COGA: Sharing the Spotlight

[Commander]

Commander's Opinionated Gaming Articles

Sharing the Spotlight

When One Protagonist isn't Enough

 

Hello. It's been a while since I've done this. This article is going to be slightly different as it applies a lot of my personal struggles when learning how to deal with and help balance this type of situation out. I'm no award winning author and merely do it out of a hobby over anything else, but I'm sure you could ask anyone who writes novels, novellas, books, epics, poems, and songs and you likely will hear similar stories come off of them. Games are actually a bit different which ties into an article I wrote a while ago. We do actually need to bring up a game and since we're a Pokemon centered site, I don't think there's a lot of games that people would connect to and I'd have to explain the entire plot and that's boring and a review, not a good discussion so we'll be using a fan-game today. And since I have it in me to play through Full Moon, we'll talk about a different game in a similar situation: Pokemon Rejuvenation. I know this game gets a lot of love and praise. There is one hot topic that pops up here and there due to the segments in Terajuma where the focus suddenly shifts onto Melia over the player character. We'll grind down the key details why this is usually disliked and often one of the biggest complaints on. But on a random tangent and the only time I'll talk about it...

 

Please stop praising the game for map design. If that's why you're playing the game, why the hell are you playing that game? Let me just break down what a map is. The first part of a map is the properties. Basically think of walls you can't go through, how a stairway works, and what you're able to move around on. This does not count NPCs and such. The next part would be the graphical properties. It'll be models or tiles depending on the game. Personally I think 3d modeled graphics catch my eye more than sprites due to the oversaturation of sprites in games. Basically whatever an artist designs in a palette is what appears in the game. The last part is what we call events. These are anything a player interacts with including doors and NPCs. With all that explained, I find Rejuv's maps above average in terms of graphics, but maps feel lacking or empty in all other departments. They're only memorable due to the graphical design. Sure there are some interesting NPCs but that's a dozen in hundreds of NPCs. It's not really out of the ordinary since many RPGs keep a generic design as there's not much to experience on these maps so why put too much effort into them. Tales of games are quite similar as the cities and towns look fantastic and unique but it's so hard to recount their names. Katz Corner in Graces f is the only one that comes to mind. Not really mad about it or anything but I feel so many people forget the event aspect when talking about maps. And with that we go back to our normal program.

 

So let's start with a basic scenario. We have a classroom with a bunch of kids where one of the kids' hair is blue and another is green. Everyone else has black, brown, blonde, or red hair. "Commander, why are you bringing this stupid anime trope up?" Well sir or ma'am, I bring it up because it is not a stupid trope. Something humans like is color and when something stands out, we take note. You'd likely guess that those two different hair colored character are protagonists in this setting. Every creator uses this technique. Maybe it's just the only characters who get detailed in a story and the others are just merely shadows. You should make the characters stand out and probably nice to look at. The characters who play an important role really need to stand out and if someone has to look the best, it should be your main character. This is a good old debate but the tried and true method is to make the character stand out as important as their role is. It's simple and most people do this including Rejuvenation. I don't think I need to go into much detail.

 

Here's another basic piece of common sense: you need to make the characters likable. Personally, I think that's the most boring and unhelpful way to teach people to design characters. It's one of my pet peeves when someone says you need to do something using a generic phrase you've heard time and time again. The implies that either they understand it or are capable of doing proper research do discover the issue on their own and fix it. My way of phrasing it is this: make the character human. That does not mean make them weak or not have powers or anything. It's more like because we can understand them, we can feel for what they are going through and want to root for them. That's the first half. The other half is to make them fun to be around. I think Marvel Cinematic Universe is a good point to look at since those movies are meant for a good time to watch with people. Dante from the Devil May Cry series is another good character to references. Never played the game but that pizza scene made me want to try them.

