[Feedback] Wuk Lamat's English Voice

There are points where I feel there should have been another take, but otherwise her voice has been fine.

So basically my opinion still has not changed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Originally Posted by Shibi

I do need to feel sorry for the VA a little. This is quite possibly a career hurting production for them, because once you switch to Japanese voice, the story becomes much less painful.

I mean the artwork is stunning, and the story harks back to those nice kid-friendly games from childhood, and that trial was just amazing. Imagine that in extreme.

But the entire expansion has been kicked in the goolies by bad voice (English) acting. (JP 'tomboy' Wuk is actually ok, I think)

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Maybe it's because I've heard some really, really terrible VA in all of my years of gaming, but I really don't think Wuk's VA is bad. No amount of voice acting (or acting in general) can save a terrible script, however, so I really do think that she was doing the best with what she was given. The blame largely lies at the feet of the writers, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

I do need to feel sorry for the VA a little. This is quite possibly a career hurting production for them, because once you switch to Japanese voice, the story becomes much less painful.

I mean the artwork is stunning, and the story harks back to those nice kid-friendly games from childhood, and that trial was just amazing. Imagine that in extreme.

But the entire expansion has been kicked in the goolies by bad voice (English) acting. (JP 'tomboy' Wuk is actually ok, I think)

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Less painful, but it doesn't null the mountains upon mountains of nonsensical plot and bad storytelling. I swapped to JP at the 94 mark and only felt a slight improvement. I'm finished now and can't really find a reason to keep playing. The story is the foundation for the rest of the game, without it, everything else is hollow. For me at least.

I kinda wonder if it's UK actors trying to do US/Canadian accents? It's not just Wuk, it's all the voice acting in the wild west zone where they characters have American dialects. They seem to over articulate words at times in a way that feels unnatural for a US accent, and in general the American voice acting just was sub par compared to the voice acting with a British accent.

Wuk isn't AS bad... though it does feel a bit like she's holding back a laugh constantly even when the nature of the scene doesn't call for that emotion.

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Originally Posted by BeoCat

I'm fine with Wuk Lamat, my bigger issue is having Thancred's va voice 3-4 characters at the same time. If i'm not mistaken Koana is voiced by him.

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Koana is voiced by Luis Bermudez.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

I kinda wonder if it's UK actors trying to do US/Canadian accents? It's not just Wuk, it's all the voice acting in the wild west zone where they characters have American dialects. They seem to over articulate words at times in a way that feels unnatural for a US accent, and in general the American voice acting just was sub par compared to the voice acting with a British accent.

Wuk isn't AS bad... though it does feel a bit like she's holding back a laugh constantly even when the nature of the scene doesn't call for that emotion.

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The vast majority, if not all, of the Turali characters are played by American actors (including Lamat).

At 96 now and

goddamn I was having fun with the mundane adventuring with Erenville until stuff happened and now I have to drag that useless cat around again. I wish the writers didn't make her such a nuisance. "I couldn't have done this without you." OK, why are you here then? Let actual heroes do their thing and stay out of the way. Scions are better company because they are useful and can hold a conversation without complaining about everything.

The voice is somehow getting worse and when she cried in that one scene I just cringed, it was so bad.

Now that the game is out? I feel the VA did a much better job later in the game at being consistent. I too in the post-EW quest felt like the accent was all over the place. My issue now is all of the VA. How come this parent/child who lived together don't have the same accent at all for example? How come these people who have lived in the same exact region their entire lives have incredibly different accent. Talk about a return to ARR - they even did bad voice direction too.

Soo, just to voice my own opinion. Wuk Lamat's English voiceover is terrible, flat and does not seem to change no matter the situation or emotions that said character should be going through, not to mention screaming that sounds like read by an automaton from a teleprompter.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

she was doing the best with what she was given. The blame largely lies at the feet of the writers, in my opinion.

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It lies with both, imo, plus the voice director.

And the effect wouldn't be as much pronounced (pun not intended), if she wasn't in 98% of the voiced scenes. It's the fact that she's there, in your face, all the time, makes the issue much worse.

