LogFAQs > #882693645

ParanoidObsessive posted...

That being said, it almost seems odd that if Vagrant Story itself was the key catalyst for that decision, that they'd assume the age of the protagonist was the problem, as opposed to clunky game mechanics and a genre-bending plot set in a mostly dull setting deliberately released as a new IP with little fanfare (at least in the West). I can think of dozens of problems to avoid before I'd ever go with "Man, the REAL problem is that the protagonist wasn't an unrealistically adept teenager!"

Japan totally has a huge stigma against anyone above the age of 20 when it comes to jrpgs, because in their minds, if you're not a teenager, you have no business fighting off evil, probably because you've got better things to do like working a job.

One need only look as the sales figures of the original Nier to see what Japan is like. Nier has two versions: Replicant (where the main character is a teenage boy) and Gestalt (where the main character is a 40-something father). Both stories are exactly the same, except one has the brother trying to save his dying sister, and the other replaces the role with that of a father. Guess which one sold more copies in Japan?

(Let me put it this way: in Japan, one version was released exclusively on the PS3, and the other on the 360. Which system was more popular in Japan? Ok, now decide which game belonged to which system)

But guess which version the West got? Only Gestalt. Why? Because a father trying his best to save his sickly daughter makes for a more powerful story for us filthy westerners.

Look at this guy from Tales of Vesperia (http://aselia.wikia.com/wiki/Raven). He's 35. For the entirety of the game, he and others around him refer to him as "the old man."

Point is, Squeenix stepped in early in development when they saw that Basch was intended to be the protagonist, and went "No no, this is not right. We're gonna fix this." Being a man in your mid 30s is no-go.