Playing Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force this evening, I was struck by a thought about JRPG protagonists over the years and how they often tend to reflect some of the prevalent attitudes from the time in which they were first written.

Perhaps more accurately, JRPG protagonists often tend to reflect some of the prevalent attitudes in the games industry rather than in society at large, but nonetheless, it is clear that things have changed somewhat over time.

Consider the early days of JRPGs: the first Final Fantasy, the first Dragon Quest. These games featured protagonists that were silent and had no story or characterisation behind them save for “you are legendary hero”. They were intended primarily to be an avatar for the player: a means for the player to put themselves inside the game, to inhabit the game world, to become that legendary hero. This reflects how many computer and video games were marketed at the time: on the basis that they allowed you to live out fantasies that were impossible — or at the very least unlikely — in reality. Where games had narration, it was in second-person; marketing materials put the emphasis on “you” rather than the name of the protagonist, if they even had one.

Advance a few years as RPGs started getting a little more comfortable with storytelling. We have the early days of the Ys series, for example, where protagonist Adol Christin was still silent, but he had a certain amount of personality about him that could be understood through the way people reacted to and communicated with him. While the Ys games have their dark moments, the overall tone of them is rather light-hearted, being all about the joy of adventure and discovery; once again, the player was brought along for the ride, but this time, they were a companion to the protagonist rather than being the protagonist.

As we moved into the 16-bit era, games started to become more sophisticated and the increased amount of storage capacity available to developers allowed them to be a bit more ambitious with their storytelling. From Final Fantasy IV onwards, we started to get much more well-defined characters in the main cast, and the same, too, was true for longtime rival Dragon Quest. We still had our silent protagonists — our Adols and our Links — but where our protagonists had a voice, they often had noble intentions or goals: to help people, to save the world, or sometimes simply for the joy of adventure. This overall air of positivity about many of the games of this time was a reflection of this period being regarded as something of a “golden age” for games: everyone was excited about what the 16-bit consoles could do, and as rumours started to leak out about the upcoming 32- and 64-bit offerings from Sony and Nintendo respectively, it was an exciting time to be a gamer.

This air of positivity continued throughout the PlayStation/Saturn/N64 era, and can be seen throughout the numerous role-playing games that graced these platforms — although Nintendo’s console, being cartridge-based, often got left behind due to developers having grand ambitions that often required the extensive storage capacity of CD-ROM to fully realise. At the same time, though, a hint of darkness started to creep in. With Final Fantasy VII, we had the beginning of the “moody protagonist” trope with Cloud Strife, which was subsequently continued with the sulky Squall in Final Fantasy VIII before reverting to form with Zidane and company in Final Fantasy IX. The arrival of moody, angsty heroes on the scene corresponded roughly with a sharp rise in teens expressing themselves through music and counterculture; Cloud and Squall hit the scene around the same time many of us were listening to Nirvana and contemplating slitting our wrists to Radiohead.

That seed of darkness took root, but didn’t flourish just yet. The Dreamcast and PS2 era saw a continuation of the overall air of positivity and the joy of adventure in role-playing games, with a few notable exceptions. Ryudo from Grandia 2 on Dreamcast stands out in many players’ memories as being a bit different from the norm. He wasn’t all “let’s adventure!” like more traditional RPG heroes, but he wasn’t really angsty like Cloud and Squall. His attitude erred more towards the bleaker side of things, though; he was cynical and pessimistic on many occasions, but ultimately he did the right thing. I highlight Ryudo in particular here as the starting point for an increasingly common trope we’re seeing these days.

In the PS3 era, we started to see JRPG protagonists diverge in two different directions, more often than not distinguished by gender as much as attitude. Female protagonists tended to be lively, energetic, positive and full of life, but often inexperienced or incompetent, at least at the start of their adventures — the Atelier and Neptunia girls are good examples of this — while male protagonists weren’t necessarily tormented or angsty as such, but the air of cynicism which Ryudo had introduced in Grandia 2 started to become increasingly apparent with every male-fronted JRPG.

How this connects to Fairy Fencer F is simple: protagonist Fang is a cynical, lazy lout who is primarily out for his own gratification, at least at the start of the story. As the adventure progresses, he does naturally start to think about others as much as — or even more than — himself — but his intense cynicism, his unwillingness to be bothered with anything that sounds too troublesome, feels very much like a response to prevalent attitudes in a lot of gaming today. Many people can’t be bothered with anything that’s difficult or troublesome; if something’s supposed to take a long time they need to find the most “efficient” way, even if that’s also the most boring way; and if the opportunity comes up to bypass hard work for the same rewards — paying up to skip content or get overpowered equipment, watching YouTube videos of endings — then many people will take it.

Of course, there’s a kind of delicious irony about Fang as commentary on the laziness and cynicism of many people in modern society in a game by Compile Heart, which will inevitably be hundreds of hours long and filled with lots of grinding and busywork. But given the company’s history with using games as satirical works — primarily through the Neptunia series, but Fairy Fencer F has, so far, despite a darker, more serious tone, dipped its toes into satire too at times — this irony is doubtless entirely intentional, and Fang’s growth as a character over the course of those hundreds of hours is symbolic of those people who aren’t cynical, who are willing to put the “work” in to fully enjoy a game. His development, then, mirrors the player’s own journey in many ways: breaking through the endless cynicism, laziness and grumpiness that pervades the modern online sphere to find that stepping out into the wider world is rewarding in its own way.

Or perhaps he’s just a grumpy old sod. It’s nearly 3am. Humour me.