship again, to avert the trope. The Golden Ending if Mad Dog was spared heavily implies that they now travel together as friends.
• Badass Normal: Arguably the most mundane of the protagonists alongside Masaru who can conjure tornados and smash the ground in a spectacular fashion - all that's he got to himself is a gun and the skills to hit his targets with it. But he can do it well enough to put up a fight against an entire gang of bandits or the very incarnation of hatred and win with some outside help.
• Bilingual Dialogue: It's heavily implied in the remake that he understands Spanish, given that the mariachi band speaks Spanish, but their text dialogue is translated.
• Boring, but Practical: A weird example in that he's not considered outright one of the best characters in the final chapter, due to being a Glass Cannon and never really developing out of that role, but people often pick him as the protagonist due to him being the hardest of the heroes to recruit, so picking him first negates having to go through the process of getting him later. It's made much better in the remake, as the amount of places he's in was significantly lessened and reduced more to areas that player will likely be able to find on their own, thus making choosing a different starting character if you still want him in your party not as big of a deal.
• Bottomless Magazines: He never seems to run out of bullets.
• *Click* Hello: If pestered enough in the Final Chapter, he angrily confronts the party outside of Lucrece Castle with his gun drawn because they were persistently chasing him, but will listen and join the party.
• Cool Old Guy: He's the oldest character in the final chapter since the old Earthen Heart Shifu will die at the end of his scenario, but that doesn't affect his ability to put up a fight alongside the younger protagonists.
• Death Seeker: He was initially a cocky gunslinger who made a name for himself, which ultimately caused a gang of outlaws to challenge him. This ended up leaving his hometown in ruins, with everybody he knew dead. It was because of this that he put the bounty on his head in the first place. Fortunately, he grows out of this mindset by the end of his chapter.
• Difficult, but Awesome: His ultimate technique, Hurricane, has a very long charge time, but it's one of, if not the most powerful attacks in the game. Its charge time means it can be difficult to get off against an enemy that has abilities that can interrupt attacks, but if you do get it off, it'll probably kill said enemy.
• The Drifter: He wanders from place to place, restlessly looking for people in need of help. And secretly looking for someone to kill him, until he eventually changed his mind. If you don't choose him as the main character for the final dungeon, you'll have to chase him down before he finally gives in.
• Eagleland: The only American in the final party and represents Type 1. After all, before the tragedy, he made his Wild West town prosper.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Goes from a vagrant loner to finding True Companions from beyond time in order to save reality itself and finally finds a reason to live again. And depending on your choices, he and Mad Dog part on equal terms or travel together in the remake.
• The Expy With No Name: The Expy of Clint Eastwood's nameless protagonist in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy. He's The Stoic, The Drifter, and a poncho-wearing gunslinger.
• Eye-Obscuring Hat: His large-brimmed hat obscures about half his face in his sprites, and is never seen in full. He removes his hat in tragic scenes, such as if he kills Oersted and winds up condemning the heroes to Lucrece forever, or in late respects to Mad Dog if he was killed.
• Fastest Gun in the West: He was once considered a legendary lawman unmatched as a gunslinger, and decades later no one was capable of claiming his bounty.
• Glass Cannon: Sundown has a very low HP score, but some of his techniques can often cause 999 damage.
• Good Feels Good: By the end of his chapter, he remembers how good it feels to help those in need.
• The Gunslinger: In the Clint Eastwood style.
• Ineffectual Loner: His personal arc has him go from a bitter loner seeking solitude and death to rediscovering the value of having companions and people to care about.
  (to Oersted) "I've been on my own for a while now. Left it all behind. My life. My people. But as the nights've added up... All that time out there in the cold and the dark... I've come to miss the warmth of good company. And a home to hang your hat..."
• Ironic Name: Sundown "Kid". He's the oldest of the main characters. At least of the ones to survive until the final chapter.
• Lactose over Liquor: Pike insults Sundown by making him drink milk instead of alcohol. The player can let him either drink a glass or throw it back Pike's way, though he has to refuse it eventually.
• Leitmotif: Wanderer out of battle, The Wilds in it.
• Long-Range Fighter: His attacks have impressive range as he was meant to shoot from a distance.
• Magikarp Power: Sundown starts out quite weak in the Dominion of Hate, with only four techs, a counter, learns the least moves out of the protagonists due to his high starting level (aside from the Shifu who cannot learn any new moves and is not playable in the Dominion of Hate due to dying in his chapter) and the few pieces of equipment from his chapter. His level-up moves are also mostly unremarkable despite dealing decent damage, and he'll never grow out of being a Glass Cannon. It's not until he hits level 16 and gets Hurricane that he'll be able to truly tear through enemies.
• Manly Facial Hair: Possesses a very masculine beard, adding to his badass gunslinger look.
• Meaningful Name: Aside from referencing the Sundance Kid, "Sundown" can also be seen as a reference to his age; he's approaching the twilight years of his life.
• More Dakka: His learned skills gradually increase in the amount of shots fired until his final skill "Hurricane" takes it to its logical conclusion where he unleashes a hailstorm of bullets that can deal up to 999 damage.
• My Greatest Failure: A shootout with some outlaws cost him his hometown and everyone he loved which still hangs above his head to this day.
• My Greatest Second Chance: However, saving Success Town gave him a chance to make up for his mistake, and he returns to traveling the world to protect the innocent.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Bears a striking resemblance to Clint Eastwood from the Dollars Trilogy.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: He's only ever referred to by some variation of his nickname.
• Price on Their Head: Anyone who brings him in dead or alive gets $5000, which greatly interests Mad Dog. Turns out he put the bounty on himself so someone would have the incentive to kill him.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: A classic Wild West trope, as his main weapon is a revolver. His ultimate weapon is a .44 Magnum revolver.
• The Quiet One: Fitting for for his status as a lone wanderer, Sundown is the quietest of the protagonists, even more so than Oboromaru. He only speaks when spoken to, and is the only protagonist who doesn't have voiced special attacks in the remake, nor a Victory Quote, nor when he levels up. The longest he ever speaks is when before he leaves Success with a renewed lease on life.
• Simple, yet Awesome: His skillset consists of just shooting his gun with increasingly higher volleys, eventually culminating in Hurricane where he fires around a dozen shots. While he only has two attack attributes to his moves, Projectile and Wind, his sheer damage potential is unmatched among the cast so it basically doesn't matter, even against enemies that resist them!
• Smoking Is Cool: One of his healing items are cigars in the original game.
• The Stoic: He doesn't speak much. In fact, Visible Silence is like his Verbal Tic.
• Suicide by Cop: His intentions following the destruction of his hometown. Ashamed with how his cockiness led to this, he put a bounty on his own head and wandered the wilds looking for a nice place to die, while Mad Dog kept pursuing him.
• Survivor's Guilt: Why he chose a vagrant life as he's clearly still guilt-ridden over having survived when so many he held dear died.
• The Trope Kid: His name is likely a play on The Sundance Kid and judging by his age he probably earned that name a long time ago. It's lampshaded by the bartender who points out his "Wanted!" Poster picture is clearly much older than a kid.
• Try Not to Die: When dismissed from the party in the Final Chapter, he'll warn the others not to get killed in his absence.
• Vigilante Man: One theory posited by the Sheriff of Success on why Sundown put a bounty on himself was to attract the attention of far less scrupulous individuals to defeat in fights.
• Walking the Earth: After his story's over, he goes back to wandering the world, righting wrongs and no longer seeking death. If Mad Dog is spared, they're travelling together, presumably as friends.
• Worthy Opponent: If you choose to spare Mad Dog, he lets him go and the two part off on equal terms.
• Your Mom: In the remake's localisation, when Pike makes a jab about Sundown drinking mother's milk, Sundown's reply is a variant of this.
  Pike: Lemme guess: it's not that you hate milk, but that you can't stomach it 'less it's fresh from your mother's tits!
  Sundown Kid: Your mother's, maybe.

