Characters / Shadow Hearts - Yuri Hyuga

Shadow Hearts Main Character Index
Koudelka | Shadow Hearts (Yuri Hyuga) | Covenant | From the New World

Yuri Volte Hyuga / Urmnaf "Uru" Bort Hyuga / "Rude Hero"

^{Click here to see him in Shadow Hearts}

Voiced by: Hiroki Takahashi (JP), Ted Lewis (EN, Shadow Hearts), Joe Cappelletti (EN, Covenant, credited as Joey Capps)
Appearances: Shadow Hearts | Covenant

The protagonist of both Shadow Hearts and its first sequel, Shadow Hearts Covenant, Yuri is a half-Japanese, half-Russian Harmonixer, with the power to take on the form of demons he has slain and use their powers in battle. He follows the orders of a voice he hears in his mind. This voice is the one that tells him to board the train where he meets and ends up saving a girl called Alice Elliot. Despite initially being annoyed by his newfound duty to protect her, and believing her to be somewhat of a pain, Yuri rapidly warms to her, and vows to protect her no matter what.

In Covenant, he now lives in a small village of Domremy, dedicating himself to protect it amidst The Great War. However, he's disturbed by a secret society called Sapienes Gladio, that sees him as an obstacle for their sinister schemes. Using an artifact called the Holy Mistletoe, they put a curse on Yuri, dooming him to die, unless he manages to find a cure. Accompanied by a German officer called Karin Koenig, Yuri sets out to stop the nebulous organization.

In gameplay, Yuri is a terrifically powerful melee fighter. He's usually the strongest physical attacker in the party, and in Covenant he's one of three characters able to equip five hit areas on the Judgement Ring. His special command in both games is "Fusion", which allows him to turn into a monster, thus changing his elemental affinity and augmenting his stats, but consuming a lot of Sanity Points. In fused state he gains an additional special command — "Special Skills", which allows him to use several spells of the same element as the fusion. In exchange, in Covenant, he's unable to use Magic Crests to use specific spells, and is forced to rely entirely on his own powers.

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A-E

• All Men Are Perverts: Yuri is pretty keen on getting a look up Alice's skirt, even if she is unconscious. He only backs down when she comes to.
• Animal Motifs: In his official SH1 art, he's surrounded by a flock of crows. Crows can be associated with threat and danger.
• Anti-Hero: Yuri's a cocky, sarcastic, and rash-acting youth that's initially forced into the heroic role. He's even called "Rude Hero" before you get to name him in the first game!
• Arch-Enemy:
  • To Nicolai, whose loathing he earned after defeating Albert.
  • Yuri himself actually subverts this with almost every antagonist; he treats even Albert and final boss Kato as simply men holding honest differences of opinion to him, and by the end of Covenant he has kept up a fairly cordial friendship with both.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: His Japanese name, "Urmnaf", is pure gibberish, despite it, supposedly, being Russian. The translation changed it to an actual Slavic name.
• Badass Armfold: In the second game's Dark Seraphim form, this is Yuri's default pose.
• Badass Longcoat: In the first game he wears long, dark-brown longcoat. It looks more than a bit similar to his father's military coat. He wraps Alice's body in it when he buries her.
• Badass Unintentional: In the first game all he wants is to continue living without a care in the world. However, The Voice in his head forces him to go and protect Alice. Yuri grows out of it by the end of the game.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy:
  • In his final fusion in both games he's completely naked, but nothing naughty can be seen.
  • Covenant additionally has his doppelganger, fused into a tree in the Graveyard. He's shirtless, but has no nipples.
• BFS: His higher-level Fire fusions in Covenant get a pretty big sword to work with. His max-level Fire fusion, when using the Inferno attack, throws his sword away and conjures up an even bigger sword from a ring of flames.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In the first game's intro, he barges in the train where the Big Bad attempts to capture Alice. While said Big Bad gives Yuri a Hopeless Boss Fight, it gives Alice enough time to manifest her powers and distract the baddie long enough for Yuri to punch him in the face.
  • In a sidequest, required for the good ending, Yuri interrupts a Battle In The Center Of Mind between Atman and Alice. His intervention allows Alice to win this otherwise-Hopeless Boss Fight, and leads to her surviving the events of the game.
