EDITORIAL: Why Videogames Should Give You a Name

[LocoColt04]

The biggest flaw in the era of voiceovers is the lack of a name. This thought occurred to me last night and again this morning as I was thinking about the upcoming re-release of our generally beloved FINAL FANTASY X. While certainly not the biggest offender, it is perhaps the one that is most relevant at the moment, and easily the one that stays harshest in my memories.

FINAL FANTASY X introduced players to Tidus - or Cesar, or Link, or whatever other custom name you chose to give him - and took us on a glorious tale of loss, love, and discovering oneself. The story was far better than I originally gave it credit for; thanks to the nameless hero, I could not find myself emotionally invested in the game whatsoever. The first time I attempted to play the game, I barely got through Macalania Woods before I just didn't care any more. It wasn't until my sister had approached the end of the game and needed some direction navigating through the Seymour Flux fight on Mount Gagazet that I wished I had continued playing. To be fair, it was her PlayStation 2 and her game, and we had made a pact that I would not beat it before she had the opportunity to do so, and perhaps this had some mild bearing on why I had given up so early.

But before I lose you, allow me to get back to my point.

I had a hard time believing that Yuna could fall in love with this goofy lost child, not because of his personality, or the fact that he whined a lot (I mean, if I got ripped out of my reality, I'd whine too), but simply because she never addressed him by name. Or title. Or anything even remotely sentimental. You can blame the writers if you wish, but this isn't entirely their fault. In an effort to stay "traditional" and allow players the courtesy of naming at least the hero of the story, sacrifices had to be made - sacrifices that cost the genuine emotional feeling that comes from spoken dialogue. Referring to her loved one as "him" or "he" or "hey you" just felt so terribly forced and inappropriate that it was a major turnoff to the game, even to a relatively naive fifteen year old in 2001.

Every other aspect of the game was fantastic. The plot itself, the twists, the gameplay... especially the gameplay... but I just could not force myself past the disconnect between the characters and the audience. This is greatly exaggerated during the events of FINAL FANTASY X-2, where Rikku finds a movie sphere with "him." It's just so awkward... it's not like they forgot his name!

I am glad, in retrospect, that I revisited FFX (twice!) before finishing high school, and that I paid X-2 enough respect to power through it once. There were many things I enjoyed about both games, but the entire experience lacked genuine emotion. And don't mistake me - FFX is in my top five!

Square Enix got back on track with FINAL FANTASY XII, giving all of the characters names so that they could be addressed more naturally in dialogue.

Some games have approached the "name your character" in the age of voiceover in a much safer manner. BioWare, for example, tends to be on the right track. Commander Shepard can be anything you wish for him or her to be, but it will always be Commander, or Shepard. Dragon Age Origins was a bit rough as the Warden, but was better off with Hawke having an actual name. Surnames are a safe route, and allowing the dialogue to compensate for potential fluctuations elsewhere make for a more immersive experience.

I'm all for customization. It's a huge ordeal for me! But if granting the audience the ability to personalize the game reduces the immersion or otherwise cheapens the experience... I'd rather you didn't.

[loaf]

(y)
"To avoid being Warned"
I totally agree with the Yuna and her affection towards the main character was lacking.

[Boxman]

Good read and it's hard not to agree. It's one of the reasons I'm glad Zelda hasn't gone to full voice acting, next to the possibility of it being awful. But then there's also a lot of difference between a fully fleshed out character like Tidus, and Link, who only has just enough there, at least in recent games, to not be bland and yet still project yourself onto.

[Incognitus]

This might be one of my biggest beefs with Final Fantasy X. Of course it's on a table covered with more beef, but this one is sizable. It sticks out. I liked how the Mass Effect series handled that issue, though. That felt clever. Final Fantasy X felt forced.

It's difficult to have voice acting -AND- a named protagonist. You can't get around it unless you go the pronoun route which, as Loco already stated, feels like it's forced or it's a cop-out to sidestep the issue of programming some sort of text-recognition software. To be fair, that technology isn't an exact bulls-eye with name pronunciation, anyway. It would also require all of the voice actors to put together a vast voice samples bank from which to extrapolate a reasonable facsimile of the voice---kind of like what they did for Roger Ebert. But wouldn't it be easier just to use pronouns? Yeah. Would it feel more immersive if they went wholly with voice acting and fixed names -OR- with text-only, name-what-you-want traditional styles? Sure. I wish they would stick with one or the other, or be clever about it. More than "Hey you!" or "Hey brudda!"

I personally got some wicked Sixth Sense vibes with the way the game characters don't actually say the name Tidus or whatever you choose to name him... which is funny considering his story. It's like he's there but not there. Definite detachment during the voice-acting parts.

However, I don't necessarily buy into the thinking that this somehow diminished or detracted from the eventual love connection between Yuna and Tidus. And I honestly don't have a good reason to back it up, as I last touched that game a good 13 years ago. Never finished it, of course. I proudly admit that.

EDIT: I think my reasoning behind it is this---I was so far from believing it to be a genuine possible relationship that I didn't feel it necessary to pick reasons why. It was much easier to stop playing the game and play Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (or whatever the **** I was playing on the PS2 around that time).

