So, ehhh I was looking at the VNs I’d played and in some of them, the protagonists were men who had this “empty face” syndrome. Okay, I get that not having a sprite for the protagonists = saves a lot on art and animation. But in CGs, they have “no face”… or their face is utterly covered up by their hair… making it look like they’re either VERY shy or suffering from “utter depression”.
Why?
That. If there is a defined character there a higher chance that the person cannot really connect with them. While it holds some validity for sex-romp type games with little character development, higher quality narratives tend to develop characters better and (hopefully) are able to draw the player in regardless of how the person looks. There are some other pyscholigical issues at play, but more study has been focused on avatars for online games.
For some of us, when applied to female characters, it becomes a desired fetish. :o
Takes a creative artist to pull off properly, since only the mouth and body language are used for emotional expressions. Evidently some just draw the eyes in a hidden layer, for proper reference.
And of course, variations therefore of: like only one eye covered or half of both eyes covered. 8)
???
Yes, I sort of hate this too. It’s tolerable, I suppose, if said protagonist has virtually no personality, since it reflects that, but it’s also used in VNs where the protagonist is quite an important character to the story, like MOON STONE’s “Doko e Iku no, ano hi” - and it looks rather odd at times.
Some studios at least do the no-face thing tastefully - by avoiding depicting the protagonist’s face, rather than quite blatantly covering it over with hair or something similar.
EDIT: That said, I’ve noticed that if I go down my list of favourite eroges, I have to go down like 15 or so to find one where the protagonist doesn’t have a face (Sayonara wo Oshiete -comment te dire adieu-, in which the protagonist isn’t obviously faceless, but nonetheless is never depicted in the game)
I find that annoying In story oriented games but it kind of makes sense in sex-romp games Since its supposed to make the player connect to the character more. I also hate it when the main character is the only character who dosen’t have a voice in the whole game (it breaks the flow of the game in my oppinion.) games like cross channel would have been a lot better if Taichi was voiced. Or in games were the main character is partially voiced ex: Sakura wars where they have the mc voiced in certain scenes but not in the majority of the game. I mean if you hav a voic actor you may aswell voice the entire game. The only time I don’t think the mc should be voiced is during sex-romps for the same reason as the faceless protag.
I also like minor characters that are semi faceless it can look cute or mysterious.
There’s a few additional fetishes with all of them as well. For Dorothy their is also the possibility they might date her to be able to have incest fetish in the 2nd generation with Cammy.
If someone fills their post with images, as Narg does sometimes, please do not quote the ENTIRE POST :((
Cost is probably the reason why a lot of eroges don’t have voiced protagonists. Generally the protagonist has the most lines in a game by far, and it probably wouldn’t be worth the added expense for a company to do so, when it’d be unlikely to have a significant effect on sales. It’s a pity though, as almost all eroges would benefit from having a voiced protagonist.
As for faces, I’d prefer every protagonist to have one regardless of the game’s genre, for similar reasons that others have noted. I can’t really accept the argument that it makes it easier to imagine yourself in the protagonist’s shoes, as generally eroges along those lines, with a zero substance protagonist end up suffering because of that.
Done.
Well, well… my post certainly set off one hell of a thread. 
Thanks Narg for those really nice piccies… Thanks everyone else for your wonderful replies. =P
Hmmm anyways, I find it kind of “detracts” from the characterization a little if his face is hidden and this is in contrast of his personality(outgoing, crazy, etc. kind of guy). Also, it jars a little against the storyline and the moments shared between the rest of the cast like: it’s forgivable/acceptable if the plot has tons of “secretive moments” or “twists” but if it’s barely secretive and so on… it doesn’t make sense to have an “empty faced guy”. As for the second thing: it’s 'cos… it makes it a little strange when the “interactions”/“moments” between the cast are heading to a romantic sort of nature but the character’s “face” in the CGs make you think “I can’t believe the cast are falling for someone who looks like he’s about to… err… die just from being near a girl!” (Bad joke: it’s not like he’s going to be… made to crossdress or castrated!)
