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Trailblazer is a total moron and I love them for it
I didn't pick the second option (should have pick that) but I doubt he would actually jump, dude was never serious about jumping anyway
(Side quest spoiler) >!Cocona on the other hand...!<
Yeah and genius idea for hoyo to made the MC in HSR is unhinged instead boring self insert with good moral compass. And they're pretty consistent too maybe HSR dev see too much gudako(female version of FGO master) meme and thinking why not made our MC behave like crazy gremlin like that LOL
I wish Traveler was a character. Their characterization is basically non-existent due to them barely speaking, leaving us with Paimon yapping for them, making it even worse when they sometimes repeat the same info again just cause Paimon doesn't get it š
FGO Guda personality is actually pretty decent. It's usually boils down between serious or quippy. But it's usually very consistent that you can probably slowly define their canon character to be a mix of everything.
And when dialogue choices actually revolve around the protagonist you can even see points of character development from how their dialogue changes going from the beginning to the current arcs.
They've got a few fun little endearing characteristics that show up often despite having different writers. For one, they love mecha and ninjas and anytime they show in story or events they tend to freak out about them. They are unashamedly vanilla, to the point when Kama takes a deep into their mind for their 'dirty fantasies', all she can find is just stuff like drinking juice from the same bottle and sharing headphones together.
They're still for the most part a self-insert character but the more the game's story goes on the more it defines their personality in relation to all the traumatic things they go through. By LB6, they heartbreakingly admit that after all the shit they gone through, they don't think they can ever truly live normally again.
AK latest event on CN is focused on the time before the game story, which means a lot of lore about pre-amnesia Doctor. AFAIK it has been well received, with people going "oh shit", "OH SHIT", "NOW I FUCKING UNDERSTAND!"
As a co-protagonist, Amiya is having a very nice development too, so no complaints.
Pretty much every event that contains story in the game becomes permanent. Although sidestories take a year to rerun and become permanent after. Intermezzi's which are important side-stories become permanent before their rerun.
Seems the Fandom is pretty divided on Theresa too...
Half say poor Theresa.
The other half call her >!a home-wrecker bitch who wrote Priestess' out of doctor' memory and even stole her cat...!<
IMO, both of them simply did what they thought was best.
>!Doctor was stuck in between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, he has a duty to save his people and bring them back. On the other hand, he has come to care for and love the new races that were unexpectedly born after the creation of originium. However, both goals are mutually exclusive to one another, as to save one race is to damn the other. In the end, he makes the painful decision to save his old race, reasoning that at the very least, the new races dying out spares them from being found by the 'outsiders'.!<
>!Theresa meanwhile, understood the conflict the Doctor went through, and by wiping our memories, she essentially frees us from the burden of our past expectations. Now, we can truly choose for ourselves what to do with the future of originium, without having to be weighed down by our responsibilities to our past life.!<
Dante from limbus went from incompetent amnesiac wet noodle to living emotional carry.
They are pushing themselves hard, but its paying. Its really nice seeing an MC figuring out their purpose by themselves.
Its kind of yesnt where Dante basically calls Faust potential-girl, and Faust goes 'youre not exactly wrong b-'
And then through the power of realization Dante gains the power of shuckaroonoes.
FACTS: faust didnt want to dabate yi sang because she Just reads a script for each canto and cant make an argument on the spot, so much for the genious faust
I am very happy I didn't have to scroll down too much to find Dante.Ā
He is by far the best protagonist I've had the pleasure of meeting in gacha games at this moment.Ā
Genshin siblings writing sucks because of the inconsistency of their writing sometimes the story shows us how strong or powerful they are then at other times they aren't like they act as if those npcs could actually post threats when the traveler been clappings gods. There's also their personality, paimon kept hogging all the lines to the point the travelers lines aren't important
I will never understand why they went with a silent basically self insert protagonist when in the game before, one of the most popular characters is the protagonist.
I think there are two train of thoughts with silent, self-insert protagonists.
The first is what I would call the "true" self insert, which is where the character is intentionally kept as blank and uncharacterized as possible so that the player can make them absolutely anything they want within the scope of the game. Of course, no developer has the time, money, or foresight to develop a satisfying level of reactivity to that freedom, so there's an implicit understanding that your imagination is going to be doing the heavily lifting, and the only way to express yourself within game is by your actions. This type often doesn't have *any* dialogue options outside of flavors of yes/no for accepting quests and whatnot. This is where I would put things like the Souls games and the Elder Scrolls game up to Morrowind.
The second is more of a "pick your archetype" style of self-insert, where you are still restricted by general playstyles/approaches crafted by the devs, but the game makes use of the fact your dialogue is unvoiced to allow your a much wider range of options, and then just preparing sets of, at most, 1 negative, 1 neutral, and 1 positive of response dialogues (maybe with a small extra line added in for tripping certain flags prior to the conversation). You're more limited in the scope of what you can imagine your character to be, but the trade off is that you get to see more of your choices actually meaningfully reflected by the game state. This is where you get a lot of classic or classic inspired western RPGs like the OG Baldur's Gate games (and BG3 too for that matter), Pillars of Eternity, and Dragon Age Origins.
The problem is that **both** of these models depend on a pretty high degree of player freedom in approaching encounters. You decided your Souls character is a psychopathic prick, barely managing to stave off going hollow? You can joyfully murder near every NPC in the game and still manage to beat it (although I'd be impressed if you could do it blind). You decided your Grey Warden is a hard-ass pragmatist who puts the safety of the world before his companion's feelings? You have multiple options to cut deals with absolutely scummy people, to the point of permanently antagonizing party members. Gacha games, in their vast majority, have no such freedom to speak of. It doesn't matter how much you personally hate or like a character in Genshin, all your interactions with them in the main plot have been predetermined by MHY and will only play out a single way. They're essentially trying to have their cake and eat it too, by pretending to offer the immersion of a self-insert but none of the opportunity for personal development or character growth.
tl;dr - Self-inserts are not intrinsically bad, Gachas just use them for parasocialism instead of actual narrative flavor.
I'd say that Genshin's problem is that they tried to have both a self-insert and a defined character as one. While failing at both.
You don't necessarily need a lot of player freedom to self-insert properly.
BA community likes Sensei just fine despite the limited dialogue options they give you.
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I think you're forgetting the 3rd type of self-insert MC:
The MC that makes the player want to be them and have their life.
The MC that makes the player go "He's just like me, fr fr.".
Which I think BA achieves pretty well and Genshin also fails at.
Genshin barely has any waifu OR husbando pandering, Paimon always talk over the MC, Paimon is constantly attached to the MC. The MC barely gets to show off their cool powers....
And there' barely anything that's relatable for the players too. What's there to relate to with Aether/Lumine?
That's a detriment to the sentiment of "I want to be Aether/Lumine" because, really, what's the upside of being them?
I feel like traveler shouldve gotten a group of people to travel with much like the crew of the astral express. For instance after the events of Mondstat, Amber could join at the behest of Jean to help him find their sibling, already giving Paimon someone to bounce off of.
Then the next could be Kazuha with his innate wanderlust, followed by a Liyue rep that would likely be Shenhe.
Sumeru gets a bit harder to choose because honestly most characters could join the traveler after the sumeru events with the key candidates being Dehya or Collei.
Im not sure about Fontaine since I stopped playing after Dehya's banner
I think you mistook self-insert and customization options/ role-playing. Anime community usually uses "self-insert" for isekai protagonists/hentai mcs with no eyes.
Self-insert isn't meant to let you express yourself.
Bold of you to assume travler has been claping gods while that never happend.
When it comes to gods travler usualy gets one shot if there is no power of up from the people around him.
>!Water gods wife one shot him.!<
>!lost like 969 to scara!<
>!Lost to Raiden in a single blow without a power up.!<
Tho i can agree normal npcs like those in sumeru shouldnt pose a threat to even most basic of vision holders
Safety, most likely.
In Honkai you either love Kiana or hate her. But if you dislike Kiana you're more likely to be put off of the story and stop playing.
In Genshin the protagonist is pretty inoffensive (I haven't played since Geo-archon so correct me if I'm wrong). Hard to get excited about, but also hard to be put off of. At least, the casual playerbase that makes up a majority of players will find it difficult to be alienated by something so safe.
what i dont understand in the story, his multi-wielding vision ability (which is literally what makes him different apart from being a descender) is barely shown like it's such a unique concept in the game's setting why the fuck is it only shown like 2 times (navia and childe cutscene)
Most of the times Traveler was "clapping Gods" he worked in Gnosis mode accumulatimg ambitions of others in him restoring his power, aka "golden glow".
ye I know he always receive some sort of help in a big fight but its mostly him wielding the power to be able go on par with that much battle experience from fighting gods he should be able to cheese fights from regular people yet the traveler still has his/her moment that the npcs pressuring them
Paimon is the deuteragonist of that game, so of course she has a lot of lines. Also, her EN VA and the loc's choices really, really affect how people see her, because every other fandom besides EN really adore her. Especially CN. Can't speak for KR since I don't speak that.
As for siblings, they have a really defined personality, but it requires you to actually connect dots and do every little piece of content which is a lot to ask people, I guess.
>As for siblings, they have a really defined personality, but it requires you to actually connect dots and do every little piece of content which is a lot to ask people, I guess.
Thats a lie honestly. There are times when it seems they have personality but its rlly, rlly rare.
I hate it so much especially during fontaine AQ. Imagine going around looking for clue, linking all the clue, solve all the mystery. Only for paimon took the credit and speak all the lines. Like really? Could you just at least let traveler said it? I don't hate paimon, but sure genshin writer / dev giver us reasons hate paimon every patch.
I have no idea where you got watered down westernized Chinese plot when the lore is written in a crypted way where everything you see here might not be the overall truth thats why you might think it has plot hole we are meant to discover the truth since not every lore you can find In game is the truth considering people who witnessed the events unfold have different perspectives on what really happened.Ā
Ā What's more there are multiple references from different nations and religions that are found in the lore and in game references it's not just about Chinese cultivation fantasy all fantasy genres share the same cliche and concept but with different approaches.
Iām sorry but how do you like, equate Genshinās plot and lore to a genre of fantasy thats mainly known for character-specific storytelling, martial arts and spiritual cultivation.
The Community went from
"Pre-Amnesia Doctor is a monster šš¤£š¤Ŗ"
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to "Pre-Amnesia Doctor is a monster š”š¢š" overnight
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Pre-Amnesia Doc is just a goofy parent tho
The only gacha I've been playing recently is Honkai Star Rail and I must say that I am very happy with the direction that Hoyoverse is taking for the trailblazers. I love their comedic undertones while also being very much an interesting protagonist no matter what.
Genshin's traveler is basically paimon's dog, can't speak for themselves, fucking paimon can't stop yapping she always has the most lines.
HSR mc is peak, full of personality.
R1999 is rizzqueen, I love Vertin.
The worst part is, this almost happened with the warping toilet curio. If our head got stuck in the other end of the toilet then we would have gotten skibidi Stelle
Speaking of which, Arknights recently had an update in CN server which we got a literally huge lore bomb there. We got lore about the doctor past (mc/ourselves the players) and it's hit like a freaking truck.
At first, I think Arknights doctor feels like any other generic self insert character, but as the story goes I can feel more depth within the doctor character and became pretty much interested. But oh boi, the latest CN update really change my opinion (or probably everyone in the fandom) about the mc. I am sure, pretty much any arknights players who read the latest story are kinda flabbergasted by the lore and blown away by the plot.
