I don't hate mute characters

Golden Sun is a weird ass series. Issac is a mute in the first game since you control him, but then he talks in the second game because you control Felix. However, Felix was able to talk in the first game!
 
My opinion is that when you're playing as you or a character that you generate, then mute is fine. But if you're playing as a certain character, say Shepard from Mass Effect, there's no reason for him not to talk.
 
I'm not against the idea of a silent hero, but I hate the way it's done most of the time, where there's this colorful cast that you meet who all get characterization get to actively participate in all the scenes, and the character I play as ends up being this bland sack of boring with no personality unless I end up doing the writer's work for him/her and substitute one in. There have been a few times when this kind of silent hero hasn't bothered me, but even among the ones I like, I'd still prefer a well-written main character who speaks. For example, I don't have a problem with Link not speaking (in fact, the idea of him speaking at all seems weird to me), but I'd play as RPG Boswer over him any day.

If the hero had to be silent, I'd prefer that they actually were silent in-story, like with Amaterasu in Okami.
 
suikoden, ys, shining force (mostly) all had mute characters. can't say the ramblings of a main character are required to create engrossing stories.

i accepted them a long time ago.
 
Platy said:
Mute characters are better in not exactly story driven games .... so if your game wants to be a book or a movie, you might not want to get a mute character

BUT

If your game wants to be A GAME, like zelda, mario, half life, chrono trigger and portal, than a silent protagonist will not hurt
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I agree with this statement, although mute characters can work in story-driven games if the team creating the game is exceptional: a la Earthbound and Mother 3. Even games like the Mario & Luigi RPGs, where Mario makes hand motions and you hear burble, that kind of thing works for comedic games. I wouldn't want Gordon Freeman to have a speech bubble showing a headcrab, though, that just doesn't work.

When you have characters like Dante or Bayonetta, they need voices. But characters who were created before the age of voice acting should stay mute, or talk in images/hand motions like Mario. Example, Samus. Look what happened when she got a voice. Fantastic result, right?
 
Volimar said:
My opinion is that when you're playing as you or a character that you generate, then mute is fine. But if you're playing as a certain character, say Shepard from Mass Effect, there's no reason for him not to talk.
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I don't think there's any reason for him to talk. I've made dozens and dozens of characters for that game. Each distinctly different from the last in everything from appearance to skillset. I wish there was an option to just mute the player character. I want to hear Magneto in my head when I'm playing as Erik Magnus Shepherd thank you.
 
Depends on the game and how it's done, I guess.

I don't mind mute characters at all - Baldur's Gate 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, as is Dragon Age: Origins. I like how BG2 did it, a combination of VA for the important bits and plain text for the rest. I didn't get sucked out of the game in DA:O because of the muteness either.

IMO there are two problems with VA: (i) it reminds you that you're playing a game. Like in Mass Effect, I'm very conscious that I'm not Shepard. Shepard will be doing something awesome on screen - say, chastizing C-Sec officer and asshole volus - which is an awesome moment, but it's like seeing an interactive movie. Mute characters don't have this issue.

(ii) It tends to reduce complexity of dialogue, because unless you're a AAA developer backed by a big producer, you're going to have terse Hollywood one-liners than a full Planescape: Torment-ish textperience. Seeing DA2's Naive/Trollface/Bitchy options, a step down from DA's range of options, made me shed tears. DA:O had roughly 40% more spoken lines than DA2, even though the protagonist was mute.
 
Nirolak said:
I personal favorite was Isaac Clarke's facepalm.
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It's amazing how much the second game improved by fleshing out Clarke's character, personality, and giving him a voice. The Dead Space series is a perfect example of why any game should have voice acting(assuming quality).
 
I don't like them, but I also don't hate them, and that is why they bug me. I don't feel they are me in the game, and when I think of Chrono, Link or whoever I'll never have any attachment or nostalgic feelings to them. That is always reserved for speaking (text or voice) characters
 
I just dislike mute characters, espeically in FPS's. if you can't see, or hear who you're controlling it feels like youre just a floating gun.

If they're done nicely, then I don't mind. If sackboy spoke it would just kill his cuteness.
 
Jarmel said:
It's amazing how much the second game improved by fleshing out Clarke's character, personality, and giving him a voice. The Dead Space series is a perfect example of why any game should have voice acting(assuming quality).
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And then there is Samus and Other M
 
I don't mind mute characters. I do appreciate the ones that are seriously mute like Chell or Jak in the first Jak & Daxter. The fake mute thing is tiresome though, like in Persona. Really wish the responses in that game were voiced. It works okay in Zelda since no one has voices apart from a couple of grunts or a "Hey, come on" or in Windwaker with Link having such an expressive face to easily define what he's feeling or thinking.