• Birds of a Feather: For all their differences, the first time Yuri and Alice bond is over their status as a pair of "psychos" whom weird things are endlessly happening to.
• Bishōnen Line:
  • In the first game, his normal fusions turn him into terrifying monsters. His final Seraphic Radiance fusion, however? Just him, but naked, glowing, covered in tattoos, and with large back wings.
  • Played with in Covenant. His first-tier fusions retain his general shape and fighting style, with Fire, Dark, and Light fusions looking outright humanlike, but with torn clothes. Later Light fusions turn him into strange androgynous figures that don't resemble him at all. His final fusion, however, is recycled from the previous game.
• Blood Knight: He spent over a decade Walking the Earth, searching out and killing monsters. Deconstructed, however, because it was more of an indirect revenge for killing his mother. He also came to fear that one day, souls of monsters he killed over the years would come for payback. It also led to him fearing his own powers, which, combined with his already-Traumatic Superpower Awakening, didn't reflect nicely on his mental condition.
• Bodyguard Crush: On Alice, whom he chooses to protect as per Koudelka's "encouragement".
• Brains Evil, Brawn Good: He's a terrifically powerful melee fighter, while most of the Big Bads (with the notable exception of Kato; and even then... kind of Kato) are magic-inclined The Chessmaster types.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In the first game, at a certain point, it is revealed that Yuri has absorbed too much Malice and it consequently consumes him. The rest of the team have to fight him to snap him out of it.
• Break the Haughty: Between the first and second game. He didn't take Alice's death well at all, and seriously cuts down on his snarkiness and rudeness.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: In the first game, he attempts to fuse with the Seraphic Radiance, which ends with him being overwhelmed by Malice, and on the verge of being possessed. Alice has to basically sign off on her death to save him.
• Broken Ace: Arguably within the first Shadow Hearts due to the loss of his parents. But certainly by Covenant after Alice's death. In both cases, Yuri is outwardly a badass without a care in the world; go into his soul at any point and it is reinforced how torn-up he is inside, though.
• Brought Down to Badass: He has his fusions sealed at the start of Covenant, and he re-unlocks one of them only after going through the first dungeon. During this time, he's still capable of kicking asses even without fusions.
• But Not Too Foreign: He's half-Japanese and half-Russian. In the first game, his heritage is name-dropped purely for Rule of Cool purposes, but it's actually worked into the plot of the sequel. Also, in Covenant it's revealed that he's very likely half-German, and not Russian, because, as it turns out, his mother is time-displaced Karin. He, however, does tell Anastasia that he was raised at least in part as a Russian.
• Cannot Spit It Out: It takes him a while to admit his feelings for Alice.
• Canon Name: In the original game, no matter how you name him, he will still be called "Yuri" in voice-acted cutscenes.
• Catchphrase: "Bite me!" in Covenant. It was "Baka" in the original script.
• Character Development: He starts as a standoffish Ineffectual Loner who more or less wants to be left alone, but The Voice forces him to go do things. Over the course, of the game he becomes more willing to do heroic deeds, and eventually conquers his fear of his own powers. By the end of the game, he's a genuinely heroic individual, who has no beef towards even the Big Bad. In the sequel, when he's cursed with the Holy Mistletoe, he goes to dismantle the evil conspiracy not for vengeance, but because he considers their goals to be dangerous for the world. Eventually, he comes to terms with Alice's death, and learns that to break the curse, he needs to find true happiness. Eventually, he succeeds by following his own philosophy — to live his life his own way. He allows himself to be killed to preserve his memories from the curse, and gets his desire to be happy by being sent to the past, now able to save Alice.
• Crazy Sane: Yuri mentally absorbs strife from those he defeats; as a result, he is constantly just a handful of fights away from going permanently insane/possessed. However, because of this, Yuri/the player must make a habit of consistently dealing with his figurative/literal inner demons. There is a reason his Sanity Points dwarf nearly everyone else’s.
• Creepy Crosses: Yuri's jacket in the second game has a large, vertically bisected cross on its back. One late-game sidequest gives him an armor with the very same appearance, and its description clarifies that it's actually a bike jacket, and said cross is "a sign of youthful rebellion".
• Creepy Good: Most of his fusions are genuinely horrifying, boasting claws, spikes, fangs, and so on. Yuri himself is a good, if somewhat rude guy.