Masaru Takahara - Present Day

"A Fighter Striving to Be the Best"

Voiced by: Tomokazu Seki (Japanese), Gil Macanas (English)

"I'll fight my way to the top — and the world will know my name."

Protagonist of the Present Day chapter, "The Strongest". A young mixed martial artist, his only goal is to be the strongest man in the world. In order to test himself, he's picked out six of the most powerful fighters on the planet. Unbeknownst to him, there's a seventh one keeping an eye on his progress...

---

• Achilles' Heel: In the original, magic-based attacks will squash him due to his low IQ.
• All Your Powers Combined: Spoken near-verbatim before his confrontation with Odie. In the remake, using the attacks specific to his opponents while fighting Odie will occasionally have Masaru call on their names.
• Berserk Button: It's not just that Odie O'Bright murdered Masaru's opponents, but that he belittled them as weaklings.
• Blood Knight: Nowhere near the levels Odie O'Bright takes it, but Masaru still loves a good fight. His story begins because he wants to fight some of the best in the world, and seems pretty nonchalant about possibly losing. In the final chapter, Masaru attacks almost all of the other heroes even if they tell him they aren't looking for a fight specifically because he wants to see what happens. Later, if he's not in the party facing Odio, he meets up with them afterwards saying that he hopes he "didn't miss all the fun".
• Boss Game: His chapter, as a result of emulating the Fighting Game genre within the RPG genre, becomes this: Every single one of his opponents is counted as a boss battle, having the 'boss-defeated' animation once beaten. Because of this, his chapter is the only one to not have any enemies from it in the Final Chapter.
• Buffy Speak: If he happens upon Cube's lost battery, he'll label it as "strange parts".
• Cuteness Proximity: If Cube is the final chapter protagonist, he refuses to fight them because of finding him to be too cute to be harmed.
• Defeat Means Friendship: He'll ask your protagonist to fight him in the final chapter before he joins, even if you declare you're not his enemy. Except if your protagonist is either Sundown or Cube because he knows that Sundown's wielding a gun and he doesn't have the heart to hurt a cute little robot like Cube).
• Dishing Out Dirt: His Worldbreaker's Wrath (Earth-Rending Fury in the fan translation) has him strike the earth to barrage an eruption of boulders onto the enemy.
• Dumb Muscle: While he is smart when compared to most jocks, he's still not smart by the normal standards of society, having zero IQ/Special Attack growth, leaving it stuck at 25 before equipment is counted. He identifies Cube's lost battery as "strange parts" as well, but refuses to fight Sundown knowing that he would probably die if shot in a fight.
• Dump Stat: His Special Attack stat in the remake is this due to IQ being split into Special Attack and Special Defense and his Special Attack staying at 25. Interestingly, Arm Lock, Frankensteiner and Tornado Press uses Masaru's IQ/Special Attack stat when calculating damage.
• Everyone Has Standards: In order to recruit him in the final chapter, you have to initiate a fight with him. However, if your main character is Cube, he refuses because he doesn't want to fight someone so cute. He also doesn't want to fight Sundown, as he's sure that Sundown would most likely kill him, given he has a gun.
• Expy: He has a lot of similarities with Ryu. Not just the headband, the sleeveless outfit and the desire to be the strongest, he also carries a similar bag. Appearance-wise, he also has some similarities with Domon Kasshu without the Anime Hair, and the remake assigned Domon's voice actor for him.
• Full-Name Basis: In the remake, you're given a whopping 24 characters to use for his name, and "Masaru Takahara" is the default.
• Ground Punch: His ultimate skill, Worldbreaker's Wrath (Earth-rending Fury in the original) has him leap into the air and punch the ground on the way down with such force, he opens a crater and sends chunks of rocks flying everywhere.
• Heal Thyself: Due to his chapter not having any items, one of his base skills is Focus, which heals him, cleanses most status effects and grants some extra buffs too.
• Hidden Depths:
  • The reason you won't have to fight him to join if your main character is Cube? Masaru thinks Cube is adorable.
  • Likely owing to his travelling status, he's good at identifying different cultures and ethnicities, even guessing that he's in a European castle.
  • Should he be chosen as the protagonist for the final chapter, he points out to Oersted that striving to be the best shouldn't come at the cost of one's soul. Especially since the day will come when even the best fighter will be old and weak, and their strength of spirit will be all they have left.
• Honor Before Reason: Played with. Unlike Oboromaru, Pogo (unless Lei is the chosen protagonist), Akira (depending on the dialogue option chosen) and Lei who fight the chosen protagonist out of suspicion of being an enemy, Masaru fights the protagonist to test his skills despite knowingly being in an unfamiliar area with monsters around. However, Masaru is sensible enough to not fight Sundown as he knows he has no chance against an opponent with a gun.
• Hot-Blooded: He doesn't look like it, and looks more like The Stoic. But once Odie reveals how much of a scumbag he is, he goes nuts and reveals his inner hotblood. He also showcases said hotblood plenty of times in the final chapter.
