By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Will Xenoblade Chronicles X have a silent protagonist?

Tagged games:

Nuvendil on 01 February 2015
curl-6 said:
Nuvendil said:
curl-6 said:

Samus's personality was never really established up to that point; she was effectively a blank slate for the player to project themselves onto. We knew she was a feared bounty hunter, but not much more than that. And that was a good thing, because once they did give her a voice and personality in Other M, they turned her into a mopey wet blanket with daddy issues, somebody I didn't WANT to play as.

Bad writing is not a reason to reject the idea of characters getting development.  Other M is a case of bad game development, period, end of story.  It is not by any means a demonstration of the disadvantages of voice acting.  If they had not given the writing over to an incompetent, then it would have been fine. 

ANd Samus had been talking since at least Super Metroid, if not earlier, and she was talking in Fusion when Prime was released.  She had a personality and had been established as a speaking character.  Making her mute was unwise.  Especially when Retro clearly had the comepetence enough in writing to give her some flavor text at least.

Fusion came out at the same time as Prime, so that is not pre-established characterization. And she may have had a brief 16-bit speech in Super Metroid, but virtually nothing of her persona was revealed.

Having Samus talk would have ruined the atmosphere of solitary confinement and immersion that is the greatest strength of Prime. No matter how good it was, voice acting would only have detracted from the experience, while adding nothing.

Disagree on both of those.  She doesn't have to blab constantly.  But she could have spoken to the officers in Metroid Prime 3 or to the Luminoth in Metroid Prime 2.  It is a particularly jarring problem in Metroid Prime 3 where she is the only one not speaking.  IMO, there is no worse candidate to keep a mute character in Nintendo's entire repetoir of silent characters than Samus.  She has actual substance, backstory, and so on.  She has more real potential as a character than any of the others.  She isn't like Mario or Link who have always had the personality of a cardboard box (and that's being generous).  She has more potential that is left unexplored than any other character of the major ones. 

But this discussion is clearly not going anywhere.  So we just have to agree to completely disagree.



Around the Network
curl-6 on 01 February 2015
Nuvendil said:

Disagree on both of those.  She doesn't have to blab constantly.  But she could have spoken to the officers in Metroid Prime 3 or to the Luminoth in Metroid Prime 2.  It is a particularly jarring problem in Metroid Prime 3 where she is the only one not speaking.  IMO, there is no worse candidate to keep a mute character in Nintendo's entire repetoir of silent characters than Samus.  She has actual substance, backstory, and so on.  She has more real potential as a character than any of the others.  She isn't like Mario or Link who have always had the personality of a cardboard box (and that's being generous).  She has more potential that is left unexplored than any other character of the major ones. 

But this discussion is clearly not going anywhere.  So we just have to agree to completely disagree.

Maybe in a future Metroid game not focussed on utter isolation that could work, I just think it runs contrary to the central theme of Prime.
But yeah, agree to disagree.