Not quite, but almost as bad.


What can you add to any game to help make it seem more friendly and young? What can you add to an RPG to help make it seem more "kid friendly?" What can you add to RUIN MY GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE?

Kids.

I loathe kids being put into main roles in video games. In my opinion it's only been done correctly once, and that comes because of the heroic deaths of the children. Every other game I've ever played where they've stuck a kid in there does it wrong. They have to have a lisp, or a whiny, high pitch voice, or just be incredibly retarded. Please note that minor spoilers for certain games will follow.

First, let me start off with the game that did it right, then I'll follow up with some examples of "doing it wrong." Final Fantasy IV(yes, I know it's been in most of my monthly musing writings, but I love it so :P) did it right. Palom and Porom, while not the best characters in the game still had a strong feel of young, but not too young, annoying, but not annoying in a strangle-ey kinda way. Hell, some of their lines were downright funny, and they had an incredible sense of nobility at the end of their storyline. They were wise beyond their years. They never seemed to get in the way, or do something just because they were kids. They didn't suck in other words.

They were the last. Right now I can only recall the last two games I've played where a "child" was put into it, but I think they'll make great examples.

The first example of doing it wrong is actually an off pick, due to the fact that all the characters are children. Blue Dragon picks up with the story of three children who end up fighting against an evil force that attacks their village every ten years. These three, they're not so bad. They're just you're basic run-of-the-mill stereotypes, and they'd work as children or teenagers. Then you run into MaruMaro.


MUST YELL EVERYTHING IT'S FUNNY RIGHT!?!?!?

MaruMaro, I hate you. I don't understand why every other creature that looks like him can talk in a nice, normal voice and he has to yell. Constantly. At everything. Even if it doesn't make contextual sense, he yells it. What's worse is that he eventually ends up making everyone else come down to his level of annoying that it starts to make me hate them too for pandering for him. It just really burns me up because I really want to like Blue Dragon, and MaruMaro really wants me to hate it.

The next kids that I hate, well, hate is a strong word, so let's say highly despise of, are Cooke and Mack of Lost Odyssey fame. Even though they're introduction into the party comes after one of the greatest moments in gaming cinematic history, they fall into mediocrity so quickly it's not funny. Now, I'm not slamming their fighting/magic prowess, just their part in the story. They take the same story mechanic and just beat it to death over the next ten hours. And it's a pretty messed up storyline, as it's Mack's inability to grasp that his mother just died, and he has to keep going to these incredibly dangerous places to talk to her. Why would no one sit him down after the first time, even if there was a miracle, and tell him that that's pretty much it. But no, they let him run off two or three more times (I can't remember at the moment) and he still thinks that it's a very good possibility that he'll see his dead mother over and over again.


Our mom's dead, so let's pretend she's not, right?

So Mack's "mental" problems aside, they also felt that speech impediments would be a good fit on these kids too, making Mack a shy, stuttering douche, and Cooke a lisping fit. At least Palom and Porum, who I assume these were modeled after, came prior to the voice-over revolution, so I didn't have to hear their whiny, petulant voices. And let's not forget that they try to be so cute all the time it just makes my head explode. Maturity and thoughtfullness be damned.

I don't know why I hate so forcefully kids being stuck into main roles of games. At least in Lost Odyssey they are strong forces of healing/spirit magic, and you can take them out of your party, but having to suffer through cut-scene after painful cut-scene due to the whims of a creater who thought it would be "cute" to stick in some kinda child relief just makes me hate. If every game creator was stuck listening to the inane dribble that some of their characters spouted for the rest of their lives, I think there'd be much less of the monstrosity that is child characters.