• Cursed with Awesome: He seems to think about his Harmonixer powers as a curse. Now, how exactly does turning into super-powered monsters sounds like a curse? Justified, however, because he's afraid of his powers as a result of his Traumatic Superpower Awakening.
• Cutscene Power to the Max:
  • In his introduction, he shrugs off getting his arm sliced off by a Wind Shear, catches it, and crushes its head, before reattaching said arm back. An impressive feat, given that said monster is fast enough to parry bullets, as shown in the same cutscene.
  • In Covenant, when he regains Amon's soul, he utterly destroy Rasputin's friggin' airship all by himself!
• Cynicism Catalyst: Alice's death made quite the impact on his haughty attitude.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Yuri's backstory. His mother died protecting him from monsters that were sent to kill them under Dehuai's orders, and his resulting rage forced him to transform for the first time. He then came to some time later, naked, covered in blood, and surrounded by the torn-apart corpses of the creatures that he had killed. After spending the night crying and clinging to his mother's dead body, he then ran off into the night, never to return. This happened when he was ten. He then wandered the land, killing monsters he came across, all while secretly fearing that the souls of these monsters will eventually come back for vengeance.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He is a rude, cynical guy, who fuses with demonic souls into inhuman monstrosities, belongs to the Dark element, and wears clothes that wouldn't be out of place on a '90s Anti-Hero. Still, he is fights to save the world, and leaves no doubt that he's a hero.
• De-power: Before he becomes playable in Covenant, Nicholi stabs him with an artifact called the "Holy Mistletoe", robbing him of the fusions he unlocked in the last game, plus doing a real number on his overall physical condition.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Yuri literally punches out Demon Gods and other monstrosities on a regular basis, thus earning the tittle of Godslayer. It's really all in a day's work for our Harmonixer hero. By the end of Covenant, he has defeated a god summoned from the soul of the planet itself, an alien Eldritch Abomination, three Demon Gods, and one of most powerful gods of Japan. And that's not going into Superbosses, which include more demons, gods, magicians, etc.
• Disappeared Dad: His father, Jinpachiro Hyuga, disappeared in 1900, but Yuri still holds onto the hope that he's still alive somewhere, which gives Fox Face a good method with which to psychologically torture him. As it's later revealed, Jinpachiro is indeed dead, being possesed after a failed fusion with a god, summoned by the Demon's Gate Invocation. Zhuzhen was forced to give him a Mercy Kill.
• The Dreaded: By the time Covenant rolls around, Yuri is known and feared by various secret societies. Sapientes Gladio specifically goes out of its way to track him down and curse him with the Holy Mistletoe — which is, frankly, a bit overkill, given that it was initially meant to kill Albert, the Big Bad of the previous game.
• Dub Name Change: In the Japanese versions, he goes by the fairly gibberish name of Urmnaf "Uru" Bort Hyuga (ウルムナフ・ボルテ・ヒューガ). He's called "Uru" in the dub of Chaos Wars, too.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Canonically, Yuri goes out quite spectacularly. After beating Susano-O, he chooses to stay behind and allows himself to be impaled by a stone spike, to preserve his memories from the Mistletoe Curse.
• Dying as Yourself: The good (canon) ending of Covenant. Rather than let the Mistletoe Curse wipe his metaphorical slate clean, Yuri opts to die and preserve his memories.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Yuri went though hell, and then some, but in the end, he finally has a chance to save Alice and get his happy ending, even though he had to die to make it happen.
• Elemental Powers: His innate element is Darkness, but his Fusion ability allows him to take on any other element, even Non-Elemental. Curiously enough, all of his final fusions are Non-Elemental, and not Dark.
• Empty Shell: In Covenant, this is, technically, his fate if the player gets the bad ending. Yuri loses all of his memories, and Roger takes it on himself to take care of him. Downplayed a bit, because he's definitely not catatonic or whatever, and retains some of his usual demeanor. The Yuri that we knew is still dead, though.
• Enemy Within: Frequent victim of this. The vengeful monsters he had slain, the masks, the (granted, stored) Seraphic Radiance, the Malice creatures, the shadowy forms he has to defeat to gain new fusions...
• Enemy Without: It's eventually revealed that Fox Face is a manifestation of his fear of losing himself to the monster he's fusing with.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Zhuzhen comments that he thinks Yuri’s just as handsome as his father, Pierre and Gerald find him adorable both in temperament and appearance and Wanderer Meiyuan thinks he’s downright sexy.