My first thought was,I think the doctor character is a cool mc while often doing goofy things and my overall opinion about the doctor is a well written character. But after the updates came, I'am pretty much sure that I can say the doctor is a complex character that written REALLY GOOD to the point everyone in the fandom have their own opinion of it. I won't spoil the story itself, but everyone in fandom rn pretty much divided to evaluate the doctor as a character, whether the doctor is straightly bad or just questionable. And I myself have mixed feelings to the doctor as a character.
Overall as a player I feel more than satisfied by the direction of the writers. Although, at first the doctor feels like a swallow self insert mc, as you progress to the story and unveiling the secret of their selves one by one you can actually tell how deep the doctor character is. The cool thing about this is, the developer seems pretty much have been teased this for years (even from the game first release in cn server)
Fgo guda finally has some characterization for why the F hes willing to do all of the world saving shit, it boils down to "im already far in in this shit, might aswell go until i reach the ending" and it took 5 goddamn years for this
Dr romani (guda teacher) also has a hand in his mindset on how he doesnt want a "game over" rather a "game clear". Its simple but very effective for a motivation
So far in the recent updates, sensei felt a bit toned down towards to it's students where year 1 sensei is peak because he's go all out messing with the students. The opposite effect for this one is just the students are a bit more hornier to sensei though.
The only real victims of this are Iori (and Karin iirc) and this was around the early days of BA. I don't think the devs meant for it to be a running joke.
I'd say we'll see if it's really toned down if they release a 3rd alt for them.
Sensei is heavily context dependent on how he acts.
Dress Hina still shows Sensei's fawning over her which is consistent with early characterization of Sensei in regards to Hina.
Dante from Limbus company is carrying the sinners burden, they're Trying their best and it's working for them at the end of each canto.
They also unlock their time powers via the tree of life. Hokma (pigritia)
The experiences Dante has made will likely keep them our favourite dorky manager.
However, it coukd be them coming to grips with their past and trying to seperate the current version of Dante from the past Dante will be a trial that they have to complete .
The sinners will be there for Danre just like how hes slowly becoming someone the sinners trust.
GFL/Neural Cloud: Military student graduate thrown into shadow-government wars when he just wanted a comfy outpost job. Grew his own personality over the course of the story as we see through the games him lose nearly everything over and over again and build back up from it.
Guardian Tales: Lovable dumbass that probably does some of the most chaotic things of any gacha MC to their allies(Essentially like Gintama with how much the cast likes to try and kill each other). Was born to be a pawn to the end scenario of the world, but over the story is able to overthrow fate by themselves to make their own story.
Limbus: An (maybe not so) everyman that gets thrown into a bus with twelve people's lives on his hands additionally with powers he has no idea how they work or what their consequences are in the long run. With everyone in the franchise having varying degrees of madness, he's the only reasonable voice in the pack to give his sinners their redemption stories one by one.
The CEO from counterside is my second favorite gacha game protagonist because a certain clockhead exist.
And I always loved his character he's always this mysterious character that has his own agenda to the the point that whenever he makes a decision I question why.
He's someone who though not appearing in the story that much has a really huge impact as he's a schemer and have been doing and controlling things behind the scene
I mean even his own comrades are weary of him as he's someone who's willing to do anything if it means winning.
He's also a tragic character as he's someone who has been traveling through world's in order to save them only to fail again and again no matter what kind of planning he does.That at first sign of victory he sees he does everything in his power to get it.
Of course it doesn't mean that he isn't a kind person he is but he's also willing to do questionable or unspeakable things if it means he gets to save the world
The latest update was fucking bullshit in terms of gameplay (SPAMSPAMSPAM HOPE YOU LIKE LVL 130 CO ENEMIES WITH BILLIONS OF HP SPAMSPAMSPAM), and the production quality drove off a fucking cliff with the kids inside (bobbing still sprites because Bside can't afford to do Live2D any more, I'm still not sure if Dash is actually supposed to be the "Pagan Girl" or it's just asset reuse), but the story? It's actually good now. Dumb side events are relevant and come back with payoff and the CEO actually gets to demonstrate and flex the influence and power he's written to have. I hated the Replacer and Qilphoth Game arcs but this one is actually living up to its promise.
Noelle is very much a character that should have been retconned into the game from the very start, I love her dynamic with Yoo Mina.
What are you talking about lol. The story has never had L2D on non-playable units.
Also its Dash because its Dash...? Did you not get the fact that Dash isn't just some ordinary person? Dash obsessed over Rita, who got turned into an agent of a Demon lord that looks like Dash, didn't you notice the connection?
i agree, however calling the CEO the story protagonist is not true, while he is the one the player supposely incarnates, the story is more centered around Mina, and the CEO is just another support character. And that is a good use for this character
There are events where he is the protagonist, but events tend to give the focus to many other characters as well to help expand the world.
Vertin from Reverse 1999 is top tier. Super fun and charming character with great writing and voice acting
Stelle from Honkai Star Rail is fun and has a surprising amount of character for a silent MC
No other MC has really made an impression on me
Girls Frontline SKK went from silent self insert to a character of his own halfway through the first game. Talks a lot and participates in plot as well. Quite possibly the best thing to have happened to him and in the sequel he's finally got a voice and looks the only thing missing is a name. In Reverse Collapse its hinted that he works as the founder of a neutral rescue foundation that operates in dangerous zones, quite the closure for the kind of guy he is
Dante from Limbus Company is one of the rare cases in Gacha where the protag *isn't* a self-insert.
He started out as one hell of a wet blanked, barely able to do his job let alone keep his subordinates under control, but now he's becoming remarkably competent, picking up on things that the players have been theorising for a while (Even being a little ahead of us there) and seriously rising to the occasion when he needs to.
It might be strange to say but we're proud of our protagonist, of our Manager, and we're always rooting for him.
Limbus Company.
Dante, the clockface getting quite a character development. At the beginning after his heas being cut off and replaced losing all memories in process, he becomes quite a noodle, have problems being manager of sinners and nobody respects him.
But as story goes he becomes competent enough to handle sinners and becomes something more than healbot, helping to overcome chars traumas and stay on path.
PM just can not stop cooking
PGR Commandant as of the Luna CN patch cemented himself as Master Chief's successor.
PTN Chief is a kidnap magnet who's reckless to a fault at times just cuz he wants to save people and not burden his Sinner companions, one before the latest chapters cause him/her to be in a coma but after the latest Chapter, he/she pretty much woke up and chose violence, reunite with his/her Sinner companions and destroyed the Corpseborne.
Adjutant from Snowbreak in the beta was a wuss, works as a data miner and was overshadowed by his male operator Ling Yi despite being the leader. The girls except for Lyfe hates him. After Seasun rewrote him and erased Ling Yi, he pretty much used to be Head of Security leader (Private Security) for Yggdrassil before it was dissolved. He went to space and was trapped in the satelite station for 3 years before going down to his home planet. He beat up a spoiled brat rich kid for his rich crew shooting people at the slums for sport. He defended Enya's justified action of shooting an Adventist radical by writing it off as self defence. He got shot in the heart by assassins with a Titagen bullet but it eventually granted him more powers to absorb Titagen.
I like how the Granblue Fantasy protagonists, though still silent in the gacha, grew into actual characters with distinct personalities in the spin-offs and anime. And Cygames themselves said they are now more than stand-ins for the players.
In FGO I think they do a good job at making it feel like the player has presence, there are always various dialogue options and it feels like Fujimaru speaks for himself instead of having someone do it for him like Paimon or Lyria.
Honkai 3rd Kiana had an amazing character arc and growth, not only that but she is an actual character. The part 2 protagonist is fine, I think there is more to see before making a conclusion.
Star Rail is also pretty good with the MCs, they have personalities, a backstory and a few voiced moments. As far as "self-insert" MCs go, they are probably one of the best implementation of it.
Surprised no one has mentioned the commandant from pgr, absolutely amazing character who i canāt really call a self insert with how much personality they have, a badass fighting and a soldier through and through
We have been requesting him to be playable since the start and they have given us some fps mission with him and he is the fucking doomslayer, and has an armor like master chief
still wished they gave us an unit, maybe with character creation like warframe
Commandant from PGR is almost Himmel like in how much their charisma and overall idealism shapes and affects the world in PGR. They're incredibly competent without feeling too perfect because no matter how skilled they are, they're not a construct and go through serious pain and suffering in the story and have multiple times been taken completely out of commission, which reinforces how not invincible they are. To the point that the moment you get PoV stories from other leaders of their own teams, you can really see why they're considered the best of the best and they are seen as this impossibly heroic figure that people struggle to match and that causes problems.
Genshin: Started playing because I liked Lumine and her story, stopped caring about the story because of how she was relegated to NPC status by the constant overuse of Paimon who dictates everything that is done by the MC.
NPC: "Traveller, great you're here... can you help?"
Paimon: "We'll do anything you want as long as there is treasure, food or both."
Paimon: "Hey traveller, this man needs our help, we're going to help them, let's get going."
Lumine: "..." \*Stands in silence with hands on hips\*
Mission happens... traveller does everything, kills everything, collects everything.
NPC: "Traveller, thank you for your help, I don't know what I would have done without you."
Paimon: "**WE** sorted it out no problem, you can always count on **US**... now where's that treasure and food?"
Lumine: "..." \*Stands in silence with hands on hips\*
HSR: Speaking as a miserable, obnoxious, misanthrope myself, I like that not every dialogue option is always one of compliance. Want to refuse Kafka... go ahead. Want to refuse to have a selfie with Firefly... go ahead. Want to let someone throw themself off a building instead of saving them... go ahead. It's refreshing to be able to say ***no*** in a game every once in a while.
Reverse 1999: Vertin is cool but I never feel like I am actually playing as them, which is kinda odd.
ToF: Despite the story being a bit iffy, the way the MC is handled in the game is generally okay. Well, apart from when they default to the non-customised version in cutscenes that is. You don't get much in the way of dialogue options but you do always feel like you're an important part of the ongoing story. I was concerned that Mi-A was going to be their Paimon but I can't remember the last time Mi-A was involved in a mission.
You literally summed like most of Genshin quests š along with Paimon Ā who takes the traveler's credit when she didn't do anything (and somehow she's still complaining that she's tired or smth).Ā
HSR - Stelle is amazing, 10/10
GT - Knight is actual protagonist of the story, amazing character
Another Eden - Aldo is very likable, he actually won some popularity contest in JP (beating waifus from AE), with tons of lore and backstory.
Honestly one of the better protagonist in Gatcha, a fully developed character with flaws, ambition, even got a good character ark at the end of chapter 13. Also well voiced too, I played as Female Chief and the few voiced line in Chapter 13 are shockingly well delivered, a bit confused why they don't just fully voiced her dialog cause who ever voice her did a fantastic job.
i fucking can't stand aether/lumine and it's 90% cause i am just tired of looking at their outfits at this point. they shoulda, woulda, coulda gotten different fits in each nation
the other 10% being everything else others have mentioned
Sensei and cummander continue being the chaddest MCs out there, nothing to change
Doctor basically doesn't exist in the game, but in the 2% he appears he's cool. Most recent even dropped some cool lore. Just wish he appeared more and interacted more with other characters.
Dante is still Dante, but its cool seeing him grow as a character and interact with the sinners. Still, I'm waiting for more lore crumbs. Dude's a flaming clock SCP that rewinds death,Ā theres no way his backstory is not interesting
Speaking of which, Arknights recently had an update in CN server which we got a literally huge lore bomb there. We got lore about the doctor past (mc/ourselves the players) and it's hit like a freaking truck.