Playing OoT recently made me realize how shitty the Link is there with same goddamn face for everything.
 
ninj4junpei said:
Golden Sun is a weird ass series. Issac is a mute in the first game since you control him, but then he talks in the second game because you control Felix. However, Felix was able to talk in the first game!
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Camelot did that with the heroes in the SF3 scenarios too. Quite surprising after seeing Medion being so chatty in S1.
 
I don't really mind. The mindedness varies whether the character is a cipher or meant to have a personality, whether it's text for communication or not at all, etc.

Dead Space 2 is interesting because I thought his added personality and voice didn't really work. A lot of what he'd say didn't fit the situation and I couldn't care about him or the story. Dead Space Extraction does a better job and it's not that a mute character is better. DS2 is just a weak example for me.
 
What's the deal with the OP? Before I made a post about disliking silent protagonists a few months back and a few people agreed with me I'd never once seen anybody criticize the device yet the OP acts as if he's alone in the world here.

I don't care for it as yeah it's lazy but even still my favorite game is Chrono Trigger in spite of it.
 
This thread's a bit jumbled. I wouldn't consider DA:O to have a mute protagonist at all. There's a big difference between a character being mute and your dialogue not being voice acted.
 
A character that does things but doesn't say things isn't necessarily personality-less or a blank slate. The best conversations in gaming are the interactions between avatar and game world.
 
Dragon Age: Origins was the game which made me realize I don't generally like silent protagonists. I was loving the party banter in the game, but just couldn't get into the conversations between my character and the party members. At first I didn't realize why, since I loved the similar conversations in Mass Effect 1/2. Eventually I realized that the silent protagonist was the culprit.

On the other hand, the silent protagonist in Persona 3/4 didn't bother me at all. I liked the social links in those games.
 
Playing Persona 4 right now and I don't mind the mute main character, mostly because I gave him my own name so another man's voice would he weird.
 
I hate mute characters when they're supposed to be characters who have a personality.

I have no problems with mute characters who are supposed to be a created character representing you.
 
Eh, really doesn't bother me as long as it isn't jarring. Even then, it doesn't bother me too much if the game itself is good.
 
Yeah it's pretty difficult to get attached to a mute character if story is a key factor to the game. Of course, unless it's Gordon Freeman.
 
Wazzim said:
Playing Persona 4 right now and I don't mind the mute main character, mostly because I gave him my own name so another man's voice would he weird.
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Mute is not the same as unvoiced. In P4, you choose what the character says. Very different from saying nothing, which is universally bad. Even Chell sucks as a mute character. It ends up being just wasted potential.

PS - I hate Gordon Freeman. Stuck up prick doesn't speak when spoken to.
 
Aaron said:
Mute is not the same as unvoiced. In P4, you choose what the character says. Very different from saying nothing, which is universally bad. Even Chell sucks as a mute character. It ends up being just wasted potential.

PS - I hate Gordon Freeman. Stuck up prick doesn't speak when spoken to.
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Ah like the Pokemon games? Yeah I don't prefer that.
 
Demigod Mac said:
good, sympathetic protagonist with voice > mute protagonist > annoying protagonist and/or one with a bad voice actor
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Quoted for truth, except that I would put a
good character with voice >>>>>>>>> mute protagonist,

and add that Gordon Freeman is one of the worst character i have ever played, and makes the whole of HL2 worse for me.

I don't mind mute characters as much when other in game characters make fun of the character's muteness ('you don't speak much, do you?'). It's awful when the character is supposed to have lines but they are neither written nor voiced.
 
Nirolak said:
No it's from Dead Space 1.

When he finds out his girlfriend was dead all along, he just facepalms and goes about his day.
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It's been a while, but Isaac has a lot more dialog in DS2 right? i really enjoyed it more for that reason i think. But that's more the exception than the rule. It never really bothered me that my character never spoke in games like Oblivion or DA:O. Though i suppose with games like ME:2 it's a lot easier to become immersed in the game with more cinematic-like cut scenes and dialog.
 
Completely silent without even written dialogue options = Dumb, boring, awkward

Silent with dialogue options = Good, even best for RPGs

Fully voiced with good voice (Solid Snake) = Capable of extreme goodness of iconic status

Fully voiced with some Kirk Cameron-sounding twat (FFX) = ULTIMATE FAIL

Fully voiced with animu 9 y/o girl or foul-mouthed dudebro space marine character = Just plain embarrassing to play

Then you have the thing where the character is fully voiced, but somehow feels disassociated from you, like a movie. Rockstar games usually feel this way to me.
 
Pro-mute

Although I do prefer mute, exceptional VA and writing can work its own miracles in immersion. If you don't have the best of voice actors and an awesome script, at least mute the main character and spare us some of the horridness. Metal Gear, Legacy of Kain, etc are the cream of the crop and I would love more titles to come of that caliber though. I'm only pro mute because most titles have a pile of shit on disk in this regard.

