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[SantaC]

I get that people like their heroes to be nice guys and all that, but it is not always for the better. We play games for entertaiment, and I really cant stand a protagonist that has a personality of a cardboard.

Plenty of jrpgs had this problem. Playing Cold Steel 1 now and Rean is too nice and considerate, no fun at all. Same goes for MC in dragon quest 11, asbel in tales of graces, sorey in zestiria, edge in star ocean 4, and the list goes on.

Yuri in Tales of Vesperia was done right.

 

[JORMBO]

I enjoyed Cold Steel, but agree Rean is a really bad character. It took me awhile to get through the game because the beginning is really slow and you are stuck with this really bad main character. I was able to look past him eventually as the rest of the story got better.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

RPG characters are usually defined by you the player. They often have to be bland to allow for player choice.

 

[pqueue]

cannot offend the outrage snowflakes, if you are not outright pandering to them.

 

[cireza]

This looks to be mainly targeted at Japanese games. Most of the time, the main character is meant to be you.

If you want to play something where the main character is not meant to be you, try a VN. And without too much surprise, you might have a hard time getting into it or might never end up liking the main character at all. Which can be a good reason to simply stop playing.

There are still good examples of "a little bit generic" characters done right. For example Lost Odyssey is pretty good. Final Fantasy XV felt right as well, the character felt like he was playing is role correctly and had a strong personality. Not the norm though.

 

[nocsi]

It's in the genre: Role-Playing Game. They're vessels for you to fill with your personality

 

[Life]

It's in the genre: Role-Playing Game. They're vessels for you to fill with your personality

Are you from the future where we have such games? Do share. The closest I've come to this is Fallout - which is where you can choose to be sarcastic/funny/serious/inquisitive - and it was quite amusing. JRPGs are nowhere near this and that's what the OP is addressing.

99% of JRPG protagonists are basically personality clones.

 

[RavageX]

Yeah this had started to be a problem for me a few years back. I actually have a hard time with some jrpgs as the character formula seems to be the same.

If a game has other interesting characters or a story, I can deal with it.

I would personally like to see less of teens saving the world, or being crazy strong while having no sort of body definition whatsoever, but I know that's just crazy, lol.

 

[Clarissa]

Estelle in Legend Of Heroes Trails in the Sky is good!

 

[joe_zazen]

When designing a mass market product, you have to appeal to a large group. Anything that deviates from the most boring will start to alienate people . So, boring sells better. They run this stuff through test audiences and committees, it is literally design by committee.

You can see it in every area of product design, btw. Eg, the response to the ps5 dev kit. It was different from the box design of resent consoles, and the reactions were pretty harsh amongst those who didn't like it Same thing with car design, there is a reason they all look like jellybeans with boring ass color choices.

 

[nocsi]

Are you from the future where we have such games? Do share. The closest I've come to this is Fallout - which is where you can choose to be sarcastic/funny/serious/inquisitive - and it was quite amusing. JRPGs are nowhere near this and that's what the OP is addressing.

99% of JRPG protagonists are basically personality clones.

You're taking it literally. It's kind of similar to Comic Book theory, like if you've read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud:

Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics : The Invisible Art (Paperback); 1994 Edition: Amazon.com: Books

Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics : The Invisible Art (Paperback); 1994 Edition on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics : The Invisible Art (Paperback); 1994 Edition

www.amazon.com

The less detailed the character, the more the reader/player can imprint their own personality upon them. If you want more analogies, it's kinda like the difference between a book reader vs a movie watcher. Movies by nature have to fill in more of the void for characters, while book readers have to fill in the void with their own personality.

 

[Sub_Level]

We didnt know how good we had it back then. Protags with actual traits, flaws, quirks, and personalities. Nowadays games are too expensive to risk putting a character like Squall in your product lol. At least we gettin Cloud back with the remake.

 

[Belmonte]

Yeah, it is easier to like heroes.

Everyone talked about how Yuri wasn't a Goody Two Shoes but I found him very heroic. I started Tales of Vesperia some weeks ago, only 12 hours of game time yet, so perhaps I'm very wrong, but the dude go to the prison for trying to help his community in the very beginning!

But I agree, he is a good protagonist. What I like about him is that he reacts to the plot and other characters like an adult.

 

[KàIRóS]

A list of good JRPG protagonists just for you OP:

Kaim Argonar - Lost Odyssey
Vyse - Skies of Arcadia
Yuri Lowell - Tales of Vesperia
Ryudo - Grandia 2
Gwendolyn - Odin Sphere
Felix - Golden Sun: The Lost Age
Chris Lightfellow - Suikoden III
Luke Fon Fabre - Tales of the Abyss
Shulk - Xenoblade Chronicles
Cecil Harvey - Final Fantasy IV
Celes Chere - Final Fantasy VI
Claude - Star Ocean 2
Amleth Grønkjær - Valkyria Revolution
Nier - Nier
Caim - Drakengard
Ramza Beoulve - Final Fantasy Tactics
Ike - Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
Stocke - Radiant Historia
Sora - Kingdom Hearts
Lenneth Valkyrie - Valkyrie Profile

And I'm probably missing others.

