Star Ocean is a series of JRPGs spanning several console generations with a couple of spin-offs and adaptations. Heavily inspired by Star Trek, each story features characters from a variety of worlds and cultures working together. The mainline games also include rich item crafting and relationship systems, though the depth of the implementation varies.
In college, I picked up Star Ocean: The Second Story from a used game store on a whim and totally fell in love. While the games have various strengths and weaknesses and are certainly not all the same level of quality, I'll always have a soft spot for this series and a lot of that is down to its lovable characters.
Precis is a party member in Star Ocean: The Second Story. A young inventor, Precis is accompanied by her transforming robot Bobot and wears a backpack with powered mechanical arms which she uses for combat.
Energetic, enthusiastic, and curious, Precis is very much a cute spunky redhead and a gadgeteer genius. She's a lot of fun and a very useful ally.
Meracle is a party member in Star Ocean: The Last Hope. She's a Lesser Fellpool, a race of feline-descended humanoids who retain catlike features. Her fast and powerful claw strikes make her a powerful combatant, though her relative fragility means she requires skill and caution to fight effectively. She was my favorite character to play as and I had a lot of fun dominating the arena with her.
Like a stray cat, Meracle had a difficult and lonely life before being rescued by the crew of the Calnus and is very happy to have several new friends. Having previously lost those important to her, her worst fear is being alone again. But as long as she's with her friends she's always cheerful and seeks to raise their spirits as well.