Okay answer this question, "Is there such thing as a good silent protagonist?"

I often wonder this question, because to me a silent protagonist can pretty much be a story killer. By silent protagonist I refer to a main character who expresses no words and no emotion throughout the whole story. This sounds like something that should be unheard of, but in the world of videogames it happens much more than you think!

Now in older 16-Bit era games this is common because with the technology it was hard to get anything out of characters other than when they touch bad guys they die. Games based specifically on gameplay like your Mario and Sonic platformers will have these silent characters just because story is really unneeded.

Even in Yoshi's Island which I label as Best Game To Ever Exist And All Other Arguments Are Invalid the main characters aren't really characters, but rather avatars. Yoshi and Mario don't express any dialogue and their only emotion is to react to pain or to cry when kidnapped respectively. So these main avatars are meant to help bring you along on an experience through a wonderful land rather than tell you a story.

Now in the modern age story in games seems to be a huge focus... especially where it is not needed. Metroid for example has never been a very good story game franchise. Metroid is more for that action packed eerie exploration experience and not the narrative. Samus has never been really a character but rather a player avatar. That's why I hate what they did with Other M! They tried entirely too hard to make Samus a character in a game that really doesn't need it. They tried too hard to tell a narrative where it really shouldn't exist. It's similar to why people often criticize Sonic because the more he talks the less we like him.

There are other games though that do have a silent protagonist that I feel REALLY do suffer over it. One I keep going back to is Gordon Freeman from Half Life. Now I love the world and story of Half Life. It has mastered even making the smallest of side characters likable and very human. Making every character feel human makes you care about saving the world... so why is the main character the least human thing possible? People often answer this by saying it is so we can portray ourselves onto Gordon, which I call total bullshit because if they wanted to do that they wouldn't have given him a face or gender. And even still, why should we care about Gordon at all? He doesn't give us any human reason to care for him, no character to relate to or enjoy, so why is he looked at as some great protagonist? Also the same criticisms go for Chell from Portal. Seriously these games have such a great story focus, so why don't these characters talk like regular human beings! Obviously Valve has the skill to make good characters, just look at Team Fortress 2 or Left 4 Dead, they have all sorts of lovable characters in their non-story games which seems like complete backwards logic to me!

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So in my opinion the answer of that question is that if you want to tell a good narrative, make your main character feel human so we can like them! If you are going for more of a gameplay experience, keep them silent as much as possible. Anything in between just doesn't seem to fit well in my opinion and its something that just bothers me in modern gaming.

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....though there is one specific example that has me coming back to that conclusion. And that is the Mother Trilogy. In the Mother Trilogy you normally control a young 10 year old boy who never speaks, yet they have never given me the feeling that they are awful characters set in an extremely awesome narrative. It may have something to do with the subtle ways they give these boys character such as their odd reactions to things in their world. Ninten gets asthma attacks when fighting cars which brings up old childhood memories of myself being an asthmatic, Ness seems to have an odd sense of humor around him and a childlike wonder. But Lucas himself is by far one of the most interesting characters despite hardly ever talking! Just all the things he has to go through and his bizarre tragic world is just brilliant. I think I like these games so much because they have somehow combined the experience factor of games like Yoshi's Island and yet story elements like your Final Fantasies. It just goes so well together that I can't criticize it. The only modern game to get close to this I feel is Chell of Portal, Link of Windwaker, and the protagonist of Pokemon Black and White (makes sense because Pokemon is the spiritual successor to Mother). It's just hard to really perfect the combination of story and visual experience throughout gameplay.

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So what do you think on silent protagonists?

[EDIT: Well okay maybe not the trainer from Pokemon Black and White since they aren't much a character at all, but for some reason his/her lack of character never bothered me and it still felt close to the old feel of the Mother Trilogy.]