Why did old games like FFVII or Zelda let you rename the main characters when you can't change their appearance, class, or have any strong effect on the story through meaningful choices?
Why did old games like FFVII or Zelda let you rename the main characters when you can't change their appearance, class, or have any strong effect...
because JRPGs are not RPGs
What the frick else is there?
Anyway, OP, the whole "pretend he's you" was very popular in the 90's.
I've seen that some people can't pretend you're in an adventure on dq / pokemon, saying things like "why have options and customization if you can minmax? game is bad". It looks to me, game's roleplaying all along.
i think in part it's because people have so many games coming out or on a list that they want to play (or convince themselves they should play) that doing anything especially suboptimal is for them a perceptible waste of time.
Uhhhhh, Black person brain, naming your character something unique is literally the epitome of an RPG.
Technically in Zelda 1 and 2 the name was simply for the save files, so you know whose file is it. In the endings, Zelda still calls Link by his name proper.
So you could name them after your middle school friends.
and your favorite video game character crushes you had at the time before Tifa and Aeris won you over them and regret renaming them midway through your first playthrough
In DQ1 your stat growths are determined by your name
😮
yeah you get different stat distributions depending on what you name your character
It's not that big a deal because there's only one party member though.
Something like this is true with the mutants/espers in final fantasy legend/saga 1, but I have never seen any guide mention it. I know it's true though because the mutants are supposed to be completely random but they always gain the exact same spells only when I use the same name across different game saves
Voice acting, although you could still name the main protagonist in FFX because they wrote the dialogue in a way that none of the characters would say his name. Hard to do that with an entire cast though as it would be confusing as to who someone is talking about. They probably just stopped after that to avoid that kind of writing, and desired something more concrete and linear, and also focused even more so on narration over RPG aspects.
Yeah, they probably realized it was dumb after everyone laughed at Yuna referring to the most important person in her life as "the star player of the Zanarkand Abes" and realizing she has never once said his name out loud.
They could easily just do what Star Ocean 3 did. Let you rename the characters despite the voice acting calling them by their canon names anyway.
This. There's no reason why modern rpgs can't at least do this much. I prefer FFX's, but Star Ocean's is almost as good and is, in fact, better in some ways. I don't want to play as fricking Dart or Justin, I want to fricking name them. Voice acting be damned.
Can't they just use AI to let us name them whatever we want? AI is gonna put a lot of parasitic dipshit actors out of business and I love it.
You sound moronic.
shut up Black person
I would imagine they'd just do it like Mass Effect or other modern games do, you can name yourself whatever you want, but voice actors still call you by your canon surname (Shepard for ME) or title (Commander for XCOM).
>Voice acting, although you could still name the main protagonist in FFX because they wrote the dialogue in a way that none of the characters would say his name
modern games (the Switch Fire Emblem games being a good example) do this too, they just give the nameable character a title (professor in Three Houses, Divine Dragon in Engage) instead of referring to them awkwardly with 2nd/3rd person pronouns all the time.
>they just give the nameable character a title
Yeah, that's a smart way to do it. Likewise, modern Persona calls you Leader or Senpai or Joker or whatever.
How am I supposed to name Cloud Dick and Barret Tree?
So you can put your name as the main characters, and your childhood & school friends as the other characters.
soul
So different members of a household could know who each save file belonged to.
Probably because it's fun. More games would benefit from having pointless or silly options, it doesn't even need to be huge. I think this is a reason why people like stuff like Fallout and EathBound so much.
so I can name the mc my dude
Why not? Game is all text and assigning a variable for the names takes very little effort.
It looks off because they went to A LOT of trouble to make sure a name is irrelevant. In pokeymon or earthbound, it's kinda your character since you pick a pokeyman. In ffx, it's text+voice everywhere saying it's not your character, then one strange going "bob". going no effort is weird... since you went all effort early?
Some other anon posted it before, but you name Tidus because you name all the controllable summons in the game. Yuna just as awkwardly dances around addressing her Aeons. It's very subtle ludonarrative harmony. The names only exist in the battle system.
>older friend who introduced me to FF and other JRPGs always gave them crazy nicknames in all caps
Good times.
I renamed my Cloud to Tornado because I thought it sounded more badass.
These games were made for children who were growing up and could self insert themselves into these heroic and romantic storylines. Why do you think anime is mostly set in high school under the age of 18 and wearing plot armor?
because you are the main character simple as that.
in the nes/snes zelda games i never really felt like you were naming your character, more just the save file. i usually put link anyway. the only rpg i distinctly remember putting in my own names for was secret of mana. did that game even have default names?
Nah. Not the eng version anyway, so my characters were always Dude, Chick and Sprite because I'm very good at thinking of names.
FFVII is way better if you name everyone Sephiroth.
You are witnessing a mentality change. For rpgs, freedom was very important. Freedom to choose your character's sex, class, name, equipment, magic. Freedom to choose what to say, where to go, who joins you, etc.
Long before FF7 these stop being important for the shake of providing a cohesive plot, but there was some resistance to remove these features.
>Code Name: JC Denton
>Real Name: JC Denton
The terrorists will never work this one out!
That was a retcon. In the original Zeldas you were just naming your save file. Starting with Link the the Past they decided that it was also your name.
Honestly my absolute biggest disappointment with Breath of the Wild was them removing the ability to name your character. The shitty voice acting was NOT worth stripping the game of this feature.
Because it's cool and puts a unique stamp on your playthrough no matter how insignificant or pointless it is. Rename Cloud your name, rename Tifa your crush at school. Fun, that's all, no more thought required.
I detect autism in your reasoning OP I suspect that is your issue.
What kind of youth did you have if you didn't change Barrett's name to Mr. T? Or change Tifa's name to breasts?
>What kind of youth did you have
Only the future can tell, as OP is clearly still a child.
I always thought it was funny to name them stuff like ", stupid!" I remember the best one of those being naming Link ", you moron!" in Wind Waker. It worked really well.