Most english VA of anime over-emote and it doesn't sound natural. There's a bit of that in certain zones of DT as well. That's why many of us do prefer JP with subtitles in anime, games, etc. It's not being a snob as much as nobody we interact with daily talks the way these people do even under the same circumstances.

The voice actor has no range. The voice was good when in the happy go lucky Wuk Lamat phase, and it really felt like it fit with the character. However, any scenes that needed emotion other than happy were truly some of the worst voice acting I have ever heard, it is so bad that it makes the OG Minfilia sound good.

Wuk's voice in the final fight is the most immersion breaking thing ever, I don't want to spoil anything but just know Wuk ruins the scene with her usual happy voice, instead of the anger/desperation needed. The whole setting is one of anger and desperation and she is voicing lines that are indicating such, yet we get the same exact voice as every other time you hear her speak. There is no emotion behind it, it just falls flat.

I don't ever listen to the Japanese audio, but I heard the Japanese comparison for the final fight and they are worlds apart, you hear the rage behind the voice, it was so well done. Even parts where the Wuk is showing strength, you hear the growl in her voice.

I rarely post but i had to do it after hearing bad opinions about this character english voice and when i got to listen to it shortly on youtube i was like.. oh god

This voice dosnt match at all to the point that it is embarassing, i really feel like they (english team) decided to go into the street and pick the 1st person they find for this character...

Also there's plenty of trans woman/man capable of amazing vocal skill, if the english team absolutely wanted "lgbt representation" why they didnt pick any of them instead of a embarassing badly one ?

To be honest i'm not trying to be mean but the game is far from being cheap for us (subscribe, base game, extension...) so i don't think we deserve to see some huge shitty choice like that, the MSQ is already horrible.. there was no need to make it even worse

Yoshi-P if you care about your playerbase, replace this VA

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Originally Posted by Reinha

At 96 now and

goddamn I was having fun with the mundane adventuring with Erenville until stuff happened and now I have to drag that useless cat around again. I wish the writers didn't make her such a nuisance. "I couldn't have done this without you." OK, why are you here then? Let actual heroes do their thing and stay out of the way. Scions are better company because they are useful and can hold a conversation without complaining about everything.

The voice is somehow getting worse and when she cried in that one scene I just cringed, it was so bad.

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Yeah when she cried I was genuinely like "oh no this is the part of the story where I'm supposed to feel something and I feel literally nothing at all" and just cringed too. I was genuinely trying to like Wuk Lamat and empathize with her, but I just felt literally nothing towards her. I teared up about the small barely any voiced cutscene involving

Krile's family

though, even though it played such a small part. I wish we got more of that instead of more Wuk Lamat.

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Originally Posted by Brian25

The voice actor has no range. The voice was good when in the happy go lucky Wuk Lamat phase, and it really felt like it fit with the character. However, any scenes that needed emotion other than happy were truly some of the worst voice acting I have ever heard, it is so bad that it makes the OG Minfilia sound good.

Wuk's voice in the final fight is the most immersion breaking thing ever, I don't want to spoil anything but just know Wuk ruins the scene with her usual happy voice, instead of the anger/desperation needed. The whole setting is one of anger and desperation and she is voicing lines that are indicating such, yet we get the same exact voice as every other time you hear her speak. There is no emotion behind it, it just falls flat.

I don't ever listen to the Japanese audio, but I heard the Japanese comparison for the final fight and they are worlds apart, you hear the rage behind the voice, it was so well done. Even parts where the Wuk is showing strength, you hear the growl in her voice.

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This. In scenes were it is lighthearted or happy ect the voice is fine, but when the scene calls for any sort of other emotion beside light, soft cheerfulness it is like the VA is incapable of real intonation. It just sounds the same regardless of what is going on, absolutely monotone. Scenes where she is suppose to be yelling in anger just sound like she is softly chiding. Sadness? She lets out a soft cheery voice.

