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The 13 Sentinels, Ranked

When you play a game like 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, with its many twists and turns and fun little references, you're naturally inclined to initiate a discussion on the internet about what you liked, or disliked, about the overall experience. However, it's tricky to frame such a discussion in a large part because the game's structure is so fragmented and out-of-sync; there's a process where you piece together what you've learned and take account of the larger picture, not to mention the clear distinction to be made between its visual novel narrative side and tactical RTS/tower-defense side.

So that's why I've chosen to frame my takes by taking all thirteen major playable cast members of the game and ranking them based on four criteria: my early impressions of them, my post-game impressions of them, the enjoyment I derived from playing through their story routes, and how effective they were as units in the combat portion of the game. By merging the results of those criteria, I was able to find a "final" rank that I think reflects how I felt about each character and, to a lesser extent, the game as a whole.

Will Miura's love of burgers be enough to compensate for his dry nothing of a characterization?
Will Miura's love of burgers be enough to compensate for his dry nothing of a characterization?

Sound off in the comments if you felt I was too easy or too harsh on anyone. And be forewarned that this list is stacked floor-to-ceiling with 13 Sentinels spoilers; in fact, I doubt it'll make much sense if you haven't already completed the game.

But first, a rundown of how I used the Sentinels in a broader sense just so I don't end up repeating a lot of it later with the individual characters:

  • The Gen 1s are the bruisers: the tankier units you send out into the field to beat down the larger foes while the rest of the team occupy defensive positions to take care of the fast-moving weaklings flying in from all directions. I never found them as useful as the Gen 4s due to their lower damage potential; instead they exist purely to soak up aggro from the more DPS-inclined Gen 4s which really cannot take much punishment in comparison. Demolisher Blade is great, at least until you start meeting enemies with ceramic shielding like the Gladiators due to the way its damage is calculated, at which point it becomes kinda useless.
  • With all the Gen 2s, I found myself relying a lot on their Sentry Guns, which are the best tools any of the Sentinels have for the considerable uptick in firepower. The issue I have with Gen 2s is that they're meant to be a versatile hybrid of close-range and long-distance, but it's tricky to get much use out of the former unless it's a hectic map where the enemies are breathing down the neck of the terminal, and they don't exactly move fast. Otherwise, you're better off with the more maneuverable Gen 1s or Gen 4s, or the Gen 3s which don't need to move at all.
  • I always remember to include at least one Gen 3 because they're your best line of defense for the terminal. In addition to being able to shoot halfway across the map, they have many area-of-effect attacks that make it easier to remove a massive number of incoming missiles from the enemy Twintails. I'm a big fan of the railguns too, though given you need to be the right spot to use them effectively - sending a single shot down the line to hit as many foes at once - it serves to highlight their incredibly limited movement speed as a detriment. Then again, I had entire battles where they never budged from their starting position because their range meant they never needed to.
  • The Gen 4s are the VIPs as far as I'm concerned, and I'm glad the game saw fit to give you four of them as opposed to three of all the other kinds. I usually try to bring two into every battle. Along with their high speed and how they can ignore geography to move around (due to flying over everything), they have the most damaging attacks to help deal with tougher foes and can quickly eliminate large crowds of enemies with their AoEs. I usually pair them with a Gen 1 to keep most of the aggro off them. Best of all are the little interceptors they can summon, which zip around the field finishing off enemies that have been knocked back so far they've become awkward to reach.

(Characters are ordered as they are in the Remembrance story mode.)

List items

  • Early-Game: I know this is an ensemble piece, but Kurabe has "designated protagonist" written all over him. That, his submissive personality, and that floofy haircut didn't immediately engender a positive first impression. 10th.

    Route: Each character's route played into a different narrative trope, I thought, and it was clever how they managed to make all thirteen routes stand out beyond their individual puzzle-piece relevance to the overall plot. Juro's was like a slow-burn conspiracy thing, where someone was manipulating him and it took some digging to find out whom. I never trusted Shiba, by the way, even before I played enough of the other routes to notice he never shows up in any of them. Fake Yosuke. I am curious how he was able to play Amiguchi's Gradius cart though. 2nd.

