Xenoblade Chronicles X’s Silent Protagonist Ruins The Experience

"Developer Monolith Soft’s Wii role-playing epic, Xenoblade Chronicles, was one of the finest RPGs to release in many years. The game’s masterful blend of heartfelt storytelling and wide-open sense of discovery as you explore the hulking remnants of the dual giants, Mechonis and Bionis, is a frequent topic of discussion a round the Hey Poor Player water cooler. Having said that, it goes without saying that the recent release of the game’s successor, Xenoblade Chronicles X for the Wii U, was one of the our anticipated games to come down the pipe in 2015. Unfortunately, upon firing up the game we can’t help but feel a little burned with the final result, largely due to the studios’ decision to incorporate the dreaded “Silent Protagonist” as the game’s starring character."

[derkasan]

I think a silent protagonist could work, given the right circumstances. Shame it doesn't work here.

[dead_pixels]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Unfortunately, your character ends up coming across as a completely peripheral protagonist.

[Transporter47]

I played White Knight Chronicles, and it is the same way. I love White Knight Chronicles, but I guess i'm one of the few ones.

[Neckbear]

It does work, though. Your mileage may vary, but the silent protagonist in this game feels closer to a somewhat dumbed-down version of a CRPG protagonist (as in, the concept is the same, it's only that you generally get from two to four dialogue options rather than eight or more). I mean, your options even affect the outcome of certain quests and all (including the death of many, many generic NPCs), and you can't really have that with a voiced protagonist in a JRPG.

Though, I'm one of those few people who actually enjoy silent protagonists, I really like how he's done in X. Never the actual center of anything, unlike many other RPG protags, but once you advance through the game NPCs start calling you by name and all. It's pretty neat.

[rjason12]

Yeah, I loved the first xenoblade chronicles, but it's just weird not hearing the main character talk.

[dead_pixels]

Has it prevented you from caring about the story at all? It's been an absolute roadblock for me.

[rjason12]

Not too much, I haven't gotten too far myself though, only through chapter 3 after around 8 hours, the one thing that really bugs me is the menu text size and how blurry it is, I have to switch to the gamepad screen to look through quests, my status, equipment, etc. it's just like monster hunter 3 ultimate text issue.

[YoungPlex]

I know what you mean, I started last week but I literally just got to NLA and stopped there, damn work lol. I started remembering Xenoblade Chronicles on n3ds XL/Wii and started thinking how one of the main things I really enjoyed about XC was the acting from the protagonist Shulk, especially during his encounters with Metal Face! Even though I'm not a fan of "heavy" European accents, "I much rather prefer European accents like those found in Demon's/Dark Souls and Bloodborne," I still enjoyed and found that Shulk played a key roll in why I liked and cared for the story in Xenoblade Chronicles.
"You will know the pain and suffering you've caused."
"I'LL KILL YOU!!!!!!!!!!"

[rjason12]

Same here about shulks voice, it really grew on me!

[JMPetrequin]

At first I wondered if story just wasn't bring treated as all that important, but no. It's significant but stunted.

[Metallox]

It's silly and lacking when you compare it with the original Xenoblade's one. I also miss Riki, Tatsu is just there to get cynically attacked by Lin.

[rainslacker]

That's why I never liked the silent protagonist. It assumes the player is meant to see the game from their perspective through their avatar. But when it comes to the story, it's really just a bunch of NPC's telling you how you're supposed to feel instead of having you connect to the story through connection through your avatar.

There are some games where the silent avatar works, like Ys or Zelda. But in those games, the character is silent, but you know his reactions and feelings to what's going on around him. The first bioshock did silent protagonist very well, and the 2nd created the connection to the protagonist from the start, so it wasn't actually silent.

As a disclaimer, I haven't played Xenoblade Chronicles yet, and don't know which place this avatar falls into, but I always assume silent protagonist means their only connection to the story is through what is said about them or to them, and not through their own actions or words.

