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Manchu wrote:I liked the FFIV cast the best. Cloud was too whiny and indecisive--and he was neither the first or the best example of this, so I can't say much for him. He's no Cecil, that's for sure.

FFIII was actually my all-time favorite.

I didn't really think Cloud was whiny though. Doesn't that imply that what he was going through was sort of trivial? He has his entire worldview destroyed over the course of the game, and watches Sephiroth gut-stab his girlfriend! That's pretty brutal!

Manchu wrote:@Slarg: Master Chief is a . . . complex character?

More of "Not Silent" was what I was going for. He does have a few (read: 2) lines, you know.

Also, why do you guys hate Dragon Age?

By III do you mean VI (with Terra) or really III (with all the jobs)?

Manchu wrote:By III do you mean VI (with Terra) or really III (with all the jobs)?

FFIII for the SNES! The one where you could play the fights with multiple players!

Slarg232 wrote:Also, why do you guys hate Dragon Age?

- Lame story.

- Lamer setting.

- Poor graphics and designs.

- Annoying, Princess Bride/Joss Wheedon-wannabe characters.

- Extremely limited class building options.

- Extremely limited interaction between race and class.

- Boring and sometimes awkward gameplay.

- No innovation of any sort. (To be fair, that characterizes all BioWare games since the first KotOR.)

- Tremendously overrated.

On the plus side, it had an awesome voicecast. I mean, I acknowledge they did a great job even if I didn't like their characters.

Slarg232 wrote:
I have to slightly disagree with you, Melissia. I think the best Non-silent protagonists are Eddie Riggs from Brutal Legend,
But yeah, mostly the Silent Protagonists are the best. On the top of my head I can think of Point Man/Micheal Beckitt being my favorite from the F.E.A.R. series. New Recruit from the Ghostbusters video game was awesome, too bad you didn't actually get to customize him though
Jack from Bioshock was a lot better than a Non Silent, though we will have to see how Irrational Games handles Infinate with a talking protagonist.

There are a few Non Silent Protagonists that are pretty good, it really all depends on how they are written.

Boom. Totally agree with the Eddie Riggs point.
And I am slightlt aprehensive about Infinate too.

I always liked Cloud from 7.

The legacy of Samus has been completely and utterly destroyed by that latest Metroid game for the Wii.

Slarg232 wrote:

Manchu wrote:@Slarg: Master Chief is a . . . complex character?

More of "Not Silent" was what I was going for. He does have a few (read: 2) lines, you know.

One of which was "Thought I'd try shooting my way out, mix things up a little."

Although despite that line being literally true, he also says it to comfort his pseudo-girlfriend AI who's just been minderaped by an extragalactic parasite. So I think he's a little more complex than first glance would suggest, even without taking into account the vast array of non-game media.

The girlfriend AI thing came off as pathetic. I felt embarassed for the character.

BrookM wrote:The legacy of Samus has been completely and utterly destroyed by that latest Metroid game for the Wii.

Is it really that bad? I thought it looked bad.

Melissia wrote:Fleshed out characters only work if they aren't stupidly written. Most are.

QFT.

There are some characters who really help (Being well written may not be necessary, but they need to be engaging or entertaining). Dante is one of the high points of DMC for many a fan even though half (okay almost all...) his dialogue is taken from the list of the most corny things to say at any given moment. His personality and character makes the game for some people. Then you have folks like Link, whose very name is a reference to the role he play's in the player-game relationship.

It depends on the game and the strength of the story. FFXIII was the first FF I actually played, and after years of hearing people hype how awesome the Final Fantasy series is at story and character, I have to say. Those people who told me that were playing a much better story, cause FFXIII pretty much ran on melodrama, angst, and bad storyboard.

EDIT: Master Chief is a very interesting character but I'd never call him strong. He speaks just enough to make him feel alive and endear him to the player as a character in the universe, but not enough to really make him feel like a character in himself without the player there (there really was a book written on this believe it or not). Even in the expanded universe, Master Chief is very shallow compared to some of the other characters in the series (most of the Spartans are the only exception jumping to my mind being Kurt).