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Originally Posted by SDaemon

This. In scenes were it is lighthearted or happy ect the voice is fine, but when the scene calls for any sort of other emotion beside light, soft cheerfulness it is like the VA is incapable of real intonation. It just sounds the same regardless of what is going on, absolutely monotone. Scenes where she is suppose to be yelling in anger just sound like she is softly chiding. Sadness? She lets out a soft cheery voice.

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The text: "WHY?!"

The voice acting: "why."

I felt the same way when many of the VOs were changed after ARR into HW. But I got used to them and love them now.

But her voice is fine, especially (IMO) when you learn she comes from the same land as another NPC we have made friends with. Besides, is there anywhere SE has stated what the character is supposed to sound like they are from?

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Originally Posted by Karious

It's bad. I feel like the character was miscast. Why did an American get hired for the role when the hiring studio is based out of London and everyone we've gotten has been from the UK so far?

The accent and pronunciation varies wildly and it shows how amateurish she is in comparison to the rest of the cast. I don't want to have to listen to a mid delivery from a character we're going to be stuck with for the entire expansion.

Give us the ability to swap language for specific characters so I can listen to the superior Japanese Tomboy Wuk.

TRANSPHOBES NOT WELCOME. THIS IS A TOPIC ABOUT BAD VOICE ACTING.

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I'm in full agreement that the English VA for Wuk Lamut needs to be replaced. They clearly need a lot more experience before being able to handle VA'ing someone like Wuk. The lack of emotion expressed in their lines ruins a lot of the scenes. It's a shame and embarrassment that this was allowed to happen

At this point they need to kill the character off at the start of 7.1 and get a new writer for the story. Have them sacrifice themselves in a text only cutscene and get a new writer.

Wuk is:

Forspoken 2: no energy boogaloo

I said before I didn't like the character in 6.5 but even after giving it more time I really do not like her character, the writing for her, or her voice. She reminds me a lot of Lyse, and not in a good way, and babysitting her for this expansion was not very fun.
It's a shame the topic has hit a nerve on the culture war though, so now saying you're not really a fan isn't allowed. You either absolutely adore her and she's perfect or she's singlehandedly the thing ruining the game and needs to be written out asap.

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Originally Posted by JimCasey_RF6

I'm in full agreement that the English VA for Wuk Lamut needs to be replaced. They clearly need a lot more experience before being able to handle VA'ing someone like Wuk. The lack of emotion expressed in their lines ruins a lot of the scenes. It's a shame and embarrassment that this was allowed to happen

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Far too late for that, they already voiced the entire expac. Best outcome is as little of Wuk as possible moving forward, and with any mercy no voiced lines.

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Originally Posted by JimCasey_RF6

I'm in full agreement that the English VA for Wuk Lamut needs to be replaced. They clearly need a lot more experience before being able to handle VA'ing someone like Wuk. The lack of emotion expressed in their lines ruins a lot of the scenes. It's a shame and embarrassment that this was allowed to happen

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It might not be the VA's fault they could have been told to do it this way. Just to play devils advocate. I hate Wuk it's made me unable to play the game any further, but of the sin's that are Wuk I would say the VA is right at the bottom.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

It might not be the VA's fault they could have been told to do it this way.

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Or maybe the voice director did the best they could with VA they got. You know, just playing devil's advoctae for the other side...

English VA was pretty bad throughout this whole expansion. Not only the aforementioned Wuk Lamat issue, which is the most glaring, but also there were sound mixing issues, or some lines sounding that they were recorded with a bad microphone. Even estabilished characters like Thancred and Urianger had a noticeable drop in performance in DT.

Now, for Wuk Lamat, let's not sugarcoat it. The performance is awful. I don't know if it's from the VA being incompetent, or from a failure on the voice directing level, but the result is unnaceptable given how big this game is. Lamat's lines at the intermission on the third trial in particular sound terrible, and that's supposed to be the climax of the story. There's no emotion at all, to the point where the character model and the sound look grossly mismatched. Someone needs to get some serious feedback because they're not doing their job correctly, or this VA needs to be replaced if she does not have the range necessary to play the character.

And don't come and try to tell me that her accent is supposed to sound Brazilian. I am Brazilian. I've never seen anyone sounding like this around here, and I listen to Brazilians speaking English at work daily.