    Post-Game: Finding out that Juro, or at least a former Juro, was some ruthless Snake Plisskin anti-hero genius tactician type did help turn me around on his character, and how his implanted personality was designed to be as wishy-washy as possible to avoid him becoming the badass he was fated to be. The Juro Kurabe of the present was a catalyst for a big gambit without even realizing it, with his character becoming more resolute and competent as he drew the right lessons from his little parasite buddy. 4th.

    Sentinel 13 (2nd Gen): As with most 2nd Gens, I mostly had Juro drop down a Sentry and rely on his guns to back-up the 3rd Gens, which in his case isn't that helpful since his uniques tend to spec towards the melee-like, including his devastating (and expensive) Elite Plasma Arc Fusion Cutter unique. I did appreciate all his relatively cheap-to-use anti-armor ranged abilities at least. I also appreciated the narrative elegance of his "designated protagonist" aspect coming to the fore in the final battle, as a fully-levelled Juro has an OP pilot skill that just about makes that nightmare of an encounter survivable (it's only applicable to that one stage too). 6th.

    Final Rank: 4th.

  • Early-Game: Clearly vital to the plot given her prominence on the box art, Iori's initially without a lot of spark besides just generally being cute and affable. Her similarity to the busty school nurse is perhaps the first instance of there being something screwy with the game's continuity. 6th.

    Route: Iori's route isn't all that remarkable either, except for the circulatory manner in which its scenes looped until you figured out the right prompt to move things forward, which was the closest the game got to a traditional adventure game with dialogue trees and inventory puzzles to solve. Or you could just keep stuffing crépes into your face in perpetuity (man, there's a lot of weird food stuff in this game). 12th.

    Post-Game: The adult Chihiro Morimura is one of the game's more interesting riddles because it takes some guesswork, once the story's done, to piece together what her plan was since you see it from the perspective of a bunch of people who aren't Iori. Also, what the heck did Iori eat between 16 and when she finished growing to develop a shape like that? Maybe the endless crepes? Vanillaware's definitely getting hornier as they go along. 8th.

    Sentinel 15 (2nd Gen): My least used 2nd Gen as well as least used unit in the game, mostly because she's a defensive healer type. She does have a unique long-range attack though, making her maybe a better fit for the way I used 2nd Gens over Juro, except she doesn't have any anti-armor abilities besides the close-range Plasma Arc Cutters and the AoE Plasmic Wrecker unique. 13th.

    Final Rank: 12th.

  • Early-Game: The clingy girlfriend character is already a thankless role before you start dragging "travelled through time to be with you" and "went around doping her friends with a tranquilizer gun because a magic cat promised he'd help restore your boyfriend's memories if you did so" into it. Her hemborgers looked delicious though (not a euphemism). 9th.

    Route: Megumi has a fairly standard and linear route but I appreciated that it's kind of a brick joke in that she would've had to infect everyone with 426's virus for them to be able to upgrade their Sentinels (and it's an intriguing bit of meta commentary that they explained why the RTS sections actually operated on video game mechanics). If you watch her story unfold in full you can see how she manages to eventually infect all thirteen members of the cast, including people she's never met as well as herself. 10th.

    Post-Game: I'm really not sure where I sit with Megumi. She embodies a lot of not exactly great female character clichés from her being a compliant doormat that's easily misled to the way she goes full psycho yandere on a bunch of innocent teens when her romantic future with Juro is threatened. Also the age difference of her original 2188 self and that of 2188 Juro is kinda squicky to think about, even if it's just the clones of those two that end up together rather than them themselves; still, a lot of that 2188 stuff exists to lend context to how their clones became the way they are. 11th.

    Sentinel 23 (4th Gen): I tend to think all the 4th Gens kick tremendous amounts of ass with ease, and she (along with Gouto) has the ability to Hyper Condenser their Interceptors to produce even more of them at once. Like the Sentries, I usually start every battle by dropping a swarm of the things and letting them waltz off and deal with problems on their own. She also has the other high-value passive, the one that lets you take turns faster, and so she can be a pretty formidable asset. Also, her powerful unique attacks - High-Energy Pulse Lasers and the Piercing Multi-Lock Missiles - are anti-armor too. Definitely close to the top of the heap for Sentinel utility. 5th.