• Evil Knockoff: He gets one in the mirror world, though Yuri always wins in a one-on-one with it.
• Experienced Protagonist: By the start of the first game, he has been hunting monsters for about fifteen years already.
• Eye Beams: His "Demon Rays" attack in Amon form has him fire out a massive beam from both of his eyes. The beam sweeps upwards in the first game, but is fired straight in the sequel.

F-N

• Failure Knight:
  • From his very introduction, he has been trying to protect Alice — albeit not entirely on his own will at first. Alice then sacrifices herself to save Yuri from the Malice that has been consuming him. Yuri never quite gets over it.
  • To a slightly lesser extent, in the second game, he has been trying to protect the village of Domremy, only to be stabbed with the Holy Mistletoe, cursed, and almost die. While living in Domremy, Yuri befriended a little girl called Jeanne, who was taken hostage by villains, and accidentally killed. Yuri doesn't dwell on it that much only because Jeanne's soul ends up in his Mental World, and specifically tells that she wants to help him.
• Fate Worse than Death: In Covenant, he considers losing his soul to the Mistletoe Curse to be this. That's why in the good ending, he chooses to die to preserve his memories, instead of becoming an Empty Shell.
• Flat "What": His reaction to Joachim's absurd Incoming Ham is just flat "Wha?.. Huh?"
• Foil: Towards the Big Bad of the second game. Both have lost the woman they love, and both have tried and failed to resurrect her. However, where Masaji Kato gave into nihilism and tries to remake the world, Yuri accepted his loss, and fights to protect the world instead.
• The Four Gods: Some of his weapons in the second game are based on them. There are Tigerclaw, Tortoise Claw, Phoenix Fang, and Dragonfangs.
• Gender Bender: In the first game his Wind fusions appear to be female.
• Generation Xerox: He looks extremely similar to his father, Jinpachiro Hyuga. In the first game. he also follows his father's footsteps in fighting Dehuai, albeit with a large difference in actually surviving the attempt to fuse with the god summoned by the warlock.
• Giant Flyer: His second- and third-tier Wind fusions in the second game are giant bird-like monsters.
• Gratuitous Latin: Most of his fusions in Covenant are called with mangled Latin words. Somnion — from "somni", Libertis — from "libertas", and so on.
• Grin of Audacity: He is so snarky and indignant that it's part of his default portrait in Shadow Hearts. In Covenant, he continues to invoke it frequently in nearly every scene, but it's no longer part of his default character photo... For obvious reasons when you think about it.
• Good Is Not Nice: He is a hero, but he's also pretty rude, particularly in the first game.
• Good Is Not Soft: It's not stressed upon, but he doesn't go out of his way to spare human enemies. Only a couple of bosses manage to survive a fight with him. These soldiers he just beat up? Most likely dead.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: He fights in a flashy and brutal, but obviously self-taught style. Thankfully, his improved strength and durability as a Harmonixer make up for what he lacks in technique.
• Head Crushing: In the first game's intro, he kills a Wind Shear by catching it and effortlessly crushing its head with one hand.
• Hearing Voices: In the first game, a mysterious voice tells him to do things, and punishes him with a severe headache if he disobeys. This is exactly why Yuri was on the same train as Alice — the voice told him to save her. Yuri initially thinks that he's going insane, but eventually it's revealed to be Koudelka from the eponymous game, guiding him in order to stop the Big Bad. It's implied that Yuri is susceptible to hearing it thanks to his powers.
• Heartbroken Badass: In Covenant, due to Alice sacrificing her life to save his.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: It may not be readily apparent, but his jacket is, indeed, made from black leather.
• Henshin Hero: His Harmonixer powers enable him to fuse with souls of monsters into several distinct forms, each with its own Elemental Powers. In his Amon fusion, he even strikes some Tokusatsu-esque poses.
• Heroic Lineage: His father also have been a hero, who also had the power of fusion. In Covenant, it's revealed that his family, the Hyuga clan, have been protectors of the Inugami village for generations.
• Heroic Willpower: It's unspecified how long the Mistletoe Curse would take to kill someone else, but the fact that Yuri resisted it with sheer willpower for six months and survived several attempts to speed it up is noted to be exceptional.