Dice said:
Completely silent without even written dialogue options = Dumb, boring, awkward

Silent with dialogue options = Good, even best for RPGs

Fully voiced with good voice (Solid Snake) = Capable of extreme goodness of iconic status

Fully voiced with some Kirk Cameron-sounding twat (FFX) = ULTIMATE FAIL

Fully voiced with animu 9 y/o girl or foul-mouthed dudebro space marine character = Just plain embarrassing to play

Then you have the thing where the character is fully voiced, but somehow feels disassociated from you, like a movie. Rockstar games usually feel this way to me.
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Problem I have with toggling VA on/off is that the writing will suffer for anyone who chooses to turn it off. It must be written for the intended method to come across the best, and turning it off when it was written to be listened to can crush what is supposed to be taken a certain way.
 
abstract alien said:
Problem I have with toggling VA on/off is that the writing will suffer for anyone who chooses to turn it off. It must be written for the intended method to come across the best, and turning it off when it was written to be listened to can crush what is supposed to be taken a certain way.
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Well, it can get messed up without that. I like newer concepts showing up where it will display the mood/intention of the comment you are making in captions next to it. I hate it when I read something and it seems good, but apparently it was a total dickhead sarcastic remark and now my party member is pissed at me.
 
Dice said:
Well, it can get messed up without that. I like newer concepts showing up where it will display the mood/intention of the comment you are making in captions next to it. I hate it when I read something and it seems good, but apparently it was a total dickhead sarcastic remark and now my party member is pissed at me.
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Although it doesn't remedy everything, this does alleviate a few issues with it.
 
airmangataosenai said:
What's the deal with the OP? Before I made a post about disliking silent protagonists a few months back and a few people agreed with me I'd never once seen anybody criticize the device yet the OP acts as if he's alone in the world here.

I don't care for it as yeah it's lazy but even still my favorite game is Chrono Trigger in spite of it.
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Surprisingly, this was not a direct reaction to your thread.

It was a reaction to, over the last few weeks and especially in a recent Dragon Age thread, seeing people say they very much disliked the unvoiced protagonist from the first game. So I made a thread about it.

I apologize if this wasted some of your internet space.
 
I was surprised by the lack of voiced main character in DA:O, but eventually it grew on me.

I think the problem people have with silent main characters is that it's poorly done in HL2 and is always as an example to say that it's bad no matter what. Also, Zelda for some reason.
 
Nothing wrong with mute characters, in fact a number of my most favorite games/series feature mute protagonists:

Suikoden series except III
Persona series
Breath of Fire series
 
StuBurns said:
Themselves I don't care, but when there're people talking to you it's lame. The big one is HL2. Alyx is infatuated with Gordon, he's yet to speak to the woman, I can't help but imagine this creepy guy with dead eyes staring at this young woman all the time. And she even addresses it at times with things like "you don't speak much do you?" etc.
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Agreed. Playing HL2 requires you to suspend your disbelief, and it is annoying.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Surprisingly, this was not a direct reaction to your thread.

It was a reaction to, over the last few weeks and especially in a recent Dragon Age thread, seeing people say they very much disliked the unvoiced protagonist from the first game. So I made a thread about it.

I apologize if this wasted some of your internet space.
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Well I've got your back... though more than a few here would question my motives for touching your back.
 
Depends on the game, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

But I will say that Gordon Freeman is the worst mute character ever. People are just barking orders at him and he doesn't say squat. I would think that someone with his intelligence would converse with Eli and Kleiner regarding the experiments and all that but no. Nothing.

In Chells case I can understand and it actually suited the situation.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Even in stuff like DA:O, I felt no real loss of immersion choosing what my character would say and presuming that he or she actually said it.
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Shepherd is almost worse, because he doesn't actually say what you choose, so you can think you are choosing a particular response, and what he goes with doesn't match the tone of what you intended to say. I've had it mess up conversations in Mass Effect more than once.
 
Nessus said:
Shepherd is almost worse, because he doesn't actually say what you choose, so you can think you are choosing a particular response, and what he goes with doesn't match the tone of what you intended to say. I've had it mess up conversations in Mass Effect more than once.
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Which is partly why I like the Kotor way a little better.
 
Nessus said:
Shepherd is almost worse, because he doesn't actually say what you choose, so you can think you are choosing a particular response, and what he goes with doesn't match the tone of what you intended to say. I've had it mess up conversations in Mass Effect more than once.
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Yeah i never understood why Bioware put 2-3 choices of dialogues and when Shepard starts to talk, its nowhere to be found.

Jack : "You're with Cerberus, you think i'm stupid?"
Shepard dialogue choice : "Yes."
What is actually said : "The ship is on fire, i don't see much choices for you."
Player : "What? I wanted to insult Jack, not this!"
 
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