  Masaru: [after winning a fight] YEEEEAAAAH!!
  Masaru: [after leveling up] Who's next? WHO'S NEXT?!
• I'll Kill You!: Upon learning how the other competitors were killed by Odie, he decides to put an end to this sociopath once and for all.
  Masaru: And with my own... righteous fury — I will end you!
• Inconvenient Summons: Gets sent to Lucrece by Odio right in front of someone who was challenging him. It's implied that he resumed the fight and won upon his return.
• Irony: He achieves his dream of being the strongest there is at the end of his chapter... at least among professional modern day fighters. He spends his entire chapter at Level 2, rendering him the weakest of the protagonists at the end of his story; everyone else either starts out higher (Shifu, Lei, Hong, Sundown, Cube) or will gain enough experience to end safely above Level 2 (Pogo, Yun, Oboromaru, Akira, Oersted).
• Know When to Fold 'Em: He'll demand a fight from most of the other characters in order to be recruited in the final chapter. If the player picks Sundown as the protagonist, he will instead admit he hasn't got much of a chance against a man armed with a gun and concedes immediately.
  "Last thing I expected to see in a castle was a cowboy... Rather not go up against a gun."
• Leitmotif: The Strongest - Victory Road out of battle, Knock You Down! in it.
• Magikarp Power:
  • When entering the Final Chapter, he starts out as Level 2 due to how his scenario works. His stats may be weak at first, and you'll need to grind a little. However, he has great stat growth as he racks up levels and with the way he learns attacks in his chapter, Masaru has the earliest access to all his attacks.
  • Taken to an extreme with his boss rematch. In the original fight, Odie O'Bright is one of the tougher bosses, since he hits rather hard and you have no way of leveling up Masaru. Get him to level 16 or higher in the final chapter, equip him the best items you can find, and in the rematch, Odie does around 0 damage (yes, zero).
• Martial Arts Headband: Has this, and you'd think it'd be equipment too.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Sundown doesn't have to fight him in the final chapter to recruit him if he is the main protagonist because Masaru doesn't like his chances of overpowering an armed gunman with nothing but martial arts.
• Not So Stoic: He's normally very calm, but the moment Odie O'Bright appears and starts gloating about killing his masters, he becomes righteously pissed and vows to destroy him.
• Power Copying: He can learn skills by being hit with them in his scenario. According to him, this was a style he had invented recently, as this was completely unheard of in his community.
• Prisons Are Gymnasiums: You find him in the castle dungeons in the Dominion of Hate, and he's wasting no time for his workout.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: He wears a sleeveless hoodie. Another thing that shares in common with his inspiration Ryu.
• Stone Wall: His HP score shoots up like crazy, making it easier to reach 999 HP with him. He can also have shades of Lightning Bruiser, as he's not exactly slow and weak either. His moveset does hamper him slightly, though, as he trades a lot of raw power for abilities that are disruptive so as to break enemy charges - typically weaker moves in the game overall. Of course, most of his 'weakness' happens to simply come from the fact his competition include serious Lightning Bruiser characters like Pogo and Glass Cannon monsters like Lei and Sundown, and even then Masaru's superior durability makes him an ideal counter to the Headhunter in particular.
• Suplex Finisher: German Suplex. He can stun people with it.
• To Be a Master: Emphatically wishes to be the strongest through experience and knowledge rather than just winning his fights, and so contrasts violently with Odie O'Bright, who just wants to be at the top at all costs.
• Tranquil Fury: His I'll Kill You! speech has him state that his righteous fury will end Odie for what he did.
• Walking the Earth: What he usually does, after he's done with a certain area of fighting. The end of the game has him closing his gym to hit the road.
• Weak, but Skilled: Masaru epitomizes this when you first find him/play as him in the final chapter and were thorough in learning attacks, making up for his lack of strength in his varied skillset that carries some serious debuffs and extremely high HP that makes him one of the best tanks in the game.
• When He Smiles: Is a Perpetual Frowner except after defeating Odie O'Bright when his first challenger after his position refers to Masaru as the current strongest, which has him turn with a smile knowing he's attained his dream for the moment.
• Wrestler in All of Us: He's a mixed martial artist who incorporates wrestling moves such as German Suplexes and Frankensteiners into his repertoire on top of typical martial arts.

Akira Tadokoro - Near Future

"A Rebel with An Incredible Gift"

Voiced by: Kenji Akabane (Japanese), David Cui Cui (English)

Younger self voiced by: Shiori Mikami (Japanese), Suzie Yeung (English)

"So, tell me. If you had the power to read people's minds... how would you use it?"

Protagonist of the Near Future chapter, "The Outsider". A psychic who grew up in an orphanage, he spends his free time fighting off biker gangs. The local mad scientist Dr. Tobei, however, suspects his destiny lies with the giant robot known as Steel Titan... and his past may have something to do with the "liquefacted humans" plaguing the city...