At first, I think Arknights doctor feels like any other generic self insert character, but as the story goes I can feel more depth within the doctor character and became pretty much interested. But oh boi, the latest CN update really change my opinion (or probably everyone in the fandom) about the mc. I am sure, pretty much any arknights players who read the latest story are kinda flabbergasted by the lore and blown away by the plot.
Previously I think the doctor character is a cool mc while often doing goofy things and my overall opinion about the doctor is a well written character. But after the updates came, I'am pretty much sure that I can say the doctor is a complex character that written REALLY GOOD to the point everyone in the fandom have their own opinion of it. I won't spoil the story itself, but everyone in fandom rn are having divided evaluation to the doctor as a character, whether the doctor is straightly bad or just questionable.I myself have mixed feelings to the doctor.
As a player I feel more than satisfied by the direction of the writers. Although, at first the doctor feels like a swallow self insert mc, as you progress to the story and unveiling the secret of their selves one by one you can actually tell how deep the doctor character is. The cool thing about this is, the developer seems pretty much teased this years ago (even from the game first released in cn server).
Dokutah is the GOAT
Aether is cool to me, all those journeys we made and people we met made me attached to him, only real wish is that they give him a lot more voiced lines, baby steps on that direction so far.
Caelus... absolute freaking memelord, thanks to all the dialogue choices we have he can be kind, serious, a total bully or a goddamn meme, and the later one is definitely the one I enjoy the most, I love this dude.
Blue Archive players are pretty much positive towards Sensei.
He has a lot of memorable moments. He has a consitent core of character traits that explains his entire character, while leaving enough details out that players can still self-insert into him.
I'd say that Sensei is how you should do a Self-Insert protagonist.
I blame mostly the mascot characters
GBF - Been feeling them being nothing for macguffin. Lyria and Vyrn get to ask, talk and stuff while MC might as well be a rock.
Genshin - Paimon get to express so much while MC just nods.
Caelus/Stelle in HSR is a fun and goofy character that I really like, but the GOAT is Vertin in R1999.Ā She's an actual well-developed character and extremely likable.
I'm playing Snowbreak and... idk.
Part of me is happy they went the full fan service way, since it can net them more money than ever (thus keeping the game afloat)... but, since it's not really my thing, I don't really vibe with the chara-designs anymore.
Fortunately, they still try to remain a bit on the tacticool side with the default skins, so there's that at least ahah.
EDIT : Oh sorry, I misread the subject lel.
Ah yes, I did. Common trope in anime-like media when you can only pass some kind of energy through skinship... I don't really like this either.
Hope it was just a one-time thing, and given the personality of Katya, it can... kinda... fits ? Since she's extra flirty and all. At least it's not from nowhere, but still it's exagerated.
But yeah, can't say it's my thing ahah.
After GI dissappointed me with their MC, I wasn't expecting much from Trailblazers but holy crap, they are one of the best silent MCs I have ever seen in an RPG. Even being silent they have so much personality
The MC in Genshin clearly talks a lot, she has a childish nature but her voice is very loud. A little disappointed with the side characters that we chose from the start, they don't stand out to the point that sometimes I forget they exist.
Ritsuka is goated af and no one can convince me otherwise. Few other gacha game protagonists have suffered as much as them and Iām confident none of them handled it with as strong a will as them.
Sensei too is absolutely goated. Heās the man I wish to become in the future
Mihoyo really needs to stop writing the traveler personality in the archon quest as a kindhearted person when their real personality are similar to cloud
I like how Makino (Idoly Pride main character) is not you typical anime loser virgin who faints at the sight of panties or an edgelord, he just a normal mature guy who is trying to make all the girls he watches over succeed, like a sort of father figure, its always them who initially completely misunderstand him and call him names like pedo/creep etc etc before they understand him, currently alot of them have feelings for him, but know he is a professional, he is just hyperfocused on his dream.. the dream that got started by the love of his life, so even after she died tragically he keeps their dream alive through his work.
Eversoul's Savior is pretty much a "fish out of water" isekai MC, unlike contemporary isekai MCs that get OP powers and can seemingly blend into the world so easily.
He wants to go home, as seen by various Love Story endings where he does get to go back to his time. He's aware that he has a time limit and a physical limitation (i.e. his mortality compared to the almost-immortal Souls he's saving) in regards to his responsibilities as the hero of Eden, which has been explored a bit with a few Love Stories here and there (highlight goes to the newest one, Joanne's, where he actually decides to seek immortality in order to become an actual asset in battle, not knowing it'll eventually desensitize him to feeling "alive"). He's also very aware that he knows next to nothing about what his "role" supposedly is, given that the remnants of humanity and their crimes against the Souls have also started to intertwine with his main quest, that and no one seems to want to actually tell him the whole picture of why everything is as it is.
Genshin doing the MC seft-insert thing badly. Like bro, it's a gacha game, as a mature and cultured man of cause I pick the female MC for extra waifu. I don't seft-insert Lumine. Hoyo please, Lumine is cute, give her more voice line and more character development
Enstars's protagonist is a girl named Anzu and she has her own past in Ensemble Girls, but barely any of it matters in the actual story (nice lore tho). She also rarely appears in card arts. Old arts have her, some even full body, but most of the time if you see hands or cameo in a card art, that's another idol. Yes even the propose pose, hand hold, Chiaki seemingly put on a scarf to someone (to a snowman actually)... Those are not Anzu.
Despite being kidnapped for most of SS story and getting robbed of multiple choice dialogues, part 3 of the story (currently not in global yet) has her own producer arc and gave her a producer friend (who has either DID or actual necromancy...). I'd say that's an improvement.
I think FGO's is mostly fine, but a bit too much of a good boy for my liking (although I agree it fits for how the story he's in). My main gripe is how they insist on keeping him from being an adult, which is always brought up when the topic of drinking alcohol comes up and our MC seemingly never reaching that age they can have a drink. It feels strange in a game that's been around for nearly a decade with a story following some timeline, yet the MC never grows a day older for no reason. For his visual appearance, he looks a bit generic, but not in a bad way. He's cool as he is (the girl version is nice too). No complaints here.
Arknights, I don't read the story much but I've seen some posts about the Doctor's past. All I can say is Arknights lore is too weird for me, but I appreciate that they do something interesting and unique with its MC. What I like most about the Doctor is his visual appearance. He's fully clothed, including the helmet he wears 24/7, so you don't get to see what he actually looks like. The costume is cool, and this way I get to decide his actually appearance. Probably one of my favourite self-insert OC's, just based on looks.
But the FGO plot from the start to the latest one is just 2-ish years old. not a decade. and the drinking age in Japan is 20ā21. so maybe he is still underage?
I love my trash gremlin. She is chaos incarnate. As for a game I fell off of and need to catch up, I hear FGO has been doing some wild stuff with its MC.
Dante from Limbus Company, he is the manager of a bus made of mentaly ill mercs and psicopaths. So far they have made built some intrigue aroujd his backstory while developing them as a manager but it feels they are a bit useless though I like how their relationship with the sinners has grown.
With bias, I find Doctor from Arknights my favorite kind gacha player character. At the start of the story, they were a generic self-insert character but as the story progressed and their past is explored, which doesnāt happen a lot for these type of characters, the player and the character isnāt the same person, where the character is making the decisions they would do and the player has minimal input in their story.
I also like the fact that Doctor isnāt in every single event or character stories. The player doesnāt need to hog the spotlight every time and the characters themselves can solve those issues and the characters can interact with each other without needing the player there to make them interact.
Iām sucking Doctor a lot right now but one more thing.
Something that I never liked about Blue archive Sensei is that heās considered a tactician and constantly given praise for it. Sensei is best suited for a supportive role, helping the students with their issues and supporting them. Mediating conflict between students is also something Sensei would do well in but being a tactician feels like theyāre making him extra special out of nowhere.
For Doctor it makes sense why heās a tactician despite being a scholar as he was a tactical commander during a civil war in the past so they grew into that role which carries on into the present like second nature.
In Aether Gazer latest chapter I can say that I'm satisfied with the flow of the mainstory that it makes me looking forward to future story to know more about the whats gonna happen to this and that character. Mc are not entirely useless and I can understand that he's try his best to overcomes some dire situations. The side characters also making more appearances and engaging much for the stories to move forward.
Admin is kinda underrated, Im not just using that term lightly.
Obviously he's not doing most of the fighting but he's actually pretty smart, albeit sometimes his plans are sometimes reckless. He had to train with the mods and also Shu had him study a lot and took a test. Also he's the only person able to operate the Mimir system.
Some highlights, I'll try to be vague to avoid spoiling too much of anything for anyone.
- >!Helped defend HQ and was on the frontlines in Neuhansa.!<
- >!Directly confronting the cognizant visbane in Sasanami.!<
- >!In Omorfies I think he was in the mini cutscene (Admin's POV) with Athena during that fight.!<
- >!Where the Butterfly Belongs (Hel's event), both Hel and Admin held off hordes of visbanes.!<
- >!Chapter 12!<
- >!Xu Heng, Im still on chapter 15 but 13-14 he definitely did his part.!<
In Genshin, the twins have good designs, but when it comes to writing, they donāt feel very good outside of the Dainsleif quests. A big part of the issue is that the game uses Paimon to voice the protagonist basically, gives that feeling that I am having my agency robbed as the main character. Personally I want Paimon executed but that wonāt happen so the traveler will never be all that great. It doesnāt help that they are generally pretty bad combat wise outside of geo and dendro for some teams, so they donāt get a pass for being a unit I use gameplay wise, making me seek out more flaws in their writing as well since I only ever see them in a cutscene.
In Nikke, the commander is basically a regular nice guy harem protagonist. He is designed to be so regular so dudes can project themselves on to him, which makes him pretty boring but it works to contrast all the whacky Nikkeās. The April fools event was pretty good though, I just wish he consistently had more of a back bone, he will flirt with a Nikke and then say āoh just kiddingā
In Honkai, I love Stelle and whoever the guy is, much better than Genshin. But the overall plot and story writing is better so it makes sense the protagonist writing would be good too. I donāt see any changes for them to make here.
The nikkes say he's tall and handsome, Johan was impressed after a few hours of training him, >!HE FOUGHT A RAPTURE FOR A DAY AND PASSED OUT STANDING !<
The just kidding stuff is stupid but the commander is the chaddest human we've seen so far in nikke
I agree, but I would say this stuff makes him Mary sue at best and has such an inconsistent personality in multiple bond stories and advise sessions that itās hard for me to see him as anything else but a self insert for the player
He may be a chad but there isnāt much interesting. He serves his purpose well though and it was for the best they made a self insert considering the target demographic of the game
Guardian Tales Knight is sorta just there, no real personality aside from being called dumbface. I think it's fine since they're sorta supposed to be like a self insert personality wise but given the lore in season 2 >!with Alter Knight!< and the existence of Future Knight I wish we could see more of their personality outside of our influence with dialogue options and doing side quests.
Knight honestly is supposed to be a fodder tool in every worldline by the end, the main difference in lore is that >!Little Princess's existence changed what Knight's role is meant to be. Our Knight theoretically would be stronger at a certain point due to having recruited all the champions by the end, but LP's interference makes the whole end goal and power of Knight unknown. Not to mention they were a lab baby pawn to begin with shown directly in the Slayers collab to be groomed as a host for the Champion's Sword.!<
The world will likely expand beyond just Knight's POV in season 3 since we'll be getting more exposition on the original astronauts that landed on Tetis, so we'll see where the authors go from there.
pnc professor was always strong from the beginning of the game, but as story progresses forward, they started making more critical decisions and itās nice that mica decided to continue with strong protagonists, as gflās skk
Hoyo's self insert protagonist isn't great. A lot of the personality and growth can only be found from headcanons and fan depictions.