[Metallox]

"Does it ruin the experience" it's not a phrase I would use as a title, and the author definitely agrees with me on this one. The character's predisposition was just underwhelming, and it doesn't harm the other production values of X.

As such, I also found weird the lack of voice acting for the customized character, but it wasn't the only issue I found through the journey, and shortly after it was obscured by these new circumstances; like, for example, the awkward silences, lack of music during cutscenes, incoherent use of music during scenes (like that tragic song they put during the introduction of the online mode in BLADE's Barracks), Robot Devil's syndrome ( https://www.youtube.com/wat... ) and an overall slow pacing in cinematic situations that I still don't get used to.

So, if anything, the silent protagonist is one of my minor issues when it comes to X's story and relations with other members of the cast. And even then I'm still enjoying all the narrative aspects of the game.

[dead_pixels]

I agree with you on all of your points, though, like I said in my piece, it's hard to get over the hump that the silent MC brings, especially when you go in expecting more of what was offered in the predecessor. So in that regard it kind of has ruined the game for me, to an extent, as it makes it very hard to muster up the drive to continue, as I care very little about the MC.

[rjason12]

I expected it to be very similar to the first game, but it's really not, I'm still enjoying it though, and can see myself putting over 100 hours into the game, first one took me 160+ to fully get through everything and beat it. They stated that their next game will be more story focused though!

[DiscoKid]

Them not being silent enough is the issue. The battle quotes are really cheesy. But I just reached a point in the story where I became extremely connected to my avatar.

[superchiller]

Unfortunately, it seems like XCX isn't the masterpiece that many people were hoping it would be. Here are comments from another forum, by a dedicated Nintendo fan who loved the original Xenoblade Chronicles game:

"My faults with the game are as follows:

- When you start to get more party members, it becomes a real pain in the ass to level them up & raise their affinity. Combine that with the fact that you have to go to them to add them to your party also makes it a pain. Thankfully though they seem to be in a general vicinity of one another. If you aren't planning on doing other party members affinity quests, then this probably isn't such a big issue.

- The first couple tiers of classes I found rather boring and slow. In the later class tiers it became betters (3 & 4). I can only really attribute this to early game syndrome where you aren't meant to feel powerful, but for me it goes a little beyond that. Pretty sure the original was like that too though.

- Gathering. Fucking. Sucks. Any quests that are associated with them can go to hell. All you get is a continent that it's on and that's it, there's no more information on how to get the item. That specific item you need may only be found in caves, during rain or early morning, etc. This can also extend somewhat to missions that have no waypoint where you have to kill a specific enemy type to get their drops. If it's a single item I usually say screw it and use my multiplayer tickets to purchase the item.

- The main story feels lacking in the little details. Doing affinity & normal missions help, but they don't really fill the void well enough to help support the main story narrative in the way I'd like to see. This is mostly because the main story is basically mission briefings and then take on a mission. Having more required story to help fill in the world would help. I suppose it's more method of delivery and makes it a pain to go out of my way to try and find more bits and pieces.

- The online messages/blade report work ok, but the messages that go global? They're all stupidly retarded and I want to stop seeing those specifically and not all of them. I'd rather not have to blacklist/temp block every single person who says to hit L+A and then other stupid crap that I'd like to filter out which has no bearing on the game. Plus the messages that go global seem to repeat occasionally which makes it worse. I think I'll just have to disable Blade Report all together, which is really a bad solution.

- Notifications for online squad missions goes away pretty quick which also makes it a pain to deal with if you want to. If you miss the notification because you're in a menu or something, the only way to see it is to go to the barracks online hub and see if it's still active.

- I'm not really liking the Skells jump. It's rather floaty and would rather of it been floaty so long as you're still holding down the jump button. Once I gain flight, this won't really be an issue anymore but until then it's kinda annoying not being able to properly control where I want to land with more accuracy.