• Horrifying Hero: While the original game doesn't show his fusion forms in cutscenes, the sequel shows how scary they can be. In Covenant's intro, Yuri outright pulls a Mook Horror Show on some German soldiers.
• Idiot Hero: That's why he can't use Magic Crests in the second game. In a variation of the common Eastern RPG trope, he may be stupid, but he's definitely not naive. Normally, at least.
  Yuri: I save that girl and don't get so much as a SMILE. C'mon, aren't they supposed to get all dewy-eyed. "Ohh, Mr. Yuri, thank you so much! SMOOCH!" ...Ain't that how it's s'posed to go? (Beat) ...Oh man, now I'm all depressed.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Yuri blames himself for Alice's death. Sometime before the events of Covenant, he wrapped her corpse in his Badass Longcoat and buried her as a sign of respect, and left his mother's cross on her grave.
• Immune to Bullets: In his Amon form, rifle bullets are shown to bounce off him. Not surprising, given that even The Goomba from the first game can parry bullets.
• Injured Player Character Stage: Parodied in the first game on the Smuggler's Boat. Yuri's movement is slowed to a crawl... because he's incredibly seasick.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • He is almost always "sonny boy" to Margaret.
  • In the Japanese version, he's almost never reffered to with his full first name — "Urmnaf". It's just "Uru" most of the time.
• Intergenerational Friendship: He strikes a friendship with much older Roger, Gepetto, and Zhuzhen. On the other side of the trope, he befriends eight-years-old Jeanne.
• In the Blood: His power of Fusion comes from his father. Yuri even inherits his final Dark fusion, Czernobog. In Covenant, it's revealed that Harmonixers' powers are indeed inherited. Yuri even encounters his cousin, who is also a Harmonixer.
• Jack of All Stats: His various Fusion forms allow him to take on any role, compensating for his inability to use Crest Magic. His only Achilles' Heel is when the enemy is strong against the element that the player needs right now. Say, you desperately needs healing against Fire-element enemy, and has Yuri morph into a Water fusion… and then receive far more damage than he would otherwise.
• Kamehame Hadoken: The ultimate attack of his ultimate fusion in Covenant is to fly high into space, create two orbs of magic in his hands, and then fire a massive blast at his target. For some reason, it's not a single-hit attack, but rather a multi-hit one, making it useful for building up Combos. It's also one of the few attacks that will always hit (it can't whiff), and will always leave the enemy in the same position as before the attack.
• Kick the Dog: While beating the crap out of Minister Ishimura, Yuri callously tosses the man's grandson aside when the boy begs him to stop.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Yuri is a cynical Broken Ace who nonetheless fights to save the world.
• Licked by the Dog: Blanca immediately starts trusting him, and even takes food from him.
  Jeanne: Wow. Up until now, he's never taken food from anyone but me!
• Like Father, Like Son: Especially prevalent in the first game, in which he shows up to save Zhuzhen from Wugui and his thugs in the exact same manner as his father years before. Some people who knew Jinpachiro even remark how alike they are.
• Limited Loadout: In the first game, he can equip only three fusion souls at most.
• Love Hurts: Alice's sacrifice in the first game hurts him. A lot. In the sequel, most of his actions are driven by guilt over this event.
• Magic Pants: In most of his fusions, he loses all of his clothes, which then reappear after cancelling the transformation. His first-tier Light, Dark, and Fire fusions in Covenant also retain some of his clothes, but in torn state, which is then magically fixed after defusing.
• Magnetic Hero: Played with. Yuri is curt even with the ones he gets along with, and party members have to force themselves into the group.
• Manly Tears: Sheds some in the ending of the first game, when he realises that Alice is dead.
• Mental World: The Graveyard is a place within Yuri's mind, where he can unlock new fusions and, in the first game, purify his Malice. It also serves as a residence for Jeanne's and Albert's souls, who were accidentally pulled into his mind. In Covenant, Yuri is periodically summoned here by Jeanne to discuss his curse, while Albert makes peace with Yuri after he unlocks his Amon fusion.
• Mind Hive: As it turns out, he accidentally pulls certain souls (usually of those who died near him) into the Graveyard. While he just dominates monster souls to fuse with them, human souls retain their consciousness, and can sometimes communicate with Yuri. Known residents of the Graveyard include Ben Hyuga, Jeanne, and Albert.
