Talk to Everyone: Difference between revisions

 

See also [[Try Everything]].

 

* ''Zelda''

** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]'' also does this in Hyrule town square.

* ''[[Star Control]] 2'': Talking to everyone repeatedly is ''extremely'' important. Since the star map is huge, you need hints from the dialogue to have any idea where to go next. Some of these can be very obscure and easy to miss, and you'd better take notes on paper, because you cannot review past conversations. Thankfully, the game has truly excellent writing, so this is not boring, though talking to hostile alien races can get tricky.

 

 

* In the PC game ''[[Sherlock Holmes]] and the Secret of the Silver Earring'', the trope is present in the extreme—not only must you speak with every NPC you find, you absolutely must pursue every single possible line of dialogue or the game will not move forward.

* The ''[[Little Big Adventure]]'' games make use of this, since friendly NPCs can provide useful info, including tips on [[Medium Awareness|what Twinsen is capable of doing as a]] [[Player Character]]. When you have a specific objective, Twinsen will usually ask about it, and if you're talking to the right person, chances are you'll be given some clues—or at least a reminder of [[Now Where Was I Going Again?|what you were going to do when you left the game the last time several weeks ago]].

 

 

* In the ''[[Carmen Sandiego]]'' games it's talk to the ''right'' everybody. At each location on the trail of the thief there's somebody with a clue to the thief's next destination, and somebody with a clue to the thief's identity. Miss the first kind and you'll lose the trail; miss the second kind and you won't be able to get a warrant for their arrest. But misinterpret a clue, and you'll waste your time traveling to a location where nobody you talk to knows anything at all.

** Averted: One ''[[Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?]]'' actually penalizes you for it as the game goes on: your translator power is limited and you make more and more stops each game. By the final location, you're expected to figure out the next location just from talking to one person, by which point you're supposed to be smart enough to figure out the one clue.

 

 

* Not always necessary for plot advancement, but the requirements to unlock some of the hidden scenes, artes, and weapons in the [[Tales (series)]] can be [[Guide Dang It|downright absurd]]. Didn't talk to that one nondescript NPC before you spent a night in the inn? Sorry, an entire side-quest chain is now completely unfinishable. (Even worse, you may not realize this until you've gone several hours into it.)

* ''[[Mother]]''

** In ''[[MOTHER 1]]'', speaking to certain NPCs in the perpetually wintery town of Snowman will cause them to sneeze on you, giving you their cold. A status effect similar to poison, this will gradually deplete your HP.

** This trope is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in ''[[Mother 3]]'', where a NPC says something under the lines of "You just have to talk to everyone, don't you? ... No, I'm not saying that's a bad thing."

* ''[[The Magic Candle]]'' is one game that simply can't be beaten if you don't spend a lot of time talking to people. Unlike most [[RPG]]s, this one doesn't have a strict sequence of events or an obvious [[Big Bad]]. Your goal is to repair the seal that keeps the archdemon Dreax from getting out and killing everybody—and to do that, you have to find out ''how''. You'll need bits of information from all over the world to get the instructions and magical items required. Oh, and [[Timed Mission|there's a deadline]].

* ''[[Persona 4]]'' scatters its [[Fetch Quest]]s across the [[Non-Player Character|NPCs]] in town and at school, such that you'll want to either talk to everyone regularly (at least once per in-game month) or [[Guide Dang It|consult a guide]] to catch all the quests.

 

* ''Rune Factory''

** In ''Rune Factory: A Fantasy [[Harvest Moon]],'' you ''must'' speak to all of the townspeople to get all of the basic farming equipment that previous games have given you from the beginning, much to the chagrin of the player. Without an FAQ, some of the tools are very difficult to find. The game requires you to talk to everyone in town in order to start your next day on the farm.

* ''[[Animal Crossing]]'' has the tradition of forcing the player in their first job at the beginning of the game to talk to ''every single towns-person'' in their town. Mind you, you usually don't have a map handy unless you go to the postboards of it. Sometimes you can easily find them in their house, but often they will be outside wandering. This is even worse in the more recent games as the map is no longer divided into screens, and animals are free to wander the ''whole'' town. Even moreso, pity the person who joins in on another player's file, and the town has up to 15 residents if it's on the Cube. Oh, did I mention they don't tell you who you have, and have not talked to? Hope you have good memory.

 

 

* In ''[[Shining Force]] II'', talking to random people proves ridiculously useful. Kiwi and May join your party, completely out of the blue, just because you talked to them in Granseal and Rubble, respectively. Then again, this game is notorious for having people join you for the silliest reasons.

 

 

* ''[[Ace Attorney]]'': The entire exploration/investigation part of the series is made of this trope. Basically, to advance in the plot, you need to talk to everyone and choose every dialogue option, as well as explore every tiny bit of the scenarios and "present" relevant objects in your inventory to the appropriate person (which, usually, opens up another dialogue tree with them).

 

* This trope is derided in pen and paper roleplaying games where, thanks to the presence of a GM, you ''really'' can talk to all 130,000 inhabitants of New Gundark if you really want to. The movie ''The Gamers: Dorkness Rising'' lampshades this by depicting the new player talking to the first person she comes across (a merchant) and trying to gain intelligence about the plot from a lowly NPC. The other players incinerate the merchant to discourage her from doing this. Much to the chagrin of the DM, who was about to give them the information they needed through the mouth of the NPC. In this particular case, it was less "talk to everyone" that the other players hated, so much as "talk to ''anyone''"...

 

 

* [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2007/02/20/episode-810-efficient-use-of-time/ Mocked] in ''[[8-Bit Theater]]''—specifically, the version of this trope where you ''have'' to talk to someone non-obvious to advance the plot. This happens a time or two in ''[[Final Fantasy I]]'', the game on which the comic is based. For instance, learning to speak Lefeinish requires you to go find the Slab (a.k.a. Rosetta Stone), then take it to the random NPC Dr. Unne so he can interpret it for you... apparently just on the evidence that he's a doctor. Though he did mention that he was studying their race...

 

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[[Category:CRPG Tropes]]