    Final Rank: 10th.

  • Early-Game: Mr. Sus is an entertaining question mark for most of the early game, and his RC motorcycle is rad as hell. I can see why Iori fell for him. 3rd.

    Route: This is 13 Sentinels setting itself up with a fun little murder mystery, starting with an amnesiac protagonist waking up in an alleyway with a dead body nearby and constantly building the tension and suspense as he digs deeper into the mystery of who he is, why he's there, and what he may or may not have done. 3rd.

    Post-Game: Damn, this dude is just a smooth operator. Also an unrepentant killer who has a very stringent code of honor. Hard to root for a guy like that, perhaps, but he had a remarkable tendency to show up at the right moment with that phaser of his. Makes me curious what his upbringing was like; the game doesn't get into the histories of the 2065-era members much at all, and that "Sector" is long-gone when the post-2188 timeline starts. 5th.

    Sentinel 11 (1st Gen): Ei's probably my favorite of the 1st Gens due to a combination of his speed - he has the same passive Megumi does that reduces the amount of waiting time between turns - and the powerful and versatile Hurricane Rush, which has a damage ceiling that just passes the Gladiators' damage resistance as well as being able to spread to multiple foes including flying units. His stats and HP are a little weaker than the other Gen 1s to compensate for these advantages, but it's not that noticeable. 4th.

    Final Rank: 3rd.

  • Early-Game: Yeah, I didn't trust teenage Gendo Ikari any more than I could throw him. That he's the last to get his story mode unlocked is a big red flag too. For being the "leader" of the Sentinel pilots, he sure is sketchy as all hell. 12th.

    Route: Gouto's route basically exists as the denouement to a lot of the game's bigger mysteries, including who this Chihiro is and who killed the adult one that was found in the alleyway with Sekigahara. The only reason most of it can't be viewed until you've seen everyone else's stories play out because it wouldn't make any sense to do so before then. I think he's also the only member to have story stuff happen in the middle of the final battle rather than just before. 7th.

    Post-Game: Gouto's real interesting when you dig into who he was a little further, being the richest and most powerful man on Earth almost purely due to his genius-level instincts, which naturally are carried over to his teenage clone. I could see a guy like that get complacent enough to become a rich jerk with nothing to challenge his intellect, but a more reliable sort when his gifts are needed to protect others. His and Morimura's original variants despise each other as they blame the other for destroying the world, so to see Gouto develop a crush on Morimura of the present is kinda cute. Then again, what straight teenage boy wouldn't be into her? She makes hourglasses look like grandfather clocks. 7th.

    Sentinel 22 (4th Gen): Gouto's a strong pick for a similar reason Megumi is, thanks to his Hyper Condenser and Interceptor combo. I never used his Teleportation Field unique, but it sounds like a good way to get slower units to an advantageous position in a flash. He's also the only 4th Gen with an EMP weapon: the others don't need to drop aerial kaiju to target them, being aerial themselves, but it seems like Gouto is specced for support more than anything. Fitting for his "team leader" role. 7th.

    Final Rank: 8th.

  • Early-Game: When you have a short-haired girl character that spends most of the game in her sports gear, you'll naturally get a Chie tomboy vibe that naturally bumps her up close to the top of the Best Girl list. That she thinks she's living the movie E.T. is just adorable on top of that. Clearly BJ is some kind of future drone possessed by the AI personality clone of your dead boyfriend, girl, not something ridiculous like an alien. 1st.

    Route: For as much as I like Natsuno, I think her route might've been one of the weakest. Don't get me wrong, I love that little Wall-E fucker, it's just having to keep picking up the P.E. Bag to put him inside got tiring after a while. She did get some of the best scenes at least, like quivering in the girl's bathroom when the two Terminator gynoids duked it out. 9th.

    Post-Game: I'm still a big fan of any Chie type in my anime, especially one that combines guilenessless and spunky energy like Natsuno, even if it was certainly a decision to keep her in her short track pants for the whole game. At least she didn't keep flashing people every time she fell over. Man, there's some embarrassing stuff in this game that makes me a little hesitant to recommend it wholeheartedly to people, which is a shame because so much of it is really great. I call it the Nier Conundrum. 1st.