---

• 11th-Hour Superpower: After failed attempts to control Steel Titan with his powers, he manages to do so in his chapter's endgame. The credits afterwards show that he apparently can't do it as easily anymore.
• Accidental Pervert: Teleporting a lot can cause him to get transported in the bathroom... right as Taeko was taking a bath. This was changed in the remake.
• Actor Allusion: His Japanese voice actor Kenji Akabane played an incarnation of Kouji Kabuto in Shin Mazinger and that version of the character in the Super Robot Wars series.
• Adaptational Badass: The first fight against the Crusaders goes differently in the manga where there are a much larger group of them ganging up on Akira. Akira easily dodges and anticipates their attacks where it was implied that Matsu was welcomed assistance rather than being the one who all but saved Akira from getting beaten up by them.
• Adaptational Jerkass: The pocket money that replaced panties in the remake and which Akira ends up taking are stated in the Japanese to be Taeko's personal savings to be used for the orphanage's children (on top of saying how she can't sleep soundly due to it suddenly disappearing). Effectively, Akira was changed from a mischevious pervert to somebody who is willing to screw over his own caretaker. This is downplayed more in the English dub, where the money is only said to be a little bit that isn't being saved for anything in particular, and Akira actually hopes that Taeko isn't losing sleep over the loss.
• Adaptational Skill: Akira's telekinesis was all but an Informed Attribute in the original game and only shown on his promotional art on his 2022 remake art. In the manga, Akira's telekinesis is demonstrated on-screen.
• Aloof Big Brother: To many of the orphanage kids and his little sister.
• Angry Collar Grab: Does this to Oersted during his post-final boss speech if he is the protagonist of the final chapter.
• Anime Hair: Being from a Super Robot chapter, he naturally has very impressive hair.
  • Shonen Hair: It suits his rebellious, aggressive personality.
• Art Evolution: His younger self in the manga was given an individualized appearance, with his signature spiky hairdo. The remake however downplays this with an unique Palette Swap of the generic child NPC.
• Badass Biker: Eventually becomes one, succeeding the deceased Lawless and inheriting his motorcycle.
• Bad Powers, Good People: As an aggressive teenage delinquent with plenty of emotional baggage, Akira's psychic powers are portrayed as having fairly brutal effects on enemies' minds in the remake's descriptions, to the point where his ultimate technique is to show them the end of the world to completely debilitate them. He's still a good guy through and through.
• Badass Boast: One of his victory quotes has him literally referring to himself as this.
  Akira: "Who's a badass?!"
• Big Brother Instinct: While he acts aloof towards Kaori a good amount of the time, he's also fiercely protective of her, even braving a burning building to save her.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The only one of the heroes to explicitly do this, opening up his chapter by staring directly at the screen and asking the player a question that they can respond to, then proceeds to tell them his backstory and teach them how to use his mind-reading ability.
  So, tell me... You happy with your lot in life?
• Brutal Honesty: His speech towards Oersted drips with this. Doesn't matter what everyone else did to him, what Oersted did was a thousand times worse and Oersted chose to become Odio to spite everyone who wronged him.
• Calling Your Attacks: He can announce Steel Titan's abilities when controlling the mech, but it's subdued in the dub.
• Charm Person: He is the only character that can inflict the 'Charm' status effect with Mother's Shame, with inflicted targets unable to attack and moving towards him or his allies. Downplayed as this attack is meant to confuse enemies with thoughts of their mother.
• Combat Pragmatist: Being a street fighter, Akira's attacks are this through and through. His three physical attacks involve hitting the enemy by elbowing them in the teeth, kicking them below the belt, and punching them in the face.
• Covert Pervert: Akira isn't above asking one of the orphans to give him Taeko's panties (the remake replaces it with pocket money).
• Crutch Character: Of all of the protagonists, Akira is by far the easiest one to find and recruit in the final chapter, as the player just needs to walk up and (optionally) beat him in a fight. This makes him valuable early on, but you're likely to replace him once you start getting the other game's protagonists.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Akira's father got shot dead by one of the Crusaders later revealed to be Lawless and he and his sister were taken to an orphanage which is around the time he developed psychic powers. However, he grew up to have a stable life despite getting into brawls all the time.
• Detect Evil: In the remake, before the True Final Boss, he states that the power that flowing into Oersted's body is all the darkness and hatred.
• Deep Breath Reveals Tension: Unlike the other characters who merely take a short breath when speaking to Oersted in the ending as they try to gather their thoughts. Akira, on the other hand, needs to take several deep breaths before talking to him, a quick hint that unlike the others, Akira doesn't sympathize with him and what he's done.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Akira manifests psychic images of himself to perform his attacks; depending on the technique, they either fly directly at enemies or meld into a different image like skulls or ice spikes.
• Dump Stat: His Physical Attack has a chance of not increasing upon level up, and even if it does, it will only raise by one point.
• Foil: Of all the heroes, Akira specifically has more in common with Oersted than anyone else. He too had a really hard life, was largely viewed as a troublemaking delinquent, and had someone close to him die after revealing they did something truly horrible to him. But while Oersted broke down and decided to take his repressed rage out on others, Akira chose to channel his anger into protecting his city. It's a major reason why, unlike the other heroes, Akira has zero sympathy for Oersted and hammers home how becoming the Dark Lord was ultimately his own choice at the end of the day.
