Character Names

[Sabrestar]

Every time Yahtzee mentions abuse of "input your name" I laugh again at the memory of a college friend who played through Suikoden with a main character named "Eyikeelu".

Maybe, if a synthesizer was sufficiently limited to only being a name, and nothing else, it could work. Especially if further limited to highly dramatic scenes like Yahtzee mentions. Though as people have suggested, any method of "Is this right?" the game tried would be horribly immersion-breaking. Though at least it'd be less immersion-breaking than listening to Yuna desperately trying to tiptoe around not using Tidus the-name-of-her-newest-Guardian-that-she-thinks-is-cute. (I actually rerolled without renaming Tidus in the hopes that the voice-acting had at least recorded a version with his name and a generic some-other-name version. Oh how naive I was.)

 

[Sinbeans]

Reminds me of a gag they did in Shadow Hearts where they have you 'input name' but then mock you for trying to rename the character.

 

[Fuhjem]

Okay, I'm pretty sure Yahtzee is in my house.

My name is Frank, and when he mentioned my name after going on and on about hearing your name in games, it creeped me out.

Then he mentioned Puss in Boots with Shrek playing right next to me.

Yahtzee, get out of Illinois and go back to Australia.

 

[Psyco Slim]

Mass Effect got around the naming problem by having a set last name that every character calls you by. Though it gets weird when your love interest is still calling you "Shepard".

i didnt think so since all me friends call me by my last name and i've never had a girlfriend call by my first name.

 

[Canid117]

I remember that the original Knights of the old republic somewhat alleviated this problem by having the aliens who didn't speak English say your name in the subtitles then near the end they revealed that the name you chose wasn't your real name so other characters could identify you directly like a normal person. Still a bit off at times but it kind of worked. The thing I wonder about is that if voice synthesizers get good enough will the need for voice actors ever drop off completely? It would certainly make some games cheaper to produce.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

The sad truth is, voice synthesizers suck.

Arby and the Chief beg to differ.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL UR MOM BEGS TO DIFR.

I really hope they manage to get a new series of that done.

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

They have the same Nier in Japan, but they have two different versions (Similar to Pokémon), where the protagonist is different on PS3 or 360, but they only released the father one here, because they wanted the Japanese to have a standard JRPG protagonist.

Spoiler

 

[RandV80]

I remember 10 years ago when Deus Ex came out, it had the novel technical innovation of lip synching. Now not only did you have voice acting, but the characters lips moved to match! Such a little thing that went under the radar but now it would be wierd not to have. Personally I'm hoping some day we'll see the same thing with voice synthesizers.

...though not for the same reason other people are mentioning here, so that the game will properly pronounce the name it let you enter. But rather for the flexibility it provides in the dialogue. Because of voice acting, everything must be pre-recorded and scripted allowing for no flexibility in the game. Additionally, the increased cost of voice acting tends to lower the overal amount of dialogue in the games. There will be plenty on the main quest, but less for the more mundane less important things that can help bring a game world to life. And of course you won't have problems like in Oblivion where they had like 2 voices do the entire world.

 

[Callus]

Like by naming the hero "I say" so all the characters sound like Foghorn Leghorn

ROFL which is quite painful for me since I just had a hernia repaired yesterday.

Callus

 

[Cucipher]

Haha. The two games mentioned here, Just Cause 2 and Uncharted, are the two games I thought could be infinitely improved by hiring the voices and likenesses of Danny Trejo and Nathan Fillian respectively

 

[Sovvolf]

I always thought it would have been a good idea to have a pre-recorded list of names to choose from. Two sets would be nice, one for first name and one for last... that way they'd be able to refer to your character by their full name and such.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Mass Effect. It has a perfect balance, IMO, by letting you give your character his/her first name, but keeping the last name constant to ensure character continuity AND that voice acting (GOOD voice acting IMO) could be done accurately.

I disagree somewhat, while it did let you choose your own first name it had no bearing in the game, I don't recall an instance in either 1 or 2 where the name you chose was even displayed.

RPGs are classified as such because one of the founding principles was that you get to name the character yourself, but if there is no point in naming can you still call it an RPG if you include the ability merely as filiing the staple (name, class, attributes, personal history) of an RPG?

 

[Stabby Joe]

While many point out the difference between characters, it seems to me that the western version IS the original version since it's also in Japan along with the teenage version, meaning it was Japan that localized the game differently for themselves, not for us.

 

[The Cheshire Cat]

To me, a big part of the appeal of Saints Row 2 is the whole "Just pick the character you like best and play that" aspect of it. Not just the visual customization, which is awesome, but the fact that you can choose from 6 different voices, that have full dialogue recorded for every cutscene and in-game bit of chatter, and even though the lines themselves are all more or less the same, the different voices all have clear personality differences in the way they deliver the lines.

More games should do stuff like that. Saints Row 2 is the only game I've played that really delivered on the "Play who you want!" idea. Well, so long as you want to play a sociopath.

 

[ucciolord1]

Actualy, there have been a lot of advancements in voice synthesizers. We're very close to the indistinguishable to human speech.

Check this links:

http://www.loquendo.com/en/demos/demo_tts.htm

http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html

When I typed in "Supercalafregelisticexpealadocious," the thingy sounded like GLaDOS dying.

 

[dochmbi]

Dirt 2 does something like this, they have a whole bunch of common names included in the voice acting portfolio so if yours happens to be on that list, NPCs will actually call you by your name when they talk to you.

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

Madden did it really well. They pronounced my name perfectly it made the game a great experience.

 

[silversun101]

So... Capcom inserted a half-way interesting (and most of all: original) character dynamic into what is otherwise an utterly bland and generic JRPG, and then completely removed it for the Japanese version. What? Were they afraid their Japanese audience would spontaneously combust if exposed to new ideas?

How completely depressing.

To me, a big part of the appeal of Saints Row 2 is the whole "Just pick the character you like best and play that" aspect of it. Not just the visual customization, which is awesome, but the fact that you can choose from 6 different voices, that have full dialogue recorded for every cutscene and in-game bit of chatter, and even though the lines themselves are all more or less the same, the different voices all have clear personality differences in the way they deliver the lines.

More games should do stuff like that. Saints Row 2 is the only game I've played that really delivered on the "Play who you want!" idea. Well, so long as you want to play a sociopath.

Hell yes to Saints Row 2! Still one of my all time favorite games to come out of the current gen platforms. My gf at the time made a character that looked exactly like her (it was eery), I made one that looked exactly like me, then we spent the good part of that week blowing the hell out of Stillwater together. One of my best gaming experiences in recent memory.

 

[Enigma6667]

I personally love the option to change someone's name to Twattycake or Fagballs for comedic value, but for immersing us into the story, it's pretty half-assed.

Mass Effect was the only game to do it right, though. They said the main character's name no matter what you changed it to. His last name, however, is gonna remain as "Shepard", so they refer to him as "Shepard", "Commander", or "Commander Shepard", while still being able to giggle at the fact that you named your character "Vagina-Nipples".

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

Am I the only one that thinks it's ridiculously funny and a little depressing that Square Enix apparently thinks the only thing holding them back in the Western market is the muscle mass of their protagonist?

I'm beginning to think that Jun Takeuchi is right: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100722-Capcom-Producer-Japanese-Industry-Has-No-Hope-in-Hell

Name a popular western action game where the main character isn't just a bodybuilder who has lost his gym that doesn't take all it's gameplay influence from japanese games and I may reconsider that westerners just want either muscles or floating hands with weaponry (because every character who isn't muscles has no personality) .