My thoughts on: Designated Heroes

You know my overall activity has horrifically waned now that I'm currently going through RPGs at the moment, as more than enough of my life is rather busy to really prevent me to write on a lot of things. So one thing came to mind, and that's the obvious fact that a great chunk of the JRPGs I've played always has that one designated hero, the one guy that cannot be dropped from the active party or perhaps cannot die in combat without a game over. I don't remember if this was on the grand list, but whether or not it is, I couldn't honestly care, since it's another common trope.

So yeah, that one character is always the hero, the chosen one, but what's relevant to this post is how he cannot officially be dropped from the active party. Why is it that I have to control just this one character on the field? Characters like Legend of Legaia's Vahn, as well as the famous Cloud and Squall. There are a few exceptions to this rule, like when you control Noa for the first time in LoL, or as Tifa and later Cid in FF7, or as practically anyone on a short time period in FF8's first two discs. Yet in those cases, you cannot drop the character you are playing as either. Like in the jail in FF8, your lead character in that case is Zell, who cannot be swapped (then again, this prison scene puts only a few characters in the jail until the rest of the group comes back, but Zell remains the leader until you at least get Squall back).

And then I wonder about navigation on the overworld and wonder, am I gonna get bored looking at the same character that basically encompasses the whole party? And I say yes. Games where you control just Cloud (or Tifa or Cid in their short stints as leader) or Ratix from Star Ocean on the world map with no other party members following isn't all that appealing. What about those games where the party members basically follow one another? Like in the Chrono games or the Breath of Fire games? I like these, but better these games since you can actually reorder them so certain characters are in front. Of course, this could be because of field abilities, like Breath of Fire and Wild Arms* games show. And that's awesome. I think the Phantasy Star games do this too, albeit without field abilities or nifty-ness, but you can reorder your party and they are even the "all in a row" instead of "everyone in one" type of deal.

But most games will likely have you with one character as your lead, regardless of the party setup. It's a bit boring to nitpick on such thing, but it's something I felt like venting about. This post probably wasn't worth it.

*well this one isn't the "all in a row" party setup, but you can change your lead character for the tools needed to do things on the field or dungeons, and that's pretty cool.