I've been recently playing Astral Chain and enjoying the hell out of it (it's a really good game) but damn, the protagonist being silent is a bummer. I understand the concept behind it, it's supposed to be an avatar for the player to which I'm supposed to relate. The problem is that, like most games where the protagonist is silent, there are like one or two instances where it's implied your character is speaking and hundreds of other cases where someone speaks for you, like Navi in Ocarina of Time for example (spoilers for Astral Chain: why does Hal answer Jena when she's clearly speaking to the player?). So, instead of letting the player imagine their own dialogue (which I suppose is the goal here), all it does is make for weird interactions where other characters answer something clearly meant for the player character. This would be better if the games with silent protagonists were heavy on player chosen dialogue options, where I would be able to choose what to answer, even for unimportant bits. All in all, I understand the intent behind it but feel like it's counterproductive. I have no problem with it remaining a tradition in long running franchises like Zelda, but do we really need this for new IP?
Just to be clear, when I say silent protagonist, I don't just mean he isn't voiced. I mean he doesn't speak at all. No voice, no subtitles, nothing. He has no lines.
I think a good example of this is subnautica vs below zero.
Ian Cruz
>I have no problem with it remaining a tradition in long running franchises like Zelda, but do we really need this for new IP?
Yeah it’s fine. Use your imagination.
Sometimes you brick out and end up with a protagonist who sounds annoying or who doesn’t shut the fuck up during combat, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Remnant: From the Ashes are two games that come to mind. I’ve never been annoyed by a silent protagonist.
Austin Moore
No, the silent protagonist isn't outdated, you piece of shit. Some games should have it, while some shouldn't (for example, TES and Fallout.)
Eli Bailey
Silent protagonists are good for cRPGs. But fuck them in any other genre. Fuck them in JRPGs especially
Leo Hughes
depends on the genre an fps with a silent protagonist is totally fine/ideal
Logan Parker
Most of the build engine era FPS were so good because they had charismatic talking protagonists
Tyler Martinez
Yes, silent protagonists are fucking shit. It was a terrible meme that didn't work in the 80s/90s, but at least in those games you were just looking at tiny pixels.
Now it's full fucking retarded.
Play the latest Dragon Quest for example, because everything is fully animated you can't possibly miss how stupid it looks with your character just standing around staring silently as every conversation involves people talking around him. You can't even use the old excuse of "You're meant to insert the dialogue yourself!" because you can clearly see he's just standing there, he's not talking, he's not doing anything but staring gormlessly forward.
Since every piece of dialogue has to be written around the MC, it means that one of the other party members leads every single conversation and practically becomes the MC for the purposes of any discussion. In P4 Yosuke speaks for you the entire game, in P5 Ryuji/Morgana and then Makoto do ALL the talking while you just stand there contributing nothing to the discussion. And again in DQ11, most conversations are lead by Sylvando or Eriks, sometimes Veronica. Even back in the GC era, I remember playing Twilight Princess and feeling like I was Midna's sidekick, because she was the one that had all the conversation/discussion with everyone, and she was the one bantering with the final boss.
Silent protagonists are and always have been garbage, and the fact that they're still defended by autists is pathetic. Just look at GTA3, Claude felt so stupid and so out of place they've never had a silent protagonist since.
Elijah Morales
GTA Online and RD Online is so weird when the characters don't talk at all during cutscenes but merely nod.
Angel Kelly
>He doesn't freeman's mind his way through silent protag games with in-character internal-monologues to flesh out the silent-protag in the way that you perceive their character
