MGS5 - "Snake won't really speak much at all. More of a silent protagonist."

Similar to Mad Max in Mad Max 2
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Umm Mad Max talks plenty in Remedy's games. I don't understand the correlation. I get that he isn't a chatty Cathy but Snake never has been so this sounds like business as usual to me.
 
Don't see the problem and am pretty okay with this. Unless I wanted to play every codec sequence in a game Snake never really spoke much iirc, especially compared to major (ie exposition heavy) side characters.
 
entrement said:
Maybe Kojima wants to do something different?

No idea why we're automatically assuming Kiefer being expensive is the reasoning for this?

Maybe it's the opposite way around? Maybe Kojima wanted less talking from BB, so that allowed him to pursue a higher VA budget for that role?

Kojima is one of the few people in gaming that basically gets a blank check. I trust that Kojima wants to go another direction in terms of storytelling.
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In the IGN video, Kojima just gives the the typical reasoning for silent protagonists: "I want the player and the character to connect as much as possible", blah blah blah. He said he made a conscious choice about this.

RK9039 said:
Yup, that was the first thing I thought about. Adding more fuel to the Gray Fox theories.
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How does this theory even work?
 
I am not

shinobi602 said:
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Not a fan of this approach at all. That's not why I played as Snake in the past. Also, completely defeats the purpose of having Kiefer voicing him too. Maybe he charged too much? Ha!
 
I'm fine with it. Excluding PW, Big Boss was never as chatty as someone like Solid Snake anyway. I'm interested to see what Kojima does with the game.
 
Seems incongruous with what we saw of Big Boss in MGS3, but after all the tragedy he's endured/inadvertently caused he's gotta be badly fucked up. I mean the dude was rubbing human ashes all over his fucking face, he's losing his goddamn mind. Makes sense for his character to become increasingly anti-social and distant. Once Outer Heaven is reestablished I wonder if he'll rediscover his old charisma.
 
Big Boss is a fucking motor mouth in MGS3/Peace Walker.

Why didn't they just use a different protagonist if he's snake in name only?
money lol
 
ShockingAlberto said:
I don't care if Snake does much of the talking in cutscenes. Make the game you want to make, I suppose.

There's multiple problems I see with this statement, though. Anyone with deductive reasoning can tell you why this happened - Kojima is blinded by starfucking and will do whatever it takes, absolutely whatever it takes, to keep him on board without spending a game's budget on the cost. And that's fairly reasonable, movies often have to rejigger themselves to pay for cast changes, it makes sense it can happen in video games, too.

But then it becomes less about making the game you want to make and more about making the game you can afford. Which always happens, but is rarely so blatantly obvious and almost never for a change most of the audience dislikes.
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You might be right but I don't want to judge that until we've seen the game. If it turns out that all the VO work Otsuka has been doing isn't mirrored by Sutherland (like cassette tapes missing from the US version for example) then that would be pretty convincing evidence.
 
I really hate the "we want the protagonist to be quiet/silent so as to feel like an extension of the player" bullshit line that gets repeated much of the time. I don't know how anyone else feels but I absolutely feel no more closer to a protag that's silent than I do one that's voiced.

Ironically enough I felt very little connection to my guy in Dragon Age Origins for example but I felt like I was Shepard in Mass Effect.
 
TheXbox said:
Seems incongruous with what we saw of Big Boss in MGS3, but after all the tragedy he's endured/inadvertently caused he's gotta be badly fucked up. I mean the dude was rubbing human ashes all over his fucking face, he's losing his goddamn mind. Makes sense for his character to become increasingly anti-social and distant. Once Outer Heaven is reestablished I wonder if he'll rediscover his old charisma.
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Ha, I like that. They should make him take a vow of silence while they're at it.

shinobi602 said:
I really hate the "we want the protagonist to be quiet/silent so as to feel like an extension of the player" bullshit line that gets repeated much of the time. I don't know how anyone else feels but I absolutely feel no more closer to a protag that's silent than I do one that's voiced.

Ironically enough I felt very little connection to my guy in Dragon Age Origins for example but I felt like I was Shepard in Mass Effect.
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I'm not sure I've ever felt that "I" was the protagonist of any game. They're all just characters to me. Sometimes they're handed to me, and sometimes I make them from scratch, but they're never "me."
 
TheXbox said:
Seems incongruous with what we saw of Big Boss in MGS3, but after all the tragedy he's endured/inadvertently caused he's gotta be badly fucked up. I mean the dude was rubbing human ashes all over his fucking face, he's losing his goddamn mind. Makes sense for his character to become increasingly anti-social and distant. Once Outer Heaven is reestablished I wonder if he'll rediscover his old charisma.
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That's a good point. To be fair though, charisma isn't dependent on speaking. Look at Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars. He exudes charisma and hardly says anything; in fact, Clint himself cut most of his own dialogue.
 
shinobi602 said:
I really hate the "we want the protagonist to be quiet/silent so as to feel like an extension of the player" bullshit line that gets repeated much of the time. I don't know how anyone else feels but I absolutely feel no more closer to a protag that's silent than I do one that's voiced.

