Forgive me if I'm missing important context here because my crpg experieince mostly goes back to dragon age, but those voice styles were always only for random barks of about a line each, not stuff that goes through an entire game.
Sure, for the most part that's true. Since games often do the "Silent protagonist" thing when it comes to actual dialogues.
With exception of Solasta of course, where it influences what dialogue options are available and the things your characters say.
And if we're limited to the vocal "style" we choose at the beginning, that could prevent us from letting our character's personality and demeanor change throughout the game. In pillars of eternity for example, I often have my characters there go through major changes. In my favorite playthrough, my Watcher went from being sullen and withdrawn to being fiery and passionate. That kind of option would likely be entirely denied to me if I had to pick one style of voice/tone at the start of the game and stick with that.
I suppose that would be dependent on how the "Style" is formed. Something such as Solasta's personality picker could very much be adapted to be malleable given that it's based on picking certain aspects of personality (Like Egotistical, Violent, Lawful etc) that it could use generic "Alignment Shift" tech when utilizing other dialogue options and allow for shifting into alternate styles once a threshold has been reached (It'd probably come across as a bit janky and abrupt... But to be fair, so is any sudden shift in disposition)
As far as going from sullen and withdrawn to fiery and passionate... It's not even particularly likely that such a change would effect vocalization. Rather it would change what options you pick and get vocalized (I.e. You stop picking the dialogue options that avoid emotional responses and transition into picking the more emotive ones). Which is already possible in games with voiced protagonists (For example Cyberpunk 2077 you have options to pick those types of dialogue options and V expresses themselves accordingly)
I think that silent protagonsits are simply better for crpgs 9/10 times, and changing my mind on that is going to be as difficult as changing your mind on your opinion here.
I'd still like your input on exactly why you believe so. Since I'm struggling to find where the benefit is for a silent protagonist.
I don't care how the npcs or the game reacts to my character
At which point you can emulate your silent protagonist by having a voiced protagonist and simply skipping their dialogue and headcanoning your own thing in place. If actual dialogue is irrelevant to you, then there's no downside to simply skipping all dialogue and headcanoning whatever you want.
I know that there are always limitations because this is a game, but it seems that you consider those limitations far greater than I think they are.
Seemingly it's because I care about dialogue as a whole and not just what my character is doing.
As a whole, I care about what my character does, and how other characters react to what they do. This creates more of a sense of being in the world, which I find far more conducive to roleplaying than simply being an observer pretending like what I think is occuring.
I personally can't get into headcanoning my own actions into the game if every other character doesn't respond to them. Since it's so jarring to have that occur (To me at least. Perhaps some people like trying to fight the narrative of the game by pretending something completely different is happening)
Possibly because I see a video game as a means to explore a writers story rather than a means to create one. For creating a story, there's Tabletop RPG's where it's all about becoming a character and interacting with the world directly. Where whatever action I think up, is what actually occurs and things actually ensue because of that.
I think that going fully voiced would take away far more options and the benefits wouldn't be worth it and would result in crpgs that lose out on the things I fundamentally value in crpgs.
Fully voiced doesn't take anything away. Especially if you're the type of person who doesn't actually care about cohesive dialogues. As dialogue skipping can emulate silent protagonists.
Meanwhile, fully voiced can directly add to dialogues by allowing for more dynamic sequences. Something that cannot be recreated with a silent protagonist staring at people like they're in middle school giving a presentation.
If fully voiced is done well, with adequate options for voice types (Accents, demeanor), personalities and actual responses. They can create a far more immersive and enjoyable dialogue experience than a silent protagonist. Whilst still retaining a high level of personal creativity, enabling creating a character that has a relatively unique personality.