I thought the emotions in FFXIII came across as pretty genuine. Angst can be an important facet of character development and melodrama is a type of style, not a necessarily a flaw in style. Saying you don't like a story is one thing; saying a story is bad or poorly-told is another.

Manchu wrote:IAngst can be an important facet of character development and melodrama is a type of style, not a necessarily a flaw in style.

Except when Angst is the only thing driving the story. That is a bad thing. People complaining for ten hours about how much their lives suck is not a good story when it's the only thing going on (Even if there are some nicely done cutscenes in between).

EDIT: Someone send this to Stephine Meyer. She should hear this too.

LordofHats wrote:EDIT: Someone send this to Stephine Meyer. She should hear this too.

Win.
[/thread]

I found the main theme of character development in FFXIII to be overcoming the suffering and loss in your life that results from forces beyond your control. As such, the characters tend to be on the brink of various shades of despair throughout. Although I can't claim to be an anime aficiando, I would say this is a pretty common trope in that genre and especially in its extension into console-based railroad RPGs. American games, by contrast, have very little emotional range. I can completely understand why your first experience with FF left you feeling like you'd just watched ten hours of daytime television.

Manchu wrote:I found the main theme of character development in FFXIII to be overcoming the suffering and loss in your life that results from forces beyond your control. As such, the characters tend to be on the brink of various shades of despair throughout.

From what I understand that's one of the central themes of the FF series, which isn't a bad thing. But there wasn't any other character development (if I would call what happened development). The voice acting was good, the graphics were nice, the combat system entertained me but all the character "development" was one tracked with many of them behaving in what came off as a pattern of asinine decision making. Had there been other more intricate character developments going on, I wouldn't have minded so much. They tried with Vanille and Sazh, but Sazh spends almost as much time being down as Hope, and Vanille was annoying as . There was plenty of room for a great story. It just never seemed to materialize.

As the game is, the character I enjoyed most was chocobo, just because the little guy wasn't complaining every moment of his screen time...

Although I can't claim to be an anime aficiando, I would say this is a pretty common trope in that genre and especially in its extension into console-based railroad RPGs.

I don't generally like those anime's either There are too many emo angsty characters, and most of them just seem to come off as clones of one another with a few who manage to stand out because the emo angsty part isn't over emphasized to the point of annoying the viewer.

Character development is a hard thing to get right. Emphasize an aspect too much (and it's easy to do so accidentally) and the characters can come off as one tracked even when they're not. Emphasize the angst and "my life sucks" aspect too much and you develop the 'Sasuke Complex' (that's just what I call it) where after a while, people become accustomed to the character constantly whining and start to completely disregard that character as an annoyance to the story especially when they don't seem to learn anything from previous events. When all you're characters have Sasuke Complex, you can very easily kill a story because such characters are extremely polarizing. People love them or hate them. FFXIII eventually pulled itself out of that rut for the most part, but it took ten hours, and by then I already hated every character to death.

I'd actually say that as a safety measure, under emotional characters perform better than overly emotional characters, simply because they don't annoy the crap out of the viewer/player/reader if they become to one tracked. The trick is to find some way to endear an under emotional character to a player, which I think Master Chief pulled off very well for a lot of people. That said, I think the best characters are somewhere in the middle. They're not too emotional but they have plenty of emotion (not to be confused with personality) but they are very hard to pull off.

I thought the characters in FFXIII were pretty good. Yeah, they complained a lot. I would say that living in a genocidal dystopia would give one a lot to complain about, and then you add in the fact that these sleeping Gods would arbitrarily decide to put a mark on you that made you an enemy of mankind.

Cherry-picking elements of a game to find something to complain about seems... well... I better not say.

When you start a JRPG, you better have already accepted that there will be whining and lost of it. Even when you think you're prepared for it, it can still be overwhelmingly annoying. Same for the hyper-cute character, in this case Vanille. When she was introduced, I consciously decided to like her. If you don't, she'll easily grate on your nerves.

I am a sucker for cute girls with Australian accents, however, so maybe it was easier for me.

Melissia wrote:Which was nothing more than a little easter egg/bonus for beating the game. That's like saying that Dragon Age is bad because it has mods which let you see the characters nude.

