Silent protagonists are a fucking shit idea, it should have died in the 90s and it does nothing but make RPGs worse.
All the recent JRPGs I've played, FE:3H, DQ11 and most recently P5R all had silent protagonists and all of them would have been far better with the writers actually writing dialogue for your MC.
All the conversations and all the cutscenes have to be written around your MC instead of including him, which means that your guy just stands there, staring gormlessly or frowning while someone else does all the talking for you. You feel like a side character, like you're just there until Seteth, or Makoto/Morgana, or Veronica have finished actually talking to the other party.
It's especially bad in things that're meant to be emotional moments, where the Hero from DQ is approached and hugged by his lost father... and just stares blankly forwards without emotion and without saying anything. Joker is cool and suave and confident, yet he never has a single thing to say to a single enemy or even his allies, it's always Makoto making the plans, or Morgana/Ryuji calling out the bad guy etc. And now that games are in full 3D, you can't even use the excuse of just filling in the dialogue yourself, you can see your character, and you can see they're not talking.
It's a shitty idea that never worked and has only become worse as technology leaves abstraction behind. You only have to look at Rockstar, who used one in GTA3, just like the earlier games, saw how ridiculous it was and have never used one since. Even games like fucking GFL realised how stupid it was and stopped doing it. Fuck silent protagonists and fuck gamedevs who use it to avoid giving the MC an actual character.
yeah it is all lazy writing BS that has never made sense to me.
I am currently stuck in self isolation and have been working through all of the routes and all the supports and dialogue options in FE:TH.
It is a good thing that Byleth works for the church because every support is basically a catholic confessional where all of the characters splurge their bullshit at Byleth while she nods silently. Then they convince themselves that they love her and she starts touching children...basically the one historically accurate part of a fantasy game.
Wyatt Hill
Pretty much, but they'll keep being made anyway. Funnily enough I just recently burned through the exact 3 games you mentioned, and honestly going straight from 3H/P5/DQXI all the way back to og FFVII felt sooo refreshing in how Cloud actually fucking talks and is involved with the story and events that unfold. Been thinking about going through other jrpgs that have actual protags like Xenoblade 1 after this
i feel it can be done well if the character has ample body language to accompany it, like doomslayerguy in '16 & eternal manages to still have some character in cutscenes purely based on movement and presence. characters that re just still dullards all the time are cancer though
fucking ableist. What if the mc is retarded and literally can't speak?
Grayson Wood
I like silent protags. I don't like when my character in a rpg says something significantly different than I would have in that situation. When the character is silent I can imagine them feeling the same way I do about something. When they speak I can't do that.
Zachary Allen
I think Byleth should at least speak the options you choose, that way it would feel more natural? I find it odd she's much more vocal in Smash than in her home game.
You want story, go watch TV, kid. Silent protagonists are a holdover from an era when we didn't have fucking intrusive cutscene-every-five-goddamn-minutes pseudo-games. Go play real games, or go watch TV.
Aiden Morgan
It takes away from the budget which takes away from the gameplay which makes it worse off as an RPG and that makes it shittier.
Look at Fallout 4.
Kevin Parker
JRPGs aren't anywhere close to being Naughty Dog movie games.
Isaac Adams
Those aren't JRPGs or even RPGs, so the game doesn't rely on the story or characters, it doesn't matter if it feels incongruous.
Jaxson Edwards
>Self Inserters
Please just kill yourself so the rest of us don't have to suffer
John Hughes
Does Artyom count as a silent protagonist? He suffers from social anxiety and only talks during the loading screen
William Richardson
Another retard spotted. Having the MC have dialogue doesn't mean you need to voice act every line, every single FE game prior to 3H all had MCs who spoke and that was never a problem. Awakening did it perfectly fine with a set of voice clips for various tones.
And even if you do want to VA your whole game, removing dialogue from one character is a beyond minimal saving. You've got fully voiced and acted discussions between the rest of the cast in their supports, but having Byleth speak would have been too much?
Nah, you're just an idiot.
Nathaniel Robinson
>I need to self insert into every game
Just play WRPGs you fucking retard. Or just kill yourself.
Luis Richardson
the fact that Hero could speak in flashbacks in DQ11 but was otherwise completely mute was very stupid.
Blake Sullivan
But all the games he mentioned have tons of dialogue and cutscenes, which makes the silent protagonist seem even more ridiculous
Luis Ross
thats why making a character with an already personality but you can still pick choices that fits the character the best choice.
like Geralt from the witcher serise.
Carson Myers
I can only imagine silent protagonists working when there's a lot of customisation. I wouldn't even consider old WRPG protagonists "silent" since they're getting dialogue options after every paragraph another character says.
Jason Parker
I don't know why they went this route with Byleth. Robin and Corrin weren't mute. Do people have trouble self-inserting if a character isn't mute or something? I've a huge faggot that likes to self-insert and I've never had that problem.
Jordan Sullivan
but.. but... how else can i self-interest into the story?
