Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

I'm not a fan of the "You are the silent protagonist" type of storytelling, especially in video games. I think its possible for it to work, but most of the times its used I don't find it particularly interesting. Like in Chrono Trigger, Chrono's a mute for no good reason, and it doesn't really add anything to the narrative at all. I don't really immerse myself "as" the character, I just view myself as a third person who is privy to the events going on, so the idea that I'm some kind of silent mute who is trying to save the day never clicked with me. Its like if I'm reading a story written in first person. I'm reading the story, I'm not actually the narrator describing the events.

I've heard the "it lets other characters explain the world to you" argument before and that just sounds lazy to me. Plotdumping how your setting functions in the first part of any medium is generally a huge no-no unless you're really damn sure you know how to pull it off. Its not impossible to make it seem plausible. There's also the thing with Showing, not telling. You'd think video games given the interactive and visual aids if anything else, could get showing over telling down pat when it comes to literary devices. However its pretty rare that really ever happens.

I always thought that silent protagonist was lazy and I'm not a huge fan. But I can kind of see why it's still a go to option for some Japanese games. You see, I played Xenogears years back and Fei Fong Wong was such an awful main character that I couldn't play the game. He was that bad to me.

I do agree with you though. I am not Link, therefore there's no point to making him silent. No matter how much personality they take away from Link and all of the other protagonists, they always add a baseline personality which determines the kinds of choices that appear to you the player and also determines the kinds of reactions the other characters have around you.

I would say the best implementation of silent protagonist, hands down, is Gordon Freeman in Half-Life. There, it WORKS. But it is still in context and all that. It's just in the Zelda context, it doesn't work in the game's favor, at least for me.

Did not get around to OoT more today. Take that as you will.

myau56 wrote:Still Phoenix Wright Trilogy, but in a very slow mode ! First game and last "trial" only !

Wow, how do you like it? I just got into the Ace Attorney games myself; I'm on the second game 4th trial.

Edit: just read your other post.

Re: Ocarina of Time: This one was one of my favorite games ever, but I can see it not floating everyone's boats. I totally hear your guys' points of the "flow" issue: I've been playing A Link between Worlds for years now, but haven't had the motivation to finish. The story narrative isn't doing it for me, and the flow doesn't quite work either. The game's like, "here, explore the world!" To which I reply, "Well, where do I go?"

Welp, verdict is on OoT. Sorry, OoT - I totally get that back in 1998, you were revolutionary. You set a new standard for 3D adventure-action-RPG type games. I respect that. I 100% acknowledge that Okami, my second favorite game of all time, probably wouldn't exist without you. You are not a bad game, but you are not a game for me. Here in 2016, without nostalgia for you, I find your stilted controls slightly frustrating and combat dull, and both of those having been far surpassed by games that have come out after you. I find many contextual actions all being mapped to the same button when multiple actions are possible (such as examining, grabbing or climbing on a box) incredibly annoying, since a press of the A button may have unpredictable and unwanted results leading to numerous frustrating moments. I find your characterless characters unappealing and story banal and poorly presented, giving me little reason to care about the world you are so desperately trying to make interesting. I cannot bring myself to keep playing you.

Sorry, OoT. You are not the Zelda game to break the wall of "meh" I have surrounding the franchise.

Aw, a shame you think that, but I have the good ol' nostalgia glasses and I understand that the game is decidedly dated. I know you like Ookami, and I myself thought that Ookami did everything that OoT did only better. Ookami was really what Zelda should have advanced to.

I'm stuck on FE: Fates. But I have too much pride and won't go down to casual mode. XD

Lemina wrote:Aw, a shame you think that, but I have the good ol' nostalgia glasses and I understand that the game is decidedly dated. I know you like Ookami, and I myself thought that Ookami did everything that OoT did only better. Ookami was really what Zelda should have advanced to.

As I said, it's not a bad game, but it is dated and I don't have nostalgia for it to overcome the dated thing. It basically suffered the same thing that Mario 64 did when I tried that a not long ago. Not bad, I totally get it was revolutionary at the time, but since then, other games have done the same thing but better (certainly benefitting from their predecessors) and trying to play it now just simply is not easy nor enjoyable, and I see no reason to force myself through it.

As a gamer in 2016, I do try to keep my own rose-colored nostalgia glasses in check. That's not to say I never play old games or games I have nostalgia for, but I just find it a fun (and on the internet occasionally controversial) exercise when I try to take a more objective standpoint on older games, especially those I loved back in the day. And I usually find that when it comes to aging, PSX/N64/Dreamcast era games (especially 3D ones) generally don't age well, and without nostalgia/muscle memory, are hard to play from a 2016 standpoint. 2D games and those form the NES/SNES era tend to fare better. For example, as much as I love the original Spyro games, when I take off my nostalgia glasses, I can see plenty of dated mechanics and I would find them hard to really recommend to someone asking for a 3D platformer, unless they explicitly wanted something old.

Edit: I finished all the levels (well, not the challenge levels) of Kung Fu Rabbit last night, which I got as a PS Plus freebie. Played alright, short levels, generally well designed, but I didn't enjoy it enough to do the hard mode or finish the challenge levels, especially after one level had a challenge based around timing a jump perfectly, but the thing you were timing for was JUST offscreen, making it entirely down to luck. That's the kind of challenge that I drop square into the "unfair" bin and then set it on fire.

I can tolerate OoT, but honestly if I'm going to play a clunky 3d action game and awkward controls, I could at least play one with some actual atmosphere like Majora's Mask.

Schala Zeal : Ah I'm a big huge extra fan of the Ace Attorney serie ! It's not my first time but it's always a great pleasure ! Hope you like it too !

Because of its atmosphere, I may still try MM. My hope is that the atmosphere/setup may help mitigate the issues it inherited from OoT.