[cowbox]

basically as I said in my text to you! I agree! I hardly ever change names in games. Mostly cause I don't typically think of catchy male names I want to dig the whole time, and i have a very common typical bland name. So its not so much fun for me. I don't enjoy doing it. It took me weeks to decide on MMO names, and even then they are derived from my own name. I'm not creative in that sense
But then, I don't roleplay in games such as these. I have no reason to. And I do agree that forsaking game story development in order to allow this name change is unwanted in my opinion. I'd much rather have a stuck name and a great story and animation sequences that offer more depth. Rather that "he" "she" "him" "her." The character's remember you, they just don't care to remember your name.
If once chooses that a name change is needed for them to get into the game, then so be it. For me, I'll stick to the name they give me. They created that name for a reason in the first place right? Otherwise, why did they both with a space filler?

[Incognitus]

Here's an idea.

This obviously would have required a significant story rewrite, but What if you---i.e. you... Cesar, Incog, Player1, Syphilis... whatever you chose to name yourself at the beginning---were some sort of internal specter or ghost from the past inhabiting the character Tidus in the present, experiencing his story. You see everything through his eyes.

Characters would see you as Tidus and call you Tidus, since you are essentially Tidus, but you know that you aren't him---honestly, who would have wanted to be him? He's goofy. You could have internal dialogues with Tidus through the game as yourself, questioning his decisions and strategies, etc.---strictly in text---but Tidus would respond via internal-thoughts-style voice-acting. He wouldn't have to say your name out loud to people or even internally speak your name. In the former scenario, they would think Tidus is going bat-shit crazy and in the latter, Tidus would be admitting to himself that he is crazy! Pronouns would be fine. It's only internally in the mind of Tidus.

..........
...............
.....................

And then you play through the entire game only to find out that YOU are the final boss of the game! Yes YOU!

YOU ARE THE FINAL GODDAMN BOSS OF THE GAME!!!

Tidus brings your consciousness right to your inanimate body and, through some sort of bullshit pyrefly Yunamagicks, you are revived as some sort of gigantic final boss! You have a choice. You can either:
1) kick your own ass, or
2) your roles instantly switch, and you control yourself instead of the team.

You---Cesar, Incog, Player1, Syphilis, whatever---are named on the fight screen enemy info tile, have half a kazillion hitpoints and a half dozen awesome moves and you proceed to destroy Tidus for being such a goofy, whiny little bitch throughout the entire story!

Naturally, you would rule the world at that point. That's a given. DAMN IT ALL! I would have liked that version of the game. I guess I'm a villain at heart.

But while this is just a silly tangent, it would have been a somewhat clever way to sidestep that issue creatively and keep the immersion/character connection -AND- the protagonist's name in the voice actor scripts. It is possible.

[LocoColt04]

I love you, strange man of a million names. Now that's a glorious plot twist.

[Incognitus]

I love me, too. You'll love me more if you knew I thought of that hours ago and waited patiently for someone else to post in order to prevent double-posting. An edit wouldn't have done it justice.

Then again I should have just double-posted! I am a VILLAIN! RARRRRBLWARBL!!

[Pete]

My biggest complaint about the voice acting in FFX was that God awful scene where Tidus and Yuna force laughs. If you wanted to really develop a love between those two characters, there would have been any number of better ideas at that same point in time in the story. That and the fact that I was largely underwhelmed by the voice acting in the game. Tidus was so either hyper or whiny and Yuna always sounded so meh, like she was scripted and going through the motions. Granted, it's a videogame and her lines ARE scripted, but they didn't have to feel or sound like it.

Looking at even GTA3, which came out around the same time, I thought they did a decent job of dancing around the vocals for an unnamed character. I understand that the games are completely different in terms of story, and the amount of time you spend with your party vs going out and doing missions for random people, but there was always a way that GTA3's unnamed character was introduced without it seeming awkward.

Stick of Truth and even Skyrim dance around this relatively well too. Obviously Skyrim has the Dragonborn title, and in Stick of Truth, you have the option of naming your character whatever, but they're always referred to as "new kid" by random kids, "Douchebag" by more quest related characters, or various "oh you're new" or "oh you're so and so's friend"

[Alpha]

I always found it weird that the only person Tidus meets in the entire course of that game who asks for his name is a small child in Zanarkand.

And while I agree that the emotional connection between Yuna and Tidus (and anyone and Tidus) would have been stronger if they had actually said his name, it still gives me immense jollies to write "BUTTFACE" on that kid's blitzball.

[Fluffy]

I will never forget the name "Star Player of the Zanarkand Abes" ruining a good scene. The character is entirely preset, may as well just go all the way and name him.

[seanb]

It didn't bother me too much, I didn't notice after a while,.. however in x-2 it was blatant, and unnecessary referring to tidus as 'him' all the time got on my nerves.

I do miss the text based final fantasies though where your custom name would fit right in to any dialog between characters.

[SuperSabin]

Voice acting was definitely a new take on the FF series when X first came around.The FF game I really thought did well voice acting wise was FFIV for DS/iOS/Android. It really gave more life to the storyline and it was really enjoyable hearing the dialogue voiced out. If you made it to the final boss and ending, it made that portion really epic giving the scene more emotion and feel to the scenario. I think FFIV was one of those games where you could still name your characters but they go by their default ones during the voice over sequences.