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That Problem I have with Our Protagonists
Topic Started: Dec 22 2016, 07:28 PM (808 Views)
Violet Spinel
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Mars CEO

I've mentioned this a few times, though Mr. Nedben asked about it and I figured it was topicworthy, heh.

So, we have our hero in the first game. Kid named Isaac, right? He looks pretty cool, with the anime hair and such and y'know, in typical RPG fashion, he doesn't talk. Now, silent protagonists are nothing new, and I honestly don't like them, but this is a common trope, so I let it slide. Anyhow, the point of a silent protagonist is for their personality to ambiguous and thus any personality can be projected onto him. So, I take a look at Isaac, think "What would his personality be like?" and, for the sake of this argument, let's just say I see him as being the powerful yet irritable type who doesn't like other people but they flock to him because deep down he's a nice guy. Alright, that's good enough.

Enter Felix. This guy is hella badass, y'know? Like, he shows up with this cool mask and he does what he needs to do regardless of who he hurts in the process. Grade A badass, and a good part of what makes him cool is that he actually talks. Like, dialogue is a good way to convey a character and you can see exactly what kinda guy he is. Ironically, it's not unlike what I projected onto Isaac.

So, I beat the first game, right, and Lost Age rolls around and (this is my one and only spoiler warning. I recommend you leave now) Felix is our new main protagonist, right? So I boot up the game and I'm like "man, I betcha Felix is gonna have some cool badass dialogue!" and then I play the game. And Felix says nothing.

Now, this wouldn't be such a big problem, but it's a huge waste of potential. Y'know why?
We already know what Felix's personality is like! We can't project anything other than what we saw in TBS because, well, that's who he is! Isaac never got any dialogue or personality, so being able to project a personality onto him is at least reasonable, but Felix, well, unless you decide to forget everything you saw in TBS (or are a heretic and started with TLA), you don't really have a choice, so why bother making him silent? And to add insult to injury, the other characters treat him like a different person than we saw in the first game. They talk about how much he cares about others and how he's a nice guy and wants to help everyone. This is NOT AT ALL what we saw in TBS. He cares about some people, yes, but clearly he isn't a perfect do-gooder like they try to convince us he is in Lost Age. This is a situation where a game can instantly break immersion, and considering all the hype the first game led up to this grand finale, it doesn't help the case.

But Lost Age is a damn good game, so I ignore this particular narrative flaw and make it to Jupiter Lighthouse. How exciting, Isaac joins back in! I'm not too thrilled about having two silent pro-- OH GOD NO. Isaac now has a voice. You know all that stuff I said about Felix? Well, this is literally the reverse but even worse. Now, when I played through Golden Sun, in reality the "personality" I gave Isaac wasn't too far off, but the one I gave in this example is just as feasible. Like, in terms of story, it works that Isaac could be the irritable type being followed around by people he doesn't like, so if one happened to project that personality onto Isaac throughout the game, imagine what a big middle finger it would be when suddenly he talks, and he is almost literally the complete opposite of what you made him out to be. This is a HUGE problem that I don't even know how the developers missed.

Now, my simple and most effective solution would have been to give both of them dialogue in both games. It ruins immersion, having a silent protagonist in both games. Another option would be, of course, to just have some consistency. Keep Isaac silent and have Felix talk in Lost Age. This whole thing frustrates me quite a bit and I feel it was worth a topic so I just wanted to hear what you guys think, heh.
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Ashtoro
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Paladin of Hallowed Light

I never really thought about it much but it is a bit weird.

Personally I don't think I've ever projected a personality onto a silent protagonist, especially when you don't make any (real) choices.

It gets even more wonky when Felix suddenly starts talking in the ending. Like you've stopped being Felix after they leave Prox.
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Shadowfyst997
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The Dark Wolf General

You know what would be amazing? a full remake of Golden Sun 1 and 2 on console with full voice acting in both English and Japanese with competent voice actors in both languages. Featuring dialogue for Isaac and Felix throughout both games, new dungeons, weapons, enemies, and more!

