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Comments
I think I've at least established that I had Jedi Outcast as a kid (as being a sad enough person to know who Corran Horn and Mara Jade are should be enough to attest) I disagree with your comments on him being a character. He's basically if 'you' got to be in Star Wars. The powers of Luke, the smarminess of Han Solo, and being awesome in the setting.
And indeed storytelling is different in gaming, but there are still basic tennants of storytelling even gaming has to apply to, and Jedi Outcast nowhere near differentiates enough from them to justify Katarn's flatness.
I'd argue Link is actually more of a unique and well-established character in each game alone than Katarn is in his entire series.
so, i'm betting five bucks that this will turn into a discussion about moe batman...
That's bullshit, Link is pretty much literally a player stand-in with absolutely no character. Only exception I can think of is Skyward Sword.
While it's true that Link doesn't speak, he doesn't have "absolutely no character"
His actions, attitudes and whatnot are clear. In fact, part of why the whole mute as a stand in thing doesn't work is because while you can insert whatever you'd say into his silences, you simply are not doing what you'd do, but what link would do.
^^Nah, I'd say he has one in Wind Waker, too, if a really thin one. Aside from SS and WW, though...not so much.
@Malk:
I think you're being biased. Katarn is by no means an exceptionally deep character, but the quality of Link's characterisation can change drastically from game to game. He probably only begins to be a character with personal motivations around the time of Link's Awakening, but didn't have much character strength until Wind Waker -- and then Twilight Princess Link was a downgrade in characterisation. And for all the strengths I see in Skyward Sword, Link's own characterisation there still probably isn't as good as it was in Wind Waker.
Kyle has his own motivations, and they change as he undergoes character development. Pretty average character development, mind, but it happens. If you compare Kyle at the beginning of Outcast to Kyle at the beginning of Academy, there's obvious personal development. Link isn't a character that really achieves that level of progression, although that's arguably because the narratives of the Zelda games don't support it -- his goal is to be Peter Pan/Robin Hood/Ser Lancelot and save the princess.
I find Kyle to be a lot more personal in characterisation. Link's erring in that direction as of late, but at least from my perspective, his major appeal as a character is his position as a sort of "alpha hero". Like mentioned above, he has shades of Robin Hood, Peter Pan and Lancelot to him (or perhaps King Arthur, or both). He's a construct of crossed mythologies, taking the finest qualities (and abilities) of them all and put on impossible quests to right wrongs.
In fact, just typing this out now, I never noticed how well LoZ carries the Japanese narrative tendency for hyperbole -- the whole Zelda series is like one big exaggeration of various folklores, mythologies and legends. We've tested steel against pirates, slain the dragon (many times!), swam with sea people, brewed the witch's potion and fought the dark lord with divine power.
And now I've strayed from my point. I guess that was "LoZ is pretty amazing, and Link is getting better as a character but he was hardly a good one for the lifespan of much of the series".
Han's most morally questionable action was shooting a guy who shot him first had a gun pointed at him.
That. And the smuggling, working for kill-happy crime lords who dabble in slavery.
Alex I think you are being biased, and the quality of Link's characterization can be different from game to game but they're still better than Katarn. See, if we're talking about characters in the terms of gameplay storyteling, Link wins in ever 3-D incarnation at the very least
Kyle's goals and motivations are all brought through dialogue, discussion, cutscenes, backstories, and things that are wholly not interactive, and despite that he's still not as interesting as James Sunderland or any given character from Tales of Symphonia. He's specifically meant to be generic so you the player can feel like a badass Jedi. That's why from a traditionally storytelling standpoint he's dull, which is a problem because what we know of him as a character comes from aspects of the game you can't interact with.
Now, let's compare Link in Twilight Princess, which I think we'll probably agree is the weakest of the 3-D games. There actually is a clear character arc for Link there, in relation to Midna. The two go from disliking each other and being bonded by the greater good to mutual respect to an indispensable friendship. What Zelda does right from a gaming perspective is it frames Link's character development from the perspective of others. It's especially brought to the forefront in Skyward Sword with the way Groose changes towards him and the way Fi subtly becomes more emotional with him. The Link you have at the end is not the same.
And that's my point. Katarn's lame as an agent of traditional storytelling and even if you're making the really really really idiotic statement that he was an attempt at an alternate type of storytelling for gaming he fails there.
I never finished that one, played it til like, the second dungeon
The non-interactive elements are more a product of flawed game design than anything (which can be taken as evidence that Katarn's reflection of the player's thoughts is a stroke of luck moreso than a conscious effort at exceptional game design, but that's beside the point). They're not especially strong, but I wouldn't call them particularly weak. It's a different kind of story, and benefits from the consistent progression of four games -- something Link doesn't have the benefit of, whether you go by the timeline theories or not.
