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Do you think Byleth being a silent protagonist will be a good thing or a bad thing?


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59 minutes ago, Maimishou said:

That being said, my definition is pretty different from the fanbase at large from what I've seen as I don't think Corrin is badly written, at least in Birthright as I haven't played Conquest or Revelation

Birthright Corrin is pretty bog-standard as FE protagonists go. Nothing that really makes him stand out but nothing outrageously offensive either. It's mostly Conquest and Revelation that draw the ire of many people around here.

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Personally I've never had an issue with silent protagonists, I've played a lot of RPG's and visuals novels where the protagonist is silent and it has never affected my immersion in the slightest. To be honest I may even prefer it that way, since if the protagonist is voiced they either repeat the line you just selected word for word, which is repetitive, or what they say isn't exactly what you select, which can lead to misleading and unsatisfying dialogue options. 

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Guest Calja

Geez...no matter what they try different some here seriously STILL can't be pleased at all....I'm honestly not shock by this...I feel some should look into other things at this point before busting an artery for no reason....

That being said I do love that there trying the Persona MC role here thanks to Atlus's influence I see just great potential if done correctly. It does suck a little to me that they won't be customizable than only our name, gender and a few other things that aren't appearance but if they nail the character interactions and story segments I'll be very satisfied!

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An avatar's issues is mostly 3 things. Their over-importance in the story, them sounding silly and people worshipping the ground they walk on. It's a stept in the right direction, but the most controversial one has always been player worship in all iterations of a playable avatar. Deal with that first please IS

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It depends on how they're going to handle it. I'm not a big fan of silent protagonists, I'd rather see a character with a defined personality and backstory, especially in Fire Emblem, a series in which we usually are the spectators of a story involving some main characters, and not the heroes of our own story. Even in Awakening and Fates I felt like I was playing Robin and Corrin's stories, not mine. I think that when avatars are given a specific backstory and hints of what their personality should be, it's more difficult to identify with them. That's why, in my opinion, silent protagonists work better in games like Pokémon, in which the avatars have no backstory or personality of any sort, because they're meant to make players feel like the avatars are their representation in that world.

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1 hour ago, Guest Calja said:

Geez...no matter what they try different some here seriously STILL can't be pleased at all....I'm honestly not shock by this...I feel some should look into other things at this point before busting an artery for no reason....

That being said I do love that there trying the Persona MC role here thanks to Atlus's influence I see just great potential if done correctly. It does suck a little to me that they won't be customizable than only our name, gender and a few other things that aren't appearance but if they nail the character interactions and story segments I'll be very satisfied!

Although I really don't come here often mostly just for news on anything FE at the very least despite some of the more I guess debby downer vocalist on forums it's really just that its really very small there's many people outside the site from where I'm looking liking this idea. I like this idea and hope it's executed well like other series do!

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Bad thing for me, unless it's done incredibly well ala Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time.

I never "self-insert" into games, so a silent protagonist generally mean that there's this one dude (nearly always a dude) that's present in all the scenes that just stares and nods at everything. I thought Robin was a great protagonist, but I never saw her as "my avatar": she's not "me" in the game, she's Robin. 

Ys 8 is a great example of this in my example. The game has Adol (mostly) and Dana (occasionally) as protagonists. Dana is absolutely FANTASTIC: She's determined, charming and you can feel how horrible her struggles are. Her sections as the protagonist are quite possibly the most heart-wrenching story I've ever seen in gaming, and I found myself with tears in my eyes more than once. On the other side, you have Adol doing very little. He's supposed to be "me", but I felt far more attached to the voiced protagonist that actually show emotions. So does the rest of the cast: there's some great discussions with people interacting in a nice way with good voice-acting, with Adol just sitting there staring blankly ahead and only getting a very occasional prompt to nod.

Growlanser: Wayfarer of time is the one single game I've appreciated a silent protagonist. You have a gigantic amount of dialog options constantly (more than two in the majority of cases), but the big thing is that many answers actually change things. Sometime small changes that crops up only 10 hours later, sometime major. It did feel like he had a personality building based on what I answered and EVERYTHING addressed to him had some prompt (ie. very, very often), so characters didn't have to repeat what he just said either and made things more natural.

If Byleth turns out to be a silent protagonist like that, I'll be satisfied (although it'll still be more jarring than Growlanser since this is a voiced game). We only seem to get 2 dialog options, but the little footage we've seen does point toward prompts being common so maybe it'll be like Growlanser. Doubtful, but not impossible. If that's not the case... then I guess I'll still appreciate the fact that female Byleth is an option; it'll actually be the very first time I get to play a story-heavy game that features a silent female protagonist. I doubt it'll improve my stance of silent protagonists much, but who knows?

