I get it, blank slate, but he's not entirely that either. He has a voice actor, that only says a little. He saved the girl in the altercation before he gets sent off and you don't have a choice there.

I didn't like it in the p4 endurance run sometimes for similar reasons that the other characters treat you like this awesome leader and you're cool and smart and a friend but "you" barely say anything or hear anything. Link syndrome but link syndrome in a game with thousands of lines of dialogue and a good amount of them voiced. The other characters have lots of emotive facial expressions, 2d, and character animation, 3D; your character has almost nothing.

It's a nitpick. I'm 50 hours in and love the game, I just feel like the generic silent protagonist for the player isn't as fun to me as a Geralt or something. Not saying how persona does it is worse, I just personally have would like it the other way

Considering how much I dislike P4's Yu Narukami compared to game "Yu Narukami" in all the media where they gave him a personality I'm glad they stuck with the semi-silent protagonist. Yeah, the main character has a degree of personality that is his own, and I like that, but at least this way I can still roleplay him that molds him closer toward the direction I like.

I don't have anything against talky main characters, characters like Geralt are great, but for Persona specifically I kinda hope they never go that route. At least not as they currently are.

I kind of wish they give the protagonists in these games some more elaborate or longer responses, cause they can seem pretty damn boring, especially when everyone else is talking up a storm.

He's not silent. You get to pick from several different responses rather often. That's not silent, they just didn't voice everything he might say.

I do wish they had voiced him more often, or else just ditch picking most responses because so few of them actually matter, but he's not silent.

@justin258: but he doesn't speak on his own and he doesn't have responses often at all. If you want to debate semantics on silent to basically silent fine, but you go through a text chat with five friends all spamming and your character says "ok, that'll work" and everyone freaks out"see leader agrees it'll be an awesome plan!"

It's a nitpick from one of my favorite games in a long time.

I agree. They already gave him a voice for this game. He speaks a sentence or two in cutscenes. You hear him speak whenever you pull up detective vision. I know what he sounds like. Whenever you reply to someone, it's 3 or 4 words at most. Just have him voice the few dozen lines he says.

Having him be more involved in the conversation by giving more detailed responses or simply more responses would have helped too. Joker just stands there as the conversation goes on without him. He is supposed to be their leader but apparently, all a leader needs to say is "Let's do this!"

@vortextk: I think there's still a big difference between truly silent and simply a protagonist that doesn't speak the lines you pick. There are plenty of examples of truly silent protagonists in JRPGs past and there's really nothing you can to do to shape their character, unless you're going the extra mile to create a full head canon without any support from the game.

The difference with a game like Persona is that they regularly give you dialogue choices to shape a personality onto that character that feels more personal. Even it doesn't directly affect the story, there's enough variety in the tone of those responses that one person's view of the character may differ from the other. Perhaps someone picks all the altruistic choices and sees him as the nicest guy ever, while another picks all the snarky or jokey answers and views him with a lot more attitude or edge.

It's why I can like game Yu Narukami or the ER's Charlie but not anime or P4: Arena Yu, who spends too much time obnoxiously droning on about friendship. Even if their actions are the same, the kind of choices I picked formed a different (and more interesting from my perspective) personality than the one that was a so-called "real character".

I think there's definitely ways they could improve this without going fully voiced and a predefined personality though. More involved dialogue and interactions would be just fine.

@zeik: I think it's weird you brought up anime-Yu as a negative, because that guy is the best adaptation of a silent protagonist I've seen and I like him a lot. He was a very unusual main character for what's pretty much a shonen anime despite him caring about the regular friendship stuff. I suppose that's where the different choices you made as him come in. I felt like they took the decisions I had made and then wrote an interesting, always serious(but in a funny way), quiet and caring guy around it. I especially appreciated the added episode where he imagines life without his friends in Inaba and is afraid of the abandonment, both because he likes them and he likes the person he is around them. It's relatable as a person who grew very fond of the Persona 4 characters.

Having said that, that's the kind of character that I have no idea how you'd change in the game. In my case, he was almost exactly as I imagined him from the way I played, just better.