• First-Person Smartass: Pretty much all of the item descriptions and Tips in his chapter are written from his perspective, usually with snarky commentary.
• Friend to All Children: He gets along well with the orphanage kids.
• Get Out!: After Lawless dies of Matango overdose and he has learned the truth about what happened to his father, he promptly tells everyone to get out so he can take control of Steel Titan and kick ass.
• Golden Super Mode: In the remake, once he finally pilots the Steel Titan properly, his hair completely turns gold. This becomes his battle stance in the Final Chapter during tense moments like facing against Odio.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Other than the cross-shaped scar on his forehead, he has a simple slash-shaped one across the chest according to official art, and he's sort of a Troubled, but Cute guy.
• Guardian Angel: One shows up during his Holy-themed attacks and his sole counter. It's likely an illusion he created.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Several of his techniques like Judgement Day fall under the Divine type.
• Hot-Blooded: Considering his scenario is a spoof of Hot Blood Mecha Anime, it comes in the parcel.
• I'll Kill You!: Upon realising that the LH Combat Unit W1 he just destroyed was Watanabe's father, he tries to tear into the conspirators for what they did, only for Matsu to restrain him from trying to fight a representative of the Japanese army, especially given that the reinforcements were coming on the way.
• Inconvenient Summons: Gets sent to Lucrece by Odio in the Final Chapter right in the middle of making taiyaki for his customers.
• Informed Attribute: Downplayed. While Akira's monologue at the start of the Near Future chapter has him mention that he gained the ability to move objects without touching them, hinting at telekinesis powers, he never actually moves an object without touching it on screen. None of his attacks involve him using telekinetic powers to move objects or lift enemies- and the only time he uses such powers in a cutscene is to try to move the Steel Titan- while he's touching the controls. Also, his Holy Smackdown move is a Martial element attack that uses his IQ stat. This attribute gets alluded in the 2022's remake promo art where Akira is shown to telekinetically float stationary above his hand.
• Jack of All Stats: In the remake his HP, Special Attack, and Speed have been buffed compared to the original game, and his raw healing is even better than Cube's, making him an all around good but not great character to use.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He can be rather rude and lazy, but he's a good person deep down caring deeply for the people around him.
• Lazy Bum: Spends most of his time sleeping in the park, and if not in the Final Chapter's party, he spends all of his time sleeping in his spot. Slightly averted in the remake's Final Chapter where he helps fight against Sin of Odio regardless if he was in the active party or not.
• Leitmotif: Wait For Truth out of battle, Playing with Psychos in it; to a lesser extent, Go! Go! Steel Titan!
• Master of Illusion: Akira's psychic-based attacks are mostly illusions and hallucinations to confuse and debuff the enemy.
• Master of None: What makes Akira useful but not outstanding is his versatility in battle: he's not as physically strong as Pogo, Hong, or Masaru, but he has a few non-magic attacks and a competent physical attacking stat to support them; he's not as great of a ranged fighter as the Sundown Kid, but he can hit most of the field and do it decently; his magic isn't as good as Oboro's or Yun's, but he has a lot of elemental options to work with; he's not as fast as Lei, but he's still speedy; and he can't heal as well as Cube, but he has options to heal himself and other members of the party. While this versatility makes him able to compliment any niche the player needs him to, someone else will always do it better. Well, execpt debuffing, in which he is the uncontested best character in the game at doing.
• Meaningful Name: His Canon Name is Japanese for "light", and several of his skills are light/Heaven-based.
• Mind Rape: Akira's offensive psychic abilities involve messing with his opponents minds to attack them mentally which include hallucinations of threats coming from behind, showing his enemies how they will die, illusions of death and doom and even a hallucination of the end of the world to mentally break them. Averted with two of his attacks where Akira has Elemental Powers to an extent as he can create actual pillars of flame and spikes of ice rather than being a vision or illusion he created.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Older folks assume that he's a Crusader (or at least a friend of theirs) due to his surly attitude and punk appearance. He's actually a sweetheart who hates the Crusaders and wants to do good.
• Misplaced Retribution: There's hints that his "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards Oersted is also subtly taking a jab at himself, as he too blamed everyone else for his own problems in his chapter, and was very close to wiping out the entire Livingstill lab in a moment of rage over what they were doing had Lawless not been able to calm him down.
• Mr. Fanservice: A spiky-haired Pretty Boy who wears a flashy coat that shows off his bare, well-toned abs and chest, and his resting poses have him lie on his back, unconcealed skin for all to see. The remake's Golden Ending staff roll has him take the coat off, baring his back to the screen.
• The Narrator: He narrates the opening of his chapter.
• No Full Name Given: Averted. He's one of the few main protagonists outside of Masaru and the Earthen Heart students to have his surname revealed as well.
• No Shirt, Long Jacket: He wears a teal jacket but flashes his abs all the time.
