Generic Protagonists

[Kouen Hasuki]

I Spose Shadow and Silver do somewhat count as Protagonists and Antagonists as they have those moments in the games they feature in, however what Robotnik says holds true of those two, but then again in my own personal opinion the only Sonic "Crew" that have any depth are Tails, Knuckles and Amy (Sonic is obviously included in that list) Robotnik himself has depth but I wouldn't include him in the Sonic Crew.

The problem with the topic at hand is that there is so many it can be near countless some by design like in say Dungeons of Dredmor where you are just some one sent to kill off Lord Dredmor, Like in Torchlight 1 or Diablo 1 and 2 (Cant speak for 3 I have not played it)

Or by accident like in Quake 4 where they tired to get you to give a crap about Caine but really you still felt as generic as the doom guy

Spoiler warning:

Although the Strogg-afaction bit was still kinda awesome

[GunSlinger Boy]

yup, as well as the cast of XIII-2, they're all just remakes.


pretty sure the Skyrim hero would be generic if he/she was non-customiseable. along with most stock RPG mains

[Dr. Ivo Robotnik]

You reminded me of Command & Conquer 4 with that Quake 4 reference, Kouen.

They tried so hard to make you like the 'commander' you're supposed to be, even saddling you with some bint wife. Never did finish the game, but I did know around mission 3 or 4 when the bitch died that they obviously tried really hard to make you go 'my wife, noooooooooooooooo', and all everyone could think was 'saw that coming. Thank god it happened and we can stop getting messages from the hag. I mean, seriously, this is supposed to be an encrypted military band. Why the hell is my wife on this thing telling me about the house?'

[Elin]

Re: Lightning, I don't really know how to feel about her. On one hand, it's true that she's basically a female version of Cloud in the first ten hours of Final Fantasy VII minus the complex reasons that both made Cloud the way he was and made him interesting. On the other, she's a female version of Cloud. Strong female leads are something which JRPGs (as well as videogames in general) are sorely missing, and I think her gender alone is enough to sort of excuse her from being truly generic, even if it's true that if you took that away, she's basically just a retread of what went before. :'D

Re: Shadow, I basically agree with everything the good doctor said. He struck me as such a bland, cynical attempt to appeal to the angsty teenagers of the time by being dark and edgy, felt completely out of keeping with the world established to that point in the Sonic games, and ultimately had no real depth beyond being angry and brooding. He seems to be one of the more memorable things about SA2 for most people, but frankly I couldn't stand him, and he's one of the few things that I really hate about the game. Which is saying nothing of his spinoff game, which to me represented more than any other game in the series everything that was wrong with that era of Sonic.

[Dr. Ivo Robotnik]

Wihle I concur that female protagonists are a rarity in JRPG's, it just isn't an excuse for Lightning's blandness.

Still, perhaps we'll see a more interesting female lead later on. Serah in XIII-2 didn't do too badly. She didn't do well, but she could've done worse. And she doesn't fall under the heading of 'strong female', admittedly. But then, the male protagonists of Final Fantasy haven't fallen under the heading of 'strong male' for a fair while either, come to that.

[Kouen Hasuki]

Re: Shadow, I basically agree with everything the good doctor said. He struck me as such a bland, cynical attempt to appeal to the angsty teenagers of the time by being dark and edgy, felt completely out of keeping with the world established to that point in the Sonic games, and ultimately had no real depth beyond being angry and brooding. He seems to be one of the more memorable things about SA2 for most people, but frankly I couldn't stand him, and he's one of the few things that I really hate about the game. Which is saying nothing of his spinoff game, which to me represented more than any other game in the series everything that was wrong with that era of Sonic.

Irony is I use Shadow mostly in Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing... but that's due to the bike I prefer that balance over the cars and planes of the game, that said if Shadow is not available ill pick alex kidd

[Dr. Ivo Robotnik]

Irony is I use Shadow mostly in Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing... but that's due to the bike I prefer that balance over the cars and planes of the game, that said if Shadow is not available ill pick alex kidd

If you have to ask me my preferred pick, I may have to smack you upside the head.

Sadly, a friend of mine always picks Sonic. Yeah, he races well, but his quotes (airlifted from Sonic 2006, I believe), are just painful to hear.

*ALLSTAR* "Playtiime's oooverrr!". So glad they replaced his voice actor.

[GunSlinger Boy]

If you have to ask me my preferred pick, I may have to smack you upside the head.

Sadly, a friend of mine always picks Sonic. Yeah, he races well, but his quotes (airlifted from Sonic 2006, I believe), are just painful to hear.