• Momma's Boy: At-heart, though he doesn’t like to acknowledge it considering his macho exterior and the pain associated with his mother’s death.
• Morality Pet: For all of his rudeness, he's consistently nice to Alice. Later, he strikes a friendship with Jeanne, and is also nice to her.
• Morphic Resonance: In Covenant, his level one fusions all retain his basic shape, build, and even fighting style. Light, Dark, and Fire fusions also retain parts of his clothes.
• The Mourning After: He's still not over Alice's sacrifice as of the second game.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: All of his Fire fusions in the original game are four-armed demons. They also provide the largest physical attack bonuses of their tier, losing only to the Infinity Plus One Fusion Seraphic Radiance.
• Multiform Balance: Each of his fusions provides different bonuses to his stats, and allows him to play different roles — physical or magical attacker, healer, or support. Expanded in the second game, where he can fuse more freely (thanks to his fusions now consuming only a small amount of Sanity Points, but on every turn), and can contribute to different stages of Combination Attacks. High-angle, low-angle, multi-hit, single-hit — each of his forms puts something unique on the table.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Hoo boy. At the end of the second game, he's given the chance to go back and set right the wrongs that cost Alice her life.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling:
  • He can tell that there's something familiar about the Golden Bat when he meets him in the second game, but he can't quite put his finger on it. It's probably a nod to the fact that meeting him through his brother, Keith the Silver Bat, was only a sidequest in the first game.
  • Then again, he feels the same way about Ouka in Covenant, though this is more justified since she's Yoshiko Kawashima, who's supposed to be dead.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His first fusion in the first game is Death Emperor. Ironically, it's one of his weakest fusions.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He decides to stay in and protect the village of Domremy, and befriends a local girl called Jeanne. However, his protection of the village from Germans ends up attracting attention from Sapientes Gladio, who attack the village and take Jeanne as a hostage. Yuri obediently defuses, gets the Holy Mistletoe to the chest for his troubles, and Jeanne still ends up dying. The fact that you can later visit Domremy once again, and find the locals living here semi-peacefully, makes Yuri's protection all the more redundant.
• No Guy Wants an Amazon: He's completely oblivious to the outgoing Karin's feelings for him and doesn't reciprocate in the slightest. On the other hand, he's head over heels for White Magician Girl Alice.
• No One Could Survive That!: Frequently takes shattering blows to his person, such as getting his left arm sliced off in the first game's intro, but his Harmonixer power allows him to regenerate. Downplayed in the second game, where his physical condition is worsened by the Holy Mistletoe.
• Nothing Personal: He doesn't hold any personal grudge towards either of the Big Bads of both games. He knows that they are Well Intentioned Extremists, who want to radically change the world. But even if these changes would have been for the better, he chooses to protect the world he knows and loves.
  Yuri: Let's promise then. No matter who wins, no hard feelings, eh?
• No Place for Me There: In the good ending of Covenant, he knows that the world has nothing left for him as the Empty Shell he'll become if he succumbs to the Mistletoe's Curse, and willingly accepts death to escape this fate.
• Not Himself:
  • In the first game, after failing to fuse with the Seraphic Radiance, he's overwhelmed by Malice, and the party has to beat some sense in him. Unfortunately, it also requires Alice to offer her life to the Four Masks be taken in place of his. In the canon ending, she dies because of this.
  • In the second game's bad ending, he gets his soul killed, which means that he loses all of his memories, and can't remember even his own name. It's implied that the Yuri we knew is dead, and the one we see in this ending is essentially a new person in the same body.

O-Z

• Odd Friendship: With each and every one of the party members. Also Kato, considering they're never (technically) on the same side.
• Official Couple: He's confirmed to get together with Alice. She's even called "the woman of [Yuri's] destiny" in the ending of Covenant.
• Only Sane Man: Comes off as this compared to most of the other party members. He frequently lampshades some weirder moments the party comes across.
• Opposites Attract: He is a rude and cynical drifter, who comes close and personal with his enemies, while Alice is a sweet and gentle White Magician Girl from a well-off family. They even have opposite elements — Dark and Light. And yet, they love each other.