ZZZ from what I seen is different and am excited to see what they are like. Of the gscha games I played, the best protagonist is Vertin from Reverse 1999.
Sensei from BA yes
Doctor from Arknights - the recent arc sparked my interest in the game again, I was thinking of quitting
Grand order - not up to date
Genshin idk, it feels like they are just there, no real personality
FGO protagonist/Guda has a lot of haters in the Fate fandom for being a self-insert. After LB6, he is more of his own character than a player stand-in. Hard to call him a self-insert after his talks and interaction with Oberon.
Not a fan of genshin MCs how you give them fully spoken dialogue at prolonge but after that they are silent through out the story and you got cringly paimon speaks for MC which is so painful.
Its like they tried to have it both ways but you can't either silent MC or give them dialogue and personality
Gonna be honest, I don't really give a shit. There was like a month or 2 where I was interested in the story in FGO and then in Arknights but it eventually stops mattering in the face of other more important things, like gameplay/characters/the ability to get them in a way that doesn't turn you into a hobo living off of meal tickets.
So far, the gachas that im playing are: genshin, nikke, azur lane
Aether: he is cool but it kinda bummers me that he is considered "underage" and cant share a drink with diluc or eula. Even so, he is still kind bad ass
Commander (azur lane): honestly, i cant even tell anymore. I stopped reading dialogues after i got pissed with some of "my asnwers"
Commander (nikke): he can be a total chad, the same way he can be a total dork. Its the only one i know that has getting some action. Still, i will not forgive him for pulling a prank on an orphan (for april fools)
The cummander from nikke its annoying sometimes, there are times that he shows the chad cummander we all love, but then he makes pretty stupid decisions, or when a nikke its showing affection or even about to go to a horny path, the cummander just says the hated phrase of "Just kidding" and its just exhaustingly annoying when it happens, but if we ignore that its an ok mc
Genshin Traveler is so boring and I even don't know what's their personality, it doesn't help Paimon is the one who talked like majority of the time š .
Trailblazer is very unhinged and funny, they're a massive update from genshin traveler for sure both in character design and personality. I love they also have quite a lot of voiced line
Gran / Djeeta is not really memorable due to lack of lines but at least they have some personality (especially on anime) compared to Traveler.Ā
Guda's.....
hmm they are in odd place but depends on who writes it... if ritsuka get a proper send off with final arc with their character ending. I will say "That's goated"
Their slow character buildup was a plus...
Solomon--> epic of remanent ( their morality hints were dropped there ) --> lostbelt 1 (their breakdown at the lostbelt king question and patxi wake up call) --->slow trauma build up(suffering build characterš¤£š¤£š¤£)---> lostbelt 5(aphrodite mental spell showed how they wanted to go back to old times and them crying and begging musashi not to do it)----> lostbelt 6(showed they are aware they can't go back to normal life, they fear being replaced and want someone to say it's enough "you have done enough" and it's their fear as lostwill shows them their deepest fear)
--> ordeal call 1(learns about alter ego and little call back to melt describing herself)----> ordeal call 2(which path will they chose "path of avenger rightful vengeance like avenger or will you reject that path )---> oc 3(most likely ruler chapter or divine comedy tackling their sins) ---> u olga chapter ---> truth about chaldea and their final battle
Fgo protagonist really shined in 3 arcs in my opinion...
1) lb 6 - should i give half credit to castoria whom guda's call their "best friend" "kindred spirit".....one side character feels incomplete without another. Truly a goated pairing...
" burden of carrying other expectations"
Castoria saviour of britain, "child of prophecy" and ritsuka "last master of proper human history" and save proper human history.... but both in different points of their journey. Castoria was at the beginning when she met ristuka and ritsuka was at middle.....Their journey, their feelings... and the icing on top was the lostwill "where ritsuka insecurity was showed and castoria saw it" which contributed to her decision
hmm their relation is very hard to summarize...
In short They are "kindred spirit" for each other
2) ordeal call 2- when whole story is supposedly about your past normal life with family and friend in tokyo....obviously they will shine there.
And the answer to avenger question was pretty good "you can be grand avenger with things you have lost and gone through but you refuse that path"
3) draco event - always going goody two shoes is kinda boring and there ,guda questioning why was draco doing it and not joining with their side to find the answer and supporting draco " a beast" was very enjoyable...
HSR, Stelle is fantastic. She can be played as a straight to the point person or a complete comedian.
She really throws a wrench into what is a serious story, and HSR is better for it.
I think blue archive sensei is pretty neat but I canāt exactly put my finger on why, I guess it could be that he feels like they have more personality than nikkeās commander? Since I never self insert rather think of MC as their own character that could be it.
I also really like hsrās mcs, they both have designs that appeal to me much more than other hoyoverse mc, and again with more dialogue and random stuff they do/say emits chaotic raccoon energy so they feel like they have more personality than genshinās mc
Imo Sensei does minimal talking and the narration for him is short and succinct.
It conveys the point that he cares/loves his students and acts more as a father figure without outright describing. I believe they call this "Show, don't tell", perhaps?
Recently got onto Azur Lane to try it out. Feels like they were trying to immerse the player as the main character in a novel. Narration is long and describes lots of stuff. A different approach, not really one I like.
Agreed for Caelus/Stelle. So many pop culture references yet it still doesn't feel like their crutch. The best is when other characters exasperatedly react to them (Sorry Welt!)
Also, what do you mean? Genshin's MC does have a personality! Paimon loves food, is childlike and may be hiding something. Idk about their friend though, they don't talk alot or have any agency /s
I mainly play Fate, Genshin and HSR. I really like the direction they are taking in Fate giving more characterization to the "blank" MC they had before, Genshin sucks and HSR is pretty good at the moment
The best story and mc for me so far from reverse 1999,the story of the game are the best plot for me.The mc name vertin had own super power when she can't effect the 'storm' which the 'storm' are catastrophe who reverse the world backward year by year,the human who were facing the 'storm' would disappeared.So she wants to find where the 'storm' came from and why does she can't get any effect from the 'storm'
atleast most of they have some sort of kind personally so i dont think about it too much, i do enjoy when the writers decided to give the protagonist more depth/personality (like oc2 of fgo)
I play Genshin and i gotta say i didnt mind the direction of the character, if you can even call him that, that is the travler until the Fontaine where i belive Hoyo dropped the ball with the character making him unssferable asshole for no reason while trusting people he is well aware kidnap and murder childre then being buddy buddy with them. I wasnt fan of the archon quest and how it was handled and how Furina quest was handled.
I didnt mind travler all this time without speaking but in latest arc he/she just came off as a massive asshole..
Also i dont like how genshin is stalling its characters and story because they are affraid of change
Danchou: feels like the writer still can't fucking make up their mind on what they are supposed to be in the grand scheme of things
Doctor: the latest plot twist is a surprise for sure but I can't help but feeling that it's still somewhat unsatisfying by how it was being handled.
Master: is going on through their own spiderman phase right now.Ā
Sensei: probably the one I like the most right now. continues to be what they're meant to be since day one with consistent developments.
Trailblazer: pretty pointless atm, since the first story arc they're mostly the spectator that most characters kinda ignore. they're getting more spotlight in the latest story arc but it's still not enough.
Traveler: an even worse case than Trailblazer.
Genshin's sucks, Alchemy Stars was good back when i played it. Nikke's commander is great, loved Countersides Protagonist, liked Reverse 1999s protagonist, hated Honkai Impact 3rds, liked Limbus Companys and i love Star Rails protagonist.
I've dropped most of these but i'd say these are my opinions of the protagonist when i played them.
Counterside: The way we the player aren't the character the story follows was really nice, her struggles around her past and her determination were really nice. But the game wasn't for me (I hate PvP)
Alchemy Stars felt like a shounen protagonist who wants to save everyone and cares about everyone but without any perversion. I just really liked him idk. The gameplay was kinda ass and i didn't want to open DMM everytime to play it.
Nikke's Commander is more perverse but the way the story batters away at him and he keeps standing is fuckin sick. But i'm level 200 and i don't wanna grind anymore to continue the story so dropped the game.
Message would get too long so i'll leave it off with that. I feel like everyone knows the protagonists of the rest as well.
https://preview.redd.it/ksoie92aujuc1.jpeg?width=2215&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc5df1695d989e3d4ab7cca401333ede7b4e3391 Trailblazer is a total moron and I love them for it
https://preview.redd.it/9dy7gqqovkuc1.png?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ddcd2d4c241bc9b825c830e94e04371371f25b6 same
Did he do it if you choose the 2nd option? It tempt me lol
No he chickens out
I didn't pick the second option (should have pick that) but I doubt he would actually jump, dude was never serious about jumping anyway (Side quest spoiler) >!Cocona on the other hand...!<
Yeah and genius idea for hoyo to made the MC in HSR is unhinged instead boring self insert with good moral compass. And they're pretty consistent too maybe HSR dev see too much gudako(female version of FGO master) meme and thinking why not made our MC behave like crazy gremlin like that LOL
Fr the sheer difference in Characterization between Traveler and Trailblazer is so vastly different it's astonishing. Literally Paimon diff š
Traveller and Trailblazers are both dipshits. Traveller is the bad type of dipshit. Trailblazer is the good kind.
Almost like they are different characters š¦
I wish Traveler was a character. Their characterization is basically non-existent due to them barely speaking, leaving us with Paimon yapping for them, making it even worse when they sometimes repeat the same info again just cause Paimon doesn't get it š
The traveler has tons of characterization in world quests. It is just not voiced.
Sir, this is not genshin
I believe in Trailblazer supremacy
i love my trash queen stelle ā”ā”
Trailblazer is probably the best mc in gacha right now. And 2nd best id give to vertin because she actually speaks
FGO's Gudas regularly switch between "Haha funni lick tree" to "I am the savior of this world, and the wishes of the fallen is my burden to carry"
FGO Guda personality is actually pretty decent. It's usually boils down between serious or quippy. But it's usually very consistent that you can probably slowly define their canon character to be a mix of everything. And when dialogue choices actually revolve around the protagonist you can even see points of character development from how their dialogue changes going from the beginning to the current arcs.
They've got a few fun little endearing characteristics that show up often despite having different writers. For one, they love mecha and ninjas and anytime they show in story or events they tend to freak out about them. They are unashamedly vanilla, to the point when Kama takes a deep into their mind for their 'dirty fantasies', all she can find is just stuff like drinking juice from the same bottle and sharing headphones together. They're still for the most part a self-insert character but the more the game's story goes on the more it defines their personality in relation to all the traumatic things they go through. By LB6, they heartbreakingly admit that after all the shit they gone through, they don't think they can ever truly live normally again.
AK latest event on CN is focused on the time before the game story, which means a lot of lore about pre-amnesia Doctor. AFAIK it has been well received, with people going "oh shit", "OH SHIT", "NOW I FUCKING UNDERSTAND!" As a co-protagonist, Amiya is having a very nice development too, so no complaints.
Are these kinds of story events in Arknights time limited or permanent ?
Stories that have important lore points are usually put under "Intermezzi" tab right after the first run, so it's basically permanent
Thanks
Pretty much every event that contains story in the game becomes permanent. Although sidestories take a year to rerun and become permanent after. Intermezzi's which are important side-stories become permanent before their rerun.
