Not sure if there's much to add to Marble's descriptions. I like Lise because of her tragic story, and she's a nice and useful character. Hawk is a cool guy, but his ending pretty much sucks, so I'd make him the 2nd or 3rd character.

Angela's a nice character, but I'm not a heavy magic user. Her Light level 2 tech, Pink Typhoon, might be the hottest or ugliest thing in the game. I don't like it, myself. I think Duran is a fun character. Maybe he's quite a generic RPG knight, but his classes have nice support spells (Sabers, healing, awesome techs), and I like some of the (SPOILER)Star Wars -esque events concerning Duran.

Kevin's extremely powerful, but I don't like him. He makes the game a total breeze. Character-wise, he would be cool if he wasn't so dumb and didn't speak like he was dumb too. Carlie's sometimes annoying, especially with her tear eyes and smoke ears, but she's a very good healer. Her intro and ending are also nice.