Character Muteness

[Mikain Clan King]

Yeah that could get wierd...I love how main characters in RPGs don't speak. Are there not polls on Suikosource? I'd definatly vote for keeping silent heroes.

[hotspot]

Yes i agree with you chaco, i like mute protaganists, and i would like to see one in the next suikoden. leave the non mutes for side games like a suikoden tactics 2.

[Chaco]

I dunno, Mario in Mario RPG was pretty damn sweet. His pantomime was hours of fun.

Lol, very true but he's Mario I mean I already like him before I even played the game.

[lechaflan]

i'll have to disagree with a few people here and say that silent protaganism just doesn't work for suikoden. probably because i feel it wasn't well done. i like the idea of a player molding a character's personality but i think for it to REALLY work in suikoden, that after choices of text, there should be preset dialogue THROUGHOUT THE REST OF THE GAME that's consistent with the choice a player makes so that we can actually see a character's personality. this would involve a lot of work for the game designers and translators but it would definitely give suikoden leaders a more believable reason as to why they're made leaders. i get the impression from tir and especially laz that their only significant choices of text that show some sort of personality is when asking people to join them. it's like your assumed to think they have that kind of charisma when confronting stars of destiny but the detail-oriented ppl such as myself would probably ask "how is this guy able to do this just by walking up to random people and requesting them to join??". lazlo is definitely the worst case. about 95% of the stars is recruitable just by talking to them and they'll join with the player having no understanding as to why the SoD joins lazlo's cause and what he/she thinks of lazlo (except thru the confession room). we can definitely see silent protaganism with a good showcase of personality best in part 5. there's so many choices regarding what the prince thinks of a lot of ppl, especially lym in the beginning.

now to the idea of voice acting: if it's going to be done, it's gotta be done right. add the idea of having preset texts THROUGHOUT THE REST OF THE GAME that's consistent with choices you make to fit a personality would force a 2-disc suikoden (isn't that a lot of space) but hey that'd be interesting to see.

[patapi]

Remove voice-acting, and the branching dialogues shouldn't be that difficult anymore. Based on early scans, the nameless hero from Tierkreis seems to have plenty of expression and lines of his own, so that's looking like a step in the right direction.

In the a traditional Suikoden, there will also be a need to remove overbearing strategists like Shu, to remove forced dialogue options and avoid lepuppet-like figurehead role. At least with Mathiu, Caesar, Elenor and Lucretia, there is significantly higher degree of freedom that leads to minor variations to the storyline progression (and sometimes uber major that it leads to an ending!) and they need to think about this as well.

[lechaflan]

In the a traditional Suikoden, there will also be a need to remove overbearing strategists like Shu, to remove forced dialogue options and avoid lepuppet-like figurehead role. At least with Mathiu, Caesar, Elenor and Lucretia, there is significantly higher degree of freedom that leads to minor variations to the storyline progression (and sometimes uber major that it leads to an ending!) and they need to think about this as well.

i honestly have to say i felt about the same amount of freedom from mathiu and elenor as i did with shu. i can't remember ceasar too well but i liked the fact we had multiple and quite interesting bad endings in part 5 in which i think at least 2 of them were related to not listening to lucretia.

if you can elaborate the feeling of freedom from mathiu and elenor then please do so as i really can't remember a higher degree of freedom.

[Avalionis]

A silent protaganist allows me to insert my own personality into the character himself...so it really makes me feel like I'm in that particular world fighting for justice or whatnot.

I also feel the non silent protaganists should indeed be reserved for side games as stated.

[patapi]

Executing Kwanda, Milich, Snowe and Helmut comes to mind.

Not listening to Elenor can actually nets you a premature ending, if you refused to use the Rune when you are told to do so.

As opposed to, say, despite being given the choice of Valeria and Kasumi, Shu does NOT even consider your choice matters. He'd still make reference to Valeria despite the fact that WE chose Kasumi. Absolute disregard of your decisions, is all.

[lechaflan]

Executing Kwanda, Milich, Snowe and Helmut comes to mind.

Not listening to Elenor can actually nets you a premature ending, if you refused to use the Rune when you are told to do so.

As opposed to, say, despite being given the choice of Valeria and Kasumi, Shu does NOT even consider your choice matters. He'd still make reference to Valeria despite the fact that WE chose Kasumi. Absolute disregard of your decisions, is all.

haha i forget about all execution decisions. i've always wanted to pick 'OFF WITH HIS HEAD' for snowe but i was too lazy to want to reset. and i think the valeria/kasumi thing had to be a typo. i was damn confused when i picked kasumi and saw i forget but i think sheena or apple saying 'valeria' instead of kasumi. but yea iirc, S2 was noted for its typos/glitches and don't forget that kasumi/valeria had some weird interchangeable SoD spot situation with tomo (tsai's daughter) so there had to be some java error with that.

anyway, i was about to comment on your last post about the strategists and i'm just so confused by the whole freedom thing (possibly because i haven't played these games in a while save for 2 and 4 which i played just weeks ago) that i just can't get my head around it. i just remember lucretia allowing the most freedom for a leader's decision. so to get back on topic slightly, if there's one thing these forced decisions do that really annoy me, it's when you constantly pick the same decision but the characters around you constantly say the same thing over and over (for example, jowy at the end of S2 if you didn't fulfill the BEST ENDING requirements and the player constantly saying he doesn't want to take the rune from jowy). it's just so annoying that i just wish a different path in the story would form from disagreeing with canon storyline. in terms of character muteness, i'd definitely want to see the leader respond to these endless responses with different lines of text (damn, i don't feel my point really went back to topic, sorry)

[Runemaster]

Yay! No more character muteness for Tierkreis!

[Chaco]

Suikoden 3 didn't have "mute" characters either, and I like how Hugo, Chris, Geddoe and Thomas all had thier own distinct personalitites, but for a game were you have 3 characters to chosse from they HAVE to have that, imagine if all three of them were mute!

[Runemaster]

Suikoden 3 didn't have "mute" characters either, and I like how Hugo, Chris, Geddoe and Thomas all had thier own distinct personalitites, but for a game were you have 3 characters to chosse from they HAVE to have that, imagine if all three of them were mute!

Haha,yeah! Like you can make them have all the SAME personalities! And then the game gets boring.

[Chaco]

I think if the next main character is a silent (in Suikoden 6) than choices should be consistant and you shouldn't be forced to make decitions.

Like in Suikoden 1 I tried so hard not to drink Ledons tea but yet I had no choice. I thought that was kind of defeating the purpose of giving me the option to begin with.

[Oppenheimer]

It's a very common trope to give false choices, almost all RPGs with silent protagonists do it, and even some games that have speaking protagonists: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButThouMust

[Chaco]

Reading your article has opened my eyes a bit, I think the only way I like a silent protagonist if if the choices have some sort of relevance. I like the idea of making character relationship points, because that will make significance in my decitions.