Brody Nguyen
Look at fucking VNs nigger Just have someone do like 20 generic lines/noises and full voice another 29 and bam that's all that's needed. Text boxes for all else
Josiah Diaz
showing doomguys face and turning him into a demi-god ruined it for me.
Kevin Ward
Nobody gives a shit. FE:3H is going to be the best selling FE of all time. Get used to it, it is the new normal. You are the minority, give up.
Ian Rogers
Or go how games like Baldur's Gate used to do it with just significant characters and scenes voiced. You really only need a little bit just to give the player an idea of their tone, and that's it.
Or just have no voice acting at all (otherwise known as the patrician option).
Caleb Rodriguez
I didn't understand Byleth, you couldn't customise their look, just name and gender, so why was it considered to be a self-insert hero? Just voice the character and have consistent quality.
Christopher Evans
They could have at least let me play a girl if the protagonist is unvoiced. Imagine what a different direction No Good Tora's story would have went if people saw this crook now having a teenage girl hanging around him.
It's kinda tolerable in persona for some reason but it's really balantly bad in DQ. TH more or less works in silent mc. but all silent characters are just developers being lazy. Cold steel series made it work. And saints row is one of the best. Although not making silent make Rex more hated.
>ironically choosing frog
You people girls or gays?
Adrian Nguyen
WRPGs are perfectly fine. Baldur's Gate, Kingmaker, Dragon Age- you choose what your character says, and they're forefront of all major discussions.
There's no problem with them. I'm talking about proper dumb silent protagonists like DQ heroes, Chrono, Joker etc
>saints row is one of the best Agree. Joker should at least have a personality like the boss or maybe a little tone down version of his.
Jackson Walker
I rather have silent MCs than little faggots preaching about 'muh friendships' or trying to use talk no jutsu on every villians.
Cooper Johnson
The Protag in P5 has a voice, and while you’re given options to provide flexibility in playing as you’d prefer, he CLEARLY has a defined personality from the dialogue choices. Especially the more out-there ones, they seem to indicate the character’s personality (And it’s definitely different from the protags of P3 and P4)
Jayden Wright
This.
Silent MC may look lazy but they're mostly safe. If you give character a personality, there's more chance of people droping the game because they hated the main character's personality.
Are you retarded user? Do you have brain problems?
How is it any different if Ryuji, Makoto, Veronica, Dimitri or Yusuke are spouting about friendship or using TnJ? The only difference is they talk for you and around you.
Compare FE4 vs 3H and tell me which has more shounen cliches.
Matthew Wilson
I still like my custom avatar characters, tho
Daniel Phillips
i dont know what the fuck you're even talking about, fuck off nigger
Evan Diaz
See: Fucking retards.
Eli Torres
>Robin >Corrin
Byleth wasn't customisable. Neither was Joker or Hero.
William Rogers
What personality do you think DQXI hero will have if they not make him silent? Chances are he will be exactly like Naruto.
Leo Lopez
>Silent protagonists are based because they don't spout shounen cliches >W-What do you mean that the characters who act as their mouthpiece spout the same shounen cliches!? T-That doesn't count!
No, not like Naruto, probably more like Robin or Tanjiro. But that's miles better than him having exactly like that already, but with every conversation being him just staring mutely forward while everyone else talks around him.
Jonathan Kelly
than play another RPG were the MC is less cringe.
Jose Mitchell
Which MC do you think is better? Rex or Joker? And which one do you think people will like more?
It's MC dude. People won't drop games because they don't like other characters but they will when they don't like the main character.
Carson Sullivan
thanks for actually explaining without talking about random characters i dont know
Jeremiah King
More frogposting
Seriously though, even by FE and three houses standard, why is her design this bad? They shouldn't really use an otome artist.
lol fallout 4 is such a bad example, their "cutscenes" actually only consist of the same animations over and over. the only effect it had on F4's budget was having to pay another VA at the end of it.
Christopher Taylor
I think the fact that Persona stories are so structured around having a male protagonist to the point where they had to rewrite interactions and SLs for the P3 female MC is really interesting. If Royal actually did have an all new female route and I got to see the story through an entirely new lense with a ton of different character interactions/retooled SLs then I probably would have bought it honestly
The thing is with P5 there's so much it would change that it would almost be a whole new game (in a good way). Imagine what a dirtbag like Kamoshida would do with a FemC. >Well, Ryuji, will be expelled, but you...?
Benjamin Hernandez
Meanwhile, Byleth is famously unmemorable and considered the weakest MC in his game, and Joker survives on style alone, with no substance to back it up.
Rex had an actual character, an arc and development, even if you don't like his game, he's far superior. Even misfire MCs like Squall or Vann are still far more memorable than non-entities like the DQ Heroes.
Michael Bennett
NOOOOOOO I NEED LE EPIC FUNNY MAN CHARACTER I CAN POST FUNNY REDDIT MEMES ABOUT
