LogFAQs > #935809857

#33 - Chester Burklight (Phantasia)
Youre you. Youre not Ami. But still, I want to teach how many great things exist in this world. So many things that she never had a chance to see.

Age can be kind of a difficult concept with JRPG characters. Pretty much the whole basis of the genre rests on the idea of throwing a bunch of teenagers into extraordinary situations, and though ideally itd be nice to have them all act their ages, you can only do that to a point because, frankly, most teens are annoying jackasses and players would hate them.

In my estimation, Chester is one of the most realistic depictions of a teen that the Tales series has. Forced to grow up very fast in order to take care of his sister after they became orphans, he immediately comes off as someone with a very different outlook on life compared to the naive Cress. His response to learning that Cresss uncle sold him out to the soldiers is simply to quietly muse that people sometimes have to do things they dont like just to survive. He seems to have an innate understanding of the burden of responsibility, both in regards to a lone individuals place in the world and in the larger sense of the great conflict he finds himself in.

But that doesnt mean hes not immature at times, most notably in situations that play on his emotions. Hes hot headed and reckless, and that gets him into trouble more than once, but hes also a bit of a slave to the softer feelings in his heart. Arches offhand comment that he looks weak drives him to train obsessively through the night for who knows how long after he rejoins the party, and while its clear that thats partly because hes bothered by how the others have passed him by (this is the reason his lack of screen time bothers me slightly less than it does with other characters - its integrated into his growth), it later transpires that he also just has a thing for Arche and wants to impress her. And in the interim, like any seventeen-year-old with a crush, he just butts heads with her at every opportunity. It was a good way to write him - its realistic without being grating. Some of the late game skits reveal him to be more introspective than one would imagine, too. The protectiveness he develops for Suzu given that she reminds him of Ami is sweet. Its a nice bit of continuity that it hurts him to see her trying to close herself off from emotion entirely, given that thats pretty much the antithesis of everything Ami was.

The big problem Chester has that keeps him from climbing any further is that hes just gone for too long. He misses everything in the story that happens in the past timeline because hes laying around dead in the present, and unfortunately that great bit of development where hes insecure about his weakness shows in gameplay too, because hes at a much lower level than the rest of your party when you get him back. Once you train him up, hes an absolute beast that ends up second only to Cress in battle, but its a pain to get him that far.

TL;DR: Chesters long absence, although ultimately a net positive for his overall development, is kind of annoying because it leaves him out of focus for so long, and he ends up missing out on a lot of important story events and on the time to better develop a romance with Arche thats sort of charming but feels rushed and somewhat disappointing. Hes still the most interesting member of the cast, though, because the time we do get with him has a lot of great stuff in it.

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https://imgur.com/UYamul2
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