Rethinking the JRPG protagonist
This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer.
It’s been more than a decade now, but I’m pretty sure my favorite JRPG protagonist is Lenneth Valkyrie of Valkyrie Profile.
Lenneth stands out to me not just as a strong leading lady, but as a professional. She spends much of the game recruiting the world’s most fearsome warriors, and she’s not afraid to condemn those she doesn’t like to the Nordic version of hell. Not even a love interest — the comparatively wimpy Lucian — is enough to dull her edge.
In the succeeding years since the original Valkyrie Profile, I’ve mostly been disappointed by the leading men and women of JRPGs. From Final Fantasy XIII’s Lightning to Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria’s Alicia, relatively empty archetypes have become the order of the day. It’s no wonder critics are so consistently down on the genre.
I wonder though if we can’t build a better JRPG protagonist ourselves, using Lenneth as a baseline. Given the opportunity, here are some other characteristics I might borrow from other JRPG heroes through the ages.Continue reading Rethinking the JRPG protagonistRethinking the JRPG protagonist originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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