Where have all the good men gone And where are all the gods? Where's the street-wise Hercules To fight the rising odds? Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed? Late at night I toss and I turn and I dream of what I need -Bonnie Tyler, "Holding Out For A Hero" No, me opening with the topic up above or the Bonnie Tyler lyrics is not some massive prelude to revealing to the world that I am secretly gay I submit to you all that only a very secure man would open a blog with Bonnie Tyler lyrics. Instead, I found it to be the most appropriate title and quote I could find to begin my blog about something that the video game industry is largely missing and desperately needs.

I'm not talking about sexual ambiguity. Let's face it, the Japanese have that covered. I am instead talking about the need for more video games having a Main Protagonist with a personality. Inspired from my recently blogged reflections on the Persona 3 game I have decided to delve a little deeper into this dreadfully underdeveloped feature of gaming. (By the way, if you haven't seen my blog about Persona 3 don't feel bad. It was my lead item for all of about a half hour or so...the time it took for me to write the blog you are currently reading.)

What is it that makes so many game developers decide to go with a silent, lifeless and otherwise faceless leading man/woman? I fail to understand how this makes games funner to play or how it makes the lead character more memorable. I suppose an argument could be made that by making the protagonist silent, it leaves the gamer free to imagine any personality that you want for him. Further, it is probably a lot easier to code a game where pesky little things like free will don't get in the way. But it doesn't really contribute to the protagonist feeling like a hero if he/she has no say or control over the direction of his life. (I'm just going to use the male forms "he, his, etc" to save time and space for the rest of the blog.) How heroic can the leader be if he doesn't say anything, doesn't inspire the troops, set the battle strategy, make decisions, etc.? How heroic can he be if he just lets the other characters in the game dictate what happens next? Even some of the best games of all time are guilty of this. Remember Chrono Trigger? If you're over the age of 20 and are at least a little bit interested in rpg games you've probably played this one since it shows up regularly on most peoples' "Best RPGs of All Time" lists. Yet, the main character of that game was a silent protagonist as well. He had the least amount of personality out of any of the characters in the game. How does it make sense to give the least amount of character development to the character that the gamer has to control for 20 or so hours of gameplay? I'll go further back. I'm going way back now to the original "Dragon Warrior" game for the old NES. After you have saved the princess and returned her to the castle, when you talk with her, the conversation goes like this: "Dost thou love me?" (Yes, No) If you answer "No" then you got endless repetitions of "But thou must!" until you selected the correct answer. In other words, the "hero" who was tasked with saving the world was a whipped dog who couldn't stand up to a spoiled, fifteen year old princess. Ouch. Talk about making it hard for a gamer to feel suitably heroic. Nor are rpg games alone with this underdeveloped protagonist issue. The Max Payne games have a very talkative main protagonist, and are a couple of the best shooters of all time because of it. Ditto for Chronicles of Riddick. But once you get past the exception cases, pretty much all other genres are equally guilty. I am focusing on the rpg genre because, while it would sure be nice if other genres developed their protagonist more, character development is absolutely essential in rpg's. You cannot have a good rpg if the majority of the characters in the game are not developed. You just cannot. Period. End of discussion. I'm not willing to debate this point. Sure, 20 years ago in the Dragon Warrior days you could have a good rpg without it, but that was then and this is now. The bar for modern gaming is higher. This brings me to the upcoming Mass Effect game by Bioware, If you've looked at the trailers on Xbox Live and didn't get at least a little hot and bothered (in a good way) from the level of interaction and conversation dialog that you, as Commander Sheppard, get to have with other characters in the game then you should never play another rpg again. Bioware has long been the leader in getting rid of the silent protagonist once and for all. Knights of the Old Republic was revolutionary because it had real, actual dialog trees that gave you real, actual conversation choices. Your personality grew and developed because of those choices. Even before them though, games like Planescape: Torment, Fallout, and Star Control 2 justifiably landed themselves on Gamespot's "Greatest Games of All Time' list because they had notable levels of protagonist interactions with other people in the game. Put simply, they forced you to actually roleplay in a roleplaying game. Looking towards the future, I hope more games take this approach. I hope that Mass Effect wins Game of the Year not because I can't stand for a non-rpg winning the award, but because if it does win then it is much more likely that other developers will copy it to duplicate its success. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that happens, then maybe we can look forward to more and more games where you play a character that has an actual personality.