Cless is an archetypical RPG hero- he's a Hot Blooded, courageous, Book Dumb, and slightly oblivious country boy with a sword who gets sucked into an adventure he didn't want. He loves justice, and is motivated by wanting to avenge his Doomed Hometown.
Aerith and Bob- his parents have Hispanic names, Miguel and Maria. He does not.
Fight In The Nude- Slightly averted. In the original, Cless' weapon graphic changes to reflect its type - a sword, axe, spear or halberd. In the remakes, both weapon and shield graphics are unique for each piece of equipment.
Katanas Are Just Better- Subverted - the Muramasa is the best slash weapon when you can first get it, but has low stabbing power, gets overthrown eventually, and is finally left in the dust by the Arthurian and Norse-based Infinity Plus One Swords
Also his English VA in the OVA, Johnny Yong Bosch. And if Radiant Mythology is any indication, Bosch will probably voice him again if Cress appears in another English Tales game.
Nice Hat- A headband, technically, but it's still a signature piece of his outfit, and you can win it by beating him up in the Tales Of Eternia cameo battle.
Say My Name- Holy crap, Cress is loud. CHESTERRRRRRR! DHAOSSSSSSSSS! MINNTTTTTT!
Spell My Name with an S- His name was initially translated as Cless Alvein, but in both Tales Of Destiny and Tales Of Eternia it was localized as Cress Albain. And in the GBA version of Phantasia it was changed to Cress Albane. Cress ultimately makes more sense, as it's a type of herb, like Mint.
A Mysterious Waif Cless meets after being captured and thrown in jail. He helps her escape and find the one person who can help them defeat Dhaos. She is an orphan from a long line of healers with a deep connection to the legendary Unicorn.
Virgin Power - It's why she could approach the Unicorn.
Yamato Nadeshiko- She gets it as a title in the original version.
Klarth/Clark/Claus F. Lester
Shortly after arriving in the past, Cless and Mint seek out Klarth, a researcher who is trying to find a way for humans to use magic. On the way, he ended up rediscovering the lost art of summoning, and is making an effort to resurrect it, much to the scorn of his colleagues. Part Mad Scientist, part Witch Doctor, part Mr. Exposition, and all Cool Old Guy, he acts aloof and vain, but he truly does care for the crazy kids dragging him all over the world. His weapon is a book.
Bald of Awesome - Subverted. It's clear to everybody that he has long silver hair and there's nothing to suggest it's a wig, but Arche suggests it anyway.
Cool Old Guy- Okay, so he's not that old, but by RPG standards, 29 is pretty ancient. Arche lampshades this at one point. (Then again though; a lot of this is partly because he's drawn in a way that makes him look older than he really is, as well as the white hair)
Magikarp Power - Klarth is a mage who first joins the party with no spells at all! He'll end up being a better offensive force than Arche during your stay in the Past era, however.
Mood Whiplash - Klarth breaks up a humorous moment during a skit in the future where the rest of the party are realizing how old they would be by mentioning that he's long since six feet under in that time period.
Spell My Name with an S- His name was translated as Clark in Tales Of Eternia, and as Claus in the Gameboy Advance version of Phantasia, there's a chance he'll become Klarth once more if the route Radiant Mythology took is taken.
Unusually Uninteresting Sight- Nobody ever comments on his bizarre outfit and tattoos, even though he's the one always explaining the situation to political and military leaders...
A half-elf from the past, she joins the party because they need someone who can use magic to defeat Dhaos. She is usually immature and easygoing, and a bit of a perv, but she's a powerful addition to the team, and essential at lightening the mood. Her weapon of choice is the flying broom that she rides on.
Mayfly-December Romance- She's a half-elf, so her life span is much longer than a human's. She and Chester end up in a relationship, even though she is over a hundred years older than he is, and he will die long before her.
Never Say Goodbye - Arche refuses to bid her friends from 100 and 150 years past her time goodbye when she returns to her own era at the end of the game, but this is because, unlike Klarth, she's a Half-Elf and her lifespan is such that she'll outlive them.