 

Are Rejuvenations main two protagonists likable? That's actually some shaky ground, but we're going to say yes. Let's start with the player. They're a silent protagonist. They aren't a simple doll, just very quiet yet these leaves some very conflicted issues. The character has a defined backstory but basically tries to forget or neglect it all the time. It's like trying to make Lucas from Mother 3 be emotionless and not a citizen of the city in reality he's quiet because he's depressed and why we never see him smile. It's playing this tug-of-war of trying to be a blank slate to convey the player in the game and yet tries to define and involve the character making them their own character in the story. It's quite baffling the resistance of making them a character when most of the great silent protags step away from the immersion aspect in exchange for making a defined character who does not speak. As for Melia, that's a tale. She started off with some very jarring qualities which were dropped on her return with no explanation. Liked or disliked these were rather important qualities to her character and a writer cannot simply expect a read to simply forget about them. As for the rest of her, it's actually a pretty good idea as she's the hero with an ego blinding her from reality to the point she locks up many of her other emotions to appear what she thinks is strong and powerful. It's a very good setup and even similar to one of my own favorite protagonists I've thought up. At the end of the day, this character dynamic should work in a plot setting. Don't worry so much about silent protags as I've seen stuff with two such as Gwain Saga work out. I love that Youtube series as it's filled to the brim with game references.

 

So the design of the Rejuv characters are fine and the characters are "likable" so it has to be the writing, right? The writing...isn't even that bad. The dialogue is fine even if jarring at points and was better written than most other parts. The scenes aren't even that bad going back on it. Something did change and a lot of people don't like this change for good reason. It's not Melia being the main character or even the driving focus of the plot. That might have actually started making the game even more interesting. It's not so much the lack of control either. It's the lack of relevance. The plot of the Terajuma arc would have nearly stayed the same with or without you in it. The player is an irrelevant force and the game makes you feel that. You have to be told what to do and feel like baggage the whole time. Sure you were a hero, but Aelita or Venam could have just as well did your job since they were there. There are actual characters in the party in that situation some of which even defect or fight against you. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it does normally leave an impact of uselessness on a character. The player filling this role isn't always a bad thing as it all grinds down to the premise of the game as being a simple soldier a part of an army is one take you don't see everyday but could be quite effective (then again I don't play fps so I wouldn't know).

 

So how do you make a good protagonist and deuteragonist relationship? The answer is simply in the question. You build a relationship with them. A lot of them end up in that kind of relationship, but we all know that's not what I meant. Ike and Elincia from Fire Emblem Path of Radiance is one of my absolute favorites to use as an example not because it's the best, but because it's so simple. Ike at the start of the game is a boy who eventually is forced to become a man against his own will. Elincia is a sheltered princess who is helpless at the beginning of the game and the last of her line. Neither of these two were good fits for leadership roles. Ike was the first one to make a step and he rose to the challenge of helping his client (Elincia) get help to get her country back. When they couldn't find help, Ike didn't back down and continued to search for aid in the Bengion Empire. Ike does speak out and almost gets them into deep trouble, but he then learns to control his tongue in front of Bengion's Empress. Stuff happens and they eventually take the kingdom of Crimea back. Ike wouldn't have shaped into the strong leader if it were not for Elincia's quest to retake Crimea, and Elincia wouldn't have developed into a strong leader were it not for Ike taking up the work after his father's passing. And I think this ending cutscene does wrap the relationship up very well:

 

Spoiler

 

 

So this is some pretty big Rejuv spoilers so I'm going to post what happens in a spoiler box and I actually had to go back and reread parts of the game just to make sure it played out that way.

 

Spoiler

So the start of the game Jenner sends you on a quest to save Melia, his daughter. You do that but you don't know that's why you're there and just hang out with Melia in like a date or something. In real life time, that'd be the equivalance of spending a day with someone you just met. You get attacked by terrorist and be the hero saving the day until Melia's OP Togepi warps you out. Melia finds out that her father was just raising her to be used as a tool in the future and she gets mad yells at him, almost dies, warps using the Togepi and dies. Well she faked her death. And something about aging two years that's never explained either. Basically you spend a day with her and she disappears and ages two years. For those of you who haven't played the game, this actually less of an issue as you'd think it would be.

 

So she suddenly turns up into the jail you're trapped with a bunch of people in (things happen, okay) and she is undercover to learn about Team Xen and their plans. She helps people escape and right after your mother is killed by the big bad, she shows up and one-shots the big bad with the turrets disabling her temporarily. She reveals she's Melia to the terrorist after her and then escapes on a boat with everyone else in which the player character locks themselves in a room for two weeks. You then meet up with her and she explains what she's been doing and apologizes for being deceitful and then asks to be alone with the player. She then says condolences for the player losing their mother but...says this afterwards:

 

 

She's talking about later stopping Madame X to save everyone else. This is very different from everyone else as Adam and Valarie are full of regret not being to help the player more. Basically her plan was to test the player's strength, drop them off at Gearen City and the be on her way in her journey...alone. She acts happy to see you, but she doesn't dwell on it long. Unfortunately, they randomly teleport onto an island which instead of leaving to turn around to drop all the residents off (which they are capable of doing) they decide to explore it. Melia basically is the leader ordering everyone around, and then suddenly Team Xen shows up. Basically she acts all spiteful to her dad (2 years and still holding a grudge it seems) and just lashing out on them. They capture Nim and are willing to exchange her for Melia and teleport off. Later Melia will say that "We were cocky" being the reason Nim was captured. Ironically, not learning from the first time. We're not going to go into most of that though.

