Gaming trends that irk you

[Rodin]

I'd also argue that a silent protagonist is not necessarily a featureless one. Looking at Link, once we got to the 3D Zelda games, where body language was a thing we could start to simulate, Link's body language became very much a part of his character. At times he'd step back, or set himself for a fight. Him not speaking wasn't an issue because his body language was telling his story.

It doesn't even require a 3D game - just look at Cross Code, which has a very Secret of Mana aesthetic. In that game, Lea only has a vocabulary of around a half dozen words (Lea, Hi, Bye, Sorry, Why) and those are accrued slowly over the course of the game with Lea starting out with just "Hi".

She makes up for this with just body language and different intonations of the words she can say (conveyed via text rather than voice-acting), and it's incredibly effective. You really get the difference between a neutral "Why?", a disgusted "Why.", and an angry "WHY!?!?!" purely from her facial expressions. Some of her best character moments are entirely dialogue free, conveyed simply by facial expressions on her character portrait and the movement of her sprite on the screen.

Despite her limited vocabulary and the 16-bit style graphics, I feel like I know her WAY better than the characters from any number of AAA games with realistic faces and full voice-acting.

[deuterio12]

Despite her limited vocabulary and the 16-bit style graphics, I feel like I know her WAY better than the characters from any number of AAA games with realistic faces and full voice-acting.

Actually there was an interview with a dev from one of those "realistics faces and full voice-acting" games saying it's a pain to do things that way because you need to plan and record all the dialogue and facial expressions well ahead of time but then if when anything changes story-wise there's just no resources to change all the realistic faces and full voice-acting but you still want to use what you paid for as much as possible so lots of things end up just out of place in the final AAA product.

So yeah keeping a 16-bit art style and just a few words would allow a lot more flexibility to properly polish a character's personality.

[SerTabris]

One of my thoughts on silent blank-slate protagonists is that if that's what they're doing, they should at least let me choose the character's gender.

[warty goblin]

I think the biggest thing about a silent protagonist is how the other characters act around them. I thought Breath of the Wild did an okay job with Link - even in the cutscenes with lots of talking, he came off as kind of a quiet guy hanging out with a person who likes to talk. A lot of other games have points where your character really ought to be chiming in, but just stands around while everyone else talks over them. Crysis 2 was especially bad about that - your character nearly got shot because he was apparently incapable of just telling a guy what was going on. And I got thoroughly tired of the lampshading in Portal 2. Which is kind of weird, because the game is empty enough that they could probably get away with it. GLADOS and Wheatly talk a lot,but there was never much to be gained by talking back to them. DOOM(2016) also did a good job. There wasn't much to say, but it always seemed like the Doomguy was too angry to talk, not incapable.

I always figured that Alcatraz in Crysis 2 was a literally silent protagonist, as in he was so shot to bits he was physically incapable of speech.

[Draconi Redfir]

the "Silent protagonist" trope was weirdly done in the "Golden Sun" games.

In Golden sun, there are two characters, Issac, and Felix.

In the first game, Issac is the silent protagonist, and Felix is a talking NPC.

then suddenly in Golden sun 2, Felix is the silent protagonist, while Issac is the talking NPC.


the first game DID end with Issac standing right next to a massive source of magic that matched his element, and with Felix falling from a great height though. So i headcannoned that the massive dose of magic gave Issac the gift of speech, while the trauma from the fall took Fellix's away. It's never touched on or mentioned in-game though.

[GhoulKaven]

For me, it is pointlessness of free smartphone games

[The_Jackal]

For me, it is pointlessness of free smartphone games

Is a free smartphone game a game, or just a poorly disguised skinner box?

[Draconi Redfir]

there are some good ones out there. i've had hours of fun with Crazy Lab's "2 for 2" game completely free of charge. "Rolling Sky" is another good one, though you may want to shell out the 2-3 bucks it takes for infinite lives, otherwise you need to wait 30 minutes or so after every 10 deaths.

Cell Lab, Infectonator, Only One, the Last Vikings, Reigns, AB POP! and Snake Vs Block are all also on my list. though your millage may vary on those, as they haven't been able to catch my attention as much lately.

[Spore]

Is a free smartphone game a game, or just a poorly disguised skinner box?

I don't really know but I have managed to find a free bubble shooter game that is just kinda invasive with its cashshop but easily doable without.

I was extremely disappointed by Mario Run because everything is Nintendo quality....until it comes down to paying for the game. If you don't suddenly everything wants your ingame ressources. And you don't really get much in return. Just a few Mario 3D World style levels with very limited interaction and a customizable home screen that apparently should qualify as reward.