• No Sympathy for Grudgeholders: Akira is the only character who doesn't show any form of empathy towards Oersted in his ending speech, instead giving him a dressing-down and leaving him with the knowledge that his fall to darkness was ultimately his own decision. It fits with Akira's personality and backstory; he was the one who lost the most to his era's Odio incarnation alongside the surviving Earthen Heart Master (who was taught by their Shifu about the dangers of hatred and revenge) and Cube (who was made to serve and understand humans despite their flaws), and doesn't see any reason to forgive someone who experienced similar isolation and losses as him but let that turn themselves to villainy before begrudging all of humanity. This is especially noteworthy as Akira didn't begrudge Matsu after finding out he killed his father because he atoned by looking out for him and his sister to his death.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Compared to the other protagonists who appear as typical individuals in their timelines (except for Cube where this trope is addressed in his character folder), Akira has arguably the most unique outfit and design with his punk attire and Anime Hair that spikes up when he uses his powers.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The final scene of his chapter has Steel Titan about to be flooded in the liquefacted humans as Akira desperately uses his Psychic Powers before it turns black and Akira wakes up in the park like at the beginning. It was never explained how exactly he was able to escape.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • Pretty much any time he gets downed in battle.
    Akira: Shit...
  • The same applies whenever his attack misses.
    Akira: Shit!
  • Also happens after defeating the chapter boss and the lake of liquified humans starts leaking into the Steel Titan.
    Akira: Shit! Shit!
• Pretty Boy: In contrast to Matsu, being younger and having a feminine jawline.
• Power Incontinence: Minor, but he noticeably can't control his teleportation as well as his mind-reading and images. Using it usually involves him warping somewhere completely random. This is how he enters his dungeon in the final chapter.
• Psychic Children: Akira began to notice that he had powers shortly after he and Kaori came to the orphanage.
• Psychic Powers: His main draw, from reading minds to summoning a lot of attacks, to eventually piloting Steel Titan. They cover wide swaths of the battlefield but are overall a little weak for the final chapter.
• Psychic Teleportation: His psychokinetic abilities allow him to teleport, with teleportation replacing his Flee command in battles. Unlike with the other abilities, however, he's not as skilled in teleporting, occasionally misteleporting himself into some other places like the orphanage, and can even misteleport the party into the Trial of Heart when fleeing in the Final Chapter.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: If chosen as the hero for the Final Chapter after defeating the Sin of Odio, Akira grabs Oersted by the collar and gives him a brutal dressing down about how everyone faces hardships but that doesn't give them a right to take it out on others and that he succumbed to despair on his own accord.
  Akira: Know what your problem is? You blamed everyone else. Said it was them or gods or fate that made you what you are. But it was YOU! Just you! Yeah, people can suck. We can be selfish—look out only for ourselves. But if you focus only on the bad—judge them at their worst, well... You've already made up your mind, haven't you? Everything else is just an excuse!
• Red Mage: He specializes in ranged "magic" attacks, but also learns a few of healing moves, and is a competent street brawler with his fists and feet.
• Religious Bruiser: Possibly. His attacks borrow heaven/hell imagery, and he can eventually summon angels as an attack. He directly dismisses Odeo as a reigning God of his and if he's the main character during the final chapter he explicitly mentions God and that he isn't at fault for what happened to Oersted.
• Screw Destiny: Despite being told to have his destiny lie within the Steel Titan and later that he'll be made to serve Odeo, Akira doesn't let it control him and move along with his life as he damn pleases.
  Akira: Screw this. That thing's no god of mine. And I'm not melding with these freaks or anyone else!
• Secret-Keeper: He comes across two major secrets in his chapter, and it's implied he never told the living parties about them afterwards. Namely, that Watanabe's father was turned into the Combat Unit W1 and had to be destroyed, and that Matsu killed his father.
• Shout-Out:
  • His introduction in the beginning of the chapter, cooking skills, the theme associated with the Steel Titan, motorcycle skills and his Japanese voice actor in the remake is a big shout-out to Koji Kabuto from Mazinger Z, particularly the Shin Mazinger version.
  • In the remake, when he finally manages to control the Steel Titan, his hair stands straight up and becomes golden.
  • His "Elbow Strike" move has a spinning motion much like Mitsuharu Misawa's signature Rolling Elbow; the orphans are watching wrestling matches featuring a "Misawa" when Akira first returns.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: By far the most foul-mouthed of the heroes in the remake. It even blends into the flavor text on his chapter's items! Justified, given he's a teenage delinquent.
• Stock Shōnen Hero: A pretty, slender, teenaged hothead with spiky hair and mysterious abilities, who also has a strong sense of justice and loved ones he wants to protect.
• Support Party Member: While lacking in damage potential (he's the only protagonist without a Massive damaging attack, something even Cube has), Akira makes up for it in healing, buffs, and debuffs. This is especially the case with his last learned move, Judgement Day, which, for a medium charge time, debuffs all stats of the targets hit, and can inflict any status ailment in the game- including petrification.
• Take Up My Sword: His ending has him take over Lawless' taiyaki stand and inherit his motorcycle.
• Tough Spikes and Studs: Akira's gloves, wristbands and even his scarf has metal studs on them.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: It's implied the sheer and utter rage he felt towards the Conspirators being indirectly responsible for Lawless' death, as well as burning down the orphanage and learning the truth about his father's death was what finally gave Akira enough strength to get the Steel Titan moving. Notably, once they're dealt with, not only has Akira mellowed out considerably, but he can no longer get the Steel Titan to move.
• Troubled, but Cute: Akira might be a bit of a punk, but he has a sweet side and lives up to his father's legacy for heroism.
• "X" Marks the Hero: Sports a giant X-shaped scar taking up his entire forehead.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: He wears a jacket but no shirt under it.
• You Killed My Father: Averted; Akira shows no hatred to Matsu even though he killed Akira's father. This is probably because Matsu did try to do things right and raise Akira and Kaori as atonement.

