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The choice of renaming Tidus in Final Fantasy X was an odd decision

HockeyBird

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,682
Final Fantasy X is the first game in the series to have voice acting. Major cutscenes were are voiced. As a consequence, you could no longer name your party members because the names had to be spoken in dialogue...with the exception of Tidus. You can rename Tidus. Since you can rename Tidus to anything, that meant his name couldn't be spoken in any of the cutscenes. He is only ever referred to with pronouns and nicknames. It was a bit jarring in FFX but the game it wasn't too terrible. However, it was really noticeable in FFX-2 where Tidus is only ever referred to as "him". The whole goal of the game is to bring back someone whose name can never be spoken.

I think X was the last time you could rename a party member in the Final Fantasy series, outside of the MMOs and spinoffs. I kinda get why they let you rename Tidus. They want Tidus to be the avatar for you. But I don't think it worked out that well.
 
ColdSun

ColdSun

Together, we are strangers
Administrator
Oct 25, 2017
3,307
I think it was a natural progress overall. Games were moving to more voiced dialogue, and this was the most logical middle step.
I can't recall thinking anything of it at the time, but in all fairness, that was many many years ago... so maybe?
 
SolVanderlyn

SolVanderlyn

I love pineapple on pizza!
Member
Oct 28, 2017
13,527
Earth, 21st Century
It was really annoying to realize his name was deliberately avoided in spoken conversation, and got even weirder in X-2 when he wasn't actively there and had to be referred to by pronouns. Not to mention his name has an ambiguous pronunciation and is a source of arguments to this day. It's even pronounced both ways in other material (Tie-dus in KH1, Tee-dus elsewhere).
 
Crayon

Crayon

Member
Oct 26, 2017
15,580
Up to that point, most of fans had fond memories of of characters they had named. Naming g your characters was not entirely dissimilar to creating them.

I myself knew I would miss naming for characters going into the voice-acting era. Many fans were far more alarmed than I was. It seems silly now, but this awkward compromise in ffx was done to let us hold on to a little bit of that.
 
Ant_17

Ant_17

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,138
Greece
strideredge said:
Works for persona
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Does it? or did they cheat in Persona 5?
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Remember

Remember

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,484
Chicago, IL United States
Arebours said:
tidus didn't work well because he is one of the worst characters ever made.
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Stop basing this off of one scene. He had good character development across the entire game compared to people like Squall and Vaan. I'd dare even say he was better than Noctis.

Also, James Arnold Taylor is a good voice actor and has been doing the voice of Ratchet in the Ratchet and Clank games and movie. People need to stop thinking he is terrible at voices based off of one 'haha' scene. If anything, blame the voice director.

 
Lork

Lork

Member
Oct 25, 2017
844
Is this why Squall "renounced" his actual name and decided to go by 'Leon' in Kingdom Hearts? That explains a whole lot if so.
 
Zafir

Zafir

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,134
The Last One said:
That's why people can't pronounce his name till today.
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Or, they choose not to pronounce it the right way? The official pronunciation is awful.

Remember said:
Stop basing this off of one scene. He had good character development across the entire game compared to people like Squall and Vaan. I'd dare even say he was better than Noctis.

Also, James Arnold Taylor is a good voice actor and has been doing the voice of Ratchet in the Ratchet and Clank games and movie. People need to stop thinking he is terrible at voices based off of one 'haha' scene. If anything, blame the voice director.

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Nah, the scene in general is just plain bad. Like I don't really think it's better in Japanese either.
 
Rathorial

Rathorial

Member
Oct 28, 2017
578
I don't know, watching Spoony rename him to Meg Ryan was about the only entertainment value Tidus ever game me. So I'm glad they did it.
 
1upsuper

1upsuper

Member
Jan 30, 2018
5,489
HockeyBird said:
Final Fantasy X is the first game in the series to have voice acting. Major cutscenes were are voiced. As a consequence, you could no longer name your party members because the names had to be spoken in dialogue...with the exception of Tidus. You can rename Tidus. Since you can rename Tidus to anything, that meant his name couldn't be spoken in any of the cutscenes. He is only ever referred to with pronouns and nicknames. It was a bit jarring in FFX but the game it wasn't too terrible. However, it was really noticeable in FFX-2 where Tidus is only ever referred to as "him". The whole goal of the game is to bring back someone whose name can never be spoken.

I think X was the last time you could rename a party member in the Final Fantasy series, outside of the MMOs and spinoffs. I kinda get why they let you rename Tidus. They want Tidus to be the avatar for you. But I don't think it worked out that well.
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Lots and lots of games do this now. It doesn't really bother me but sometimes it does lead to stilted dialogue. I really only care about custom names in games where the whole party is composed of your own character creations, like Dragon Quest III or Etrian Odyssey, so personally I think it'd probably be best that more story-oriented voice-acted games just stick to a default name.
 
skeezx

skeezx

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,332
yeah.. it was a derp design decision. it's not like Tidus was the blank slate everyman you could reflect yourself onto. he had very specific personality traits and character history

but being the first VA'd Final Fantasy it was instinctual to make that a feature, so it is what it is.
 

Deleted member 543

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,065
Square Enix screwed up the pronunciation anyway, so this way people get to pronounce it the way that makes sense and have the "ooooh, now you mention it they never do say his name" reflection.
 
Bhonar

Bhonar

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
6,066
ColdSun said:
I think it was a natural progress overall. Games were moving to more voiced dialogue, and this was the most logical middle step.
I can't recall thinking anything of it at the time, but in all fairness, that was many many years ago... so maybe?
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not sure what you mean by natural?

if games were becoming all voiced, then wouldn't it be natural to not be able to change the protagonist name?
 
Kyoufu

Kyoufu

Member
Oct 26, 2017
16,582
It's the dumbest decision made in FFX. Because of the ability to rename Tidus, Yuna and the rest of the cast couldn't even say his damn name. I'm glad they no longer do this shit in FF.
 
-JD-

-JD-

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
3,496
And yet they had no problems saying his name in Kingdom Hearts. Immersion broken!

 
Dice

Dice

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,733
Canada
Arebours said:
tidus didn't work well because he is one of the worst characters ever made.
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I like his arc...but yeah he's a weener.

If there's a X-3 (oh god) I actually wish they scrapped the no-name thing for him; you can feel them regretting it every time they try to talk about him without saying a name.
 
Valkerion

Valkerion

Member
Oct 29, 2017
7,281
Reminds me, we need the next Final Fantasy lead to not have some family hang ups. Would love for him/her to come from a standard nuclear family... just cause it would be a change of pace.
 
Aaron

Aaron

I’m seeing double here!
Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,077
Minneapolis
CO_Andy said:
can't rename Link in BotW :(
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Not mentioning his name would have been dumb for the same reason as Tidus in FFX, Link has had a clearly defined personality for several games now (I'd say this really started in earnest with Wind Waker).

Could always try the DQ8 route of leaving the character's name unmentioned in the voice acting, but displayed on the subtitles. But I suppose that could probably only go so far.
 

Deleted member 12186

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,467
SolVanderlyn said:
It was really annoying to realize his name was deliberately avoided in spoken conversation, and got even weirder in X-2 when he wasn't actively there and had to be referred to by pronouns. Not to mention his name has an ambiguous pronunciation and is a source of arguments to this day. It's even pronounced both ways in other material (Tie-dus in KH1, Tee-dus elsewhere).
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In kh1 its not tee-dus? I recall wakka saying it.
 
Riversands

Riversands

Banned
Nov 21, 2017
5,669
What happened back then was just product of its time. Maybe it made sense at that time but it may not be nowadays. If it were to be created today, there would be no name change
 
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