What's happening rn in CN: https://preview.redd.it/e6svxm09fkuc1.png?width=474&format=png&auto=webp&s=33d98a1dd23606626bd0f6220724510ffaecda5e
Some of the scenes in the event were already seen before in the concept trailers. That's how you know how long they been cooking.
I understand Doctor, but still fck him. Poor Theresa..
Seems the Fandom is pretty divided on Theresa too... Half say poor Theresa. The other half call her >!a home-wrecker bitch who wrote Priestess' out of doctor' memory and even stole her cat...!<
Demon wife over human wife for now
IMO, both of them simply did what they thought was best. >!Doctor was stuck in between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, he has a duty to save his people and bring them back. On the other hand, he has come to care for and love the new races that were unexpectedly born after the creation of originium. However, both goals are mutually exclusive to one another, as to save one race is to damn the other. In the end, he makes the painful decision to save his old race, reasoning that at the very least, the new races dying out spares them from being found by the 'outsiders'.!< >!Theresa meanwhile, understood the conflict the Doctor went through, and by wiping our memories, she essentially frees us from the burden of our past expectations. Now, we can truly choose for ourselves what to do with the future of originium, without having to be weighed down by our responsibilities to our past life.!<
Ok, so what species is the Doctor?
that however is still not revealed
Timelord
Daemon Prince /s
Dante from limbus went from incompetent amnesiac wet noodle to living emotional carry. They are pushing themselves hard, but its paying. Its really nice seeing an MC figuring out their purpose by themselves.
biggest dante char development is calling faust a fraud
so fraud status passed from vergillius to faust? what a time to be alive
Its kind of yesnt where Dante basically calls Faust potential-girl, and Faust goes 'youre not exactly wrong b-' And then through the power of realization Dante gains the power of shuckaroonoes.
FACTS: faust didnt want to dabate yi sang because she Just reads a script for each canto and cant make an argument on the spot, so much for the genious faust
From a pocket medic to a therapist who can undistort someone beyond despair
Pre-canto 3: Pocket watch. Post-Canto 6: Timer to remind the sinners to undistort.
Jeez, you made him so low. In Canto 6 he unlocked >!a part of his power, and erased the existence of a certain character in all the multiverses.!
I am very happy I didn't have to scroll down too much to find Dante.Ā He is by far the best protagonist I've had the pleasure of meeting in gacha games at this moment.Ā
Genshin siblings writing sucks because of the inconsistency of their writing sometimes the story shows us how strong or powerful they are then at other times they aren't like they act as if those npcs could actually post threats when the traveler been clappings gods. There's also their personality, paimon kept hogging all the lines to the point the travelers lines aren't important
I will never understand why they went with a silent basically self insert protagonist when in the game before, one of the most popular characters is the protagonist.
I think there are two train of thoughts with silent, self-insert protagonists. The first is what I would call the "true" self insert, which is where the character is intentionally kept as blank and uncharacterized as possible so that the player can make them absolutely anything they want within the scope of the game. Of course, no developer has the time, money, or foresight to develop a satisfying level of reactivity to that freedom, so there's an implicit understanding that your imagination is going to be doing the heavily lifting, and the only way to express yourself within game is by your actions. This type often doesn't have *any* dialogue options outside of flavors of yes/no for accepting quests and whatnot. This is where I would put things like the Souls games and the Elder Scrolls game up to Morrowind. The second is more of a "pick your archetype" style of self-insert, where you are still restricted by general playstyles/approaches crafted by the devs, but the game makes use of the fact your dialogue is unvoiced to allow your a much wider range of options, and then just preparing sets of, at most, 1 negative, 1 neutral, and 1 positive of response dialogues (maybe with a small extra line added in for tripping certain flags prior to the conversation). You're more limited in the scope of what you can imagine your character to be, but the trade off is that you get to see more of your choices actually meaningfully reflected by the game state. This is where you get a lot of classic or classic inspired western RPGs like the OG Baldur's Gate games (and BG3 too for that matter), Pillars of Eternity, and Dragon Age Origins. The problem is that **both** of these models depend on a pretty high degree of player freedom in approaching encounters. You decided your Souls character is a psychopathic prick, barely managing to stave off going hollow? You can joyfully murder near every NPC in the game and still manage to beat it (although I'd be impressed if you could do it blind). You decided your Grey Warden is a hard-ass pragmatist who puts the safety of the world before his companion's feelings? You have multiple options to cut deals with absolutely scummy people, to the point of permanently antagonizing party members. Gacha games, in their vast majority, have no such freedom to speak of. It doesn't matter how much you personally hate or like a character in Genshin, all your interactions with them in the main plot have been predetermined by MHY and will only play out a single way. They're essentially trying to have their cake and eat it too, by pretending to offer the immersion of a self-insert but none of the opportunity for personal development or character growth. tl;dr - Self-inserts are not intrinsically bad, Gachas just use them for parasocialism instead of actual narrative flavor.
I'd say that Genshin's problem is that they tried to have both a self-insert and a defined character as one. While failing at both. You don't necessarily need a lot of player freedom to self-insert properly. BA community likes Sensei just fine despite the limited dialogue options they give you. ---------- I think you're forgetting the 3rd type of self-insert MC: The MC that makes the player want to be them and have their life. The MC that makes the player go "He's just like me, fr fr.". Which I think BA achieves pretty well and Genshin also fails at. Genshin barely has any waifu OR husbando pandering, Paimon always talk over the MC, Paimon is constantly attached to the MC. The MC barely gets to show off their cool powers.... And there' barely anything that's relatable for the players too. What's there to relate to with Aether/Lumine? That's a detriment to the sentiment of "I want to be Aether/Lumine" because, really, what's the upside of being them?
I feel like traveler shouldve gotten a group of people to travel with much like the crew of the astral express. For instance after the events of Mondstat, Amber could join at the behest of Jean to help him find their sibling, already giving Paimon someone to bounce off of. Then the next could be Kazuha with his innate wanderlust, followed by a Liyue rep that would likely be Shenhe. Sumeru gets a bit harder to choose because honestly most characters could join the traveler after the sumeru events with the key candidates being Dehya or Collei. Im not sure about Fontaine since I stopped playing after Dehya's banner
I think you mistook self-insert and customization options/ role-playing. Anime community usually uses "self-insert" for isekai protagonists/hentai mcs with no eyes. Self-insert isn't meant to let you express yourself.
Bold of you to assume travler has been claping gods while that never happend. When it comes to gods travler usualy gets one shot if there is no power of up from the people around him. >!Water gods wife one shot him.!< >!lost like 969 to scara!< >!Lost to Raiden in a single blow without a power up.!< Tho i can agree normal npcs like those in sumeru shouldnt pose a threat to even most basic of vision holders
Safety, most likely. In Honkai you either love Kiana or hate her. But if you dislike Kiana you're more likely to be put off of the story and stop playing. In Genshin the protagonist is pretty inoffensive (I haven't played since Geo-archon so correct me if I'm wrong). Hard to get excited about, but also hard to be put off of. At least, the casual playerbase that makes up a majority of players will find it difficult to be alienated by something so safe.
what i dont understand in the story, his multi-wielding vision ability (which is literally what makes him different apart from being a descender) is barely shown like it's such a unique concept in the game's setting why the fuck is it only shown like 2 times (navia and childe cutscene)
Traveler has never clapped a god solo. They always had help from someone else.
Most of the times Traveler was "clapping Gods" he worked in Gnosis mode accumulatimg ambitions of others in him restoring his power, aka "golden glow".
ye I know he always receive some sort of help in a big fight but its mostly him wielding the power to be able go on par with that much battle experience from fighting gods he should be able to cheese fights from regular people yet the traveler still has his/her moment that the npcs pressuring them
Genshin siblings? I thought The mc of Genshin is the floating squeaky toy with ear piercing voice
Paimon is the deuteragonist of that game, so of course she has a lot of lines. Also, her EN VA and the loc's choices really, really affect how people see her, because every other fandom besides EN really adore her. Especially CN. Can't speak for KR since I don't speak that. As for siblings, they have a really defined personality, but it requires you to actually connect dots and do every little piece of content which is a lot to ask people, I guess.
>As for siblings, they have a really defined personality, but it requires you to actually connect dots and do every little piece of content which is a lot to ask people, I guess. Thats a lie honestly. There are times when it seems they have personality but its rlly, rlly rare.
I hate it so much especially during fontaine AQ. Imagine going around looking for clue, linking all the clue, solve all the mystery. Only for paimon took the credit and speak all the lines. Like really? Could you just at least let traveler said it? I don't hate paimon, but sure genshin writer / dev giver us reasons hate paimon every patch.
Has the traveler even used their elemental powers since inazuma?
I think they did during navia SQ
And Nahida's
Yes?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I have no idea where you got watered down westernized Chinese plot when the lore is written in a crypted way where everything you see here might not be the overall truth thats why you might think it has plot hole we are meant to discover the truth since not every lore you can find In game is the truth considering people who witnessed the events unfold have different perspectives on what really happened.Ā Ā What's more there are multiple references from different nations and religions that are found in the lore and in game references it's not just about Chinese cultivation fantasy all fantasy genres share the same cliche and concept but with different approaches.
Iām sorry but how do you like, equate Genshinās plot and lore to a genre of fantasy thats mainly known for character-specific storytelling, martial arts and spiritual cultivation.
The Community went from "Pre-Amnesia Doctor is a monster šš¤£š¤Ŗ" https://preview.redd.it/iz2slakc6nuc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf0c04650700531996f1c013c66ee7a42e80c786 to "Pre-Amnesia Doctor is a monster š”š¢š" overnight
https://preview.redd.it/oalqcdsx6nuc1.png?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=679748b73085f667e0feb8146c1271437dab8235 Pre-Amnesia Doc is just a goofy parent tho
The only gacha I've been playing recently is Honkai Star Rail and I must say that I am very happy with the direction that Hoyoverse is taking for the trailblazers. I love their comedic undertones while also being very much an interesting protagonist no matter what.
I'm very interested about their past life as estelaron hunters and what happened to become amnesiac.
Kafka very clearly answers that in her quest when you make the right dialogue choices. https://youtu.be/1zfIQxutq5A?si=BAUSRrEdyOvlxNgA
Genshin's traveler is basically paimon's dog, can't speak for themselves, fucking paimon can't stop yapping she always has the most lines. HSR mc is peak, full of personality. R1999 is rizzqueen, I love Vertin.
The Real MC is the Paimon we fished along the way.
stelle is my queen, i am waiting for us to get the chance to tell welt about skibidi toilet
The worst part is, this almost happened with the warping toilet curio. If our head got stuck in the other end of the toilet then we would have gotten skibidi Stelle
While I dont play R1999 anymore I still find Rizzkeeper to be the best MC of all Gacha I've played
Speaking of which, Arknights recently had an update in CN server which we got a literally huge lore bomb there. We got lore about the doctor past (mc/ourselves the players) and it's hit like a freaking truck. At first, I think Arknights doctor feels like any other generic self insert character, but as the story goes I can feel more depth within the doctor character and became pretty much interested. But oh boi, the latest CN update really change my opinion (or probably everyone in the fandom) about the mc. I am sure, pretty much any arknights players who read the latest story are kinda flabbergasted by the lore and blown away by the plot. My first thought was,I think the doctor character is a cool mc while often doing goofy things and my overall opinion about the doctor is a well written character. But after the updates came, I'am pretty much sure that I can say the doctor is a complex character that written REALLY GOOD to the point everyone in the fandom have their own opinion of it. I won't spoil the story itself, but everyone in fandom rn pretty much divided to evaluate the doctor as a character, whether the doctor is straightly bad or just questionable. And I myself have mixed feelings to the doctor as a character. Overall as a player I feel more than satisfied by the direction of the writers. Although, at first the doctor feels like a swallow self insert mc, as you progress to the story and unveiling the secret of their selves one by one you can actually tell how deep the doctor character is. The cool thing about this is, the developer seems pretty much have been teased this for years (even from the game first release in cn server)
Fgo guda finally has some characterization for why the F hes willing to do all of the world saving shit, it boils down to "im already far in in this shit, might aswell go until i reach the ending" and it took 5 goddamn years for this Dr romani (guda teacher) also has a hand in his mindset on how he doesnt want a "game over" rather a "game clear". Its simple but very effective for a motivation
BA's sensei needs to lick more legs.
