Dragon Quest Creator Says Silent Protagonists Look Like Idiots

Well yeah, silent protagonists may look like idiots, but people love idiots! Just look at me!

While playing Tears of the kingdom I desperately wanted Link to say something, anything. Especially at the end of the game. Instead he just stares like he has no clue what's going on.

Nah the protagonist is still silent it was already addressed but look at link in the manga compared to the games he's much better in the manga

I dont feel one way is right and one is wrong.

voiced or unvoiced every game should use what suits it best

Totally agree. Having a voiced protagonist gives them a lot more character. It may give them fewer dialogue options but I personally prefer my (often) created characters to look and sound angry/sympathetic/witty rather than being a mute just flicking through more text responses in a menu.

I'd take the soul survivor from Fallout 4 over the courier from Fallout New Vegas any day.

I really hope that the next Dragon Quest and Persona games feature a voiced protagonist.

"As games and graphics continue to evolve." I'm fine with games where they are as far as aesthetics. I'm not the one asking for ray tracing. I'd rather most games looked like DQXI anyway.

I honestly don't mind silent protagonists. The dialouges spoken and their "personality" depends on the player's choices. tbh, there are times where I get annoyed when certain protagonists have their own personality and you have no control over what they say. That said, even with the graphics evolving, at the end of the day, it really depends on the aesthetics of the game

Yeah sometimes they looks like an idiot but sometimes they look badass like Doom Slayer or Beyond the Grave for example.

I think silent protags more fit for action games where they speak more with their actions or body language.

Agree with most I’ve seen, they do look like idiots just standing there nodding 🤣

I dont have an issue with silent protagonists, but Character creation with multiple voices to choose from is where we should be by now - some games have already done this quite well.

I don't even agree it has anything to do with realistic graphics, I had this same problem in Dragon Quest XI, and that's not exactly a realistic looking game. Everyone is talking and the main character just stands there with a blank stare. He's supposed to be the hero of the story but acts more like a Hodor.

Disagreed. Silent protagonists leave room for the player's imagination. As long as there is emotion in the animations (especially on face), silent protagonists work really well. Also avoids the problem of having annoying voice acting. I was playing Cyberpunk 2077 and I wish that game had silent protagonist because I dislike the voice acting of the main character.

Depends on the POV, direction, tone etc.

Yes! I've always hated that.

Silent character may work when there is character creation : the budget may not allow for all the possibilities the game wish to offer to the player.

But if you have to play as a set character (or choose between a limited number of characters), then yes, they should be voiced.

The reason I love Dragon Quest show much as although the stories and graphics have evolved, the game has stayed true to its roots. Games like Dragon Quest are so rare, that when one does get released every 5 or 6 years, they feel like a breath of fresh air.

I don'tind silent protagonists.

Only due to the alternative being the modern gaming alternative of PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP, and constantly waffling while slowing movement to a crawl.

Totally agree. For me the silent hero actually takes away from the immersion when its his turn to say something and all he does is nod his head.

Sometimes silent is best, I tried a few of the modern FF games and found the main characters so annoying and irritating that I gave up. ( Was that FF game where they drove around in a big black car)

Ditto for custom named protagonists. Leads to a lot of awkward dialog work-arounds.

The only good silent protag is Link in my humble opinion

@Haruki_NLI I tried to enjoy Borderlands 3 but it just never shuts up. That is my go to example of voicework killing a game for me. Yakuza is up there too. Not because the writing is bad even. It's just so overindulgent. It's not an unbearable cacophony like BL3, but I don't care enough to sit through hours of melodrama either.

I disagree. Protagonists with whiney teenage American voices that don’t suit the character look like idiots.

I hate silent protagonists yet somehow this game is my favorite of all time so he must have done something right-.-'
I can only imagine how much more I would love it if he COULD talk o.O

I totally agree with him. I hate it.

Always an eye roll when FromSoft protagonists are looking all silent and cold and tough then they let out this loud scream when they fall off a cliff. Like Yo I thought you couldn't speak.

Absolutely! I’ve always hated this in games! Like Link and Claude in GTA III. Being bossed around and ordered to do chores with nary a reaction or response. It’s the worst! I’m also not a fan of created characters. It makes the game feel generic when they’re called “The One”, or “Chosen”, or some generic 💩 like that. Give me a Kratos, Drake, or Fenix any day of the week. This way they’re fleshed out and have a personality.

Yuji is right, especially if you have played games like Final Fantasy 16, Red Dead Redemption 2, or Cyberpunk 2077. Having a well-voiced protagonist absolutely connects me to that character and makes them more relatable.

Silent protagonists work well if the game is constantly seen from a third or first person perspective, like Dead Space 1 and Half-Life 2.

