ThisAdamGuy
Proud inventor of the chocolate onion
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I decided to give Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana a try today, and the first thing that jumped out at me is how this is a modern 3D game with fully voiced cutscenes, but the hero Adol is still a silent protagonist. It feels weird to have everyone chatting up a storm around you, while "you" are completely mute.
This got me thinking. Are there good and bad ways to have a silent protagonist? At first I thought it was only a problem in story heavy games. Nobody bats an eye if the hero never talks in a game like Jak and Daxter or Crash Bandicoot, but when the plot became more important in Jak 2, Jak suddenly got a voice. Gordon Freeman never talks in the Half Life games, but that's a first person shooter. You are literally inside Gordon's head when you play it, so it makes sense that he doesn't talk, because he is you, and your mouth doesn't just start saying things without your permission.
But then I remembered the Zelda games. Some of them are fairly story heavy, but they've never felt weird despite Link having always been a silent protagonist (except for THE ONES WE DO NOT SPEAK OF). But Link is one of the most famous examples of a silent protagonist. The fact that he doesn't talk is practically as much a part part of his character as Mario's cartoonish Italian accent. So do we make an acception for Zelda because that's what we've been brought up to expect from them, of is there another reason?
What do you guys think? What makes a silent protagonist work vs when they don't work?
This got me thinking. Are there good and bad ways to have a silent protagonist? At first I thought it was only a problem in story heavy games. Nobody bats an eye if the hero never talks in a game like Jak and Daxter or Crash Bandicoot, but when the plot became more important in Jak 2, Jak suddenly got a voice. Gordon Freeman never talks in the Half Life games, but that's a first person shooter. You are literally inside Gordon's head when you play it, so it makes sense that he doesn't talk, because he is you, and your mouth doesn't just start saying things without your permission.
But then I remembered the Zelda games. Some of them are fairly story heavy, but they've never felt weird despite Link having always been a silent protagonist (except for THE ONES WE DO NOT SPEAK OF). But Link is one of the most famous examples of a silent protagonist. The fact that he doesn't talk is practically as much a part part of his character as Mario's cartoonish Italian accent. So do we make an acception for Zelda because that's what we've been brought up to expect from them, of is there another reason?
What do you guys think? What makes a silent protagonist work vs when they don't work?
