I’ve been on a bit of a JRPG binge recently, clocking up some serious hours in Metaphor: ReFantazio, Granblue Fantasy Relink, Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Seven, and Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age (my God, there are some convoluted titles here), and I have come to the conclusion that there is one JRPG trope I have come to despise: the silent protagonist.
It was great having a voiced protagonist in Metaphor: ReFantazio, so coming to Dragon Quest XI S afterwards has been incredibly jarring. I’ve somehow never really played a Dragon Quest game before – I may have dipped my toes in once or twice over the years, but never much further than fighting off a few initial blue slimes – so I’m hoping to power through this one as they are generally so well regarded.
Having a silent protagonist has always felt jarring to me. I know the reasons behind it; the developer wants YOU to be the hero, so it should be your words, your voice, not a predefined character. The problem is, this IS a predefined character. You don’t really get to make any decisions; you’re set on a path, and your character will do the things they’re going to do regardless. With this in mind, rather than make me no longer feel like the hero if the character is voiced, the fact that my dude is just blankly looking at people like a lobotomised bobblehead whilst they pour their hearts out to him takes me out of the game way more.
It’s not just a JRPG trope either; the Half-Life series was weird for this too, and I just cannot really understand the reasoning why a developer would do this. Maybe they want you, the player, to make a voice in your own head, but to counter that I’d say, as the developer, THEY should be the one to set what the hero sounds like – it is their creation, after all.
Despite the rant, I’ll be writing a review of these games as and when I get around to finishing them, the only problem being they’re all immeasurably long!