 

The next scene I want to talk about is the bridge scene. So after all that, she decides to open up to you on a bridge alone because you're her friend. The reason she's so stubborn and stuck up is that she thinks others will think of her as weak if she's honest and open around them. Then basically she misses her friends and that she should've realized Nim was not feeling good and been able to prevent all of this. This would be find if Aelita doesn't barge in and say to get over it and then she does and the matter is resolved. Not much really else happens in terms other than Melia bossing you around, hanging out with Venam, and getting mad at Team Xen until the resort. Tesla tells you to search for her daughter on your own since Melia is stressed and she feels this'll help her out. Stuff happens and we eventually get to this line:

 

 

This is actually the first time somebody has criticized any of Melia's actions or her character. It's simply brushed off since Amber is considered a mindless brat and the story continues with her telling the faults of Saki and Venam with their teamwork. More stuff happens and eventually we are meeting up with Angie and we get this interesting piece of information:

 

 

I'm not sure how true this is since Venam kind of denies it and says it's lies to mess with their heads but there is some truth. Some freaky stuff happens in Angie's Church and everyone escapes with an unconscious and sick Melia. And who do you think has to nurse her back to health? You guessed it, Venam. For some reason we are tasked with leaving the island to find a solution to get into the volcano which eventually Melia is fed up and flies to the mountain alone with a plan that fails horribly and kills you. No, I am not making this up. You get shoved into a pit of lava and a deus ex comes in to undo the screw-up. I can't speak about what else happens as I haven't gotten to that point.

 

I know it's easy to assume I'm just making it look bad but I tried to stay as neutral as possible. I especially relooked at all the heart-to-heart scenes to make sure I didn't miss anything. It's easy to try and make assumptions at which the creator was trying to convey as it is later slapped in front of our face that Melia is scared and feels helpless. Hmm...that oddly sounds like a certain Crimean princess we talked about earlier. I think the amusing thing is if you said the protagonist and dueteragonist were good friends, I wouldn't have believed you other than it was said in game. Now, I would understand someone using the argument that the game is fast paced and doesn't have time to really flesh out an idea like this, but...that's not true. There were plenty of times and most of them are easy fixes that might take an hour in total to do. Maybe 5 or 6 if you really want it done well. Trust me, I didn't pick this to show it being a bad thing, but how it can be such a good thing to a story.

 

The first is to establish a relationship. I know it's said they're friends, but it's not really shown. It's kind of funny considering the reunion with Venam had a completely different reaction. There are three big ones I can think off the top of my head: the lovers/friends, the rivals, and the torch passer. The first one is the most common since it means they are in good standing and have a strong trust with each other even willing to let the other do something risky that they otherwise wouldn't. The second is the rivals who one really doesn't like losing to the other in which they end up making the other stronger or a better person. They do not have to be on opposing sides, but they have clashing ideals so they don't always get along due to that. The torch passer is my favorite (probably not the proper terminology) because it is a simple shift in focus from one character to another. The most important key is that the original character CANNOT retain the main role due to an event in the story in which another character is burdened with the task. Death is the most common reason. This usually helps form a bond between the two characters or maybe even a form of respect. Think of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure in which each season stars a new Jojo as the lead. You can't just say something is that way though and you have to show it. It could be a brofist, a change in characters tone, or even crack a joke and not be so serious. Why is this important well...

 

The next thing to do is to show weakness in a character. Nobody likes a Superman. The weird thing is that this is kind of a misunderstanding of what Superman is. A lot of people don't like him as he's portrayed as this guy who basically invincible and lives with a disguise to try and be human as well. He's just too perfect and people's eyes and perfect can be boring. That's also why DBZ fans get salty every time Goku loses to the Soup Man. Then you have Justice League Superman (the good animation one not...the movie) and he feels so natural. He's the strongest but doesn't feel perfect or invincible and there are some great episodes about him. He literally has an episode where he kicks ass without his powers. Batman really, really helps ground him into a more believable and likable character since the two are good friends (even if the Bats won't admit it sometimes). Melia is kind of in a similar situation where she's just too good and she really hasn't made any faults in the world with its rules. She really needs someone to counterbalance that...someone that isn't the best or the smartest, but still capable. Someone with dead parents who lead to their depression. Okay, okay, it's the player character.