Ironically enough I felt very little connection to my guy in Dragon Age Origins for example but I felt like I was Shepard in Mass Effect.
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Agreed. It's really lazy and a horrendous last last gen game trope that needs to go away.
 
shinobi602 said:
I really hate the "we want the protagonist to be quiet/silent so as to feel like an extension of the player" bullshit line that gets repeated much of the time. I don't know how anyone else feels but I absolutely feel no more closer to a protag that's silent than I do one that's voiced.

Ironically enough I felt very little connection to my guy in Dragon Age Origins for example but I felt like I was Shepard in Mass Effect.
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I'm in the minority but I much prefer the GTA3 style protagonist to the subsequent ones tbh.
 
shinobi602 said:
I really hate the "we want the protagonist to be quiet/silent so as to feel like an extension of the player" bullshit line that gets repeated much of the time. I don't know how anyone else feels but I absolutely feel no more closer to a protag that's silent than I do one that's voiced.

Ironically enough I felt very little connection to my guy in Dragon Age Origins for example but I felt like I was Shepard in Mass Effect.
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Good example.
 
Or:

"We overspent our budget on a well known guy and as it stands, we had to cut the dialogue as much as possible cause Kiefering doesn't come cheap".

Yeah I'm still salty about Hayter. :(
 
Screaming Meat said:
That's a good point. To be fair though, charisma isn't dependent on speaking. Look at Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars. He exudes charisma and hardly says anything; in fact, Clint himself cut most of his own dialogue.
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If Kojima is aiming for consistency (which I don't think he is at this point) then eventually Big Boss has to become a little talkative. He certainly didn't hold back in the original MG games.
 
Ateron said:
Or:

"We overspent our budget on a well known guy and as it stands, we had to cut the dialogue as much as possible cause Kiefering doesn't come cheap".

Yeah I'm still salty about Hayter. :(
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Stay salty. :p A bit of kiefer is better than any hayter.
 
shinobi602 said:
I really hate the "we want the protagonist to be quiet/silent so as to feel like an extension of the player" bullshit line that gets repeated much of the time. I don't know how anyone else feels but I absolutely feel no more closer to a protag that's silent than I do one that's voiced.

Ironically enough I felt very little connection to my guy in Dragon Age Origins for example but I felt like I was Shepard in Mass Effect.
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I totally get you, I rarely can stand silent protagonists (Persona series being the sole exception). The elder scroll games, dragon age series, etc. I got to care about my pals, but my main char definitely didn't count at all.

I can't connect to the protagonist if he/she doesn't act. It's like watching a movie, a silent protagonist would feel weird when everybody else is talking... that's exactly how I feel


And regarding MGS, I loved all the talking. Specially via codecs, that's something I missed a lot on GZ, but thankfully the gameplay and cinematics kept me amused while thinking it was just a prologue, and PP would take care of those things
.
If phantom pain is gonna be like that however (and it seems like a final decision), then I will be disappointed. I want all that chatter! It makes a connection between Snake and the other characters, otherwise, I'll care little about them...


Anyway, I don't think they'll rehire Kiefer to do more lines even if we complain... So I guess that's what we'll get...
 
shinobi602 said:
I really hate the "we want the protagonist to be quiet/silent so as to feel like an extension of the player" bullshit line that gets repeated much of the time. I don't know how anyone else feels but I absolutely feel no more closer to a protag that's silent than I do one that's voiced.

Ironically enough I felt very little connection to my guy in Dragon Age Origins for example but I felt like I was Shepard in Mass Effect.
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Yup, it's always been a bit absurd to me. I can manage with silent protagonists, but I doubt there's a single game that wouldn't have been better with a talking one. Hell, I'd even take a talking MC in Persona in a heartbeat.

This sounds really lame tbh
 
While I don't believe that Kiefer's paygrade, whatever it is, was the sole factor for this, I cannot for my life can't help but think that it had something to do with this sudden change in direction for BB and only BB when he was established as a motor-mouth in his prior six games and is written by a guy who has needed an editor for decades.
 
TheXbox said:
If Kojima is aiming for consistency (which I don't think he is at this point) then at some point Big Boss has to become a little talkative. He certainly didn't hold back in the original MG games.
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This Snake has a robot hand and a horn that appears to be growing out of his skull, I'm not convinced he'll turn out to be the same guy tbh (yeah yeah I know the same thing is said ever since MGS2)
 
This isn't really surprising considering Kojima's mentioned he really likes the silent type characters in films like Clint Eastwood and Ryan Gosling in Drive.

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Doubt it has much to do with Kiefer or creating "an extension of the player" but more of Kojima just experimenting to make Big Boss a silent badass type.
 
Maybe they couldn't justify paying Hayter as much or more than they did for the last game?

Maybe Kiefer works for peanuts?
 
TheXbox said:
If Kojima is aiming for consistency (which I don't think he is at this point) then at some point Big Boss has to become a little talkative. He certainly didn't hold back in the original MG games.
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I don't think the original MG is indicative of BB's personality/loquaciousness nowadays though.
 
Muntu said:
Yup, it's always been a bit absurd to me. I can manage with silent protagonists, but I doubt there's a single game that wouldn't have been better with a talking one. Hell, I'd even take a talking MC in Persona in a heartbeat.

This sounds really lame tbh
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Zelda, Portal, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Elder Scrolls, all would have been worse with a speaking protagonist.

I'm really glad Kojima is coming over to the winning side on this debate. Quiet down protagonists. Let the NPCs do the talking.
 
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