In your opinion, what is the right and wrong way to do self-inserts in video games?

[BalancedPro]

Sometimes developers want us to experience their games by not only controlling the protagonist, but become them as well.  Several games have done this with some being more favorable than others.

[bethany81707]

If I'm going to be a video-game protagonist, I want to make decisions that agree with my moral and personal beliefs. If you're going to put me in that role, go the whole hog and offer me those choices.

If I disagree with all of the options presented, then you've failed as a writer to put me in the shoes of myself. If I disagree with my character saying something I had no choice but to say, you might as well not have bothered and saved us the alienation.

[Light Strategist]

I know this isn't specifically directed at Fire Emblem but my best examples are Robin and Corrin.

Robin has the luxury of not being so important that s/he's the leader, or at least not having the writers stick their foot in their mouth when writing for them. There's no instance, not even in DLC where the writing for them made the player question their existence, in fact, Robin technically fills the player's role in the story. From my perspective, I felt like my Avatar in Awakening and I were very much the same entity.

On the other hand, Corrin's self-insert nature is literally an afterthought. The Heirs of Fate DLC proves as much due to the lack of a contingency planned for the player's name being anything but the preset. Corrin also makes continuous decisions despite one of the points of the game being how you shaped the world around you based on your 'choices' (plural). In addition, the setting feels very artificial so it's rather ruinous to the idea of the character because they're clueless and are somehow a strategist despite literally being locked in a tower since they were kidnapped.

So that I don't feel like I'm centralizing too much on Fire Emblem, I feel that Pokémon and Zelda do it well because the only things they rely on are basically your name and specifically in Pokémon's case, the player's gender. Everything you do is ultimately your decision and truly affects your experiences the only downside is that failure doesn't really punish you. =/ 

Edited February 27, 2017 by Light Strategist

[Azure Sen]

The right way to do it is how its done in Fallout; a full spectrum of moral choices and morality in general that are reflected in how the people of the wasteland treat you, and more importantly that affect the larger world around you. 

The wrong way to do it is how modern FE games have been doing it; a customizable character with a pre-determined personality, moral code and role in the plot, with no actual choices made on the player's part. Namable/limited customization characters can work fine if they're not actually supposed to be self-inserts (for example, old JRPGs letting you name the characters), but Robin and Kamui's self-insert status is a selling point.

[Pretty Cool Guy]

Being able to make meaningful choices is the best way. Having a character that is supposed to be representing you make choices that you wouldn't personally make is frustrating, but having a self-insert be absolutely meaningless is not the way to go either. I remember playing a game called White Knight Chronicles for the PS3 that had a pretty extensive character creator. That's cool, but all the avatar would do is stand around and be useless, never pitching in action wise or dialogue wise. It just made them a nuisance. 

Edited February 27, 2017 by Pretty Cool Guy

[Junkhead]

You know like in Awakening.

Well, not like that.

[Pixelman]

Good self-inserts in my opinion are silent protags in which you can influence their choices throughout the game via dialogue choices, branching paths, etc. (ie Fallout, SMT).

Bad self-inserts in my opinion are the exact opposite of good ones; you don't influence their choices, and they have personalities and make choices that may contradict how the player believes or acts (ie FE Fates).

[Sire]

Well, when I play games with a customizable avatar, I tend to create a "character" instead of always projecting my "fictional self" into the game.

In terms of what I consider a good system, I personally loved Xenoblade Chronicles X's protagonist. He/She is a bad*** rookie, but the main story actually revolves around the characters surrounding the Protagonist and not the Protagonist. Yes, there are story moments where the Protagonist does cool stuff and side content that explores the Protagonist's relationship with other characters.

In terms of a poor system, Fire Emblem Fates. We are not making an avatar character, we are simply giving Corrin a makeover to look and sound different. At the end of the day, it is Corrin who we are controlling and not an "Avatar." It does not help that I dislike Corrin as a character and Fate's story in general, but that topic has been discussed to death.