    Sentinel 17 (3rd Gen): Best Girl also has Best Sentinel (out of the 3rd Gens anyway) as she has the same passive Sekigahara and Megumi does that allows her to attack more frequently. This is vital for the way I used 3rd Gens, which was to have them at base constantly dropping AoEs and long-distance shots to minimize the amount of missiles flying in while taking potshots at larger gatherings. (There are defensive flares and stuff for preventing missiles, but I always went with attacks that could damage nearby enemies in conjunction with removing missiles for the sake of expediency.) Her unique Wide-Range Railgun is especially devastating on large groups of mid-range enemies. 3rd.

    Final Rank: 2nd.

  • Early-Game: The whole jingoistic Japanese patriot thing was tiresome for a while, even if I liked the whole "visitor from the past tries to make sense of TVs and shit" arc in the middle. What moved him to a higher tier was his sudden love of "hemborgers," which he digs almost as much as he digs Natsuno. Clearly has great taste. 11th.

    Route: Miura's route looks complex at first, because on his flowchart it's one starting location and like six off-shoots. As with many things in the game, though, this isn't so much a branch but a way to frame Miura's sentimental personality as he goes to the same spot every day to watch the sun rise over the river. The branches all happen consecutively one after the other in a set pattern. 11th.

    Post-Game: I dunno, Miura's not the most interesting character. His personality is exceptionally dry, what few moments of levity tend to come from his unease with the English language butchering words like "hamburger" and "television". He's nowhere near as fun as Hijiyama, who gets most of the same culture shock beats but sells them harder with his forceful nature. The only thing I'll probably remember about Miura is the little animation of him buffing out his cap. 12th.

    Sentinel 19 (3rd Gen): Of the three 3rd Gens, Miura's the one specced most for damage (whereas Natsuno's more for speed and Tomi's more for distance). My one issue with the Hemborglar is that he has no anti-armor weapons besides a single high-cost, limited AoE missile. If I'm on a map where a lot of armored units are flying in, he's practically useless unless you're willing to use his strongest and most expensive attacks to compensate. 12th.

    Final Rank: 13th.

  • Early-Game: Mysterious guy who doesn't get a lot of screen time early on, except to tease him about being into a cross-dressing boy. Somehow looks way younger with the long hair. 4th.

    Route: Honestly, for as much as I like this dude, his route was tiresome because it meant running all around the school until you found the one event that would move things forward. That's the case with some of the other characters too, like Iori, but it felt like there was so much ground to cover across Sakura High and with no real hint as to where he needed to go to find Okino or any of the other characters he bumps into that his chapters often caused the game to grind to a halt. Like, what was the point of constantly picking up coins to pay for yakisoba pans and drinks? Besides the fact that dude really loves yakisoba pans? 13th.

    Post-Game: I was wondering how long his homosexuality would be played for laughs, but I was heartened to see they eventually played his relationship with Okino - especially as their original, more serious selves - as a wholesome thing that perhaps led to some comparatively unwholesome revenge murders. He's just an endearing character all around, between his overpowering sense of justice and deep love for the yakisoba pan (and his insistence on calling Megumi the "Yakisoba Pan Angel" even though she never cared for the name). Weird to play perhaps the strongest and most war-ready member of the cast, excepting Sekigahara and perhaps Gouto, as the comic relief. 3rd.

    Sentinel 12 (1st Gen): For pure tanks, I don't think anything beats Hijiyama's Sentinel due to the vital passive Composite Ceramic Armor, which negates attacks below a certain damage threshold. It's the same buff that make the Gladiators such a pain to take down. His Anti-Air Demolisher Blade is also handy for those flying fortresses if you don't want to go the EMP route (I generally avoided EMP unless it was the AoE versions that the Gen 3s have, because they're great for removing missiles). 8th.

    Final Rank: 7th.

  • Early-Game: This posturing piece of work. I like that Ogata comes off as a thug every time you see him like he's the one-note bully character in a highschool anime, and then later you start seeing more nuance to his character. 7th

    Route: Ogata has one of the more entertaining routes because of the way it's set up like a Groundhog Day loop. With a limited number of possible moves to make it's not hard to avoid looping too many times, and Ogata's one of the funnier characters to put through the wringer like this due to his easily irritable attitude. 1st.