 

So how does this work considering the character is a blank slate? They can't work, right? So remember the events in the past. That was the first time Melia was in danger and a certain someone was there to save the day when nobody else was. That was you. This probably left a rather big impact on her as you were something she dreamed about: a real hero in the making. That was on her mind for the whole time you were separated as she was trying to become like you. You were here role model in which she trusts you so much she thinks of you as a good friend in such a short time. This would require changing the dialogue between the player and Melia though to reflect the relationship. Maybe instead of treating the player's mother like a necessary casualty, she regrets the player not being able to bury the mother but admits she's relieved you're still around and it was your one deed that helped Melia push through her trials and tribulations up until that point. She doesn't want to burden you with her mission which is why she'll drop you off at Gearen. Then we get to the bridge scene and a slight change is that she wants you to lead the group in which you get a few choices to respond all of which get a different reaction but all of which keep the story continuing on the same path. It's really a simple change and most of the dialogue and plot points could be preserved if needed or wanted.

 

Why is such a simple change so important? I have a counter question to that first: why is Persona such a beloved series? Persona is a game with a silent protag which is 50% dating sim which for most of the story you are presented with dialogue that doesn't affect the game at all. Yeah, the dialogue is more or less meaningless. I know Fire Emblem Awakening does get a lot of hate for how meaningless the choices are, but I am kind of glad they included them. While they don't do much, they at least give you a small say in the story. You caused the event to play out slightly different from your choices. Which goes back to the Rejuv scenario. You made a visual difference to Melia which explains why she trusts you so much. You are shown helping and doing things despite not being the main character and that is just far, far more engaging. It also sets up character dynamics much, much easier. Having a character with almost equally importance can do so, so much to a game and even save the story. Believe me, a quiet trainer traveling across a region to save it and become champion will eventually become boring to you if that's all you see and experience. There's a reason the Gen I & II rivals are so well liked.

 

I've been going into what you should do to make this work, but this isn't so helpful to you. The why you should do this is though. Why should you have a dueteragonist with almost as important of a role or even make the player character that role? You don't need a bachelor's degree in writing or even be a writer to know. Characters work better developing in pairs. You will be hard pressed to find many favorite characters of people where another very, very important character didn't have a significant impact on their character at the start or down the line. It also is easy to compare how different they are when looking at Yuri and Flynn from Vesperia. The two were soldiers but Yuri had his reasons for quitting and the two turned out quite differently. We humans tend to make note what is different about characters over what is the same and it's such a useful tool to differentiate one from another. It's a very useful tool and if one gets a tad tiring to see the other can have more of a focus with little risk of harming the story of pacing. You can also do quite a bit such as perspective changing.

 

Are there drawbacks though? Yes, yes there are. Something I didn't talk about is that characters need to be able to stand on their own. That doesn't mean they have to be alone nor need to depend on another to even do mundane tasks. It simply means another character can't defy that one which actually is really easy to do. It's basically the character telling us what the other one is like. It might not seem like something easy to screw up, but casts are often bigger than two characters and it's easy to lose track. You cannot balance a large cast well so don't try. Instead, it's better to make time and use of little screen time quite effectively. You can make a really well done and fleshed out character in 2 lines of dialogue. You can actually do quite a bit with a single line of dialogue such as:

 

"My student...don't...let your ambitions take over...like they did for........me.........."

 

It's pretty simple death scene and probably no longer than a minute worth of play time. The time to build characters can be scarce with all the world building, plot driving, and transition dialogue it's easy to neglect other important aspects such as building the characters. The solution is pretty easy. It's called creating a form. Basically you break the game planning into parts and decide what should be conveyed and experienced as well as developed during that portion. That'll be the characters to focus on and develop. You will then set the other characters in the background. This includes the game plan for the protagonist and dueteragonist since they develop and change over time. Maybe they don't shine and grow in one part but another may play an important impact on one and start a chain effect.

