Shining Force III: I don't mind silent protagonists

[DomingoRules!]

I've never had anything against silent protagonists in RPGs, and in a way they're charming when done right. However, when their talking shifts depending on the Scenario, it's rather jarring. When playing through Scenario 1, it's like, "Okay, so Synbios is the strong, silent type who speaks with actions rather than words." That's all well and good, but then you get to Scenario 2, and suddenly Medion is portrayed as the "strong and silent type" despite being proven to not be that at all in Scenario 1, all the while your conception of Synbios is suddenly shattered like a pane hurled onto the asphalt. In a way, it's neat that they reveal the interactions between Synbios and Medion between the two games, but during segments when the other character isn't present, not to mention the entirety of Scenario 3 with Julian, it becomes annoyingly distracting. Rather than just accepting the hero for what he is as a silent protagonist, I find myself agitated in wondering what the hell he's supposed to be saying every time that elongated ellipsis pops up, knowing that it's cut not because of a personality trait, but because the game has a wonky standard specialized for each disc.

[Chinagonuk]

I never really classed the hero as a silent protagonist. I thought to myself the .... was there so me, as the player, could decide/imagine what the hero would be saying. This of course is also shattered when you get to Sc2 and realise the dialogue is actually just hidden for no apparent reason lol.

[DomingoRules!]

Well technically all silent protagonists "talk," as shown by them answering questions and such. It's just not shown. Either way, you expect characters like that to speak more with gesticulation, or short, concise statements. Instead, Synbios ends up feeling more talkative than either Medion or Julian, with some of the hugest text boxes in the game.

[Pappets]

I subscribe everything you guys said above. Shining Force 3 is not the type of RPG to have silent protagonists. Maybe we should ask the translation team to make a secondary patch with the dialogues of the protagonist seen in other scenarios. Aside from that, there are those moments where we don't really know what they could have said so I guess we should keep them like it is or we could come up with some ideas.

[Musashi]

There are RPGs with silent mains that I do like, but I do not like the concept. To me it makes the "main" character feel more like an enforcer or even a hyper-competent sidekick. Tends to mean weak character development too.

Seems especially out of place for a game like Shining Force 3 where speaking privileges get passed off between games. It's pretty much my only major complaint about the game.

I'd fully support a project to add Main character dialog to the game via patching, but I imagine that would be a whole new level of difficult for the translation project team.

[DomingoRules!]

I had considered thoughts of such a patch as well, but it would be tough to do I'm sure. Some dialogue is there by looking at multiple scenarios, but much of it, especially Julian's in Sc3, would need to be written from scratch based on the context. Not only that, its existence would occasionally make dialogue from other characters feel redundant since some lines seem to exist solely to summarize what the main character just said to the player.

Speaking of silent protagonists working or not working, a friend has recently been playing RotDD for the first time, and one of his first complaints is that Max talks. Not so much because he was silent originally in of itself, but more because his silence gave his one line in the original game impact that the GBA game ignores.

[Pappets]

Some dialogue is there by looking at multiple scenarios

Yes, only those would be nice. The others, maybe someday someone will do it.

[DomingoRules!]

Personally, I think the hero dialogue should be an unlockable, like the difficulties. As I said in the first post, I do kind of like the approach to Sc1 and 2 of revealing the interactions between Synbios and Medion through playing both games, but it would be nice if clearing the game would unlock full speech for everybody in each scenario since after you've beaten the game once, that initial effect is no longer applicable.

[MCRT]

Yeah, it also really bothered me that you can never see the full dialogues between Medion & Synbios in the first chapters
Normally I do not pay that much attention to the fact if the protagonist is silent or not, but in this case it really is a shame.

An unlockable feature would be really nice, but I remember to read somewhere in the translation forum that this would not be possible due to the available space in the opened text fields or something like that.