• Our Angels Are Different:
  • In the first game, his third-tier Light fusion is Sandalphon — a specific archangel in Judaism and Christianity. Here, however, it is a weird, legless, leviating being, adorned with inexplicably ancient-Egypt-like decorations.
  • His strongest Wind fusion, meanwhile, is "Seravi" — a misspelling of "seraph". It is said to be "formed from the soul of a Roc", as in Roc Birds, who don't have anything to do with Abrahamic religions at all. The fusion itself looks more like a harpy.
  • Covenant's second- and third-tier Light fusions are described as "greater angel" and "archangel" respectively. They appear as strange, androgynous, Stripperiffic figures with weird skin colors.
  • His final fusions in both games, Seraphic Radiance and Dark Seraphim, are angelic figures that cross the Bishōnen Line and appear as just naked Yuri with black wings. They are actually a soul of a god, incarnated from the very soul of the planet.
• Our Dragons Are Different: His second- and third-tier Water fusions in Covenant are Eastern-style dragons, who are said to be a "spirit of the ocean" and a "god of water" respectively. These forms have no usable limbs, and their physical attacks are carried out with a pair of floating fists of some kind.
• Painful Transformation: Over two games, he experiences both flavors.
  • In the first game, he clutches his head when fusing. It's later revealed that it causes him mental pain because he's afraid of losing himself to the monster he's fusing with. Yuri later grows out of it, after he defeats the manifestation of his fears, Fox Face.
  • In Covenant, he clutches his chest instead. It's implied to be the result of the Mistletoe Curse, as it takes a toll on his physical condition. Yuri stops doing it after he finds out what makes him happy, and decides to die, instead of living on as an Empty Shell.
• Peggy Sue: Covenant reveals that the good ending of the original game can be possible only if Yuri goes through the good ending of the second game and goes back in time, with knowledge of how to save Alice. This obviously messes with the timeline, and prevents the events of Covenant from happening as they did.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: The rude hero to Albert's polite villain. Hell, he's even identified as "Rude Hero" when the game begins.
• Power Fist: In the first game his weapons are different varieties of knuckles.
• Power Floats:
  • Most of his Light fusions (aside from the first-tier one in Covenant) permanently float, albeit in the first game mainly due to the lack of legs.
  • In the sequel, his final Dark Seraphim fusion is a movement-only version.
• Power Up Letdown: In both games, his first-tier Water and Light fusions actually lower some of his stats. In the second game, it can be fixed by putting some Soul Energy into them; in the first, not so much.
• Pulling Themselves Together: In the opening sequence of the first game, he reattaches his arm, which was sliced off by a Wind Shear. He never uses this ability again, and doesn't even have any kind of regeneration in gameplay.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Inverted. His failed fusion with the Seraphic Radiance, while a failed endeavor in the short-term, opened up this ridiculously powerful form later on (in both games, at that) by essentially "storing" it in his soul.
• Red Baron: As of Covenant, he's known as the Godslayer, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. To a lesser extent, he's also called the Demon of Domremy.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He is a rude and violent red oni to Alice's gentle and caring blue.
• Running Gag:
  • In both the first game and Covenant, Yuri gets seasick whenever boats are involved.
  • He also has an aversion to flying, though this may be due to Margarete's piloting.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Implied. In the good ending of Covenant, Yuri is sent back in time to where he first met Alice, and it's implied that he now knows how to save her life.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Yuri's standard approach to villainous banter. He has slightly more patience for the Well-Intentioned Extremist type, but he'll still kick their ass.
  Astaroth: I will usher in a glorious new future!
  Yuri: Before you do, can I ask a favor?
  Astaroth: What do you wish, human?
  Yuri: I wish you'd shove it. You know where.
• Spanner in the Works: Things would have worked out far better for Simon if he had counted on Yuri getting involved.
• Soul Jar: He carries not only the various Fusion Souls within his mind/body, but also finds out that the spiritual essences of Jeanne, Albert and his father Ben exist inside him as well.
• Spell My Name With An S: Is he a Harmonixer or a Harmonizer? The former spelling was used in the first game, and the latter everywhere else.
• Superpowered Evil Side: This is especially the case during his Brainwashed and Crazy stint.
• Sympathy for the Devil: In the first game, after learning the Big Bad's circumstances, namely how Albert tried to defy society, where a person's place in life was determined by his birth, and was branded as a heretic for his troubles, notes that now he understands, why said Big Bad lost his faith in humanity.