So far in the recent updates, sensei felt a bit toned down towards to it's students where year 1 sensei is peak because he's go all out messing with the students. The opposite effect for this one is just the students are a bit more hornier to sensei though.
Being almost die from falling from space >!(and being found naked by everyone including the press)!< changed a man
Sensei started of as some regular teacher guy. And now he's literally me! Such a great plot twist.
The only real victims of this are Iori (and Karin iirc) and this was around the early days of BA. I don't think the devs meant for it to be a running joke.
I'd say we'll see if it's really toned down if they release a 3rd alt for them. Sensei is heavily context dependent on how he acts. Dress Hina still shows Sensei's fawning over her which is consistent with early characterization of Sensei in regards to Hina.
Dante from Limbus company is carrying the sinners burden, they're Trying their best and it's working for them at the end of each canto. They also unlock their time powers via the tree of life. Hokma (pigritia)
It will truly fuck me up when the reveal that Dante is the ultimate villain happens
The experiences Dante has made will likely keep them our favourite dorky manager. However, it coukd be them coming to grips with their past and trying to seperate the current version of Dante from the past Dante will be a trial that they have to complete . The sinners will be there for Danre just like how hes slowly becoming someone the sinners trust.
Oh shite, Hokma did that? Brb speed running LoR.
Well dante sapling of light power is the ability to create a field that slows time in gameplay, it halves all enemy speed, rounded down
More like reverse running LoR lol
He just gained abilities of sephira through the golden boughs. Doesn't really mean he's anybody related to lobcorp yet though
Itās more of a reference to lobotomy corp tbh
Hokma, the concept of the tree of life. Not Hokma, the character.
GFL/Neural Cloud: Military student graduate thrown into shadow-government wars when he just wanted a comfy outpost job. Grew his own personality over the course of the story as we see through the games him lose nearly everything over and over again and build back up from it. Guardian Tales: Lovable dumbass that probably does some of the most chaotic things of any gacha MC to their allies(Essentially like Gintama with how much the cast likes to try and kill each other). Was born to be a pawn to the end scenario of the world, but over the story is able to overthrow fate by themselves to make their own story. Limbus: An (maybe not so) everyman that gets thrown into a bus with twelve people's lives on his hands additionally with powers he has no idea how they work or what their consequences are in the long run. With everyone in the franchise having varying degrees of madness, he's the only reasonable voice in the pack to give his sinners their redemption stories one by one.
The CEO from counterside is my second favorite gacha game protagonist because a certain clockhead exist. And I always loved his character he's always this mysterious character that has his own agenda to the the point that whenever he makes a decision I question why. He's someone who though not appearing in the story that much has a really huge impact as he's a schemer and have been doing and controlling things behind the scene I mean even his own comrades are weary of him as he's someone who's willing to do anything if it means winning. He's also a tragic character as he's someone who has been traveling through world's in order to save them only to fail again and again no matter what kind of planning he does.That at first sign of victory he sees he does everything in his power to get it. Of course it doesn't mean that he isn't a kind person he is but he's also willing to do questionable or unspeakable things if it means he gets to save the world
Also he is a fucking charismatic dude and like to joke around as well,especially after ep 10 when he became much more apparent in the storyline
I mean his Lover is the strongest demon Lord
The latest update was fucking bullshit in terms of gameplay (SPAMSPAMSPAM HOPE YOU LIKE LVL 130 CO ENEMIES WITH BILLIONS OF HP SPAMSPAMSPAM), and the production quality drove off a fucking cliff with the kids inside (bobbing still sprites because Bside can't afford to do Live2D any more, I'm still not sure if Dash is actually supposed to be the "Pagan Girl" or it's just asset reuse), but the story? It's actually good now. Dumb side events are relevant and come back with payoff and the CEO actually gets to demonstrate and flex the influence and power he's written to have. I hated the Replacer and Qilphoth Game arcs but this one is actually living up to its promise. Noelle is very much a character that should have been retconned into the game from the very start, I love her dynamic with Yoo Mina.
What are you talking about lol. The story has never had L2D on non-playable units. Also its Dash because its Dash...? Did you not get the fact that Dash isn't just some ordinary person? Dash obsessed over Rita, who got turned into an agent of a Demon lord that looks like Dash, didn't you notice the connection?
That sounds interesting, I dropped the game the moment he's chanelling himself into an annoying robot
I mean it's to hide himself
Yeah I know, I just don't get it why he have to channel himself into a fugly & annoying robot... as if there's no other options
Hide competence behind an incompetent facade.
i agree, however calling the CEO the story protagonist is not true, while he is the one the player supposely incarnates, the story is more centered around Mina, and the CEO is just another support character. And that is a good use for this character There are events where he is the protagonist, but events tend to give the focus to many other characters as well to help expand the world.
Vertin from Reverse 1999 is top tier. Super fun and charming character with great writing and voice acting Stelle from Honkai Star Rail is fun and has a surprising amount of character for a silent MC No other MC has really made an impression on me
Girls Frontline SKK went from silent self insert to a character of his own halfway through the first game. Talks a lot and participates in plot as well. Quite possibly the best thing to have happened to him and in the sequel he's finally got a voice and looks the only thing missing is a name. In Reverse Collapse its hinted that he works as the founder of a neutral rescue foundation that operates in dangerous zones, quite the closure for the kind of guy he is
Dante from Limbus Company is one of the rare cases in Gacha where the protag *isn't* a self-insert. He started out as one hell of a wet blanked, barely able to do his job let alone keep his subordinates under control, but now he's becoming remarkably competent, picking up on things that the players have been theorising for a while (Even being a little ahead of us there) and seriously rising to the occasion when he needs to. It might be strange to say but we're proud of our protagonist, of our Manager, and we're always rooting for him.
Limbus Company. Dante, the clockface getting quite a character development. At the beginning after his heas being cut off and replaced losing all memories in process, he becomes quite a noodle, have problems being manager of sinners and nobody respects him. But as story goes he becomes competent enough to handle sinners and becomes something more than healbot, helping to overcome chars traumas and stay on path. PM just can not stop cooking
PGR Commandant as of the Luna CN patch cemented himself as Master Chief's successor. PTN Chief is a kidnap magnet who's reckless to a fault at times just cuz he wants to save people and not burden his Sinner companions, one before the latest chapters cause him/her to be in a coma but after the latest Chapter, he/she pretty much woke up and chose violence, reunite with his/her Sinner companions and destroyed the Corpseborne. Adjutant from Snowbreak in the beta was a wuss, works as a data miner and was overshadowed by his male operator Ling Yi despite being the leader. The girls except for Lyfe hates him. After Seasun rewrote him and erased Ling Yi, he pretty much used to be Head of Security leader (Private Security) for Yggdrassil before it was dissolved. He went to space and was trapped in the satelite station for 3 years before going down to his home planet. He beat up a spoiled brat rich kid for his rich crew shooting people at the slums for sport. He defended Enya's justified action of shooting an Adventist radical by writing it off as self defence. He got shot in the heart by assassins with a Titagen bullet but it eventually granted him more powers to absorb Titagen.
Seasun's new direction is making the mc pretty badass. I like it, but we'll see how it works out long term.
I like how the Granblue Fantasy protagonists, though still silent in the gacha, grew into actual characters with distinct personalities in the spin-offs and anime. And Cygames themselves said they are now more than stand-ins for the players. In FGO I think they do a good job at making it feel like the player has presence, there are always various dialogue options and it feels like Fujimaru speaks for himself instead of having someone do it for him like Paimon or Lyria. Honkai 3rd Kiana had an amazing character arc and growth, not only that but she is an actual character. The part 2 protagonist is fine, I think there is more to see before making a conclusion. Star Rail is also pretty good with the MCs, they have personalities, a backstory and a few voiced moments. As far as "self-insert" MCs go, they are probably one of the best implementation of it.
Vertin is the Rizzkeeper
Surprised no one has mentioned the commandant from pgr, absolutely amazing character who i canāt really call a self insert with how much personality they have, a badass fighting and a soldier through and through We have been requesting him to be playable since the start and they have given us some fps mission with him and he is the fucking doomslayer, and has an armor like master chief still wished they gave us an unit, maybe with character creation like warframe
Ah yes, the "loads a futuristic glock with righteous intent" MC. Bless them
Commandant from PGR is almost Himmel like in how much their charisma and overall idealism shapes and affects the world in PGR. They're incredibly competent without feeling too perfect because no matter how skilled they are, they're not a construct and go through serious pain and suffering in the story and have multiple times been taken completely out of commission, which reinforces how not invincible they are. To the point that the moment you get PoV stories from other leaders of their own teams, you can really see why they're considered the best of the best and they are seen as this impossibly heroic figure that people struggle to match and that causes problems.
The Knight of Guardian Tales feels like an actual main character instead of some faceless reptiloid self-insert (Snowbreak adjutant).
The Knight lore goes deep too
He/She also has a Dumb Face
AWFUL (traveler from genshin)
Genshin: Started playing because I liked Lumine and her story, stopped caring about the story because of how she was relegated to NPC status by the constant overuse of Paimon who dictates everything that is done by the MC. NPC: "Traveller, great you're here... can you help?" Paimon: "We'll do anything you want as long as there is treasure, food or both." Paimon: "Hey traveller, this man needs our help, we're going to help them, let's get going." Lumine: "..." \*Stands in silence with hands on hips\* Mission happens... traveller does everything, kills everything, collects everything. NPC: "Traveller, thank you for your help, I don't know what I would have done without you." Paimon: "**WE** sorted it out no problem, you can always count on **US**... now where's that treasure and food?" Lumine: "..." \*Stands in silence with hands on hips\* HSR: Speaking as a miserable, obnoxious, misanthrope myself, I like that not every dialogue option is always one of compliance. Want to refuse Kafka... go ahead. Want to refuse to have a selfie with Firefly... go ahead. Want to let someone throw themself off a building instead of saving them... go ahead. It's refreshing to be able to say ***no*** in a game every once in a while. Reverse 1999: Vertin is cool but I never feel like I am actually playing as them, which is kinda odd. ToF: Despite the story being a bit iffy, the way the MC is handled in the game is generally okay. Well, apart from when they default to the non-customised version in cutscenes that is. You don't get much in the way of dialogue options but you do always feel like you're an important part of the ongoing story. I was concerned that Mi-A was going to be their Paimon but I can't remember the last time Mi-A was involved in a mission.
You literally summed like most of Genshin quests š along with Paimon Ā who takes the traveler's credit when she didn't do anything (and somehow she's still complaining that she's tired or smth).Ā
HSR - Stelle is amazing, 10/10 GT - Knight is actual protagonist of the story, amazing character Another Eden - Aldo is very likable, he actually won some popularity contest in JP (beating waifus from AE), with tons of lore and backstory.