*ALLSTAR* "Playtiime's oooverrr!". So glad they replaced his voice actor.

i'm not, the new guy's terrible, he sounds like he's forcing the voice. i prefer the one from SA1&2 to him.

[Dr. Ivo Robotnik]

i'm not, the new guy's terrible, he sounds like he's forcing the voice. i prefer the one from SA1&2 to him.

Eh, he was acceptable as well. The new guy's also averaging acceptable, in my opinion. Jason Griffith was atrocious from start to finish, whether he was 'acting' in Sonic X or in the games.

Also, not claiming responsibility for this off-topic. Hah.

On-topic: Some protagonists are difficult to add into topics like this because they're supposed to be generic blank slates. Dungeons of Dredmor does it on purpose because, well who needs a storyline? Skyrim does it because you're supposed to be your own hero, as it were, and so on and so forth. It's the games that try to have unique protagonists and fail at it that annoy me, in my view.

Also, one must take time into consideration. What is a stock character by now may not have been at the time of the original concept's creation.

[Elin]

Wihle I concur that female protagonists are a rarity in JRPG's, it just isn't an excuse for Lightning's blandness.

Still, perhaps we'll see a more interesting female lead later on. Serah in XIII-2 didn't do too badly. She didn't do well, but she could've done worse. And she doesn't fall under the heading of 'strong female', admittedly. But then, the male protagonists of Final Fantasy haven't fallen under the heading of 'strong male' for a fair while either, come to that.

Oh I agree that she was still a fairly bland character (though I kind of liked her simply because she had a habit of hitting Snow at every opportunity, which is something I frequently found myself wanting to do as well... :'D). I just think the fact that we haven't seen all that many female protagonists like that in JRPGs was just about enough to set her aside from the really cookie cutter JRPG protagonists. She wasn't hugely interesting, granted, and it'd be nice to see a female character who is both strong and compelling, but I think the fact that she was treading new ground for Final Fantasy protagonists is just about enough to set her away from the pack. Just about.

Haven't played XIII-2 yet, so I can't comment on Serah. You make a valid point about male Final Fantasy characters, though. :'D Though that's more a question of their fashion sense* than their personalities, which tend to still be heroic, brave and fairly boyish.

*and as someone who quite enjoys the pretty boys in Final Fantasy, I don't think I could in good conscience complain about that.

[Dr. Ivo Robotnik]

Oh I agree that she was still a fairly bland character (though I kind of liked her simply because she had a habit of hitting Snow at every opportunity, which is something I frequently found myself wanting to do as well... :'D). I just think the fact that we haven't seen all that many female protagonists like that in JRPGs was just about enough to set her aside from the really cookie cutter JRPG protagonists. She wasn't hugely interesting, granted, and it'd be nice to see a female character who is both strong and compelling, but I think the fact that she was treading new ground for Final Fantasy protagonists is just about enough to set her away from the pack. Just about.

Haven't played XIII-2 yet, so I can't comment on Serah. You make a valid point about male Final Fantasy characters, though. :'D Though that's more a question of their fashion sense* than their personalities, which tend to still be heroic, brave and fairly boyish.

*and as someone who quite enjoys the pretty boys in Final Fantasy, I don't think I could in good conscience complain about that.

Oh I'm not at all complaining about it, but it's really hard to call them "manly men" in pretty much all cases.

Vaan, anyone?

Truth be told though, FF XII has one of the most uninteresting casts of the lot, so I might be a bit unfair here.

[Gare]

Vaan I can understand, but he wasn't the protagonist anyway. Claiming he was is the height of silliness. Excluding him (and possibly Larsa), the game was full of awesome manly men, though. And the actual main character of the game was an ass-kicking princess - doesn't get any better than that!

[Dr. Ivo Robotnik]

Vaan I can understand, but he wasn't the protagonist anyway. Claiming he was is the height of silliness. Excluding him (and possibly Larsa), the game was full of awesome manly men, though. And the actual main character of the game was an ass-kicking princess - doesn't get any better than that!

Perhaps so, but I just don't like the cast of Final Fantasy XII. There didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason, none of them had any reason whatsoever for sticking together, Penelo had all of two lines of dialogue, excluding the ending cinematic...

Possibly I'm being over-critical, but the storyline of XII just failed to draw me in. Even Ashe seemed to be awkward, changing motivations at the drop of a hat.

[GunSlinger Boy]

pick a harem anime or manga. any harem anime or manga. the male leads always seem to have similar backgrounds and personalities

[MaslowK]

Generic-looking protagonists you say?



/thread