• Tears of Blood: During his attack of Rasputin, while attempting to break his shield, we can see Yuri cry some.
• Temporal Paradox:
  • In the good ending of Covenant, we learn that his existence is an ontological paradox. Specifically, it's all but stated that Karin, who ends up in 1887, will end up becoming his mother. However, for her to be time displaced requires her to travel with Yuri... which would be impossible, if not for a time loop.
  • Yuri's Peggy Sue status in the same good ending may bring forth another one. Since it's implied that he now knows how to save Alice, he will likely prevent the events of Covenant from happening, thus preventing Karin from going to the past and becoming his mother.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Not that he wasn't one already, but after meeting Alice, he somehow unlocks the power to fuse with more than one monster. While other Harmonixers also demonstrate this ability, Yuri's is the most versatile out of them.
  • Around the midpoint of the first game, he comes to terms with his powers and conquers his fears. After that, he becomes much more effective and badass. Not screaming in terror each time he fuses definitely helps.
• Too Many Belts: In both of his main costumes.
  • In the first game, he wears one belt normally, and three more around the waist, over his longcoat.
  • In the second game, he wears two belts around his waist. His jacket is fastened with two belts in front, and has a belt on each cuff. His pouch also has two belts hanging from it (subject to Jiggle Physics, no less). Oh, and concept art reveals that his boots are also fastened with two straps each.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: His first transformation happened when he saw monsters killing his mother. He slaughtered them all in a blind rage, and then found himself naked and covered in blood. He then clung to his mother's corpse for a full night. All that happened when he was about ten years old. No wonder fusion mentally hurts him.
• Unique Protagonist Asset: Exposure to Alice's powers somehow enabled him to access more than one fusion form, something that's noted to be extremely rare even among Harmonixers. It gives Yuri an advantage in versatility and power that no one else can really match.
• Unknown Rival: Nicolai hated Yuri's guts ever since Yuri dealt with the Big Bad of the first game. Naturally, Yuri has no clue that someone wants to kill him that much.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Karin, though after the epilogue, it's probably for the best.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: His demon fusion is the only individual skill he gets, but the number of them is what gives him variety.
• Walking the Earth: Before he started hearing The Voice that eventually led him to meet Alice, he wandered throughout eastern Eurasia, killing whatever monsters he came across.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • Yuri has high sanity, he fights demons and Eldritch Abominations on a near daily basis, he transforms into untold horrors himself, and even killed a god. Yet for some odd reason, he has an unexplained fear of ghosts.
  • On a smaller note, boats. They tend to make him very seasick.
• Wolverine Claws: Most of his weapons in the second game are various claws.
• Would Hit a Girl: Gameplay aside, he knocked Karin out cold in Covenant's opening.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • He absentmindedly backhands Halley across the street for crying about his mother. He still helps, but the crying apparently bugs him. Very likely due to his own memories of his last moments with his mother.
  • In Covenant, as Yuri is coming in to give Minister Ishimura what he has coming, the man's 6-year-old grandkid Kosuke barges in and shields him from Yuri, saying he can't hit his grandpa. After an initial shock at realizing that Even Evil Has Loved Ones, he shoves the little guy away (which knocks him out cold) before beating the ever-loving shit out of his grandpa.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • The Big Bad of the first game apparently feels this way about him. He warns Viscount Rausan not to underestimate Yuri and stresses to Olga that anyone who can survive and remain possession-free after an encounter with the Seraphic Radiance is truly a foe to be admired.
  • Yuri also gets this from Nicolai, oddly enough. Smug Snake though Nicolai may be, he is first made wary of Yuri as an opponent when he finds that Yuri managed to kill Albert, and later confirms it once he sees Yuri's willpower can actually overcome Amon.
• Xenomorph Xerox: His Water fusions in the original game bear resemblance to the xenomorph. Highlights include a hunched-over stance, Eyeless Face, long tail, and dark coloration.
• Your Days Are Numbered: The Mistletoe's curse that he was hit with at the beginning of Covenant is eventually going to kill him. It's later revealed that it's a not a physical death, though. It's going to rob him of his soul and memories, leaving him an Empty Shell. Yuri's strong willpower allows him to endure the curse for over six months, but it finally catches up to him at the end of the story.

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