Topic: Lack of main character identity in Nintendo franchises

@shaneoh: Do you have a point here or not? You are the one saying that the one group is not small by citing arbitrary comments. Thanks for the comprehensive discussion, which I leave now.

@Chandlero
My point? Other than generalisation is fine for you but not for me? As for your second sentence: as opposed to saying a group is small because of my personal bias rather than any potential shred of evidence that could be used?

@bitleman Fair enough. I was specifically talking about art style. I don't even like Persona for said commercial reasons.

Nintendo's characters have plenty of 'character' - whether they're voiced or not.

Someone else mentioned that Nintendo has a type of 'silent movie' ethos and I'd agree with that. I'd also state 100% unequivocally it's not inferior to a more modern cinematic style. It's more restricted but those restrictions offer a different experience - not one that's inherently better or worse.

In the best Nintendo games (not all) the story and character of the games is presented in incidental details and play mechanics. Luigi doesn't play like a twitchy nervous wreck because it's trying to reflect the cut scenes for Luigi's mansion - it's the opposite way around. He felt twitchy to play in SMB2 (both versions) so you filled in the gaps yourself: Mario knows what he's doing - he commits to a jump but Luigi isn't quite sure if he wants to land... The glossy acknowledgement of this comes afterwards.

It's just a different approach with its own advantages and disadvantages. Nintendo sticks out in the marketplace because no other major publishers do the same.

One indie game I love - Thomas was Alone - managed to add layers and layers of characterisation to square blocks based largely on their play mechanics. If you've never played it I'd give it my strong recommendation.

I wouldn't mind more character. I think Wind Waker Link had the most out of the Zeldas. It's not something I'm prepared to argue.

Up until Other M I always imagined Samus just being the stoic "cold steel" bount hunter with a soft spot for innocent animals. Just being a women gave her more character than Link. I wouldn't mind if Nintendo developed her more.

I agree with link being figurative so you can reflect your personality on him, same as samus, kid icarus was a great success as well as luigi in his Mansion games
But i do want to know princess daisy background and Wario apart feom being greedy and waluigi, are they brothers ? Cousin to mario and luigi, what's the name of Mario's father that was featured in a photograph, mother, other siblings maybe, mario rpg games gave a lot of personality to "new characters" as well as some of the main old characters but i do hop luigi falls for daisy lol gets married, babies, well bowser wanted to marry peach finally lol daisy seems to have stronger personality than peach so she completes luigi, why not a main game for waluigi, why he excels on breakdancing stunts (mk8) why the shady name too... I can't fill those things myself but i prefer link and samus that way

Are you high? I don't think even Miyamoto made Ocarina of Time thinking he was god. And geez, don't be so anthropocentric. Games where you play animals are some of the cooler games out there.

That is not the argument but just a falsehood.

Well actually no, Nintendo didn't 'try' with Zelda Wii U's voice acting, at least not in English. And that game certainly didn't add dialogue, it had a far shallower script based around fetch quests and only the one generic ruined kingdom premise. NPCs basically only ever get new lines of dialogue once, changing to happy mode after you complete their task.

Nearly every Japanese city has an anime mascot character that encourages civic engagement and stuff. Persona 5 is probably the most public sector game ever made by Atlus.

Except the Deku Tree.

I haven't even seen this movie, that's how easy you've made this for me.

@Haru17 "Well actually no, Nintendo didn't 'try' with Zelda Wii U's voice acting, at least not in English. And that game certainly didn't add dialogue, it had a far shallower script based around fetch quests and only the one generic ruined kingdom premise"

Wot? Blimey, you on about that bloody Blood Moon summic? A right mess, that is. Tut tut, a right mess!
(Insert additional cringey overemphasized fake Britishisms as required.)

To be fair, Zelda's voice WAS an excellent voice for Zelda. The accent was not an excellent choice. The other 4 were more or less just standard anime English VAs. Ok....Mipha was just plain bad.....I can't sugarcoat that one.

@NEStalgia I actually kinda liked how Zelda was British and Hyrule's dialogue had hints of old English in them. She was no Laura Bailey though, didn't make me care, though I blame the writing, game planning, and voice direction for that.

Since people here were talking about Other M earlier... I never understood what was wrong with the Ridley scene. Samus panics for a good reason. Ridley killed her parents when she was three and no matter how many times she defeats Ridley, he just won't stay dead. Ridley always comes back to haunt her. I don't know how common this knowledge is since her parents haven't appeared in the games (aside from Zero Mission's ending art). This is all from official manga released in 2002 but it seems to be canon as far as I know. I mean, Other M's cutscene shows Samus as a child too, and she even looks like her manga counterpart. Apparently Smash for Wii U also mentions her parents in event match "Galactic Avenger".

@Late Because what Other M is trying to portray is PTSD in action, and it works in a vacuum but not in the context of the series precisely because of the reasons you mention.

@Haru17 The writing and voice direction was indeed disastrous. Not sure how they found the dialogue to be acceptable. Compared to TP and Midna's cleverly written character, in particular, it was quite a let down. Thankfully it was not a core of the game...but...it was every bad trope of anime ever.

You could always scroll through and look yourself. Did you want to provide evidence that most reviews considered the voice acting a positive addition? Then you'll need to provide evidence that you weren't cherry picking reviews either. You have no real evidence that what you're saying is true.

Still, people that dislike something are always more vocal than those that like it, therefore because so few people have spoken out against my comment the majority of people must agree with me.

I was more talking about the voice acting, but yes the VA was bad enough that it didn't seem like they were trying XD.

At least, I can say NoA hit it out of the park with the VA for Latin American Spanish.

@Snaplocket The characterization was generally very thin and lacking. Speaking characters in TP had very creatively defined personalities through the writing. Even crazy Zant. BotW, I think Zelda's monologues were decent, but the Champions were phoned in like an afterthought, both in terms of writing, and VA.

The only TRUE star in terms of dialogue in the game, IMO, was Sidon. He was a genuinely clever character.

Maybe honorable mention to Bolson.

@Snaplocket I'm sure BoTW isn't as bad as some would say. But you also have to consider, that right now the standard for story-telling is extremely high with games like Uncharted, Witcher, Horizon etc.

Just "good enough" doesn't cut it anymore. Heck, there's games from the 90s that have writing which holds up better than Nintendo games made in 2017. I can't speak for the Japanese versions, but at least for English translations, they have a "4Kids-esque" vibe to them.

@Snaplocket I didn't say it was bad. I was agreeing with you that it isn't as bad as it was made out to be in this discussion. As for dialogue, I mean Pokemon games are pretty bland, but I guess you could say that it isn't technically Nintendo.

I know Fire Emblem Fates gets a lot of the heat, but I don't think Awakening was all that impressive in dialogue either. Especially the support conversations, which have always been generic to cover as much ground as possible.

A lot of Nintendo games don't have much dialogue anyway, so it isn't a problem for them. Just throw in a few clever jokes/references and you're set. I'll admit I took it too far by comparing them to 4Kids, but I still think the dialogue in Nintendo games could be way better. By no means do I think they are awful though.