- Squad tasks are really vague which is annoying. The gathering one gets less bad when you get a Skell though. Tasks are only used to unlock more, higher level squad missions during that 45 minute window.

- Camera indoors (some exceptions) have terrible sensitivity and make it awful to turn.

- Font size is too small. I can read it, sure, but it's not exactly fun to read and sometimes have to squint/get closer just to read quest text sometimes."

[BigDuo]

While I am really enjoying my time with Xenoblade X overall, but so far, you've listed legitimate complaints, and I hope Monolith Soft actually learns from their mistakes when they make a next game like it.

[Metallox]

And these are not the only ones, although I agree with all of them except the first one, and there's something needed to be considered before making the complaint about Point 2:

Gathering sucks, not much information is said about the items locations aside from the region, yes, but that's the point, YOU MUST EXPLORE, and these quests are your incentive.

Regions are so huge that maybe these quests are the only thing that may help you to discover new areas. That's why Monolith doesn't tell you where exactly can you gather the items, or otherwise the experience would be less immersive.

HOWEVER, and here we have the problem, the way developers presented these missions is just not strategic at all. It could have been done better, honestly

Also, they also don't want to tell you where to go because they want you to play A LOT OF TIME.

Ever heard of data probes? Research revenue and mining production take EONS to make it into your funds and inventory, even when you upgrade them or make connections with other probes.

These are some of the annoyances you have to deal with in order to enjoy Mira's exploration. If you can tolerate them, congratulations, now you are conscious that you are, literally, exploring a planet you know nothing about it.

[Philface]

@ Schiller: I think it's pretty good and many think so as well. Have you even played the game or do you just want to bash it? It's hardly adequate to make such an assumption about the game just because of one guy not liking everything in it.

Also that guy doesn't seem to have played Xenoblade for the Wii because his "problems" with gathering and party development are the same mechanics in both games and there are many options to customize most of the IU.

Man you should stop the hate and you should let go of the WIIU if it's not good for you.

[Ck1x]

He just wants to bash it, just check his comment history it speaks for itself...

[rjason12]

@superchiller You're opening statement shows that you're trolling on here. "Unfortunately, it seems like XCX isn't the masterpiece that many people were hoping it would be. Here are comments from another forum, by a dedicated Nintendo fan who loved the original Xenoblade Chronicles game"

That's not even true at all dude, obviously if you've read some of my other comments on here, I discussed my few problems, but the fact that you trying to troll people with a comment that isn't even yours since you won't ever buy the game to try it for yourself. You're just mad people are saying this is a better game than the open worlds you like.

And nobody hear ever sees me going into Xbox or PlayStation threads just to start shit, but we always see you here trying to stir the pot.

[deafdani]

As far as I know, all of these complaints are true. Yet Xenoblade Chronicles X is sitting at 84 at Metacritic all the same, but I guess that's invalidated by that single opinion you posted (which isn't even yours, anyway).

Lol. For that matter, I'm pretty sure I can find someone, somewhere, in the vast realms of the interwebs, making a wall of complaints about ANY critically acclaimed game out there that you can think of; be that Xenoblade Chronicles X, or Witcher 3, or Fallout 4 (that last one should be easy, with the typical amount of glitches and bugs that it has, as is Bethesda's custom).

Heck, I could pretty easily make a wall-of-text worth of criticisms against Red Dead Redemption, a game that is considered by many one of the best ever made.

But here's the thing: any of these games, especially games with ridiculously huge open worlds, are going to have their fair share of flaws. Yet they're received with critical acclaim, because the consensus is that the pros far outweigh the cons, so these games offer, overall, an amazing experience.

But heaven forbid that logic stops you, Chiller, from seizing yet another opportunity to... once again... troll anything related to the Wii U, even a game that's been so well received by critics and general gaming population as Xeno X.

I can safely say that you're the worst Nintendo hater I've ever seen on this site, and that's saying something. SMH.

