[Feedback] Wuk Lamat's English Voice

I thought the VA did a good job.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion though

Yeah, I really disliked Wuk's English acting too, it may have amplified how much I dislike the character.

Between the frequent talk-yelling, extremely awkward emoting sounds and the fact that lines roll about half as smoothly as those around her it was irking me a lot.

I didn't think it was a cause of any issues until I switched it to Japanese and the actress there is amazing, I still dislike the direction of the character but it's made to be more tolorable and the direction much more clear.

...Problem is I prefer the 3.0 English voices for most of the rest of the cast. If they lean more into a North American based dub going forward I'll probably fully swap to JP or quit.

I completely disagree. I really loved her voice and thought she was well-cast. Really brought the character to life for me.

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Originally Posted by ViaDesperare

People can like the voice acting for Wuk, and people can hate it too. I do think the VA is a bit too inexperienced for an MC role considering their lack ability to scream. Considering that Kate, from Luis' Twitter post, had involvement around Wuk, so in theory with the voice acting bit as well, then it is to say that it was a miscast, or in some cases a DEI cast.

I think getting a normal female voice actor for the job probably could've alleviated any issues with screams, or tone of voice, due the voice being more naturally occurring. It's rare to have a VA like Ayumu Murase who can do both a cute girl voice and a beautiful man (Ikkemen) voice. The only voice actor I know who can do a very high-pitched voice in the anime VA community is Ben Diskin with his Cutemon voice, and even then it can't get to the high volume of a scream of sorts or yell.

We've had Trans VA's before, like Maddie Blaustein who was the second voice for Meowth on Pokemon and probably the one people know the best. Meowth isn't a female role, but the acting is superb, and she even sang as Meowth. I just don't think Sena has the talent, at the moment, to be in such a big role and possibly in a role where the voice just isn't a fit if yelling or screaming changes the tone of the voice drastically.

We've had nonbinary people play characters that fit their voice in the UK side, such as Lilly Hart, who played Gender-ambiguous Juniper, even the game data doesn't tell if Juniper is a girl or a guy. Yet the voice fits, the battle lines fit, the voice acting is amazing. It's all about being casted right, and Sena just wasn't casted in the right role.

If you look into their twitter/X, you can get some pretty crazy stuff. Maybe she should follow her own words and have let a cis-gendered woman have the role. Especially if the voice is a better fit. Don't go down the Twitter/x rabbit hole though, most people there can get downright nasty and cruel but some pics below. If she's willing to go after another VA, she shouldn't complain about criticism coming her way.

https://i.imgur.com/JUDUcMe.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/QSInVjj.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/LYeG71s.png

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It's insane that you can't raise this kind of sentiment up in so many places because you'll get lumped in with the chuds who hate Sena voicing Wuk because she's trans and not because she's just not very good.
Then I saw some of her other posts on twitter man and like, now I see why she isn't good. She refuses to improve and thinks she's not getting work because she's trans and not stopping to think about her own skill.
btw if any of you hope she'd be replaced or anything, that is 100% not going to happen. The backlash would be tremendous for replacing a trans VA, even if her performance left much to be desired.

I dont see how her voice is any different than erenvilles but no one is complaining about him.

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Originally Posted by Rikizza

I dont see how her voice is any different than erenvilles but no one is complaining about him.

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Erenville's voice actor is fine and matches the character quite well, what is utterly stupid tho, is the writers deciding hes no longer a Eastern Viera and instead hes from Tural, yet somehow the only Turali Viera who sounds like a Eastern Viera.

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Originally Posted by Rikizza

I dont see how her voice is any different than erenvilles but no one is complaining about him.

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Im also on the fence about Erenville but he has like 1/8th the speaking lines of Wuk Lamat so of course he's not going to be judged as much

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Originally Posted by ZodaSoda

Erenville's voice actor is fine and matches the character quite well, what is utterly stupid tho, is the writers deciding hes no longer a Eastern Viera and instead hes from Tural, yet somehow the only Turali Viera who sounds like a Eastern Viera.

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Lack of foresight on casting's part tbh. They wanted to copy the accent model used in FFXII's English localization (where viera spoke with Icelandic accents) without any of the same considerations.

