Renaming Characters

by DocCitanUzuki 

Let's say you're Stereotypical RPG Nerd (no offense, I'm one too). You're named something like John or Peter or Spencer. So you take off your Dilbert hat that says "Technology: No place for wimps" and flop down in front of your PlayStation. You turn it on and see "Final Fantasy VII" pop up. And suddenly, you're Cloud Strife. You save the world, get the girl, and kill the bad guy. But wait a second: you don't really get that feeling, for as short as it may be, you "are" Cloud Strife. Rather, he's some other guy who goes and saves the world and gets the girl. But wait, you can replace Cloud with your name. Now it's John Strife that goes with a gigantic Buster Sword and saves the world and gets the girl.

And you get to hear the characters actually say "Peter, we did it!!" And you get to feel like you're there for a fleeting moment before mundane reality sets in again. But no more. It has become a trend in all the latest RPGs not to be able to rename your characters. Instead of being Spencer Leonheart and renaming Rinoa to the name of that dream girl or high school sweetheart, instead you have to be that character, there's no renaming feature. In some extreme cases (Parasite Eve II comes to mind) this has no reasonable explanation except to piss me and the other two people who rename characters out there off, but usually it's because they have voice acting in the cutscenes. And only in the cutscenes. Now, if the voice acting actually says the character's names, this is okay with me, but in most games, they (the designers) think that since there's some voice acting, you shouldn't be able to rename characters. As far as I know, two characters had their names said in Xenogears. Yet, you could only rename one of the nine (Chu-Chu)! Yeah, you could rename the Gears, but still... And now that Square said that there will be voice acting in the cutscenes of Final Fantasy X, it seems there will be no more character naming.

Another trend I see popping up, especially in Square games, is that there is a limited amount of letters you can name your characters. Five in Chrono Trigger, six in Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy VI and eight in Final Fantasy IX. I say, "If you're going to put voice acting in, either put voice acting throughout the entire game or not at all! And if you're not, let us rename the characters." One day, I hope to be able to return to my golden days of putting the cast of Star Wars into Final Fantasy VI.

Editor's note: It should be said that it is possible to rename some of the characters within Final Fantasy VIII.