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I like the silent approach on an Avatar.

I really hated Robin and Corrin because they fail their duty as an Avatar by having an established personality and background and I hated them as their own characters because they were so bland and generic most likely due to the fact they were supposed to have a personality that would allow all players to relate to them but that just doesn’t work. They just fail at everything aside from being a highly customizable unit (no skin or eye color options though. smh) I really don’t get why people like them.

The silent approach at least prevents Byleth from saying anything idiotic which already makes them instantly better by default. Also, silent protagonist tend to be guided by other characters since they obviously can’t say or do much of anything to progress the story by themselves so they can’t hog the spotlight like Corrin or steal it like Robin so that should allow the other characters to actually grow and develop. Or at the very least get more involved than the Royals were.

Also, I don’t see why lack of decision making/dialogue choices is being brought up as a thing against Byleth. Most games that aren’t visual novels or open-world rpgs rarely give you any options that are worth a damn anyway, regardless of whether there’s an Avatar or not. Avatars are just supposed to be a way to bring the player along for the ride. Having control over the story and conversations isn’t necessarily their main goal.

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7 hours ago, Slyfox said:

Agreed.

Also, Thane does have a point about Knights of the Old Republic II, where the protagonist was very much set in his/her actions, yet you get decide the "why" of it all. Side note, that game was made by Obsidian Entertainment, the same developers as the two games I mentioned in my previous post.

Key words: semblance of a role.

I feel like that's being invited to a very important meeting where they promised you could say your piece, but in fact are allowed only to watch and listen.

You are probably right that the two kinds in question are avatars. However, like you just said, I simply do not consider them to be such, from a personal viewpoint. Perhaps from a factual or textbook perspective I am wrong, but ultimately I'm going with what I believe should be the case. I can be stubborn!

 

Edit: Basically, to sum up what I'm all about. I love avatars, I love being a part of the game, shaping it. I really am a sucker for that stuff.

But either do it right or don't do it at all.

Well silent protagonists are basically the first form of avatars to exists as their reason for being silent is always related to them being representations of the player. Kazuma Kaneko, Juji Horii, Shigero Miyamoto, Gabe Newell, have all mentioned this reason as to why the protagonists have to be silent.

Their role is that of player vesel, if we go by story your choices not mattering and if we pair it with them being silent by projecting our personalities then the choices only being used to define your character's personality is one of the definitions of an avatar.

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6 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

Birthright Corrin is pretty bog-standard as FE protagonists go. Nothing that really makes him stand out but nothing outrageously offensive either. It's mostly Conquest and Revelation that draw the ire of many people around here.

I say that mostly because I tend to see people calling Corrin badly written wholesale with the only time they specify which version they're talking about being when they're discussing Conquest and their issues with it.

3 hours ago, Ayra said:

Ys 8 is a great example of this in my example. The game has Adol (mostly) and Dana (occasionally) as protagonists. Dana is absolutely FANTASTIC: She's determined, charming and you can feel how horrible her struggles are. Her sections as the protagonist are quite possibly the most heart-wrenching story I've ever seen in gaming, and I found myself with tears in my eyes more than once. On the other side, you have Adol doing very little. He's supposed to be "me", but I felt far more attached to the voiced protagonist that actually show emotions. So does the rest of the cast: there's some great discussions with people interacting in a nice way with good voice-acting, with Adol just sitting there staring blankly ahead and only getting a very occasional prompt to nod.

I don't play the Ys series but I don't think Adol is meant to be an avatar. I stopped playing Ys 8 a few days in ingame because of the translation issues I'd heard of at the time, but my understanding is that the Ys series, with the exception of the prequel, is Adol's story. He's not meant to be the player's avatar but a character in your own right that you just happen to play. That said, it's understandable if the lack of voicing doesn't work for you.

2 hours ago, NegativeExponents- said:

I like the silent approach on an Avatar.

I really hated Robin and Corrin because they fail their duty as an Avatar by having an established personality and background and I hated them as their own characters because they were so bland and generic most likely due to the fact they were supposed to have a personality that would allow all players to relate to them but that just doesn’t work. They just fail at everything aside from being a highly customizable unit (no skin or eye color options though. smh) I really don’t get why people like them.

