I romanced Laura in the four CS games but I think I'll go with Alisa this time. (She gets a bad rap probably because canon love interest. Rachel Hirsfield is really good as her though. The voice change for Laura is like what happened with Yuri Lowell in Vesperia. Once you hear it the immersion is just plain ruined.) I am one of the few who actually likes her. I guess technically I like the entire cast lol.
I don't hate Alisa per se, but I'm mostly baffled that she gets pushed as the "main" romantic interest when they 1, don't properly commit to it and 2, she is kind of irrelevant to the grand scheme of things till game 3. Just to get it out of the way, Emma's my waifu and so it shall be till the end of time, but she always seemed like she should have been the canon pairing, she is the most relevant by far in the first game and in the rest she always has additional insight or contacts that come into play, hell, I'm convinced half her character was stapled onto Celine to avoid her being so far ahead from the rest of the harem when it comes to relevance. Also gives a nice mirror between Rean-Emma and Crow-Vita.
As for the rest of the cast, honestly half of class 7 could be axed (along with the harem which kills a level of development for a lot of characters, that Yuna's little thing with Kurt gets snuffed out to keep her open to Rean is pretty vile) and the narrative would benefit. Laura ends up being "father, swords", Gaius is "wind" (
and I'm so sorry that he was your first interaction with a Dominion, all other Domion's are cool as all hell and have true weight to their stigmas, and then you have Gaius who just kind of inhereted his) and Elliot is fine as the bro character but also just devolves into "music". You could have merged Alisa and Machias, Jusis and Laura (opposite genders, give romantic tension that develops, make Millium be more of a little sister than the weird couple thing she ends up having with Jusis), Emma gets merged with Celine (the latter just being a smarter than average cat that Roselia and Emma can "possess" to communicate and do other witch shit) and Fie stays as is. Then you have Gaius and Elliot as a "bro" classmates that aren't directly involved in all of the class 7 shit which also gives Rean someone with outside perspective to chill with. Oh, and also, Sarah does not become playable till like Cold Steel 3 for the first time, having her be in similar level as the rest felt like a huge downgrade to how much of a beast she is supposed to be.
I do know with that setup I'm leaving some threads lose (
well, just the Dominion slot at that point if Gaius gets downgraded to normal class member, but you could give much bigger protagonism to Thomas motherfucking Partitioner instead whom I'd love more details about) but would help a few characters be able to grow more and have the roster a bit less bloated, at least in the first 2 games.
And I've spilled all of my spaghetti and dumped a fanfic, go me.