Remember Lyna also has an Icelandic accent, despite being raised by G'raha in the Crystarium. Runar's Norwegian accent, despite presumably being raised among the Night's Blessed (who otherwise had British accents). Strange, because they were previously more consistent with the use of accents in Stormblood (and Heavensward), where all Ala Mhigans spoke with northern Yorkshire accents; and now again in Dawntrail, where Central/South American-coded Turali speak with Spanish-American accents, and so on.

Erenville sticks out like a sore thumb because their homage to XII lacks any internal logic in-universe, but it could've been saved if at least the other viera in Tural -- or at least his family -- hung on to the same accent, but... no.

I suppose their rationalization could be that he adapted his current accent the same way he adapted his new name, but of course there can be no acknowledgment of that in-game because it's an invention of the localization lol. So it falls apart all over again, imo, because certainly Lamat, of all people, would've made fun of him for his new accent if indeed it was actually an affectation. But here we are.

It annoys me about as much as the way literally none of the Scions can keep the pronunciation of "Y'shtola" straight.

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Originally Posted by AddictedToWitches

It's insane that you can't raise this kind of sentiment up in so many places because you'll get lumped in with the chuds who hate Sena voicing Wuk because she's trans and not because she's just not very good.
Then I saw some of her other posts on twitter man and like, now I see why she isn't good. She refuses to improve and thinks she's not getting work because she's trans and not stopping to think about her own skill.
btw if any of you hope she'd be replaced or anything, that is 100% not going to happen. The backlash would be tremendous for replacing a trans VA, even if her performance left much to be desired.

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That's pretty much it tbh and been some people's argument from the start. She's an amateur VA with no formal training, who started in the industry only a few years ago, only had experience doing very specific bit parts as side characters for a few lines apiece, and then got thrust into the main focus of an entire expansion.
She is not good enough to be the main character, she did not really pass the standard of quality from a AAA game like this. Sorry to her if it hurts her feelings but that's how it goes, this is a AAA expansion of a huge franchise, there is a level of quality expected.

But then things get wrapped up in transphobia because you cannot criticize a trans VA without that being the first accusation leveled your way, everyone circles the wagons, and it becomes a culture war thing.
The character itself was poorly written, and had way too much screentime, combined with an ill prepared VA, and it's just a disaster....

Huh? I liked the voice acting. Very fitting for the character. For half of the story, I was kinda meh on the character, but she grew on me by the end. That's the writing's fault though and not the voice actresses.

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Originally Posted by Embran

It's not really a Wuk-specific issue. It's an issue of the entirety of the studio they got for all of the American-based actors.

Everyone sounds like they're from FF7 Rebirth in that they have anime voice acting, which is a far cry from the UK-based studio of classicially-theatre trained actors that we're used to.

Only Koana seems to have bucked this trend and sounds like he belongs in XIV. And Galool Ja Ja.

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I can't state just how much I hate the voice acting once you reach the 4th area. Wuk Lamat aside I was actually enjoying DT until I got to that zone, then it took a hard nose dive. I really don't know what they were thinking.

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Originally Posted by BristolRuss

I can't state just how much I hate the voice acting once you reach the 4th area. Wuk Lamat aside I was actually enjoying DT until I got to that zone, then it took a hard nose dive. I really don't know what they were thinking.

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I dont even mind the whole western and american accent thing if thats what they wanna do, but they should have hired people who can actually talk like that and not obvious Anime Voice Actors likely from inner cities, putting on their best Southern twang.

VA is not good, they shouldn’t have been given a main characters role. When random side characters have amazing voices and the main character falls flat, how on earth did they get the job? English recruitment team what are you upto?

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Originally Posted by Rekujin

VA is not good, they shouldn’t have been given a main characters role. When random side characters have amazing voices and the main character falls flat, how on earth did they get the job? English recruitment team what are you upto?

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Guessing they found Wuks actress in the $0.99 bin and they saved a ton of money giving her 80 percent of the voiced lines.

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Originally Posted by Turnintino

It annoys me about as much as the way literally none of the Scions can keep the pronunciation of "Y'shtola" straight.