I can't agree with this and I don't understand why people say that having an established personality and background means a character fails at being an avatar. Link from the Legend of Zelda series has both and people consider him an avatar just fine. You don't have to like their personalities but that doesn't mean they fail at being avatars. Personally I like Corrin because despite being "bland and generic" their presentation and interactions with the rest of the cast just work for me. Obviously people disagree about whether or not Robin and Corrin work as characters but even that tells me that IS is doing something right in that some people are able to connect with the avatars even though others aren't.

Edited by Maimishou
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4 hours ago, redlight said:

and people worshipping the ground they walk on. It's a stept in the right direction, but the most controversial one has always been player worship in all iterations of a playable avatar.

To be fair, it's pretty difficult to find a character who doesn't love the lord of any Fire Emblem game. There's Shinon and.....Shinon

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I find it weird that some people are okay with Byleth being an avatar and the main protagonist is okay if he's silent. They're still the protagonist, so any problems you had with Corrin being customizable aren't going to go away.

 

I personally don't mind one way or the other

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2 hours ago, NegativeExponents- said:

I like the silent approach on an Avatar.

I really hated Robin and Corrin because they fail their duty as an Avatar by having an established personality and background and I hated them as their own characters because they were so bland and generic most likely due to the fact they were supposed to have a personality that would allow all players to relate to them but that just doesn’t work. They just fail at everything aside from being a highly customizable unit (no skin or eye color options though. smh) I really don’t get why people like them.

The silent approach at least prevents Byleth from saying anything idiotic which already makes them instantly better by default. Also, silent protagonist tend to be guided by other characters since they obviously can’t say or do much of anything to progress the story by themselves so they can’t hog the spotlight like Corrin or steal it like Robin so that should allow the other characters to actually grow and develop. Or at the very least get more involved than the Royals were.

Also, I don’t see why lack of decision making/dialogue choices is being brought up as a thing against Byleth. Most games that aren’t visual novels or open-world rpgs rarely give you any options that are worth a damn anyway, regardless of whether there’s an Avatar or not. Avatars are just supposed to be a way to bring the player along for the ride. Having control over the story and conversations isn’t necessarily their main goal.

Well, I have to say we have completely opposite opinions!

I agree that Robin doesn't really work as an avatar, but I felt that as a main character she was great. I thought she was funny, entertaining and not overwhelmingly praised for no reason. I don't agree with the "stealing the spotlight" aspect: it's a story that features Chrom, Robin and Lucina as the main characters. Chrom has more focus early and Robin more later, but I don't view that as a problem at all. Actually, I feel the Fire Emblem stories are too "lord-focused" in general. The games are all about cooperation and an army of various characters working together to their goal. I personally welcome every opportunity characters other than the main lord(s) get to shine; having more characters "stealing the spotlight" away from the main lord is a positive thing as far as I'm concerned.

I feel decisions are important when you have a silent protagonist because if you don't have those, the protagonist is basically a non-entity. If I have to play as an emotionless statue, I want them to at least do stuff and be part of the world. If it's a choice-less story with a voiced character, then I still get to view their personalities and their actions. If I'm playing a choice-less story with a silent protagonist that just stares while the other people interact, then I'm not sure what's that character's role. They do nothing, yet are present in (nearly) all the scenes in the game.

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I hate the idea of avatars. i want a character i can learn to love and experience his experiences through the game. i feel like ive seen some spots where byleth had a dialogue textbox but then i also saw that he had to choose between 2 options to answer a question. Not sure if i really like this as they leave the devlopment of the character to us and if they dont do a good job we could have another very mediocre/boring main character. In the past we have had great main characters like Ike, Sigurd, Miciaiah, Hector and many more and with Heroes they should realize how much the fanbase loves some of these lords. i just dont hope they throw the idea of writing a script out the window and dedicated the time to redeem themselves from fates crappy story. The characters are what make the game and story so amazing, Hector and Sigurd are amazing examples of this. They drive the story themselves and makes the player actually process information and think. 

 

Also another thought other then the  deep thoughts of my mind lets be real here. a silent protagonist is a cheap way for a company to avoid spending money on voice acting and cut costs. In reality they should be making bank right now and should be going all out on this game. As a huge Fire emblem fan for many years we as a community deserve it. Hell get Greg chun or kaiji tang as the voice actor. you implement voice acting into a mobile phone app DO NOT co cheap when it comes to the game we really care about rather then a pass time that we all enjoy (that cant and shouldnt be) taken to seriously.