Got to agree on this one, not the worst VA I heard in gaming ever, but for a large company such as SE to take such a horrible one and put her as the Main character for the xPac, this is just embarrassing

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Originally Posted by Regis_Paran

Or maybe the voice director did the best they could with VA they got. You know, just playing devil's advoctae for the other side...

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Right, surely a voice director with experience would know when someone they are directing is just not up to snuff, but since they still have to do their job, they tried their best with a fresh voice actor with little experience (in a triple A game...) Everyone needs to start somewhere and hone their skills, but damn in a massive MMO with millions of players?

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Originally Posted by Tengi

Right, surely a voice director with experience would know when someone they are directing is just not up to snuff, but since they still have to do their job, they tried their best with a fresh voice actor with little experience (in a triple A game...) Everyone needs to start somewhere and hone their skills, but damn in a massive MMO with millions of players?

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The voice director clearly just doesn't care at all, and the team obviously didn't actually see the scenes they voiced. This isn't an actor problem, this is a management problem. Even if the animation isn't finished, even if they can't get ahold of the story boards, showing the actors a five second stick figure drawing of some of these scenes would have been enough to improve their performance.

Wuk is not the only character that has issues. Bakool Ja Ja falls extremely flat in many of his early scenes, a lot of the extras struggle to maintain the accent (one of the first ones becomes Scottish for a few lines). The localization team simply didn't review their work and shipped it all on the first take.

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Originally Posted by Regis_Paran

Or maybe the voice director did the best they could with VA they got. You know, just playing devil's advoctae for the other side...

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I'd be inclined to agree if I didn't look at Sena's VA history and it's all lackluster performances.
Everyone has to start from somewhere, and everything she has been in until now has been small, low profile stuff (except arguably unicorn overlord).
If you want to blame the voice director, it's for hiring her in the first place.
It feels like we're regressing back to ARR voices, which were all smaller American VAs, who were paid to do very few takes. Except ARR had the excuse of being on a literal shoestring budget.

Game is full of vas putting on fake accents.

Really odd there was no mention of it til now. Absolutely footnoted til now where there's dozens if not hundreds of repeat topics about the one va that's trans.

There's no universe where her performance is the one that needs to be singled out.

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Originally Posted by Anatha

Game is full of vas putting on fake accents.

Really odd there was no mention of it til now. Absolutely footnoted til now where there's dozens if not hundreds of repeat topics about the one va that's trans.

There's no universe where her performance is the one that needs to be singled out.

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It needs to be singled out because rather than the myriad of randos you hear every once in a while, she is with you through the whole story. It's sort of like how you don't tend to notice the over acting extras in a movie, but if the main actor has a bad scene it stands out like crazy.

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Originally Posted by Anatha

Game is full of vas putting on fake accents.

Really odd there was no mention of it til now. Absolutely footnoted til now where there's dozens if not hundreds of repeat topics about the one va that's trans.

There's no universe where her performance is the one that needs to be singled out.

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Care to name a few of the people putting on a fake accent?

Imagine complaining about Wuk Lamat's voice in a game where Erenville has an Icelandic accent and his mother and childhood friends from his hometown all have American accents.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

Imagine complaining about Wuk Lamat's voice in a game where Erenville has an Icelandic accent and his mother and childhood friends from his hometown all have American accents.

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Yeah that's a little silly. It makes you wonder where his accent came from. But that's more of a weird lore thing, not a "this voice actor is doing a poor job" thing. Erenville's voice is good.

I feel like so many people will staunchly defend bad VA if their identity makes them feel good.

I'm sure there's a few who hate wuk for the VA as well. But most at least give fair criticism for it, all to be dismissed because any knock against her effort put forth is sacrilegious.

She was given a terrible script, but she didn't do anything within that to make it enjoyable

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Originally Posted by Tengi

Right, surely a voice director with experience would know when someone they are directing is just not up to snuff, but since they still have to do their job, they tried their best with a fresh voice actor with little experience (in a triple A game...) Everyone needs to start somewhere and hone their skills, but damn in a massive MMO with millions of players?