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"uhh sorry are we saying ISH-tola, YASH-tola, or YISH-tola today? Ah screw it, I'm just gonna drop the clan letter."

I think it fits pretty well for what the character personality is.

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Originally Posted by xxmiamorecadenza

I hope they don't change it. I actually really love her voice.

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I have to agree tbh. I didn't like much the character itself, but that's more about writting, but I liked her voice.

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Originally Posted by Higashikata

I didn't hate her, but got damn Wuk's english VA can't express any emotion. Wuk's speaking role in the final boss was painful on delivery

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SPEEEEEEEEEEEN

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Originally Posted by ZodaSoda

Erenville's voice actor is fine and matches the character quite well, what is utterly stupid tho, is the writers deciding hes no longer a Eastern Viera and instead hes from Tural, yet somehow the only Turali Viera who sounds like a Eastern Viera.

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okay but how is his voice acting better than wuk lamat? i think they're the same just male and female. Almost same type of accent and same vibe imo.
And if he lived many years in the east its only natural that his way of speaking changed a bit, that can happen when people move abroad. Thee developers probably already knew his story way before dawntrail. I think i read somewhere that they plan like 5-10 years ahead or something.

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Originally Posted by Rikizza

. Thee developers probably already knew his story way before dawntrail. I think i read somewhere that they plan like 5-10 years ahead or something.

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You’re misremembering, Yoshi has stated multiple times that they do not plan that far in advance. They leave loose ends as wiggle room for future stories, each expansion is loosely bullet pointed around the .1 patch of the prior expansion, so approx 2 years before release.

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Originally Posted by Rokke

You’re misremembering, Yoshi has stated multiple times that they do not plan that far in advance. They leave loose ends as wiggle room for future stories, each expansion is loosely bullet pointed around the .1 patch of the prior expansion, so approx 2 years before release.

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what really? thats wierd.

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Originally Posted by Rikizza

what really? thats wierd.

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A good example would be SHB: the writers did not plan for SHB when they wrote the initial crystal tower raids, the crystal tower raids just had an ending hook the team realized they could base a story around.

In that vein, Erenville has an Icelandic accent because in SHB the team decided voiced Viera would have Icelandic accents as a nod to 12. They did not foresee making a small clan of them having pueblos in fantasy Texas but to their credit I don’t think that was one anyone’s bingo cards :P

I hope they rewrite the patch story based on how negatively people are reacting to dawntrail itself

https://youtu.be/ITU77c2qYY8?si=fZ4NTmqpCvVlEewr

someone posted her VO reel on reddit and yeah, this is definitely more of a case of poor voice direction than her own shortcomings. i was convinced she was simply incapable of showing any range but that first clip alone shows far more range than all of the hours she has in dawntrail combined.

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Originally Posted by Rikizza

okay but how is his voice acting better than wuk lamat? i think they're the same just male and female. Almost same type of accent and same vibe imo.
And if he lived many years in the east its only natural that his way of speaking changed a bit, that can happen when people move abroad. Thee developers probably already knew his story way before dawntrail. I think i read somewhere that they plan like 5-10 years ahead or something.

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Erenville's sole existence in EW was to be a character using the new Male Viera model, he was 100% assumed to be just a male version of existing viera in lore, they had not decided yet who was in Tural outside of Mamool Ja, Erenville has only been gone from Tural for 3 years in his own words and spent most of his time in Sharlayan where they also do not speak with Scandinavian accents, accents do not change to this level especially in such a short period of time, Its very obvious Erenville was always intended to be a Nagxian Viera and they decided to change that after he was more popular than they expected and they wanted another character from Tural, What bothers me is changes in continuity, i hate them, i always have and i could Easily see Cahuica also being a Nagxian Viera who was also a Gleaner who went to Tural years ago, came back told Erenville all about the Golden City and Galool Ja ja, then recently took off for the Golden City again and Erenville hasnt seen her since, and the plot would remain uneffected and she could have a Scandanvian accent leaving continuity intact.

As for why his voice doesnt bother me, hes not a hyperactive, bubbly, over the top loud character, his voice literally matches his character, Wuk Lamat's character as annoying as she is to me, her VA cant emote the way the character talks and bounces around, atleast not consistently, which makes listening to the emotive scenes grating.