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52 minutes ago, redtutel said:

To be fair, it's pretty difficult to find a character who doesn't love the lord of any Fire Emblem game. There's Shinon and.....Shinon

The thing with the avatar is that they are supposed to be you. The game description even says "As their professor, you must lead...". It's nauseating for you to be constantly praised. I can bear it, but still find it annoying for lords if they're that undeserving.

I hope this isn't the case with Byleth, but from what I've read about how they got their position and that whole saving Edelgard scene makes the story sound cringey. Or at least the opening act

Edited by redlight
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47 minutes ago, Zihark11 said:

I hate the idea of avatars. i want a character i can learn to love and experience his experiences through the game. i feel like ive seen some spots where byleth had a dialogue textbox but then i also saw that he had to choose between 2 options to answer a question. Not sure if i really like this as they leave the devlopment of the character to us and if they dont do a good job we could have another very mediocre/boring main character. In the past we have had great main characters like Ike, Sigurd, Miciaiah, Hector and many more and with Heroes they should realize how much the fanbase loves some of these lords. i just dont hope they throw the idea of writing a script out the window and dedicated the time to redeem themselves from fates crappy story. The characters are what make the game and story so amazing, Hector and Sigurd are amazing examples of this. They drive the story themselves and makes the player actually process information and think. 

 

Also another thought other then the  deep thoughts of my mind lets be real here. a silent protagonist is a cheap way for a company to avoid spending money on voice acting and cut costs. In reality they should be making bank right now and should be going all out on this game. As a huge Fire emblem fan for many years we as a community deserve it. Hell get Greg chun or kaiji tang as the voice actor. you implement voice acting into a mobile phone app DO NOT co cheap when it comes to the game we really care about rather then a pass time that we all enjoy (that cant and shouldnt be) taken to seriously.

Bold: Like, uhh, Sigurd? As in, the same Sigurd you just so happen to be singing the praises of? In all honesty, I find him one of the lamest protagonists to ever (dis)grace a Fire Emblem game, right down there with Eirika.

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So far I think making Byleth a silent protagonist I a good idea. Some of my favorite games has silent protagonists (KOTOR, Fallout NV, Persona). The key here is balance of the focus in the character. From the trailers so far it makes it seems that it is Byleth's journey and not the lord trio. Hopefully that will only be the first new chapters. I wonder how supports are going to play out?

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If I could be psychologically conditioned to support the idea that Fire Emblem games need an avatar character who is also the driving force of the plot, I'm not sure I'd suggest silent protagonist. It really depends on what the planned role-playing elements are for this game. We saw a dialogue choice, but it was just yes and yes, so no choice is being made. If dialogue choices respected player agency in character interaction, and also came up often, I'd want to hear those line deliveries. Byleth already has a voice actor, put him to work. It's no use imagining what he sounds like for role playing purposes when Gameplay!Byleth is just there to prove me wrong. Plus it's just weird in universe to have somebody who is selectively mute for no reason, and I prefer it a great deal when they give a reason, such as Zelda's diary in Breath of the Wild. Seeing my character just be this anomoly that no other character addresses just busts the immersion.

17 hours ago, Armagon said:

non-customizable aside from gender (similar to Persona 5's Joke).

If this is a veiled jab at Joker I approve. Kid could stand to be taken down a peg before he grows up like any child celebrity does.

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1 hour ago, Maimishou said:

I can't agree with this and I don't understand why people say that having an established personality and background means a character fails at being an avatar. Link from the Legend of Zelda series has both and people consider him an avatar just fine. You don't have to like their personalities but that doesn't mean they fail at being avatars. Personally I like Corrin because despite being "bland and generic" their presentation and interactions with the rest of the cast just work for me. Obviously people disagree about whether or not Robin and Corrin work as characters but even that tells me that IS is doing something right in that some people are able to connect with the avatars even though others aren't.

Link for the most part has very basic backstories and his only trait is being courageous but that’s not really much of a personality. The few exceptions are Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, and maybe Twilight Princess where he has more elaborate backstory but still not much of a personality except for in Breath of the Wild. Not to mention that I’m pretty sure despite all that most people see Link as his own character rather than an avatar anyhow so he’s kind of a bad example.

I absolutely have to like their personality because if they ever do or say something I don’t like (that wasn’t forced by someone else or an event) then they immediately lose any and all Avatar charm they had because they took an action I can never see myself taking and when the whole point of the Avatar is to be an extension of the player then yeah, that’s a failure.