But I was surprised to learn that commercial VNs also have this “syndrome” too since there’s only 1 commercial VN where I sort of “encountered” this: Ever17 where you don’t get to see the “protagonists’” sprites. And they used that “trick” very cleverly. 
I was actually wondering IF there were any commercial games like this but oh yes, your replies kinda confirmed there are some like this. =P Sorry for bad English… brain sorta melting down. Hee hee.
Edot:
Also, nice to see that “empty faced” females can become a fetish… hee hee hee hee hee. =) Well, they do kinda look lovely but only if their characterization is up to par, too. =P No offense but most of the times, if she’s drop-dead gorgeous but if her head’s “empty”, that kinda makes it more difficult to err… “relate to/like/fall in love with” the character, right? No head, no love, ya know. =)
Also Nargy… I kinda like the girl with “hidden eyes”. She makes me wanna snuggle her. =3
According to this reviewer, this particular game features a headless protagonist :mrgreen: :
Hmmmm interesting… lolz. =D
Headless LOL!!!
Hmmm… soo G Senjou = something i ought to look at, eh? Ehhh? 
Looks like one of these days, i’ll need to keep a bookmark of “scenario/script writers I’m growing to like”.
Art style looks kinda cool for its’ age, too.
And oh, yet another company blocking “the rest of the world”. =P (Btw, any thoughts on how long they’ll keep doing that? It can’t be good for them to keep this up… I heard that the VN market in Japan is kinda shrinking a fair bit and the audiences are getting older and older= more and more niche. And here I thought that to “sustain a business in a shrinking market” = new market".
Then again, many “eroge” get translated into Chinese, eh. Or so I heard from some old post Lamun-chan made.)
Masayuki has a head in some of the CGs but not a face. Pity they took that approach, as he’s too important to be faceless. (Incidentally, Kyousuke in G-Senjou is faceless for almost, but not quite all of the CGs he appears in. However unlike A Profile, I think it may have been intentional on Alpha/Loose Boy’s part.)
Ohhh so he’s promoted from “headless chicken” to “faceless chicken”. At least that’s a step up. 
I love it myself. Probably my 2nd or so fav eroge - I was literally refreshing the website ten or more times a day during its development. Every single one of those delays hurt me a lot, too >_>
Seriously? It’s that good?! Even better than Tsuki/FSN/“whatever great game produced by most of those top eroge comps”(AliceSoft and so on? Sorry brains not working at all.)
Well, to me it is. Both Tsukihime and Fate/stay Night are liked by a lot of other people a lot more than I do, so your mileage may vary. My favourites are, in no particular order-
Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo
G-Senjou no Maou
Cross Channel
Saihate no IMA
Subarashiki Hibi
Moshimo Ashita ga Hare Naraba
Himawari
Mugen Kairou 2
Baldr Sky
Sense Off -a sacred story in the wind-
Kimi ga Nozomu Eien
The reason why it’s hard to say that a particular VN is better than certain others is because some people have wildly different tastes. For example: Subarashiki Hibi is my favourite eroge of all time, but TakaJun gave it 3/10. On the other hand, I despise the popular eroge SHUFFLE! - but it’s in GipFace’s top 10 list. So while I can say ‘here’s an eroge I really liked, you might like it too’ there’s a chance you might hate it. There’s a whole heap of subjectivity inherent in this field.
Well, thanks Swatty-sama, each of us has one’s personal and different tastes!
Yuri, if you’re curious about the matter, I think we got some time ago a thread about each other’s “top ten” games. You can get a look at it, or start a new one~
I have to say I’ve found G-Senjou no Maou to be quite overrated. The game is really solid, and definitely makes for a good reading, but the plot feels sometimes “forced” and convenient. Needless to say, in a game that’s (almost) all about masterminding and clever tricks, this can really spoil everything.
Still, the game has probably the best ending out there. I didn’t like how the author got there, but sure as hell it was mindblowing.
I myself thought that G-Senjou was all about the lives of people getting tossed about by the greedy machinations of corporate enterprise, sort of like Sharin no Kuni was the exact same thing only with the government instead. But I won’t deny that it contains a little bit of the ‘masterminding and clever tricks’ stuff to it as well. But you can tell what I was more paying attention to when I played it wwwwwwwwwww