I think you're overstating my position a bit. I'm not saying it's bad by any means, but it's far from the holy grail of female game protagonists. Which was sort of the tone of I was getting from your praise of it, if that was wrong I apologize.

It's also a bit different than a mod, as it is a default part of the game. It's also a reward for doing well, which is a also a bit different from incidental content. Simply having someone in a bathing suit is different from them being in a bathing suit as a prize, at least in my mind.

Metroid is certainly a fine series and above average as female presence goes, I just wouldn't be giving it any medals is all.

When you start a JRPG, you better have already accepted that there will be whining and lost of it.

I think this is a bit of a strong statement. I can think of quite a few JRPGs that aren't dominated by whining. A few examples off the top of my head:

Suikoden II
Final Fantasy Tactics
Phantasy Star IV
Wild Arms III
Front Mission IV

EDIT: All of the above also contain some cool female characters too. Though not all of them were entirely fairly treated. Perhaps it's just nostalgia speaking but Alys Bragwin (Phantasy Star IV) is still one of my favorite female characters from a video game, shame they had to shove her in a damn fridge.

Those are just ones that come into mind immediately. My memory isn't good enough to declare them "Whine Free" but they certainly aren't dominated by in the way a lot of the modern members of the numbered Final Fantasy Series are 7,8,10,12(kinda... not really, only in some parts) - that I've played.

Some take an interesting spin on it. Persona 4 had a fair amount of whine, but the whole point of it was so the characters could be told "Stop your whining actually deal with your petty issues".

Fair play, Chongara. I think people who have played more than a few of these kinds of games, however, develop a much higher threshold for it than someone coming from BioWare and Bethesda RPGs.

I thought that old-what's-his-name from The Suffering was a pretty cool character.

Manchu wrote:I liked the FFIV cast the best. Cloud was too whiny and indecisive--and he was neither the first or the best example of this, so I can't say much for him. He's no Cecil, that's for sure.

FFVII had the best character death.

WarOne wrote:

Manchu wrote:I liked the FFIV cast the best. Cloud was too whiny and indecisive--and he was neither the first or the best example of this, so I can't say much for him. He's no Cecil, that's for sure.

FFVII had the best character death.

I always found Aeris' death to be pretty "Meh" as character deaths go. I guess I just didn't feel attached. There have been plenty with more impact both before and since.

Manchu wrote:

Slarg232 wrote:- Poor graphics and designs.
- Boring and sometimes awkward gameplay.

- No innovation of any sort. (To be fair, that characterizes all BioWare games since the first KotOR.)

These three I disagree with:

The graphics were designed to be less cartoony, and I thought they did that pretty well. (oh why, oh why, oh WHY couldn't I find a decent Headpeice for my Bloodmage though?!?)

I thought the gameplay was kinda fun if you actually planned ahead, layed traps, and the like. Of course, I've been described on this board as "easily amused", too.

I thought the way they twisted some of the concepts were pretty cool, too. Like how the dwarves were "honorable" and yet constantly sceaming, and the Templars were basically Witch hunters.

LordofHats wrote:

Melissia wrote:Fleshed out characters only work if they aren't stupidly written. Most are.

QFT.

There are some characters who really help (Being well written may not be necessary, but they need to be engaging or entertaining). Dante is one of the high points of DMC for many a fan even though half (okay almost all...) his dialogue is taken from the list of the most corny things to say at any given moment. His personality and character makes the game for some people. Then you have folks like Link, whose very name is a reference to the role he play's in the player-game relationship.

Actually, it's not the fact that Dante is corny, it's the fact that you have Daemons, gothic settings, and the world about to end daemons, but in the middle of it is this wise ass dude with two guns and a sword. Dante is just totally different than what you would expect someone in his situation to be, and to me (and a few people I have talked to) that's what makes him such a strong character. Giant bird thingy is attacking him, he's telling it to "Flock off, Feather Face!".

Now, if Vergil had been the main character, the Devil May Cry series would never have been the same, to me, at least.