Besides, Katarn has flaws and failures, and he doesn't spend all his time under the same context. The first game he stars in doesn't have him pick up a lightsaber or develop Force powers at all -- he was just an exceptional Stormtrooper gone turncloak. In the second game, he acquires Jedi abilities, but it's not until the third that they become the focus of the gameplay. More importantly, we get a much better example of a blank slate character in the fourth game. Kyle takes a back seat and the player creates their character themselves -- except there are no dialogue options, so the character is an aesthetic garb thrown over a truly catch-all character who never has any failures. Katarn makes mistakes, though. In Jedi Outcast alone his failure almost causes a return of the Sith, and his anger threatens to give him to the Dark Side. These are by no means especially deep or rivetting aspects of characterisation, but blank characters that exist for the sake of empowerment fantasy seldom have significant failings or true moral quandry.
He's no great victory in general characterisation, but he has his own character progression via his own drives. Parroting the thoughts of the player is what takes him from an average-if-amusing character to one that's worthwhile imitating in the context of video games. And very far from a blank canvas for the player to place themselves upon, I'd say.
If anything, Link is closer to the blank-slate character and very much meant for the player to put themselves over. His continued lack of dialogue and vague chivalric morality is evidence enough of that, but that's why he works so well. We all know the heroes of the fairy tales, and that's what Link is and that's what LoZ is -- our opporunity to partake of the legends. Link's name was even chosen because his sole purpose was to be a medium between the game world and the player. His vague characterisation is what makes him powerful. Unlike most protagonists, Link doesn't absorb the impact of in-game events. We observe emotional reactions, but they're signals for our benefit. We don't feel for other well-known video game character likes Kratos -- we watch from a distance with amusement. If you make Link his own character rather than a morally idealised reflection of the player, I think you're putting up a wall that doesn't need to be there and will ultimately harm the series.
I do recognise that Link's existing characterisation comes through his body language, expressions, vocalisations and enforced choices, but I think that's all that needs to be there in order to steer us. In the realm of video games, less is more, at least most of the time. Purely subjective, but I find the most emotive game events to my memory are ones that aren't enforced, or ones where my reaction to said event isn't enforced. Zelda games are less about how Link feels and more about how you feel, and most really excellent games are exactly the same.
After all, the more control one has over a character, and the more that characterisation is spoken through subtleties and implications, the more the player is made accountable for that character and the events that surround them. The game industry as a whole needs less characterisation of the player characters and much, much more characterisation of the supporting characters. LoZ is one series that reflects that really well -- the most effective games in characterisation are the ones with the strongest supporting roles rather than the strongest Link.
As for Katarn, in this context, he was good because he bridged the gap in a series of games that had more primitive perspectives towards telling a story. In a game where the main character is so unlike the player (and how many of us are honestly that much like Kyle?), those in-game vocal elements were an excellent use of characterisation to make Katarn a more personal, relatable character. His flaws go hand-in-hand with the flaws those games had in overall narrative. He worked well given those constraints, though.
And if you were to say, "Well shit, Alex, wouldn't you be arguing that Kyle is too strong a character to work in your ideal construct of a simulated experience for the purposes of fun and narrative tension?", you'd be entirely right. Kyle was a character that ran with the flaws of those games and used them to his benefit. His near breaking the fourth wall could be considered damage control for a narrative perspective too dominated by the standards of film. He and Link aren't really that different, at least in purpose -- both are characters constructed specifically for their respective contexts to draw the player into the game world. They simply use different techniques to bring about the same result.
my god, this post is motherfucking massive
what have I done
ever heard of the concept of laconism, alex
Five games. Dark Forces, Dark Forces II, Mysteries of the Sith, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy.
Unless you counted Mysteries of the Sith in with Dark Forces II or didn't count JKA because Kyle's not the main character and doesn't really get much development unless you go Darkside.
Am I the only one who played the Jedi Knight FMV? Because Katarn gets a lot of characterization in that.
is that some mexican cooking technique or something
how is that relevant to the discussion at hand
I think it's a kind of Greek wooden ship.
well, you see, sometimes you want your taquitos to have less frijoles...
Are you thinking of diversity?
No, you fool, that's a purely English affair, made of rich mahogany. The Greeks used balsawood.
Laocoönism?
Anyway, EU wank and no mention of Thrawn?
Wait, dissing Persona? Why would they do that?
some people just want to watch the world burn.
It wasn't dissing Persona as much as it was suggesting they like Final Fantasy more than it.
Which is understandable, since they are completely different and it's perfectly possible for Final Fantasy to appeal to someone more than Persona does.
That said, Persona has a giant dick monster in a chariot, so I'm not sure why someone wouldn't like it.
some people don't like people called richard who ride chariots
now stop being so DAMNED BIGOTED >
Persona 4 has the most pimptastic main character ever.
^Have you seen the most recent episode of the anime. There is a scene where he literally has women crawling all over him.
Also
>Go to bed
>Alex posts tl: dr material like a motherfucker
Oh fuck it I just woke up.
>Persona 4 confirmed for Harem Animu
>Dropped off the watchlist like a motherfucker
That one? Harem anime? Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaa. Yuu Narukami is not a harem lead, he is The Pimp.
To be fair, Persona 4 was a harem video game.
that's called Dating Sim, DYRE. And that is secondary to the plot.