Emily does have some backstory, she's the daughter of Ronnie Bell and Mose from Suikoden 1.

I like Suikoden cause generally every character has a real story. Not like Chrono Cross where you basically collect freaks and children that have nothing to go on...

If the game has a large cast, I don't mind if a few are underdeveloped (Suikoden, FFTactics, Gogo, and Umaro) but if you have a small cast and still have underdeveloped characters I get a bit miffed.