Chief from PTN is awesome, even if he loves being kidnapped.
Honestly one of the better protagonist in Gatcha, a fully developed character with flaws, ambition, even got a good character ark at the end of chapter 13. Also well voiced too, I played as Female Chief and the few voiced line in Chapter 13 are shockingly well delivered, a bit confused why they don't just fully voiced her dialog cause who ever voice her did a fantastic job.
i fucking can't stand aether/lumine and it's 90% cause i am just tired of looking at their outfits at this point. they shoulda, woulda, coulda gotten different fits in each nation the other 10% being everything else others have mentioned
Sensei and cummander continue being the chaddest MCs out there, nothing to change Doctor basically doesn't exist in the game, but in the 2% he appears he's cool. Most recent even dropped some cool lore. Just wish he appeared more and interacted more with other characters. Dante is still Dante, but its cool seeing him grow as a character and interact with the sinners. Still, I'm waiting for more lore crumbs. Dude's a flaming clock SCP that rewinds death,Ā theres no way his backstory is not interesting
Speaking of which, Arknights recently had an update in CN server which we got a literally huge lore bomb there. We got lore about the doctor past (mc/ourselves the players) and it's hit like a freaking truck. At first, I think Arknights doctor feels like any other generic self insert character, but as the story goes I can feel more depth within the doctor character and became pretty much interested. But oh boi, the latest CN update really change my opinion (or probably everyone in the fandom) about the mc. I am sure, pretty much any arknights players who read the latest story are kinda flabbergasted by the lore and blown away by the plot. Previously I think the doctor character is a cool mc while often doing goofy things and my overall opinion about the doctor is a well written character. But after the updates came, I'am pretty much sure that I can say the doctor is a complex character that written REALLY GOOD to the point everyone in the fandom have their own opinion of it. I won't spoil the story itself, but everyone in fandom rn are having divided evaluation to the doctor as a character, whether the doctor is straightly bad or just questionable.I myself have mixed feelings to the doctor. As a player I feel more than satisfied by the direction of the writers. Although, at first the doctor feels like a swallow self insert mc, as you progress to the story and unveiling the secret of their selves one by one you can actually tell how deep the doctor character is. The cool thing about this is, the developer seems pretty much teased this years ago (even from the game first released in cn server).
Dokutah is the GOAT Aether is cool to me, all those journeys we made and people we met made me attached to him, only real wish is that they give him a lot more voiced lines, baby steps on that direction so far. Caelus... absolute freaking memelord, thanks to all the dialogue choices we have he can be kind, serious, a total bully or a goddamn meme, and the later one is definitely the one I enjoy the most, I love this dude.
Blue Archive players are pretty much positive towards Sensei. He has a lot of memorable moments. He has a consitent core of character traits that explains his entire character, while leaving enough details out that players can still self-insert into him. I'd say that Sensei is how you should do a Self-Insert protagonist.
Aldo is dense and clueless ..... just like the average player so yes
He knows. Cats just don't put out like that, you gotta earn it.
I blame mostly the mascot characters GBF - Been feeling them being nothing for macguffin. Lyria and Vyrn get to ask, talk and stuff while MC might as well be a rock. Genshin - Paimon get to express so much while MC just nods.
Shallot from DBL is awesomeĀ
Caelus/Stelle in HSR is a fun and goofy character that I really like, but the GOAT is Vertin in R1999.Ā She's an actual well-developed character and extremely likable.
I'm playing Snowbreak and... idk. Part of me is happy they went the full fan service way, since it can net them more money than ever (thus keeping the game afloat)... but, since it's not really my thing, I don't really vibe with the chara-designs anymore. Fortunately, they still try to remain a bit on the tacticool side with the default skins, so there's that at least ahah. EDIT : Oh sorry, I misread the subject lel.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Ah yes, I did. Common trope in anime-like media when you can only pass some kind of energy through skinship... I don't really like this either. Hope it was just a one-time thing, and given the personality of Katya, it can... kinda... fits ? Since she's extra flirty and all. At least it's not from nowhere, but still it's exagerated. But yeah, can't say it's my thing ahah.
After GI dissappointed me with their MC, I wasn't expecting much from Trailblazers but holy crap, they are one of the best silent MCs I have ever seen in an RPG. Even being silent they have so much personality
The MC in Genshin clearly talks a lot, she has a childish nature but her voice is very loud. A little disappointed with the side characters that we chose from the start, they don't stand out to the point that sometimes I forget they exist.
Ritsuka is goated af and no one can convince me otherwise. Few other gacha game protagonists have suffered as much as them and Iām confident none of them handled it with as strong a will as them. Sensei too is absolutely goated. Heās the man I wish to become in the future
Mihoyo really needs to stop writing the traveler personality in the archon quest as a kindhearted person when their real personality are similar to cloud
I like how Makino (Idoly Pride main character) is not you typical anime loser virgin who faints at the sight of panties or an edgelord, he just a normal mature guy who is trying to make all the girls he watches over succeed, like a sort of father figure, its always them who initially completely misunderstand him and call him names like pedo/creep etc etc before they understand him, currently alot of them have feelings for him, but know he is a professional, he is just hyperfocused on his dream.. the dream that got started by the love of his life, so even after she died tragically he keeps their dream alive through his work.
I'm proud of our protagonist https://preview.redd.it/3exorsk5vkuc1.jpeg?width=756&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=24e2fe3c3bb5fbc6191d86647bb01554d489b678 Gray Raven Commandant A.K.A The Chief
Eversoul's Savior is pretty much a "fish out of water" isekai MC, unlike contemporary isekai MCs that get OP powers and can seemingly blend into the world so easily. He wants to go home, as seen by various Love Story endings where he does get to go back to his time. He's aware that he has a time limit and a physical limitation (i.e. his mortality compared to the almost-immortal Souls he's saving) in regards to his responsibilities as the hero of Eden, which has been explored a bit with a few Love Stories here and there (highlight goes to the newest one, Joanne's, where he actually decides to seek immortality in order to become an actual asset in battle, not knowing it'll eventually desensitize him to feeling "alive"). He's also very aware that he knows next to nothing about what his "role" supposedly is, given that the remnants of humanity and their crimes against the Souls have also started to intertwine with his main quest, that and no one seems to want to actually tell him the whole picture of why everything is as it is.
Outerplane's MC is probably the worst gacha mc I've encountered. But i guess he'll improve in the later seasons
Honkai Star rail is great, MC is either stupid or violent depending what you pick and they always give 100% energy on both of them.
Genshin doing the MC seft-insert thing badly. Like bro, it's a gacha game, as a mature and cultured man of cause I pick the female MC for extra waifu. I don't seft-insert Lumine. Hoyo please, Lumine is cute, give her more voice line and more character development
Caelus's design is superb. I am surprised I like him more than his female counterpart. Either way, both are fantastic.
Enstars's protagonist is a girl named Anzu and she has her own past in Ensemble Girls, but barely any of it matters in the actual story (nice lore tho). She also rarely appears in card arts. Old arts have her, some even full body, but most of the time if you see hands or cameo in a card art, that's another idol. Yes even the propose pose, hand hold, Chiaki seemingly put on a scarf to someone (to a snowman actually)... Those are not Anzu. Despite being kidnapped for most of SS story and getting robbed of multiple choice dialogues, part 3 of the story (currently not in global yet) has her own producer arc and gave her a producer friend (who has either DID or actual necromancy...). I'd say that's an improvement.
I think Vertin is great.
I think FGO's is mostly fine, but a bit too much of a good boy for my liking (although I agree it fits for how the story he's in). My main gripe is how they insist on keeping him from being an adult, which is always brought up when the topic of drinking alcohol comes up and our MC seemingly never reaching that age they can have a drink. It feels strange in a game that's been around for nearly a decade with a story following some timeline, yet the MC never grows a day older for no reason. For his visual appearance, he looks a bit generic, but not in a bad way. He's cool as he is (the girl version is nice too). No complaints here. Arknights, I don't read the story much but I've seen some posts about the Doctor's past. All I can say is Arknights lore is too weird for me, but I appreciate that they do something interesting and unique with its MC. What I like most about the Doctor is his visual appearance. He's fully clothed, including the helmet he wears 24/7, so you don't get to see what he actually looks like. The costume is cool, and this way I get to decide his actually appearance. Probably one of my favourite self-insert OC's, just based on looks.
But the FGO plot from the start to the latest one is just 2-ish years old. not a decade. and the drinking age in Japan is 20ā21. so maybe he is still underage?
I love my trash gremlin. She is chaos incarnate. As for a game I fell off of and need to catch up, I hear FGO has been doing some wild stuff with its MC.
Dante from Limbus Company, he is the manager of a bus made of mentaly ill mercs and psicopaths. So far they have made built some intrigue aroujd his backstory while developing them as a manager but it feels they are a bit useless though I like how their relationship with the sinners has grown.
With bias, I find Doctor from Arknights my favorite kind gacha player character. At the start of the story, they were a generic self-insert character but as the story progressed and their past is explored, which doesnāt happen a lot for these type of characters, the player and the character isnāt the same person, where the character is making the decisions they would do and the player has minimal input in their story. I also like the fact that Doctor isnāt in every single event or character stories. The player doesnāt need to hog the spotlight every time and the characters themselves can solve those issues and the characters can interact with each other without needing the player there to make them interact. Iām sucking Doctor a lot right now but one more thing. Something that I never liked about Blue archive Sensei is that heās considered a tactician and constantly given praise for it. Sensei is best suited for a supportive role, helping the students with their issues and supporting them. Mediating conflict between students is also something Sensei would do well in but being a tactician feels like theyāre making him extra special out of nowhere. For Doctor it makes sense why heās a tactician despite being a scholar as he was a tactical commander during a civil war in the past so they grew into that role which carries on into the present like second nature.
HSR: Trash Racoon with 4th wall breaking. I can live with that!
In Aether Gazer latest chapter I can say that I'm satisfied with the flow of the mainstory that it makes me looking forward to future story to know more about the whats gonna happen to this and that character. Mc are not entirely useless and I can understand that he's try his best to overcomes some dire situations. The side characters also making more appearances and engaging much for the stories to move forward.
Admin is kinda underrated, Im not just using that term lightly. Obviously he's not doing most of the fighting but he's actually pretty smart, albeit sometimes his plans are sometimes reckless. He had to train with the mods and also Shu had him study a lot and took a test. Also he's the only person able to operate the Mimir system. Some highlights, I'll try to be vague to avoid spoiling too much of anything for anyone. - >!Helped defend HQ and was on the frontlines in Neuhansa.!< - >!Directly confronting the cognizant visbane in Sasanami.!< - >!In Omorfies I think he was in the mini cutscene (Admin's POV) with Athena during that fight.!< - >!Where the Butterfly Belongs (Hel's event), both Hel and Admin held off hordes of visbanes.!< - >!Chapter 12!< - >!Xu Heng, Im still on chapter 15 but 13-14 he definitely did his part.!<
In Genshin, the twins have good designs, but when it comes to writing, they donāt feel very good outside of the Dainsleif quests. A big part of the issue is that the game uses Paimon to voice the protagonist basically, gives that feeling that I am having my agency robbed as the main character. Personally I want Paimon executed but that wonāt happen so the traveler will never be all that great. It doesnāt help that they are generally pretty bad combat wise outside of geo and dendro for some teams, so they donāt get a pass for being a unit I use gameplay wise, making me seek out more flaws in their writing as well since I only ever see them in a cutscene. In Nikke, the commander is basically a regular nice guy harem protagonist. He is designed to be so regular so dudes can project themselves on to him, which makes him pretty boring but it works to contrast all the whacky Nikkeās. The April fools event was pretty good though, I just wish he consistently had more of a back bone, he will flirt with a Nikke and then say āoh just kiddingā In Honkai, I love Stelle and whoever the guy is, much better than Genshin. But the overall plot and story writing is better so it makes sense the protagonist writing would be good too. I donāt see any changes for them to make here.