Chongara wrote:
Suikoden II

on jrpgs:
suikoden I and II had strong characters as a rule even the background characters were written well.

a lot of people hated Nanami but then they forget that shes a (pre?) teen girl. That, or they just didnt have sisters :| or reminded them of their sisters a little too much.
Vandal Hearts(I and II) also had some very real, very flawed characters as heroes and villains. I'm actually having a hard time categorizing this as a JRPG because it just didnt feel like one. It felt more like a Western High Fantasy novel more than anything.

on a different note Bioshock had awesome characters (of the speaking and non speaking variety). KOTOR I and II also had very well written characters. Kreia is one helluva a character. Hard not to admire her.

Bakerofish wrote:

Chongara wrote:
Suikoden II

on jrpgs:
suikoden I and II had strong characters as a rule even the background characters were written well.

a lot of people hated Nanami but then they forget that shes a (pre?) teen girl. That, or they just didnt have sisters :| or reminded them of their sisters a little too much.
Vandal Hearts(I and II) also had some very real, very flawed characters as heroes and villains. I'm actually having a hard time categorizing this as a JRPG because it just didnt feel like one. It felt more like a Western High Fantasy novel more than anything.

on a different note Bioshock had awesome characters (of the speaking and non speaking variety). KOTOR I and II also had very well written characters. Kreia is one helluva a character. Hard not to admire her.

Really? People disliked Nanami? I found the character to be very endearing. She was supposed to be 14-15 in the game iirc. They did a very good job of making her act in a way that was believably nonadult without being a useless brat. Probably my favorite character in trhe game tbh, well maybe Viktor he was cool too.

people disliked Nanami for the very reason that made her endearing to us i guess Id rather have a character like her than nonstop wangst

Hold the phones did I inadvertantly cause a topic to be created?

Honestly making stories for video-games are is almost always a waste of time. Keep it lite on the story beef up the gameplay. All the so called masterpieces in gaming storytelling are about as good as a mediocre, melodramatic novel.

I used to play (J)RPG's and other story centric games, then I realized how silly it all was. I'll read a book or watch a movie if I want a story.

The one thing that games do that other mediums cannot is create an atmosphere that pulls you in, simply because you are the controlling character. There's also other interesting narrative tricks like Mass Effect's save imports or Heavy Rain's dynamic storytelling. Then again I rather have a game with actual gameplay than all that nonsense (note: Maass Effect has good gameplay), and no matter how gimmicky the narrative tricks are the story itself is usually sub-par anyway.

This is why puzzle games and RTS are the best genres, though admittedly the former can sometimes seem to have little point to them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also I have no problem with silent protagonists, I have a problem when people claim they have expanded storytelling in the industry in leaps and bounds i.e. Samus. She's more of a step forward for emotionless robots than women. Not that it matters either way really.

asimo77 wrote:Also I have no problem with silent protagonists, I have a problem when people claim they have expanded storytelling in the industry in leaps and bounds i.e. Samus. She's more of a step forward for emotionless robots that women. Not that it matters either way really.

She's more of a step forward for emotionless robots

emotionless robots

Samus is a Necron.

asimo77 wrote:Hold the phones did I inadvertantly cause a topic to be created?

Honestly making stories for video-games are is almost always a waste of time. Keep it lite on the story beef up the gameplay. All the so called masterpieces in gaming storytelling are about as good as a mediocre, melodramatic novel.

I used to play (J)RPG's and other story centric games, then I realized how silly it all was. I'll read a book or watch a movie if I want a story.

The one thing that games do that other mediums cannot is create an atmosphere that pulls you in, simply because you are the controlling character. There's also other interesting narrative tricks like Mass Effect's save imports or Heavy Rain's dynamic storytelling. Then again I rather have a game with actual gameplay than all that nonsense (note: Maass Effect has good gameplay), and no matter how gimmicky the narrative tricks are the story itself is usually sub-par anyway.

This is why puzzle games and RTS are the best genres, though admittedly the former can sometimes seem to have little point to them.

I dunno, Batman: Arkham Asylum did pretty well for itself in terms of decent characterisation and story. Then again, it had about 70 or so years of comic character history on which to do so, so perhaps it's not the best example.