 

[Sakura]

I don't think Cold Steel or Zestiria are very good games, which is probably the problem there. The protagonist in DQ11 is a completely silent character, which has been a staple of the series for over 100 years, so I don't see him fitting into your characters who are too nice and considerate. DQ is a series that does not change up the formula at all, for better or worse.
In any case, there are plenty of RPGs with characters that have a personality, but it is a lot easier and safer to just write a generic avatar for the player. They would prefer to have a protagonist in a game that every one is at least "OK" with, rather than a protagonist where 50% like him and 50% hate him. You can ignore characters you don't like, but it's hard to play a story driven game with a protagonist you don't like.
It's not just limited to RPGs either. Look at games like Halo or Zelda or many others.

 

[TGO]

Because.....whatever.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

It doesn't get any blander than DQ heroes honestly.

 

[Bkdk]

Either I have to deal with this boring good guy character in jrpgs or the terrible character art from western rpgs. That’s why I really want mod tools will at least come in form of paid dlc, my average playtime of game with powerful mod tools are usually 10x longer than the ones do not.

 

[johncaveman12]

What's with your mom, bro? Yah, she's being so loud, tell her to close it, lmao.

 

[ROMhack]

We didnt know how good we had it back then. Protags with actual traits, flaws, quirks, and personalities. Nowadays games are too expensive to risk putting a character like Squall in your product lol. At least we gettin Cloud back with the remake.

Ironically, Cloud is probably the least defined of them all.

I dunno, in a game of very strong personalities, Cloud always stood out to me as the weakest.

 

[bilderberg]

Greatest RPG protagonist is renegade Male Shepard. God, he's such an asshole

 

[Sentenza]

We didnt know how good we had it back then. Protags with actual traits, flaws, quirks, and personalities. Nowadays games are too expensive to risk putting a character like Squall in your product lol. At least we gettin Cloud back with the remake.

Are you fucking kidding me?
They are all small variations of your average "shonen anime dreamy boy".

 

[Sub_Level]

Are you fucking kidding me?
They are all small variations of your average "shonen anime dreamy boy".

- Cloud is an unreliable narrator and much goofier than the badass reputation that precedes him.
- Squall is introspective and insecure.
- Zidane is the typical thief with a heart of a gold but has a major chip on his shoulder.

They all seemed pretty unique to me. At the very least they clearly have identifiable traits.

Meanwhile I cant tell you the personality of Aloy or Tales Anime Doll 34. They are nice and determined I guess...lol

 

[cireza]

They are all small variations of your average "shonen anime dreamy boy".

Squall was totally awesome.

 

[zeorhymer]

I find that JRPGs have the best character traits because Japanese games want to tell you a story. Western RPGs is just a vessel and you have to fill it out.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

Self insert characters so you can get all the girls in this fictional world by being boring as shit. Something that would never happen in real life.

 

[Aurelian]

cannot offend the outrage snowflakes, if you are not outright pandering to them.

You can have an interesting character without going out of your way to offend people.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

RPG characters are usually defined by you the player. They often have to be bland to allow for player choice.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, someone told me they couldn't get into the Witcher 3 because it was a Geralt simulator and they hated his guts.

 

[Javthusiast]

A protagonist every jrpg needs.

He is a humble hero with a good heart who truly cares about the people close to him.

 

[Jack Videogames]

A protagonist every jrpg needs.

He is a humble hero with a good heart who truly cares about the people close to him.

Also has a powerful sword and a great laugh. Gahaha!

 

[DrJohnGalt]

I came into the discussion expecting to see more complaints that too many characters were boring, straight white males.

But that doesn't appear to be the case.

If we're talking about pre-written characters (not ones created by the player), then I suppose it makes a little sense that that are a little bland and boring and somewhat naive when the game starts so they can be seen as "growing" or "learning" as the story moves forward. I don't think games like FF or a lot of the others mentioned are meant to be role-played by the player in the true sense of the word; rather traditional JRPGs usually have customizable archetypes (the strong-but-dumb guy, the ditzy valley girl, the nerd, the shy one, the naive main character, the jaded veteran, the wise-cracking sidekick, etc).

But archetype or not, I think there are plenty of JRPGs and role-playing games with characters that aren't boring at all. I do agree that a lot of characters seem a bit bland with the personality of a rock, but not all or even most.

 

[GermanZepp]

I prefer the undead hollow mummies of Dark Souls than any pre created anime looking character.