Who Wants to Live Forever?- She won't live forever per se, but she'll still vastly outlive all her friends, and does suffer from the angst associated with this trope.
Cless's childhood friend, an orphan who lost his only family when their Doomed Hometown was destroyed by the army trying to ressurrect Dhaos. He's the best archer in town... Or at least, he was, before the town burned down. He's veryHot Blooded.
Determinator: He almost died, and then when you finally get him back, he's around 30 levels below everybody else. But that won't stop him from training heavily and joining you in the war against Dhaos.
Eyes Always Shut: His SFC sprites depict him as this, though it's averted everywhere else.
Magikarp Power - In the SNES game, he comes back extremely underleveled, but train him up, give him the Berserk Bow, and set his AI to recklessly fire, and his damage output will be second only to Cless.
My Sister Is Off Limits - He was initially hostile to Cless when they were younger, because he saw that Ami had a pretty obvious crush on him.
Promotion to Parent- His parents are dead, so he raises his little sister Ami.
Put on a Bus - Misses out on a considerable length of game when Cless and Mint leave him behind when they travel to the past.
Slap-Slap-Kiss- His relationship with Arche starts out a bit... rough.
Spell My Name with an S- His last name was translated as Burklight in the Gameboy Advance version of Phantasia, and it was translated to (the technically correct) Barklight in Radiant Mythology.
Suzu is a ten-year-old ninja girl from the future. In the PSX remake and beyond, the party meets her in Volt's Temple. (In the SNES version, you met her when (if) you managed to find the hidden ninja village, Japoni.) She's next in line for the position of chief of Japoni, since her parents are Brainwashed and Crazy and ran off. In the PSX remake and beyond, she will join your party after a brief sidequest involving fighting in the Euclid coliseum and finding Japoni. She fights with a nintou.
The "Demon Lord," a man from another world who is wreaking havoc on the world and needs to be stopped. Later, it's revealed that his homeworld was dying, and he came to Aselia to prevent the people from destroying their Mana Tree, and get a seed from it so that he can save his homeworld. He has the ability to travel through time.
Belated Backstory-It wasn't until Narikiri Dungeon that his whole schtick was finally explained.
His backstory was fully explored in the novel Katararezaru Rekishi, which depicts him before he was forced to jump off the deep end.
Big Bad- Although his vast knowledge surrounding the World Tree and his fighting prowess also allow him to fill in as his own army's Evil Genius and Brute.
Fallen Hero: To quote the Tales wiki; he was relieved when he didn't have to use force to stop a war and began to organise relief efforts for the citizens who were caught in the crossfire. When Dios fired a mana weapon, thus wiping it from the planet, his immediate reaction was to see if anything could be done to save the World Tree. Upon finding that it was too late, he immediately headed to Aselia... And then the plot happened.
Fantastic Racism- Against humans. Turns into something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the humans end up doing exactly what he was assuming they would... but they only do it trying to stop him from attacking them without explanation. The anime changes things around somewhat (see "Poor Communication Kills").
Humans Are Bastards- Subverted. In the sequel to Phantasia, Narikiri Dungeon, it is revealed that when Dhaos came to Earth and saw the state it was in, his heart was filled with malicious intent, which he himself acknowledged as his hidden voice of evil.
It Was H Is Sled: We all know that he was just trying to save his own people.
Not So Different- Cless realizes that they're both trying to achieve the same thing for their respective worlds and they see each other in the same way.
Poor Communication Kills- In the game only. In the OVA, he tried to tell the people that they were about to royally screw themselves over, they just refused to listen and called him a monster.
Katararezaru Rekishi shows that Dhaos did attempt to tell Midgard the dangers of magitech research, but Reisen accused him of being a demon due to his alien mana flow and refused to listen to him, instead attempting to kill him and sending the guards to hunt him down.
Restored My Faith In Humanity: According to the Tales wiki, his spirit comes to understand that he's Not So Different from humans and that the darkness in both their hearts must not be expelled but, rather, controlled.
Sealed Evil in a Can- he was sealed away by Cless's, Mint's, and Morrison's ancestors when he first came to Aselia.
