Treat RPG's like movies, if you don't like the protagonist, don't play the game. More often than not if you give it time, the voice acting used in high budget games tends to be on point.
Except when it involves an aloof male protagonist speaking in a gruff, monotone voice. Kind of like Geralt. Or Adam Jensen. Or Arthur Morgan. Or....
Seriously, that shit gets old.
I am greatly in favor or a voiced protagonist.... as long as they put some emotion and variety in their voice. I am totally going to play CP2077 with a female V.
None was worse than Watchdogs Taken impersonation imo.
I don't see nothing wrong with it and I think there's a solid balance out there. How many different options are there? We're obviously gonna end up with a lot of the same stereotypes.
I think Arthur Morgan was a great example of voice acting succeeding, would you of preferred Jack Marston? Would you really of preferred to gallop through RDR2 with a silent protagonist? If we look at the world of combat sports, our modern day gladiators, how many of them are squeaky voiced and soft spoken? It's rare.
There's a reason for stereotypes and I think plenty of games do enough to bread the mold.
I would have preferred the option for a female protagonist.
Silent is the worst option of them all in my opinion.
Understood.
I was personally hoping that RDR took a page out GTA's playbook with the character switch system to give us three protagonists. Feel like that's a good module to follow as well as letting you choose a male or a female protagonist, still nothing wrong with a story designed for a specific skin color and gender.
Imagine 4~5 seconds of unnecessary silence and text below whenever you choose dialogs. It will give you weird feeling and you feel strong desire to turn on the voice.
Sadie was an awesome character and would have been a good lead protagonist.
The difference is whether I play as someone like Geralt in the Witcher series or I play myself as the main character in Skyrim.
When I play as myself it would be strange to hear another voice that is not my own.
To answer your question ... No, I would not turn the voice on again.
The force is strong in this one.
There's games like Fallout and Skyrim where VA isn't necessary (lack of cut-scenes, sub-par graphics in comparison), but the best games, RPG's, ever, have been carried by wonderful voice acting.
So I honestly think that having a voiced protagonist makes sense if you have a pre-made character in mind. To beat an old horse in this case lets use Geralt. He was a flesh out fully realised character. He needed a voice because He was CDPR's vision not someone elses.
However in Cyberpunks case I think its a bad idea. Not only because it limits the amount of characters you can create. I get they tend to give them very generic voices but I honestly dont see the point of even having things like a character creatot if youre just going to railroad me into this flat tone voice. It was like Shepard in Mass Effect. i dont mean to be nasty or derogatory but some gamers are lazy these days and just wont bother coming up with a backstory. They just click the default and roll with it. Which is kinda sad.
Say for example I wanted to create a 50 year old man who'd come to Nighty City for reason X. I cant. The voice has now limited me to my age. I get its for the kids these days who dont like reading (such a hard thing to do I know) but i honestly would prefer an option to mute the voice....yeah I can dream though, right?
However in Cyberpunks case I think its a bad idea. Not only because it limits the amount of characters you can create. I get they tend to give them very generic voices but I honestly dont see the point of even having things like a character creatot if youre just going to railroad me into this flat tone voice. It was like Shepard in Mass Effect. i dont mean to be nasty or derogatory but some gamers are lazy these days and just wont bother coming up with a backstory. They just click the default and roll with it. Which is kinda sad.
Say for example I wanted to create a 50 year old man who'd come to Nighty City for reason X. I cant. The voice has now limited me to my age. I get its for the kids these days who dont like reading (such a hard thing to do I know) but i honestly would prefer an option to mute the voice....yeah I can dream though, right?
I personally love voice acted lines because I absolutely hate games that have walls of text that you have to read, I think reading text really takes me out of the immersion.
One RPG known as Disco Elysium felt really poor for me in terms of immersion just because you have an endless amounts of text you have to read and I like to play videogames if I wanted to read walls of text I'd get a book.https://zaumstudio.com/
Hearing my character speak when I pick certain options, and if it's voice-acted well, it immerses me way more than any set of 'cool text' someone writes.
You might have more options when you use text-based no voice-acting, yes, but that also means there are players who just skip it, like I ended up doing in Disko Elysium.
That's just my two cents.
One RPG known as Disco Elysium felt really poor for me in terms of immersion just because you have an endless amounts of text you have to read and I like to play videogames if I wanted to read walls of text I'd get a book.https://zaumstudio.com/
Hearing my character speak when I pick certain options, and if it's voice-acted well, it immerses me way more than any set of 'cool text' someone writes.
You might have more options when you use text-based no voice-acting, yes, but that also means there are players who just skip it, like I ended up doing in Disko Elysium.
That's just my two cents.
Notice how all three of GTA5s protagonists were male
He said it well, if voice actor is good, i can immerse and connect with my character more since i can imagen my self in that world with that voice, and be like ok this can be my voice in this setting with this character.
I also noticed how all three protagonist were gun-wielding, car-stealing, mass-murdering, bank robbers too.
If the shoe fits...
Online you could create your own character and pick a gender.
While it's nice to break stereotypes and appeal to all audiences, it's not always necessary. There's plenty of other games for that. Could you make a badass game with three female protagonist in the exact same structure as GTA5? Absolutely. But it's okay that they didn't, just like it would be okay if they did.
To some degree you have to let the artist/producer/designers/writers create their game and tell their story.
One could argue.. If i wanted to see a movie i will watch a movie. Believe or not rpgs with silent protagonist are still today the staple of the classic. Most have also stories that are simply unmatched ((see planescape torment)) thing is there was a time that rpg were made for people that love rpg and not for who wanted interactive tv series.
To me a voiced protagonist is just a bargain that will end to have to do compromises with roleplaying and written line. It does not add anything in to the game but.. Immersion is unlike someone believe subjective from person to person.
For players that just skip dialogues i would simply suggest them to play action games and not rpg. This is not a critic it is just that if i dislike soccer i wound never play a sorccer game i would not expect the developers to adapt or shape what soccer is to have a wide audience.
Like for me see my character on screen is way more immersive to be a floating gun with chest arms and legs.
True. Voiced protagonist good. Voiceless protagonist - a cheap knock off game