If there are cutscenes from different angles where other characters are talking and the player character just stands there moping, then yes they will appear to be mute or somewhat stupefied.

i heartily disagree with you mr.Hori, silent protagonist is far superior then voiced protagonist, they allow us to insert/project ourself,

I hate the silence. Don’t mind it in some games so it depends on what game it is. A handful of Nintendo’s I don’t like it. Such as Zelda games, I hate the silence of Link. It was fine for older games and handheld games but it’s time for a change.

I don’t buy the excuse leaving it up to our imagination. I think it’s just an excuse to justify cheapening out on paying for voice actors.

Pokémon is much worse though. Older games are fine. But sword/shield and violet/scarlet, the big openings and battle moments make the characters look stupid. We hear the sound of the crowd cheering but the characters have no sound. May aswell just skip the sound entirely or play in mute. There was a video up of a fan doing a voice for one of those characters and it was a night and day difference. The fan voice is far better.

If leaving it up to the player’s imagination is the reason for the silence then they should include it as an option in the game. But I’d like to see them adding voices going forward.

@Giancarlothomaz I've never understood that argument. I certainly can't insert myself into a character if I see them standing around like a dunce.

In case of a strictly first person game, it can work, but even then it's not guaranteed. Like Metro Exodus where Artyom needs everything explained to him like he's a toddler.

I agree. I was never in with the silent hero trope. It's boring and awkward. Just forces a second character to do the talking for them.

I get that it is for the player to fill the blanks in themselves, but it doesn't work for me. I don't want to be the character. That is a childish way to look at a videogame. You want to experience the journey of the character in their world.

Silent protagonist is ok.but i do prefer one that talks.it make the video games more interesting.word up son

The characters DO look kind of stupid that way, but yet, I don't think there's a fix for that (but the marketing people think there is!) As soon as you put a voice to the character, then that character is someone ELSE, they're not YOU, it defeats the entire narrative immersion, you're watching someone ELSE's story like any old movie, it's not YOU role playing YOUR story. It presents better but it breaks the main selling point of the motif.It becomes a very different feeling with a very different story, namely telling someone else specific's story.

Nobody IS Commander Shepard. Commander Shepard is Commander Shepard. You just watch him/her. Meanwhile the Hero of Light is ME. Persona gets around this by just giving you a lot of dialogue options. As does Skyrim.

IMO saying "I prefer voiced protags" is like saying "I like watching movies more than playing games." Especially an RPG, you being the character is meant to be the point. It's fine to like watching someone else's story passively too, but being able to BE the progagonist is the whole unique element of video games that can't be done in other media. It seems like a lot of people are arguing AGAINST player agency and just want to be fed guided narratives of someone else's defined story, AKA, traditional media.

That said, I do think there's better and worse ways to handle a silent protag, and I think running the exact cinema camera cutscenes you'd run in a narrative cinematic game where the camera pans the set and zooms in on head shots for a nodding protag to stare into is not the best looking way to handle a silent protag. The protag should be YOU, that's the point of a silent protag. If you're watching yourself from across the room on a set, that's not the right way of doing it (DQ, Zelda, FFXIV all guilty of that.) To me ideally a silent protag should always be viewed from either first person, or from behind/over the shoulder, so their view is YOUR view, and you're not a third party disembodied camera floating around the room watching yourself. Breaking that 1st person perspective is the place where modern silent protag portrayals go wrong. I should not see my face when "I'm" the one in the room listening. That's what doesn't work, not the silence itself. Cinematics must be different for "silent" (yourself as protag) presentation and shouldn't break the cardinal rule that the character is yourself, and your perspective of the scene is the character's.

Well, word is they’ll be voiced in the Dragon Quest III remake.

I hate silent protagonists when done poorly like Persona 3, 4 and 5 and Dragon Quest 11 where they don't even react emotionally they just nod like 😶.

But there are games where it works, in Crpgs like Baldurs Gate where it allows for more unspoken dialogue options and such.

@ApostateMage I think having a voice for a few things, but not for voice lines is a good in-between. BG3 did that very well.

@Yousef- Lol true. And this silent protags talk reminds me of a Japanese samurai movie called Zatoichi starring Takeshi Kitano / Beat Takeshi. iirc his character is blind but also doesn't speak. But he speak through his face expression and body language.

Personally I'd say there's an increasing number of game protagonists nowadays who could stand to STOP talking but I understand the sentiment.

I kinda hate the silent protag. To be honest, it can work for some types of games (like Mario) and it worked a lot better back in the 90s, but the big con to it is it automatically puts a ceiling on how impactful an RPGs story can be. A story is only as good as its characters and if your character is an empty shell with no soul, the ability to connect with and affect a player is severely diminished. Its the one thing holding Chrono Trigger back from being THE best RPG of all time in my opinion.

Not a huge fan of silent protagonists if there are no dialogue choices. However, I really like them in games like Skyrim, DA:O or Persona 5 and Baldur's Gate 3 where you can basically define your character and make dialogue choices. Like I think Witcher 3 and Mass Effect close down options through forcing a written and voiced character on you. Dragon Quest does not do this well however and a voiced protagonist woukd be fine.