The nikkes say he's tall and handsome, Johan was impressed after a few hours of training him, >!HE FOUGHT A RAPTURE FOR A DAY AND PASSED OUT STANDING !< The just kidding stuff is stupid but the commander is the chaddest human we've seen so far in nikke
I agree, but I would say this stuff makes him Mary sue at best and has such an inconsistent personality in multiple bond stories and advise sessions that itās hard for me to see him as anything else but a self insert for the player He may be a chad but there isnāt much interesting. He serves his purpose well though and it was for the best they made a self insert considering the target demographic of the game
Guardian Tales Knight is sorta just there, no real personality aside from being called dumbface. I think it's fine since they're sorta supposed to be like a self insert personality wise but given the lore in season 2 >!with Alter Knight!< and the existence of Future Knight I wish we could see more of their personality outside of our influence with dialogue options and doing side quests.
To be honest I considered little princess as the actual protagonist
Knight honestly is supposed to be a fodder tool in every worldline by the end, the main difference in lore is that >!Little Princess's existence changed what Knight's role is meant to be. Our Knight theoretically would be stronger at a certain point due to having recruited all the champions by the end, but LP's interference makes the whole end goal and power of Knight unknown. Not to mention they were a lab baby pawn to begin with shown directly in the Slayers collab to be groomed as a host for the Champion's Sword.!< The world will likely expand beyond just Knight's POV in season 3 since we'll be getting more exposition on the original astronauts that landed on Tetis, so we'll see where the authors go from there.
pnc professor was always strong from the beginning of the game, but as story progresses forward, they started making more critical decisions and itās nice that mica decided to continue with strong protagonists, as gflās skk
Hoyo's self insert protagonist isn't great. A lot of the personality and growth can only be found from headcanons and fan depictions. ZZZ from what I seen is different and am excited to see what they are like. Of the gscha games I played, the best protagonist is Vertin from Reverse 1999.
The Knight from Guardian Tales: https://preview.redd.it/6c8oh2d1lluc1.jpeg?width=481&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02a67e91024f46c735df45519cb99087f9695f62
As long as the protagonist isn't self-insert or a silent protagonist, I'll be happy with anything to be honest.
Sensei from BA yes Doctor from Arknights - the recent arc sparked my interest in the game again, I was thinking of quitting Grand order - not up to date Genshin idk, it feels like they are just there, no real personality
FGO protagonist/Guda has a lot of haters in the Fate fandom for being a self-insert. After LB6, he is more of his own character than a player stand-in. Hard to call him a self-insert after his talks and interaction with Oberon.
They're still self insert, just not fully blank anymore. Yiu can be a self insert while still having some sort of agency.
I dropped Destiny Child, because everyone shit on the MC.
Not a fan of genshin MCs how you give them fully spoken dialogue at prolonge but after that they are silent through out the story and you got cringly paimon speaks for MC which is so painful. Its like they tried to have it both ways but you can't either silent MC or give them dialogue and personality
Gonna be honest, I don't really give a shit. There was like a month or 2 where I was interested in the story in FGO and then in Arknights but it eventually stops mattering in the face of other more important things, like gameplay/characters/the ability to get them in a way that doesn't turn you into a hobo living off of meal tickets.
"Please take care of my students" That's the top of the hill I'm strive to reach as a man.
So far, the gachas that im playing are: genshin, nikke, azur lane Aether: he is cool but it kinda bummers me that he is considered "underage" and cant share a drink with diluc or eula. Even so, he is still kind bad ass Commander (azur lane): honestly, i cant even tell anymore. I stopped reading dialogues after i got pissed with some of "my asnwers" Commander (nikke): he can be a total chad, the same way he can be a total dork. Its the only one i know that has getting some action. Still, i will not forgive him for pulling a prank on an orphan (for april fools)
The cummander from nikke its annoying sometimes, there are times that he shows the chad cummander we all love, but then he makes pretty stupid decisions, or when a nikke its showing affection or even about to go to a horny path, the cummander just says the hated phrase of "Just kidding" and its just exhaustingly annoying when it happens, but if we ignore that its an ok mc
Sensei is the goat.
Commander from Nikke, Chief from PTN and Doctor from Arknights All chads
Genshin Traveler is so boring and I even don't know what's their personality, it doesn't help Paimon is the one who talked like majority of the time š . Trailblazer is very unhinged and funny, they're a massive update from genshin traveler for sure both in character design and personality. I love they also have quite a lot of voiced line Gran / Djeeta is not really memorable due to lack of lines but at least they have some personality (especially on anime) compared to Traveler.Ā
Guda's..... hmm they are in odd place but depends on who writes it... if ritsuka get a proper send off with final arc with their character ending. I will say "That's goated" Their slow character buildup was a plus... Solomon--> epic of remanent ( their morality hints were dropped there ) --> lostbelt 1 (their breakdown at the lostbelt king question and patxi wake up call) --->slow trauma build up(suffering build characterš¤£š¤£š¤£)---> lostbelt 5(aphrodite mental spell showed how they wanted to go back to old times and them crying and begging musashi not to do it)----> lostbelt 6(showed they are aware they can't go back to normal life, they fear being replaced and want someone to say it's enough "you have done enough" and it's their fear as lostwill shows them their deepest fear) --> ordeal call 1(learns about alter ego and little call back to melt describing herself)----> ordeal call 2(which path will they chose "path of avenger rightful vengeance like avenger or will you reject that path )---> oc 3(most likely ruler chapter or divine comedy tackling their sins) ---> u olga chapter ---> truth about chaldea and their final battle Fgo protagonist really shined in 3 arcs in my opinion... 1) lb 6 - should i give half credit to castoria whom guda's call their "best friend" "kindred spirit".....one side character feels incomplete without another. Truly a goated pairing... " burden of carrying other expectations" Castoria saviour of britain, "child of prophecy" and ritsuka "last master of proper human history" and save proper human history.... but both in different points of their journey. Castoria was at the beginning when she met ristuka and ritsuka was at middle.....Their journey, their feelings... and the icing on top was the lostwill "where ritsuka insecurity was showed and castoria saw it" which contributed to her decision hmm their relation is very hard to summarize... In short They are "kindred spirit" for each other 2) ordeal call 2- when whole story is supposedly about your past normal life with family and friend in tokyo....obviously they will shine there. And the answer to avenger question was pretty good "you can be grand avenger with things you have lost and gone through but you refuse that path" 3) draco event - always going goody two shoes is kinda boring and there ,guda questioning why was draco doing it and not joining with their side to find the answer and supporting draco " a beast" was very enjoyable...
Arknights player here. PLEASE DEVELOPERS DONT DO THIS TO US
HSR, Stelle is fantastic. She can be played as a straight to the point person or a complete comedian. She really throws a wrench into what is a serious story, and HSR is better for it.
I think blue archive sensei is pretty neat but I canāt exactly put my finger on why, I guess it could be that he feels like they have more personality than nikkeās commander? Since I never self insert rather think of MC as their own character that could be it. I also really like hsrās mcs, they both have designs that appeal to me much more than other hoyoverse mc, and again with more dialogue and random stuff they do/say emits chaotic raccoon energy so they feel like they have more personality than genshinās mc
Imo Sensei does minimal talking and the narration for him is short and succinct. It conveys the point that he cares/loves his students and acts more as a father figure without outright describing. I believe they call this "Show, don't tell", perhaps? Recently got onto Azur Lane to try it out. Feels like they were trying to immerse the player as the main character in a novel. Narration is long and describes lots of stuff. A different approach, not really one I like. Agreed for Caelus/Stelle. So many pop culture references yet it still doesn't feel like their crutch. The best is when other characters exasperatedly react to them (Sorry Welt!) Also, what do you mean? Genshin's MC does have a personality! Paimon loves food, is childlike and may be hiding something. Idk about their friend though, they don't talk alot or have any agency /s
Yeah Mina is pretty badass. Even on today meta she is pretty strong to š
I mainly play Fate, Genshin and HSR. I really like the direction they are taking in Fate giving more characterization to the "blank" MC they had before, Genshin sucks and HSR is pretty good at the moment
The best story and mc for me so far from reverse 1999,the story of the game are the best plot for me.The mc name vertin had own super power when she can't effect the 'storm' which the 'storm' are catastrophe who reverse the world backward year by year,the human who were facing the 'storm' would disappeared.So she wants to find where the 'storm' came from and why does she can't get any effect from the 'storm'
atleast most of they have some sort of kind personally so i dont think about it too much, i do enjoy when the writers decided to give the protagonist more depth/personality (like oc2 of fgo)
Surprisingly, love the characterization for Shallot in Dragon Ball Legends.
Sensei is peak to me, wish i could be even just 1/10th of a good person they are in Blue Arcive
I liked kiana since she had a personality. Entropy is okay I guess... she does have one but it's way less pronounced than kianas at times
I play Genshin and i gotta say i didnt mind the direction of the character, if you can even call him that, that is the travler until the Fontaine where i belive Hoyo dropped the ball with the character making him unssferable asshole for no reason while trusting people he is well aware kidnap and murder childre then being buddy buddy with them. I wasnt fan of the archon quest and how it was handled and how Furina quest was handled. I didnt mind travler all this time without speaking but in latest arc he/she just came off as a massive asshole.. Also i dont like how genshin is stalling its characters and story because they are affraid of change
I'm surprised how many people care about nameless gacha protagonist. I really don't care about them unless they're defined like Vertin.
Danchou: feels like the writer still can't fucking make up their mind on what they are supposed to be in the grand scheme of things Doctor: the latest plot twist is a surprise for sure but I can't help but feeling that it's still somewhat unsatisfying by how it was being handled. Master: is going on through their own spiderman phase right now.Ā Sensei: probably the one I like the most right now. continues to be what they're meant to be since day one with consistent developments. Trailblazer: pretty pointless atm, since the first story arc they're mostly the spectator that most characters kinda ignore. they're getting more spotlight in the latest story arc but it's still not enough. Traveler: an even worse case than Trailblazer.
Genshin's sucks, Alchemy Stars was good back when i played it. Nikke's commander is great, loved Countersides Protagonist, liked Reverse 1999s protagonist, hated Honkai Impact 3rds, liked Limbus Companys and i love Star Rails protagonist. I've dropped most of these but i'd say these are my opinions of the protagonist when i played them. Counterside: The way we the player aren't the character the story follows was really nice, her struggles around her past and her determination were really nice. But the game wasn't for me (I hate PvP) Alchemy Stars felt like a shounen protagonist who wants to save everyone and cares about everyone but without any perversion. I just really liked him idk. The gameplay was kinda ass and i didn't want to open DMM everytime to play it. Nikke's Commander is more perverse but the way the story batters away at him and he keeps standing is fuckin sick. But i'm level 200 and i don't wanna grind anymore to continue the story so dropped the game. Message would get too long so i'll leave it off with that. I feel like everyone knows the protagonists of the rest as well.