[iplay1up2]

Look, the game is fantastic! Does it have some, sure, but a game of this size, and how much fun it is, the few annoyance's there are for me, can so very easily overlooked when I take a look around at the beautiful world, and all of the cool enemies!

[syne49]

Doesn't hurt the game for me. It actually makes the story feel more mine and that I am a small piece in a larger puzzle. That doesn't ring true of every silent protagonist ever. In this particular game it does for me. The thing I love the most about this game is that it doesn't invalidate the first. If you want a more contained story with an excellent protagonist you can play Chronicles. If you want to feel like an alien traversing an incredibly large and dynamic world. You can play X. I love these games so much.

[dead_pixels]

I agree for the most part. I guess I just feel like that small piece in the puzzle has a lot of trouble fitting throughout the game, as your major contributions tend to be a mile-long stare and a subtle nod of the head.

I DO enjoy the game for what it gets right, though. And the world is immense and beautiful. I guess I just wish it expanded on the original's narrative strengths while taking advantage of the Wii U's added horsepower.

[Forum_Pirate]

"Dreaded" silent protagonist my foot. P4G and P3P and every pre EA bioware game and mother ****ing chrono trigger have silent protagonists, and they're some of the best games ever.

Voice acting a protagonist doesn't make a game better, it can easily make it worse (look at the absurd disconnect between how emotional the FO4 protagonist gets in the main plot after you've spend 4 in game weeks building up settlements and doing faction quests and finding random caves full of things to shoot, clearly not giving a crap about finding your son,) it's all in the excecution. If anything I dread voice acting, it always butchers RP and the number of dialog options, which usually drags the number of quest outcomes down with it.

In JRPGs they're usually about the party, not the player, so the player being voiced doesn't really do much (most of the time, there are definitely exceptions.)

If the protagonist (ex the Persona protagonists, Baulders gate protagonists, PoE protagonists) is just going to be a shallow (by necessity) proxy, voice acting doesn't add anything. It gets in the way really really, as their expression/inflection/whatever is bound to differ from the players (not a problem if the player is assuming those things because they aren't present.

Similarly, the more open ended the interactions the less you want voiced protagonists. Compare Dragon Age Origins (where you can side with or against every major group you deal with, except the darkspawn) to Dragon Age 2/Inquisition where you're along a set path and only pick sides like twice (and you can't really interact with any of them after you've chosen the side) to see what voice acted protagonists can do to the writing.

[dead_pixels]

My complaints aren't about voice acting at all, but the lack of writing for the character when compared to the previous game's protagonist.

[Forum_Pirate]

You may have noticed, I wasn't responding to your complaints.

For the record, writing for wether detailed writing for the protagonist is good also depends on what you're going for. Lacking it would hurt FF10, where Tidus is a specific character with a specific personality and specific goals. Adding it wouldn't make P4G better, the entire game is built on the premise that the character is a player proxy within a rigidly defined story about a larger group of people. The player isn't the point, the point is that by helping all these individuals with their personal problems you also help yourself, and instead of trying to wrap that around a severly damaged protagonist the player may or may not care about that shifts the focus away from the side characters and community that is the entire point of the system, they turn it into a very literal combat effectiveness upgrade. A bit ham-fisted, but basically fool proof and keeps the attention where they want it.

[dead_pixels]

You were, as I'm the author of the piece. :D

But I agree with you one hundred percent regarding how it is implemented making the difference. And while it worked great in P3 and P4, Persona 1, 2 and Innocent Sin had strong MCs who were showcased through solid writing in their respective titles. It's definitely not a one size fits all approach, and it absolutely varies from game to game.

The main issue with Xenoblade X is it feels like the game would have benefited from a voiced MC, or simply by removing Cross in favor of having Elma the main protagonist. What's left is a game where your avatar feels wildly out of place in the grand scheme of things.