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The English voice director would've been involved in the casting process. Nothing was thrust upon them.

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Originally Posted by Sayo_

Care to name a few of the people putting on a fake accent?

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Assuming you mean predating Dawntrail, well... the vast majority of the cast uses regional accents different from their own. To some American ears, it's "all British", but the UK is home to more specific than that, the same way Americans have different accents in Los Angeles than they do in Boston. Colin Ryan uses a Received Pronunciation (or simply RP) accent for Alphinaud, which is different from his own; Nicholas Boulton uses a northern Yorkshire accent for Raubahn, but RP for Zephirin; and so on and so forth.

If you do mean to include the Dawntrail cast, then, again, the vast majority lol. Not all are faking it, but many like Luis Bermudez (voice of Koana and many more) are affecting a (Mexican) Spanish-American accent for the Turali characters they play.

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Originally Posted by Turnintino

Assuming you mean predating Dawntrail, well... the vast majority of the cast uses regional accents different from their own. To some American ears, it's "all British", but the UK is home to more specific than that, the same way Americans have different accents in Los Angeles than they do in Boston. Colin Ryan uses a Received Pronunciation (or simply RP) accent for Alphinaud, which is different from his own; Nicholas Boulton uses a northern Yorkshire accent for Raubahn, but RP for Zephirin; and so on and so forth.

If you do mean to include the Dawntrail cast, then, again, the vast majority lol. Not all are faking it, but many like Luis Bermudez (voice of Koana and many more) are affecting a (Mexican) Spanish-American accent for the Turali characters they play.

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Oh wow that's pretty cool. I didn't know that stuff.

As I recommend to everyone, play in Japanese.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

As I recommend to everyone, play in Japanese.

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I just did that, and I'm intensely glad I did, as I just got to a scene that involved a lot of yelling from Wuk which, uh, to put it bluntly, clearly does not work on english.

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Originally Posted by Sayo_

Oh wow that's pretty cool. I didn't know that stuff.

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Americans tend to think all accents are the same, so it's often not brought up. Not a dig at you, by the by - it's hard to parse different accents if you're not a local, but some are *really* tellling, and the greatest incidence of people thinking they actually know a foreign langauge or accents then they uh - *really* don't is absolutely from the US.

After beating the MSQ in the English voices, I change my opinion about the VA for Wuk Lamat. I do not think the VA did a bad job. Compared to the incredible voice work in the past as well as other languages, yes, it's very clear this VA lacks nuance in reading their lines; however, I can't pin that fault solely on the VA, because I think the VA director should hold a lot of that blame as well. In the end, the VA, imo, isn't the issue with the character. It is the constant "peace," "dawnservant," "the more you know someone the fonder you grow for them," lines constantly being repeated ad nauseum. The other massive issue is the sheer amount of lines given to this character. There was a post in another thread that shows this character is given more than double the top lines of any character in the entire expansion thus far, and well over double the lines Lyse had in Stormblood.

So in conclusion, no the voice actor isn't horrible but lacks nuance imo (I'm no expert, I'm not a VA nor have I worked in that field - this is just from years of listening to dub work in anime and video games). The main issues I've seen is the sheer overwhelming presence the character has in the story that dwarfs any involvement I've seen of any character in the history of this game, though there's only evidence for this in comparison to Stormblood. The writing was so below the standard of what I'm used to in this series, which is a massive contributing factor to my dislike of the character.

In other words, I don't think it matters who voiced Wuk Lamat, she's an awful character due to bad writing and constant unwanted presence.

So I am mixed with this VA performance. On one hand I think there are scenes like at the inn or at the table eating with us. The VA does a fine job.

However there are other times like near the end or the midway point of the story where the VA really is grinding on my nerves.

The character themselves I am going to chalk up to Zenos 2.0, where as I hated Zenos in STB. I loved the development he got into Endwalker.

So If this is Wak's start then hopefully these post on the forums will wake the writers up to make wak into a better written character.

Sorry If my post is super vague its just the game launched yesterday for alot of people and I didn't want to include heavy spoilers to make my point lol