What do you look for in characters?

[Karifean]

Similarly to Fynn, I value it when the characters feel 'real'. This is one of the things I feel Ryukishi07 absolutely nailed in the When They Cry series; both entries have massive casts, but even as you go through crazy or supernatural events or even go as far removed from down-to-earth reality as conceivable; you never end up feeling like the characters aren't "real people" dealing with their own problems, and even if they do horrible things you just can't help but sympathize with them once you know what makes them act that way. It's fine even if the problems they deal with are of a supernatural nature.

So in a nutshell, it doesn't matter to me how good of a person the character is. It matters to me that their mindset and actions are understandable, even if I don't personally agree with them. Although with that being said I do like characters that just put a smile on my face with their beaming or delightful personalities from time to time too, I suppose.

This is actually one of the reasons I started getting into visual novels in the first place. Sure some characters may be clichéd but by the very structure of a charage you'll still get an insight into what makes them tick, and quite often you'll end up surprised by the depth you find. Key is pretty good at this. Most people remember them for making tearjerkers, I just love that they make characters I really care about; because even though they have typical "I can sum them up in one sentence" kind of characters at first, that's never all there is to them, and while they tend to be a lot more one-sidedly kindhearted and likeable than Ryu's characters that doesn't mean they can't be complex and interesting. Prime example being of course my favorite character ever, Kyousuke Natsume from Little Busters, who I loved from the moment he turned up and made every scene he was in amazing, but who also struggles with continuously being the kind of person he is.

I should probably also mention that I've never encountered a character I outright disliked, at worst I don't care about them.