@redhotchilimist: I suppose I should admit something, I'm basing my opinion much more on his depiction in the Arena games instead of the anime, since I only half watched it once and it didn't leave much of an impression compared to the game. But I do remember his depiction in Arena's story being super bland and unsatisfying. I can't comment on whether the anime was better without rewatching it.

It's a shame too, he's got a pretty cool voice, it just barely gets used.

I think that while operating under the guise of Joker it would have been a great chance to loosen the silent protagonist leash. Let the student life version be the standard player avatar but the showy leader of the Phantom Thieves should act the part!

I hate silent protagonists. I can't think of a game that was better because of a silent protagonist. I wish they'd voice all the characters more honestly but the protagonist often just feels like he's getting talked at. The choices are so generic and most of the time lead to the same dialogue that they're almost pointless.

He doesn't need to be a real character and that kind of goes against what the game is doing, but I understand about the voice.

There's an actor there. Why not use him? I don't know. Doesn't really bother me though.

@zeik: Oh, I'll sign off on that. I'm a big fan, but I couldn't tell you a thing about the Persona 4 fighting game's story. Maybe it gets better later, but I played through a few of the main characters' stories and it's either completely bland(Chie, Yu) or a very flanderized version of their character(Kanji is so dumb he thinks it's all a dream).

The thing that makes me laugh is the group texts. Everyone is going back and forth with these long chats, sharing info and jokes out the wazoo, everyone taking turns, having fun, being serious, discussions all of it. And then you chime in right at the end with

"I agree".

And the chat ends. I just imagine in real life everyone else in that chat would be like "ffs this guy must have us on mute he never says anything". "does he even read what we're saying?"

I agree. I love this series, but the way they handle the main character has never been my favorite thing. The other characters always treat the protagonist like they're the best leader and friend ever, but they do nothing to deserve such praise. Everyone else comes up with the plans and ideas and the "leader" essentially says "OK, let's do it." Everyone else does the thinking and he just gives them permission to proceed. It just makes the protagonist feel like a passive observer in the majority of the group scenes because they barely contribute to the discussion, and what few contributions are there are nothing but fluff. I'd gladly give up the agency to make a meaningless dialogue choice every ten minutes if the main character was actually a character.

On the topic of dialogue choices, even those discourage role playing because, at least in terms of the social links/confidants, there are right and wrong answers. You can't role play here because there is always a correct response and you're punished for choosing the wrong ones. It just amounts to you agreeing with the other person whether you actually do or not, because you need those musical note points. The infrequency of the dialogue options also makes the majority of the s-link scenes play out like monologues by the other character with the protagonist occasionally chiming in to agree with them. At rank 10 the characters always thank the main character for helping them find their true purpose or work out their issues, but in most cases all he did was listen to them a bunch and then occasionally spew platitudes or cheer them up.

I'm generally not a fan of games stories where the player character is constantly revered and worshiped by all the other characters for being so great and amazing. It always feels like pandering to the player's ego. It's a problem I consistently have with Bioware stories as well, despite loving most of their games. It's especially frustrating in Persona because it's entirely unearned. Everyone always talks about how great the protagonist is, but outside of combat they do absolutely nothing to earn that reputation.

As much as it's not the best entry in the series (largely because it's combat focused without any of the social sim elements), I actually think "The Answer" portion of Persona 3 handled the protagonist the best of all the games. Aigis was an existing character with a voice, and they didn't take that away from her. She has her own agency and personality, and she speaks during all the story scenes just as she did in the main game when she wasn't the protagonist. During the optional, non-voiced dialogue you can make choices like you always do, but during the story Aigis is an independent character. I'm sure things would have been tricky if "The Answer" had s-links, but I still really like the way they handled the protagonist within the story.

You can't have the wildcard ability if you have any sort of personality whatsoever

@ll_exile_ll: I mostly like how these games handle the protagonists (I like the amount of voice acting/personality P5's main has), but the other characters' praise can get absurd at times. That's what I liked about P3 having older students calling shots, it wasn't just about you.

@gerrid: That is accurate to how I text though to be fair

Aigis has the wild card ability and a defined personality/voice.

Aigis is fortunate that her time to shine as protagonist took place in the same game otherwise you have to sacrifice anything fun about your character.

Poor Maya.

You Jelly?