Has Voice Acting Made Player Names Obsolete?
Games with customizable player characters often feature the ability to input character names. While easy enough to accommodate in game text, it has caused complications in games that heavily feature voice acting. I will look at a few case studies that show the various ways this causes complications when writing the script and recording the dialogue.
Final Fantasy X
Like the previous installments in the franchise, Final Fantasy X's protagonist has a canonical name- Tidus- but the game allows you to choose whatever name you want at the start of the game. However, unlike those previous games, Final Fantasy X is the first game in the series to feature voice acting.
As a result, Tidus is almost exclusively referred to with second or third person pronouns by other characters in spoken dialogue, as well as other terms; for example, Yuna calls him "the newest guardian" in her sphere recording, one of the few times she talks about him without speaking directly to him. This continues in the sequel, in which Tidus is not a playable character, and thus can't be named, but prominently features into the plot despite not actually appearing outside of the best ending.
Persona 5
Voiced dialogue tends to substitute the protagonist's name with something else that's equivalent. For example, at the start of the series, Sojiro greets you by saying, "So you're Ren," in his text box, but his voiced dialogue says, "So, you're the guy" instead. Other times, the transition is less smooth; later on in the game, when Ms. Kawakami is asking students to report to the police for questioning, she says, "Next up is Takamaki-san and Amamiya-kun," with the voiced dialogue cutting off after the "and." Other times, when the character is addressed by name at the start or end of a sentence, one can simply omit the name.
Another way the game handles this is by having the characters call the protagonist by various names and other title. The code name system allows the protagonist to be called Joker in combat and other nicknames. For example, Kasumi Yoshizawa exclusively calls the protagonist "Senpai," much like Rise did with her respective protagonist.
The player can also change the official name for the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, which will only be used in dialogue among the group and their ally Mishima; other characters call them the Phantom Thieves. If you choose Ann's suggestion, "The Diamonds," she will express approval, while other suggestions might be rejected if they would expose a member's identity.
Deus Ex
The original Deus Ex is notable in how little the name you choose matters.
At the start of the game, you must choose a name for J.C. Denton, neuro-augmented secret agent. The game makes it clear that while this is his real name, J.C. and his brother Paul are known by their code names; the two greet each other by their assumed names and make a point of using them in voiced dialogue from then on. You won't see J.C. addressed by his real name outside of some emails, and it's hard to notice which ones use his real name if you don't bother putting in something different from the default J.C. Denton.
Speaking of character customization, J.C. Denton's default appearance- that of a fair-skinned and dark-haired man- seems to be by far the most popular of his possible appearances.
Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2
Mass Effect had an interesting approach to character name customization by allowing you to choose a name for the protagonist- his or her given name. Every single character you encounter calls Shepard by his or her last name, rank or some other term. The only person who might be an exception, a Spacer Shepard's mother Hannah Shepard, is only encountered once in the first game and never calls her child by name.
Dragon Age 2 adopted a similar approach with its the protagonist, the eldest child of the Hawke family. The first game also allowed players to choose the first name of the protagonist, but not the family name (for example, a human noble will always be a Cousland and a dwarf noble will be an Aeducan), but said names were rarely used outside of various origin-specific contexts. With Dragon Age 2, this became more noticeable, as virtually everyone called the main character "Hawke," even if they were acquainted with Hawke's surviving sibling(one of Hawke's two siblings dies in the prologue depending on which class you picked for Hawke).
World of Warcraft
In World of Warcraft's case, customizable player names are a necessity to distinguish the millions of player characters from one another. In fact, the game not only has NPCs refer to player characters by name, but also by their character's race or class, and occasionally gender-specific titles. As you might imagine, with over a dozen classes, over 20 races(including the main races and additional Allied Races added in later expansions) and countless player-generated names, it's impossible to record dialogue for these. Instead, those responsible for writing the dialogue use similar tricks to the games above, from simply omitting the player name from the dialogue to using substitutes; for example, when Vaelastrasz kills a player, he will say "Forgive me, (player name)!" but his voice actor calls the player "friend" instead.
Facade
Conclusion
While being able to name one's character is a reasonably popular feature in video games, it originated in a time when having more than a few voice clips in video games was uncommon and the idea of a fully voice-acted video game was unheard of. Nowadays, video game developers must decide whether allowing players to name their characters is worth having to jump through hoops when recording dialogue, and if so, what approach they will make. Like with all problems related to video game development, there are many possible solutions, and perhaps more will become available in the future.
Comments
Post a Comment