The silent protagonist is a hotly debated matter amongst RPG fans. Normally appearing as a stand-in for the participant, this character is often the lead, though they don’t have any (or little or no) dialogue, and might solely work together with characters via fundamental dialogue choices. And the creator of Dragon Quest, Yuji Horii, has weighed in on the difficulties of utilizing silent protagonists in fashionable video video games.
In a chat with the director of the Persona collection Katsura Hashino revealed in Denfaminicogamer (and translated by Automaton Media), Horii admitted that “increasingly-realistic” graphics have made silent protagonists “more and more troublesome to depict”.
Horii’s reasoning for utilizing silent protagonists is not shocking — it permits the participant to think about what that character should be going via in addition to challenge their feelings onto the character. This was helped by the graphics again within the NES days, which did not enable for expressive character portraits or fashions and even sophisticated animations. Gamers wanted to make use of their creativeness.
Through the chat, Horii jokes with Hashino in regards to the evolution of visuals, saying “… as recreation graphics evolve and develop more and more lifelike, in case you make a protagonist who simply stands there, they’ll appear like an fool.” So, absolutely, the answer is to have the character react in sure conditions, proper?
Properly, probably not. This introduces a brand new downside: a personality’s response to the occasions could not mirror the participant’s personal response, subsequently severing that connection. So, in Horii’s eyes “…the kind of protagonist featured in Dragon Quest turns into more and more troublesome to depict as video games grow to be extra lifelike. This will probably be a problem sooner or later too,”. Sport improvement is an ever-evolving, ever-complicated course of.
Dragon Quest is without doubt one of the few main RPG collection nonetheless that includes a silent protagonist, with Dragon Quest XI‘s Luminary being the newest mainline instance. Save just a few grunts or noises, he is fully silent. Persona is one other instance of this, although since Persona 3 (when Hashino turned director), the protagonist does have a handful of voiced traces in battle — and generally in cutscenes. Notably, this custom is not carrying over to Hashino’s latest recreation, Metaphor: ReFantazio, the place the protagonist will probably be voiced.
Does this imply something for the way forward for Dragon Quest? Will Dragon Quest XII have extra lifelike graphics? Or will Dragon Quest XII function a voiced protagonist? The Luminary is a reasonably expressive character in Dragon Quest XI, and that recreation’s visuals aren’t tremendous lifelike, so we predict there is a manner of balancing the 2. However this little excerpt will probably result in followers debating over whether or not the subsequent hero ought to have a voice or not.
Dragon Quest XII remains to be a methods off, nevertheless. The sport was reportedly internally delayed earlier this yr, however a really transient replace again in Might from Horii-san confirmed the sport was nonetheless being labored on and that he was “in a gathering” about it. Earlier than Dragon Quest XII, we have Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake to come back, which is able to completely function a silent protagonist.