1 hour ago, Ayra said:

I agree that Robin doesn't really work as an avatar, but I felt that as a main character she was great. I thought she was funny, entertaining and not overwhelmingly praised for no reason. I don't agree with the "stealing the spotlight" aspect: it's a story that features Chrom, Robin and Lucina as the main characters. Chrom has more focus early and Robin more later, but I don't view that as a problem at all. Actually, I feel the Fire Emblem stories are too "lord-focused" in general. The games are all about cooperation and an army of various characters working together to their goal. I personally welcome every opportunity characters other than the main lord(s) get to shine; having more characters "stealing the spotlight" away from the main lord is a positive thing as far as I'm concerned.

Ok I’ll admit that my opinions on Robin and Corrin as characters are just that, opinions, since personality being good or bad is entirely subjective so I guess I can understand that people would find them likable and now that I went back to re-read some of the script of Awakening, yeah you’re right, Robin didn’t steal as much spotlight as I thought he did.

1 hour ago, Ayra said:

I feel decisions are important when you have a silent protagonist because if you don't have those, the protagonist is basically a non-entity. If I have to play as an emotionless statue, I want them to at least do stuff and be part of the world. If it's a choice-less story with a voiced character, then I still get to view their personalities and their actions. If I'm playing a choice-less story with a silent protagonist that just stares while the other people interact, then I'm not sure what's that character's role. They do nothing, yet are present in (nearly) all the scenes in the game.

Eh, I imagine Byleth being more of a Link. Very expressive and interactive with the world around him which should give him some charm despite being silent. It’s too early to say how vital decision making would be yet when we still haven’t seen much of Byleth with anyone except Rhea.

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26 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

If this is a veiled jab at Joker I approve. Kid could stand to be taken down a peg before he grows up like any child celebrity does.

Oh i didn't even realize i mispelled his name. Haha oops. 

Joke from Person 5, not to be confused with Joker from Persona 5.

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Not sure what to make of it. I've read that Awakening had an option to have Robin be a silent protagonist and that doesn't surprise me. He seems very fitting for that role since Lucina/Chrom have a ton of dialogue themselves BUT in this case I don't know if it would work because Byleth will probably be important if his connection with Sothis leads anywhere.

5 hours ago, Ayra said:

Bad thing for me, unless it's done incredibly well ala Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time.

I never "self-insert" into games, so a silent protagonist generally mean that there's this one dude (nearly always a dude) that's present in all the scenes that just stares and nods at everything. I thought Robin was a great protagonist, but I never saw her as "my avatar": she's not "me" in the game, she's Robin. 

Ys 8 is a great example of this in my example. The game has Adol (mostly) and Dana (occasionally) as protagonists. Dana is absolutely FANTASTIC: She's determined, charming and you can feel how horrible her struggles are. Her sections as the protagonist are quite possibly the most heart-wrenching story I've ever seen in gaming, and I found myself with tears in my eyes more than once. On the other side, you have Adol doing very little. He's supposed to be "me", but I felt far more attached to the voiced protagonist that actually show emotions. So does the rest of the cast: there's some great discussions with people interacting in a nice way with good voice-acting, with Adol just sitting there staring blankly ahead and only getting a very occasional prompt to nod.

Growlanser: Wayfarer of time is the one single game I've appreciated a silent protagonist. You have a gigantic amount of dialog options constantly (more than two in the majority of cases), but the big thing is that many answers actually change things. Sometime small changes that crops up only 10 hours later, sometime major. It did feel like he had a personality building based on what I answered and EVERYTHING addressed to him had some prompt (ie. very, very often), so characters didn't have to repeat what he just said either and made things more natural.

If Byleth turns out to be a silent protagonist like that, I'll be satisfied (although it'll still be more jarring than Growlanser since this is a voiced game). We only seem to get 2 dialog options, but the little footage we've seen does point toward prompts being common so maybe it'll be like Growlanser. Doubtful, but not impossible. If that's not the case... then I guess I'll still appreciate the fact that female Byleth is an option; it'll actually be the very first time I get to play a story-heavy game that features a silent female protagonist. I doubt it'll improve my stance of silent protagonists much, but who knows?

Ah, I see you're a fellow human of culture as well.

Bought Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time a long time ago on my Vita and it's one of my top 10 favorite games and one of the reasons is that it handles choices in game through dialogue so well. If 3H did have a system similar to WoT I'd be all for it. 

13 hours ago, Onestep said:

I love how Byleth is both a silent protag and a teacher. I just can't help but imagine him beaming knowledge directly into the students brains like he's in a 80's sci-fi film.

Ha! That mental image gave me a good chuckle.

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