[Trolltroll]

Dont comment on your own post what is this Kotaku it is not classy. You had to use 7 bubbles already half of this article's "heat" is you just agreeing with yourself. This new ten bubbles thing is broken as you can now just boost your own posts.

[Savsky]

This game definitely has a weak story so maybe a voiced protagonist could have helped. Maybe not because some of the voice acting in this game is cringeworthy.

[Metallox]

I don't think voice acting is cringeworthy, but rather the whole situations during cutscenes, the way characters move, their inexpressiveness, the silences, the music...

[dead_pixels]

I think a lot of that can be traced back to how it seems most of the supporting cast was constructed using the same middling character creation tool that player's use for the MC. They simply look awkward and unnatural, lacking the care that was given to the characters in Monolith Soft's previous effort.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

I don't feel it ruins the experience at all, but that's just me. I feel my avatar is much like a strong silent type outside of battle, and that suits me just fine.

[MilkMan]

I thought the protagonist would speak. Especially how chatty the protagonist was in the last Xenoblades. However, I don't feel it ruins the game.

[Clumpy]

Wow, i'm shocked with all these complaints! Am I the only one who abselutely loves this game? I have no problems with the story whatsover, (actually i love it), however i did never play the original xenoblade so maybe my expectations weren't as high...

[Metallox]

I love the game but I still see room for criticism and improvement. It can be good for Monolith and its next title.

[Ck1x]

That's what I'm wondering, I've been playing this game and can see why it's gotten great reviews. Its one of the best WiiU games on the system to me and that's a lot to be said. I think people would rather praise broken games and yearly dlc than a game like XCX.

On top of that Monolith has already stated that they want a more story driven game for their next project. This is just the game that they wanted to create this time. 5o I'm glad that they have the freedom to create what they want and not just what Nintendo wants them to make...

[Benjaminkno]

Hearing the complaints just makes me want to play the game.

You haters should go play COD instead of trying to convince other people why you shouldn't play a particular game.

Will the Nintendo hate ever die?

[dead_pixels]

Who said anything about COD or hating Nintendo? As you've stated, you havent't even played the game, so what weight does your opinion have?

This has nothing to do with hating Nintendo, and everything to do with Monolith Soft's strange decision to shoehorn a mannequin into an otherwise competent game's leading role, with unsurprisngly middlng results.

[Benjaminkno]

A silent protagonist can't ruin any game. That one detail doesn't make or break a game.
If you're going to complain about something, make it something that is actually in the game.

[DivineAssault]

I must admit that this bothers me but its still a great game

[MegaRay]

I hate silent protagonists. The only game I didnt mind the protagonist being silent was Persona 4. Still like protagonists to have their own personality.

[Segata]

No it doesn't.

[Trolltroll]

Lol just change the playing character to one of the girls and the guys problem is solved. You "main character" now talks. But I dont know how the internet would react to a JRPG about two girls fighting aliens in space.

[Darkfist]

this really bothers me, a silent protagonist normally works if theres a good story(which many who played the jp version says its not that good) and character interactive, specially an open world game, its like how i played mgs5 then the witcher 3 and how good it felt when playing the game and geralt question or comment about the things around him specaily when playing "hide & seek" with those children(how i feel bad for them)

[Medievalwaffles]

I grew up with silent protagonists ao its something that won't bother me unless its like white knight chronicles where i felt like a weirdo following the group

Did like the game mind you

[eworthington0]

What bothers me about playing a silent protagonist is that i feel completely unnecessary. The supporting characters are the main characters, while i feel like a tag along with the personality of lawn chair.
Huge step backwards from shulk, one of my favorite video game characters ever.
Its a hefty gripe, but it doesn't necessarily ruin the experience for me.
I still say its a solid 8/10.

[R00bot]

I don't mind, this is still easily GoTY for me.

[DivineAssault]

There used to be a time when nobody had a voive and it was all texts.. Theres no excuse for it now though..