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Edited by Shadowfyst997, Dec 23 2016, 09:15 AM.
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Nedben
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Orzic Nedbens

I always felt that the GBA chittering noises were 'voice acting'. As in the language those people speak sounds like...that, and it just gets translated, poorly, to wherever it's localized to.

More on-topic I guess they're kinda flippant on the 'how much should you impose' and it's the big weakness of Golden Sun. I am not sure what is to be discussed here, but I'd like to see another perspective.

what if Isaac and Felix are tsundere for the camera or the camera is tsundere for them during most of their game and thus only speak at the most plot-relevant of points during the game out of opposition/bias
Edited by Nedben, Dec 23 2016, 05:53 PM.
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Ashtoro
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Paladin of Hallowed Light

I'm amused by the idea of the chitterring being their real "voices", particularly because I remember it would play any time they did the slow "..."

"..." in Weyardese is "bloop bloop bloop"
-- Ashtoro
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Torkie
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I agree that what game you start with has a huge impact on how you view the protagonists. I'd argue that it's a corresponding factor on whether you support Felix more than Isaac… but correlation does not imply causation, and it's not a 100% thing.

I honestly meant to start with TBS, but when I asked my father for the game, he got me the second one instead. I probably hadn't been clear with my instructions. I can definitely say it endeared me to Felix greatly. <3

I don't like Isaac. I've come to have a more lenient and generous view than I did years ago, but I still don't view him very highly.

Dark Dawn lowered my opinion of him even further. And I was greatly disappointed that we were following Isaac's Group 2.0 rather than Felix's Company: The Sequel.

That made me think I wouldn't like Matthew. I went in resenting him, after all. And he didn't have any favors in regards to character development. Practically everyone in and out-of-universe compares him to his father, and the game is very weak on plot and story.

But oddly enough, I came to like him. He reminds me more of his uncle than his father in terms of personality. Am I projecting? Probably a little.

Point being… as much as it could be a cause for complaint with the original story, I'd argue it's worse with Dark Dawn for Matthew. Poor Matt.
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Ashtoro
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Paladin of Hallowed Light

I played Lost Age before the first game, but I liked Isaac more than Felix. Felix gave me the impression of moody no-fun-allowed guy while Isaac is fairly generic good guy hero guy, which I generally like.

I agree that Matthew reminds me more of Felix than he does of Isaac however. It might just comes down to whether or not they're smiling in the character art...
-- Ashtoro
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Delfes
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Regular Adept #18

I think I would actually may have liked it better if Dark Dawn had gone full silent again and made the other characters reply instead of asking us an emotion, just because the emotions often made weird dialogue results because they didn't make it depict what I had in mind. Like at the beginning when Tyrell gets mad, I chose the angry face because I wanted to smack Tyrell behind the head and get pissed at him for being an idiot and Karis replied as if I had joined in on the tantrum and started yelling in the same way Tyrell did. At least full silent would have been consistent, although the best would have been to not do the whole projected personality thing and actually give them a personality. The worst that can happen is not liking the protagonist's personality, and that's better than awkward dialogue from getting the projected personality wrong.
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Torkie
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I agree, the emotion system was very… vague, at best. :...:

I liked the Yes/No system because it made it easy to choose some hilarious dialogue options. :happy:
Edited by Torkie, Dec 27 2016, 01:13 AM.
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FluffyAttackBear
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Isaac and Felix are only as interesting as your dialogue choices make them. What I love about these two protagonists is that you can really play them your own way due to the Yes/No feature.

Felix is only as serious as he is in the first game because we only ever see him under tense circumstances. Once Saturos and Menardi are gone and Felix has a bit of room to breathe, we have no idea what his casual personality is like. This gives the game a reason to have Felix be silent, and let us choose his personality like we did in the first game.

Or at least that's how I've always seen it. :)
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