    Post-Game: Ogata's kinda like Groose in that the game had to figure out the right balance between comedic foil and sympathetic ally to make a character worth sticking around for, and mostly accomplished it. Ogata's a nice guy with a few goofy quirks, like the weird thing with his handkerchief, and it almost made him feel like a highschool delinquent version of a Yakuza character in the end. I dunno if I can say he's one of my faves, but I did turn around on him once the game was done treating him like a short-tempered cliché. 6th.

    Sentinel 10 (1st Gen): Ogata has one of the most powerful attacks in the game with his Hyper Condensor + Demolisher Blade combo, as it does insane damage at a higher EP mark-up. The usual EP-usage issues are lessened for him due to his High-Performance Charger passive, which lets him recover EP fast by guarding. Otherwise, I kinda found him to be the weakest of the three Gen 1s since he lacked Hijiyama's durability or Sakigahara's speed, and having two passives and two buffs instead of more attack options hindered him too in my view. 11th.

    Final Rank: 5th.

  • Early-Game: Cute pigtails. Reminded me of Jaws's love interest from Moonraker, so it kinda figures she'd start developing an attraction to the resident tough guy in the cast. I feel bad for an utaite stuck in an era where neither the internet nor any of her favorite songs exist. 5th.

    Route: Tomi spends most of her route stuck in the dilapidated future city that was once her home, searching various locations several times for survivors and clues. It gives the game an idea of the stakes in store if the team is unable to defend the 1985 version of Ashitaba City, and some of its more striking backdrops, but is otherwise just kind of middling. 6th.

    Post-Game: I didn't expect the sassy girl to have quite so much relevance to the plot, but her virtual idol alter-ego and that earworm of a J-pop ballad led to some great and memorable moments in the combat mode of the game. Pairing a tsundere with someone as obstinate as Ogata felt like mixing oil and water, but I guess I still rooted for those two crazy kids to work it out. More healthy than her past self's relationship with Ida, anyway. 7th.

    Sentinel 16 (3rd Gen): Tomi runs into the same issues Miura does - specifically, a dearth of anti-armor armaments - but she's great in the sniper role most 3rd Gens thrive in. Not only does she have the furthest ranged attack, the Super Long-Range Missiles, but she's another Hyper Condenser user that doubles all railgun shots. Of course, most enemies are usually dead with a single railgun shot, but it's amazing against hardier opponents like the Gladiators. A good pick if you have a boss coming up. 9th.

    Final Rank: 6th.

  • Early-Game: Forget Shiba, this dude is all Persona 4 Yosuke except for the part where he's popular with women, and does well in his academics, is actually a smooth talker, and doesn't keep constantly cracking his cashews while riding a bike. Sweet mid-'80s yuppie apartment too. 8th.

    Route: More meandering around a school misadventures, but I did like the part where he takes Yuki on a bike ride to the countryside only to find himself in the endless metallic tunnels that surrounds the city in all directions. That probably should've been the hint that this wasn't some impossibly large spaceship, but a virtual world with limitations; like how you can drive off into the featureless wastelands surrounding any given Trackmania map forever. Also, if I ever had to put the game down to check my emails or something, I'd usually leave the cursor on Shu's route so I could hear that muffled version of Inaba's song playing in his room. 5th.

    Post-Game: I can't say I cottoned onto Amiguchi being another version of Ida, in the same way that Iori was a renamed clone so that their alter ego (Morimura, Ida) could exist in the same place without drawing attention to themselves. I like that Ida kinda set up the circumstances so his other self would be the kid with all the coolest shit. Ida was ultimately a hard guy to like due to his obsessive and ruthless tendencies, but the game did redeem him a little by the end by giving him the relationship with Inaba!Tomi that he was looking for. 10th.

    Sentinel 20 (4th Gen): Didn't use Shu much, since it seemed like his skills are designed more for setting traps and supporting others, taking advantage of the 4th Gen's innate ability to get around the battlefield quickly. He has a passive that boosts damage and range of all skills at the cost of increasing their use cost, and I never saw the need to go in on any of those big risk vs. reward passives that he and the others have. Seems like someone you'd need to be mindful of using in a very specific way, which isn't always easy when you're in the thick of things. 10th.