* * * * *

Other games that did the Avatar fairly well, in my opinion, are...
- Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
- Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
- God Eater: Resurrection
- God Eater 2: Rage Burst

[SoulWeaver]

Personally, I've found the best way to decide if a self-insert in a video game - or a movie or a book, for that matter -  is a good one is to do so in your own mind. Switch yourself into the position of a certain character and play through the storyline in your mind - are you able to make choices such as the ones the character has to make while feeling like you stayed true to yourself, or do you find yourself chained down to a 'pick your poison' type of a deal? In this instance, I find myself agreeing with everyone here that Fates was definitely not an acceptable proper self-insert type of storyline - being forced to kill your own older brother(whichever one you happen to dislike more) unless you chose to make both of them hate you at first by selecting Revelations in particular felt quite bitter, and I personally would have pursued convincing Camilla to join me in Birthright more than Corrin did - Leo shows up, gets beat down by "unknown" and you just let Camilla leave when she was literally about to join you? Like "Welp, I know I just said I didn't want to fight you and all, big sister, but nvm, you go on home, don't tell Elise she's been written to die just because I liked Sakura better!" Really? I also found myself disliking Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment for the PSVita for the same reason - you can rename yourself, but you're still literally just Kirito. As for Awakening, I did feel like I found Robin a better 'self' than Corrin, but something still didn't feel quite right as well. I haven't played many self-insert type games, but I found myself enjoying the storyline, skeletal though it was, of Project Diva X - I got to just mysteriously wake up in a digital world and help grown-ups with the personalities of children aged five to nine remember how to be happy singing? Somehow strangely fulfilling, which goes to show that it differs from person to person.

[saisymbolic]

In my opinion, there is more to an avatar than just character creation. A good self-insert character is one whose choices make an impact on the story and game play. It doesn't have to be to a large degree, but there must be some kind of reaction to the presence of the self-insert. It is for that reason that I quite disliked White Knight Chronicles—the Avatar character was absolutely irrelevant and wasted space during the main campaign. Contrary to popular belief, it is quite possible to have a character with crowning moments of awesome while not having them be a show thief; they are typically called "supporting characters." That said, if the Avatar is the main character then, by all means, make them as bad ass (as allowed within the confines of the particular universe) as possible.

But, having a choice is something that I stress in a game where the main character is a self-insert. The game itself would have to assist and allow for branching paths, alignments, conversations and endings, too, in order to get the maximum amount of enjoyment.

I haven't really played too many games that have self-inserts, though. There's Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fable: Anniversary and Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines, the latter of which is a very unique game with a colorful cast of characters, environments and quests that somehow works despite being relatively linear story and empty HUB world.

i just freakin love that game i cant stop talking about it i have to go install it again to play it

[Hasnbaakoajsbakaiaja]

There isn't a right way. No self inserts. Or if you are putting in a self insert have it be like Yu from Persona 4.

[Zera]

Link from Skyward Sword was a pretty good self-insert, I think. You could decide how Link would respond to story situations and how certain side quests would be completed. Do you deliver the love letter, or give it to the creepy hand in the toilet that needs paper? It's up to you.

[Magical Glace]

Personally, I don't like projecting onto characters at all, I always view a game as playing through a character's story, and don't really project onto them.  

So right for me is none at all, and if they are included then I don't project onto them.

[Thane]

1 hour ago, Glaceon Mage said:

Personally, I don't like projecting onto characters at all, I always view a game as playing through a character's story, and don't really project onto them.  

So right for me is none at all, and if they are included then I don't project onto them.

Same here. I've never really seen it as "myself".

However, I do like making choices in video games, and being able to mold another character - not myself - can be quite fun too. Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords did this the best out of the games I've played. The Exile was, well, exiled for taking part in a war and thus missed a subsequent war and returns to a broken galaxy struggling to recover once they enter familiar space again. As such, you can reflect upon why the Exile went to war in the first pace, how they acted, what their feelings towards their actions are now and how they're going to deal with the people who exiled them. It's very interesting, there are a lot of dialogue options to nuance the Exile's thinking and perhaps most importantly, the Exile is treated as an established character, not someone who lived in a vacuum somewhere before becoming the center of the universe.

It's too bad the game hasn't aged too well and it was rushed out ahead of schedule, making the story effectively incomplete, but what's there is good.