Cube - Distant Future

"A Robot Brought to Life Aboard a Spaceship"

Voiced by: Himself

"But there is no one else, little one. Only you."

—Yoshiyuki Kato

Protagonist of the Distant Future chapter, "The Mechanical Heart". A robot recently created by Yoshiyuki Kato, engineer of the spaceship Cogito Ergo Sum, after two failed attempts. As the ship approaches Earth, Cube must determine just what... or who... he is, and must face a threat not only to himself, but to the ship's mission.

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• Action Survivor: For most of his chapter he's just a servant bot whose main job is to make coffee in a space horror story and the only time he's capable of combat is in cyberspace. However, he becomes fully combat capable in the Final Chapter.
• Affectionate Nickname: Kato refers to Cube as "little one" very often.
• Air Vent Escape: Forced to use this to traverse floors of the ship after the elevators get knocked offline.
• The Anti-Nihilist: Weirdly enough. Despite having no dialogue, and going through what is arguably the most horrifying chapter of the game where they are exposed to some of the worst aspects of humanity... they keep pressing on, simply because they want to help and protect those they care about. Following the final battle, Oersted outright muses that Cube being an AI construct is what allows them to see the best in humans that humans themselves cannot see.
• Armless Biped: Has no arms aside from small service claws he doesn't use much anyway. Funnily enough, he's immune to Restrain due to this.
• Armored But Frail: Their HP is stuck at a fairly low 240 without any Robotic Enhancements, but their physical and special defenses are solid enough that they can afford to take a hit or two before healing back up.
• Art Evolution: His animation in the original release when prepping an attack with a Robot Weapon was a single hop. The remake adds a unique one where he pulls out a small gun.
• The Artifact: His HP Lookup attack in the remake's official localisation becomes this due to enemy HP always being visible on the HUD, and its HP display effect was removed.
• Artificial Family Member: Despite being a robot, Kato treats him as if he were family. When Darthe is about to shoot Cube when mistaking him for the imposter Cube, Kato reacts as if Darthe is about to shoot his own child.
• As Himself: As a gag, Cube's voice actor is listed as "Himself". Cube can't talk.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Cube, in terms of age, is the youngest of the protagonists. Justified considering that he was just built when his chapter starts and thus, would be a baby in terms of age. Even amongst the crewmates of Cogito Ergo Sum, excepting Darthe who has trauma against robots (and he eventually gets over it), the prone-to-bickering crews treat him like taking care of a newborn being. Even Kirk and Rachel, despite their undeserving antagonism against Huey, try to be cordial and nice to Cube.
• Badass Adorable: He's a cute little robot who not only ends up defeating a hostile AI but becomes one of the saviors of humanity capable of blasting a physical manifestation of hatred with, among other things, a Wave-Motion Gun.
• Benevolent A.I.: Despite being unable to speak, it is shown that Cube has a kind and helpful personality and does all that it can do to save the humans of the Cogito Ergo Sum, even the robot-hating Darthe. Not only will it not hesitate to save humanity, if chosen as the main hero Oersted states that despite being a "construct" it is perhaps Cube's absence of a heart that allows him to learn the best of humanity.
• BFG: Maser Cannon allows Cube to fire a massive piercing laser beam from a cannon that unfolds from his head. It's pretty powerful but takes a while to charge.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: The same day he's built and activated, he gets embroiled in a tragedy, then gets thrown into the past undergoing a Time Crash and knocked out after losing his battery if not the main protagonist in the Final Chapter. Gets taken further in all the bad endings, where Odio changes history so Cube loses against OD-10, gets stuck in Lucrece forever, or reality gets destroyed.
• Character as Himself: The credits in the remake list Cube played by "Himself".
• Combat Medic: Cube's moveset is mostly centered on heals and support. He has an instant-speed area heal and a buff, and even his damaging moves are mostly weak in power but have added effects (like inducing sleep or knocking enemies back). For straight battle, he does have the decently powerful counter Firewall and the strong, but slow Maser Cannon.
• Crutch Character: A strange example for the Final Chapter if chosen as the protagonist as Cube does not level up in the Distant Future chapter, nor can the player access Cube's stats or attacks at all. Cube's stats are a 96 in Physical Defense and 99 in Special Attack and Defense which is the highest natural stat (aside from HP which is 999) a character can achieve without equipment. However, most of Cube's attacks are support in nature while Force Shutdown/Mind Hack is the only attack that uses any of Cube's stats to determine damage, being Cube's Special Attack/IQ stat^*Out of the accessory attacks, Lacquer Mist uses the Vitality stat while Savage Shot, Chick Shot and Goldfish Shot uses the Physical Attack stat, although Cube's Physical Attack is quite low. Cube's HP is quite low at 240, making him Armored But Frail on top of increasing his HP requiring Robotic Enhancements which are hard to come by and only increase it by 10HP at a time. With the prevalence of battles in the Final Chapter, Cube will not be able to benefit from the experience gained compared to the other protagonists and cannot increase his stats without equipment. Cube is a strong support character as the protagonist, but falls behind offensively and stat-wise compared to the other heroes.
• Cute Machines: Cube looks like a metallic version of Kirby, and all of his dialogue is beeps and chirps. In fact, this ends up to his advantage if you choose him as your main protagonist in the Dominion of Hate. If you wish to recruit Masaru into your party, he'll downright refuse to fight Cube because the robot is so freaking adorable.
• Dump Stat: Their Physical Attack (Power in the SFC original) is permanently stuck at 26 and their Speed locked at 18, and since they can't level up, these stats can never increase naturally.
• Enemy Scan: Cube's HP Lookup allows for them to scan an enemy's max HP and current HP. Unlike most versions of this move which only reveal the opponent's stats, HP Lookup also doubles as an attack, making it useful in dishing out quick damage too. In the remake, where enemy HP is naturally visible, HP Lookup instead throws a heavy debuff set onto the target in addition to damage.
• Expy: He's inspired by R2-D2 as a cute robot who, despite communicating only in electronic noises, still demonstrates a strong personality and the capacity for heroism.
• Foil: To OD-10. They're both AI beings that are exposed to some of humanity's worst aspects, but while OD-10 decided they weren't worth saving and to put them out of their misery, Cube is still able to see the good in the crew despite their flaws and sticks by them even when it would be easier to give up.
• Fragile Speedster: In the Distant Future chapter, Cube's roller skates allow him to move just faster than the Behemoth. Keyword: just. He's completely defenseless against it, and will be instantly destroyed if it catches him. Averted when Cube actually gains the ability to fight proper, where he's more of a tanky healer.
• Fun with Acronyms: In the Japanese and Aeon Genesis fan translation, the initials of his base skills spell "HUMANISM". The official English translation retains this in the skill descriptions instead as Protocol letters.
• The Glasses Come Off: Whenever Cube uses Force Shutdown, Firewall, Packet Loss or HP Lookup, he lifts up his glasses to reveal a pair of glowing crimson peepers that will probably be the last thing the enemy ever sees.