    Final Rank: 9th.

  • Early-Game: Heck yeah, Sukeban Supreme. Love her whole '80s bad girl style. Pretty much the lady version of Ogata in terms of her attitude and role in peoples' stories, but obviously looks a lot better doing the whole punchy delinquent bit. 2nd.

    Route: If Sekigahara was the crime mystery in its thriller guise, Yuki's was more the same genre in its more traditional Holmes/Poirot deductive whodunnit guise. Then again, Yuki has a lot of talents though I'm not sure crime-solving is necessarily one of them. The way the game worked towards presenting her "Watson" Aiba as not only the culprit but a really dangerous man in the body of an already dangerous gynoid was a neat twist. It feels like Yuki's whole arc may well have been an extended homage to Snatcher. 4th.

    Post-Game: I still really like Yuki and her old-school approach to dealing with problems, even if she was blackmailed into spending half the story mode as Ida's lackey. Her voiceovers during the battle section of the game really cemented my appreciation for her no-nonsense tough chick outlook and for as much as Amiguchi is kind of a playboy I did hope for the best for them. I guess also it's worth keeping in mind that despite her hard outer image Yuki was a lot smarter than I originally gave her credit for; after all, her original self was a brilliant geneticist and that came through a little bit with her decision-making during points of her route. 2nd.

    Sentinel 21 (4th Gen): For sheer damage and for taking down bosses especially, Yuki's probably the best bet of the 4th Gens if you're looking to fly directly into a foe's personal space, do some real damage, and zip out before the heat gets too high. Yuki's straight up murderous with her Quad Leg Spikes melee unique, which can do in excess of 5000 damage per pop once fully upgraded. Even if you do have to leave her in a dangerous spot, she has Hijiyama's armor passive to ensure most minor hits won't bother her. Of course, if you have her Counter passive equipped too, those small fry will regret trying to crack her formidable outer shell. Just a lot of fun to have her out in the field causing mayhem whether you're in control of her or not, and probably my favorite Sentinel to use in the game. 1st.

    Final Rank: 1st.

  • Early-Game: Perpetually sick and/or injured moe heroine type who just invokes pity whenever I see her, probably by design. Like, any agency she has is robbed by her obviously bad news medication and constant fainting and memory lapse episodes. I'm hoping for more out of her as her arc progresses, but you just instictively brace yourself for misfortune with characters like this. 13th.

    Route: If many of the other routes could be said to be sci-fi movie homages, then Ryoko's perhaps resembles Memento in how it uses achronological storytelling as a way for viewers to understand how her memory issues make her life a confusing narrative to follow. The more we learn of Ryoko in this route, the more we understand how her faults and poor judgment got her here. I might not go as far to say that this all exists as one big victim-blaming exercise however, and all the double-crossing and mistrust among already sketchy characters like Morimura and Gouto made for a more dramatically compelling arc than most. 8th.

    Post-Game: I guess the game has an interesting sense of humor, because the character that illicts the most sympathy also happened to be the closest the game has to a (human) antagonist. Deciding to fuck over the future of humanity out of jilted malice, she's basically responsible for the struggles everyone's currently facing - if not the original extinction of the human race - and even jealously murders Ida for leading her on for so long, which to be fair I can't say he didn't deserve. That by the end Ryoko has been reduced to a submissive non-entity by her nano-Alzheimer's, fighting for the sake of a lover she'd already killed for being untrue to her, and having her fate outside of the simulation left mostly to the imagination were all big downers in an otherwise hopeful narrative. 13th.

    Sentinel 14 (2nd Gen): Despite the fragility of its pilot, Ryoko's Sentinel might well be one of the most important due to her Hyper Condenser passive boosting her Sentry Guns, producing two with every use. Sentries are already absurdly powerful on their own, and her filling the map with the things early on really helps speed up battles. Her AI hacking missiles sounded cool, but I don't think I ever figured out how to use them effectively. 2nd.

    Final Rank: 11th.
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