 

I may have been critical on Rejuv's use of it, but at the end of the day Rejuv tried something a bit different than what the Pokemon format which being the first to do something rarely goes over well. People don't like change nor do you have a good form to follow. One person has to make mistakes for progression and for others to learn and improve upon a concept. I know a lot of games are influenced by Reborn but that game pretty much set the standard as the best hard fan-game. You can only have an experience like that once and it really divided the hack/fan-game community in half. The reason is because other creators can take the experience and reactions from that fan-games format and simply improve upon making a better experience. Watch in a decade after Reborn is done people will only look at it as an okay game which has slowly started to happen. But Reborn's style if used won't change that much and likely many aspects will disappear since it is kind of the peak of the design. Rejuv is a little bit different as it's a faulty game which does a lot of aspects which have peaked people's interest which devs who pay attention to the backlash could improve upon the ideas and create an attractive game. Learn from the mistakes of others. After all, Sony did it...

 

Spoiler

 

 

And I'm not trying to make Rejuv look bad or something not to play as it's worth trying out and maybe a new version will fix some old issues. The idea though that the main character role shifts from one character to another is pretty new to me in gaming. I don't actually think I've seen too many games have an outside of your control character drive the plot leaving you more as a spectator. I think it has potential to create better and more interesting plots, but I can't really say if it's what people would really enjoy or see more of. Maybe the form of just going through to collect badges, stop a crime group, and become champion is the number one thing people want and investing more is a waste of time. Personally, I'd love to see the idea played with for a trainer on a journey to collect badges, but design gym badges to be unsatisfying in which you follow the guy who talks about a world where the real strong trainers go revolving the story around underground illegal fight clubs. And the guy shows you around and then drives the story and gives you missions to do. It could be an interesting way to design a game. Maybe you're a simple kid slowly getting wrapped into something bigger breaking the law. That really wouldn't be possible without someone driving you and pushing you towards the darker side of the game.

[Alilatias]

This is rather interesting, and it probably put into words why Rejuvenation's plot doesn't sit that well with me, even though I like almost everything else about how the game is structured. The thing is, being someone who played the game since it was back in version 2/3, the game didn't use to place that much emphasis on Melia. The game got overhauled like twice, as far as I remember, with many maps and scenarios being completely redesigned (Terajuma Island used to be a rather insufferable maze of surfing and Vileplume walls for no apparent reason, the new version of it is not only more colorful but also way easier to navigate). The prologue sequence with Melia wasn't extended until around chapter... 8?

 

As for your final paragraph, I think you're literally describing Legends of the Arena and Postscriptum, the latter especially. Though Legends of the Arena doesn't have a gym system and the real plot doesn't kick in until later in the game (and boy does it REALLY kick in). Both games are also the only fangames I've played that actually question the role of Pokemon in society, and it's probably not a coincidence that I consider both to be THE top tier fangames in terms of writing.

[Commander]

@Alilatias I think the funny thing is that up to Venam is basically the perfect setup to a really good story since it really did nearly everything right give or take a couple minor things. It just completely shifts after chapter 4 (the Goldenwood segment) and while it is improved the mapping, the story kind of still had the same issues as before but now with more scenes. The overhauls brought more good than harm but it is a bit baffling that all this effort went to improve the game when the thing I care about the most I felt got worse. I will defend it as sometimes it actually does do some things from a lore and story perspective right but I don't think those make up for the bad. It's hard to keep track of all the changes so I just assume everything gets redone eventually at this point.

 

And huh. I hear those names get suggested to me time and time again, but I'm going to wait until either one gets completed before trying it out. Generally, I like the game to be around the 75% mark before even picking it up as the dev usually has really refined their skills to give a package that is a great experience and I don't have to wait a long time before only playing little bits of the game at a time. LotA I haven't touched since it used DPPt graphics which I will admit is a tad off-putting but the dialogue in that game from what I saw was great. Postscriptum looked weird but it's on my radar if it gets completed I may try it. I don't think it's a mere coincidence that the protagonists talk in those games. 

[Alilatias]

Oh. LotA is about 85-90% done, the next update is supposedly going to be the final one. The game actually makes use of the DPPt graphics and somewhat generic-looking characters in some really clever ways later on. (Then again, the previous update was supposed to be the last one too, but the developer basically disappeared for about 3 years before coming back with a huge update. Probably got a massive burst of inspiration, and it shows.)

 

Postscriptum, I'm not sure. I'd say it's probably somewhere at the halfway mark right now, but the developer got a bit demoralized with Nintendo ninjas going after Pokemon Essentials.