APPEARANCE
During the game version of Tales of Symphonia, Yuan is often standing just like he is in the image to the right. Yuan has a lot of attitude with his posture, and often looks like he is irritated or bothered by being around others. I think this because of the way he has his arms crossed, and he is never smiling. Yuan is always seen with his hair in a ponytail that lays behind him against his back. He has extremely blue hair and blue eyes. He wears a cape over his outfit that is dark blue with golden clasps on it. His main shirt is red with a golden outline. The shirt also has small sections of that same dark blue on it as well, with a golden exterior surrounding it. He wears white puffy pants as well. On his hands and forearms, you can see that he wears armor that resemble his shirt that expose his fingers. Like stated in the weapon section, Yuan's weapon is never visible until he summons it, so his outfit doesn't need a holder for his large double-edged blade.
Yuan doesn't have a large role in the game, but he is one of the main antagonists. He is not necessarily a bad guy, but he gets in the way of Lloyd and his gang multiple times through out the game. However, we find out that his reasoning for getting in the way actually helps out Lloyd and Colette, so Lloyd decides to trust him a bit more. Yuan is always just looking out for himself and the wishes of Martel. He is alright with ganging up on Kratos, his long term friend, in order to accomplish his goals. This shows how dedicated Yuan really is to Martel, which is actually quite charming. Yuan is a very good guy deep down, he just doesn't know how to show it very well towards Lloyd and his gang, and therefore it's hard to view Yuan as a great character in the game version of Tales of Symphonia.
During the OVA, Yuan normally has his hair up in a ponytail in the same exact fashion, but during a few scenes we are able to see him with his hair down after a battle against Kratos. Yuan's outfit is a lot simpler, but still incorporates the dark blues, reds, golds as before. The colors are just a little bit darker in the OVA. He still wears a cape during many of the scenes that are a dark blue with red on the inside. Physically, Yuan looks more attractive to me during the OVA, but that is also because he is no longer a chibi icon on the screen. We see him smile more, and have a lot more reactions to things, note by his facial expressions. He still has a bit of an attitude during the OVA, but instead of irritation, it's more of a sarcastic undertone to everything he says, even when he is laughing. We also rarely see him with his arms crossed over his body, so that's good! He has loosened up a bit during the OVA production.
Yuan has a large role during the OVA version of Tales of Symphonia. He is still one of the main antagonists to Lloyd and gang, but this time we see him a lot more. He tries to get in the way more than not, and he finally gets Lloyd to trust him completely. However, Yuan is sneakier than ever, and is still out for his main goal, so he betrays Lloyd once more after gaining his trust. We see him working together more with Kratos during the animation, and we see how Yuan is actually a really good friend. He loves to be praised and cared for, and he hates being made fun of. We learn more about his past personality as well, which is really charming to see. I personally enjoyed seeing Yuan in the OVA way more than I ever did in the game. I am glad that they created a larger role for him during the OVA, including clarifying more about his character and past.