• Goggles Do Nothing: He wears thick glasses even though he is a robot out of all things. They probably came from Kato trying to create similarities to his own appearance as show by him wearing a similar red cap too. It does help him look cuter, though.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: Granted, it's debatable if Cube has something akin to a learning AI, as Kato says that Cube will learn to find something they enjoy doing on the ship eventually. But they start out as a simple service robot getting the crew coffee, to hijacking a demonic AI's control of the ship, to helping punch out the god of hatred.
• The Heart: Cube ends up being the one that keeps the crew of the Cogito Ergo Sum together...what's left of it anyway. The title of their chapter even refers to Cube as "The Mechanical Heart".
• Heroic Mime: Cube can only make beeping noises, similar to R2-D2.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: The reason Cube is capable of "fighting" the final boss of his chapter is that he hacked the Master Computer through a video game console. He even gets to keep the abilities he picks up from the game when he returns to the real world (or at least when brought to the Dominion of Hate).
• Imported Alien Phlebotinum: His ultimate weapon in the Final Chapter is a device called the 17 Diode, which is described to be far more advanced than anything humans can invent and enhances Cube's capabilities. It's so powerful that its absence after picking it up angers a robotic guardian.
• Improbable Weapon User: It turns out that he can use all those silly weapons Taroimo used in Akira's scenario. His strongest and only traditional weapon outside of the parts Akira brought in the Final Chapter is a strange diode.
• Ironic Nickname: Cube is, in fact, perfectly round. Kato named him such specifically because it was the opposite of his appearance and to show humanity's sense of humour, though whether or not it's used is up to the player.
• Kill It with Water: One hazard which can kill him in his chapter is a water leak. This was changed to something like acid in the remake, as likely to avoid a plot hole where he's able to wade through a river in the Final Chapter.
• Leitmotif: Unique among the player characters in that he doesn't have one, since most of the music in his chapter is atmospheric and he's not recruited in the final chapter through conversation, but instead through repair. The game uses Unseen Syndrome for the rare occasion where he has to battle a non-boss.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: In the remake, his "battle ready" pose in the Final Chapter which although is hard to see as he's shown from the back, has a vent open from behind him, indicating he's preparing to fire his Maser Cannon.
  • In lieu of dialogue while Odio is gaining power to become Sin of Odio, Cube just enters their "battle ready" pose, which prompts the other heroes to follow suit.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: He's the only party member other than Taroimo from the Near Future Chapter that doesn't level up, but instead uses Robotic Enhancements to increase his stats. He can also equip some accessories that give him extra attacks.
• Nice Guy: He's polite to everyone around him and is even considered The Heart of his spaceship crew.
• Non-Indicative Name: Kato picked the name "Cube" as a joke, because he's actually round.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Played with. Out of the protagonists (and even the other characters from all timelines), Cube is the only sentient robot shown in the whole game. Darthe does mention that there was a war between robots and humans in the past but because these robots are never shown to compare to Cube's appearance, this trope still applies to Cube.
• Non-Standard Skill Learning: Like Taroimo from the Near Future chapter, he can't level up conventionally with EXP like the other protagonists, instead having to rely on Robotic Enhancements dropped from other mechanical enemies. He can also equip Taroimo's special gun accessories to gain the same techniques as him, should Akira bring them over from his chapter or enemies in the Dominion of Hate drop them.
• Pronoun Trouble: Due to being a robot that is presented as being akin to a young boy, Cube's pronouns are fairly inconsistent throughout the localized remake. Kato, Cube's creator, uses gender-neutral they/them pronouns to refer to Cube, while the rest of the crew defaults to "it". The credits of the remake still refer to Cube as "himself".
• Robot Buddy: He was created to be this to the crew of the Cogito Ergo Sum and is treated with affection by the crew save for Darthe (and even then they become Fire-Forged Friends at the end). Uncommon for typical versions of this trope, he's the central protagonist of his storyline rather than just a sidekick.
• Skeleton Key: At one point, Kato gives Cube a Power Prybar to look after, which is used to open certain hatches and unjam doors. It only has a limited number of uses, though.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Cube was designed with the purpose of being an assistant for mundane tasks like carrying coffee, yet interfacing with a video game gives them curative powers, digital defenses that harm assailants, a spinning slam, and even a laser cannon. They lose these capabilities after the fact and seemingly only get them back through Odio transporting them to his realm, but even that doesn't explain how they're compatible with all of Taroimo's wacky gun accessories.
• Spin Attack: One of his base skills is a melee move called Spool Up, which causes Cube to rev up a spin and divebomb the target for high damage and interruption chance.
• Spanner in the Works: OD-10 had been planning to kill the crew for a while until the fight between Kirk and Huey finally pushed it over the edge. It, however, seemingly hadn't expected that Kato would finish his robot before then, nor that Cube would still stick with the humans over a fellow AI even after seeing how horrible they were.
• Spot the Imposter: When Cube and a previous prototype of him are in the same room and they need to figure out which one is the robot being manipulated by the ship, Kato says that the real Cube would know the first name Kato was considering giving him. When Cube responds correctly ('Roundy') Darthe shoots the prototype.
• Stealth Pun: He's naturally immune to nearly every status effect aside from Snare (since unlike his lack of usable arms outside of service claws thus his immunity to Restrain) due to his feet, being vulnerable to sleep. Sleep Mode.
• Support Party Member: Cube is unarmed most of the time, and has to dodge fights entirely. To make up for it, he's the best healer in the final scenario including having a counter that's a group heal.
• Take Up My Sword: A minor, temporary and non-lethal case in his chapter where after OD-10's defeat, Cube is granted Kato's administrator rights due to him being bedridden following him surviving a murder attempt by OD-10, which allows him to access certain files.
• Theme Naming: His base moveset is mostly named after computer and machine terms.
• Token Non-Human: Cube is the only non-human character in the game to get teleported to the final chapter. Justified, considering that Darthe remarks that he basically is human at the end of the scenario. Also, according to Odio's words, he gained the heart of a human.
• Uncatty Resemblance: Has similar Nerd Glasses to his creator Kato and wears a red version of his cap.
• The Unintelligible: Only makes robotic sounds and can't speak. Kato apparently didn't outfit him with speech. However, the cast can understand him through Parrot Exposition, and can somehow talk through a transceiver to Darthe. His alter ego who manages his Trial in the Final Chapter is perfectly capable of speech though.
• Waddling Head: Just a head on rollerskates, really.

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