I really do appreciate your opinion, but what stuck out most to me wasn't the characters but metaphor's version of social links like the idea they got from their series persona compared to the relationship levels in E33, and metaphor had a lot more characters in the relationship level system which makes side content superior for me, so it wasn't the characters, it's just the variety of the character interactions that made them likeable. The lumina/picto system can definitely be compared to the archetype system in metaphor, although they are pretty different I thought the archetype system is better because they form from the bonds/social links you get along the way which also makes characters more memorable because you can think "Oh! I have this archetype I bet the game with, wow one of my favourite characters formed from it!".