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Originally Posted by ZodaSoda

Erenville's sole existence in EW was to be a character using the new Male Viera model, he was 100% assumed to be just a male version of existing viera in lore, they had not decided yet who was in Tural outside of Mamool Ja, Erenville has only been gone from Tural for 3 years in his own words and spent most of his time in Sharlayan where they also do not speak with Scandinavian accents, accents do not change to this level especially in such a short period of time, Its very obvious Erenville was always intended to be a Nagxian Viera and they decided to change that after he was more popular than they expected and they wanted another character from Tural, What bothers me is changes in continuity, i hate them, i always have and i could Easily see Cahuica also being a Nagxian Viera who was also a Gleaner who went to Tural years ago, came back told Erenville all about the Golden City and Galool Ja ja, then recently took off for the Golden City again and Erenville hasnt seen her since, and the plot would remain uneffected and she could have a Scandanvian accent leaving continuity intact.

As for why his voice doesnt bother me, hes not a hyperactive, bubbly, over the top loud character, his voice literally matches his character, Wuk Lamat's character as annoying as she is to me, her VA cant emote the way the character talks and bounces around, atleast not consistently, which makes listening to the emotive scenes grating.

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In shorter words, the bunny is inconsistent in lore, but consistent in acting. The house cat is inconsistent in both.

I understand the criticism, but I think it was from lack of direction. I think she did the best she could with what she was given, and I think the overall tone and delivery for most of what she had in her performance fit the character of Wuk very well.

It is important to understand that some people have difficulty reaching certain tones, vocal capacity. Sena even says herself that she that struggles with exertion sounds. No one's perfect, but that does mean she won't be able to always fulfill certain grunts and I guess attack noises for the female roles. We've heard her scream with the male voices in the VO reels, but not a female one from the selection shown on reddit, so if we can find more instances of that to relate to Wuk Lamat that'd be great to get a better comparison.

https://i.imgur.com/7NzLr2n.png

But with that said, if Sena can't reach the capability to for roles not suited for her, then that role should've been given to someone who can. Her own words. She shouldn't have auditioned for a role not suited for her. If she's going to gatekeep, she herself has to be gatekept as well.

https://i.imgur.com/QNeJhqR.png

Interestingly, she's had contact w/ SQX before. There is a chance that they've been familiar with each other for a while. On twitter, I think Kate+Luis+Sena are all following each other so there's that, but IDK when the following started. For those that believe that that her voice wouldn't have landed her the role, this could be evident of a nepotism hire.

https://i.imgur.com/L51LSVT.png

https://i.imgur.com/V6l8ta9.png

If Sena does become more prominent, then that's what she's going to do. If the VA work continuous to be done in the state, you can expect more shoddy work if they're not going to hire based on performance. I'm assuming Kate has known Sena for a while, due to twitter, so I guess she's fine with ideologies like this if she's going to go out of her way to hire someone who tends to spout such cruel ideologies online.

And to finish things off.
https://i.imgur.com/oe5363l.png

I guess say good luck to ever seeing Erica Mendez, Wendee Lee, Briana Knickerbocker, Mark Whitten, Joe Zieja, Chris Hackney, Cherami Leigh, or Bryce Papenbrook in the FFXIV scene if they've not voiced a character already. (Bryce has voiced Zidane and Mobius!WoL). It was weird that that FFXIV didn't get one of them on the first expansion to be voiced in the states.

I don't think it's a lack of direction, just not the right voice for the character. We've heard most of the other VAs do ok, with Wuk being the most stand out but she is also the MC. One does wonder where the heck our money is going towards if not for decent voice acting like all the other expansions, that's not ARR.

I think I want to be done with Twitter now. There's like nothing but despair and spite there, or I'm looking at the wrong places. Fell in that rabbit hole and found interesting stuff though, really mean but interesting stuff.

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Originally Posted by ViaDesperare

Snip

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I think its pretty obvious at this point much of the blame for bad writing falls on Yoshi P, Daichi Hiroi and Kate, Daichi could have done a much better job at pacing, lore depth, connections between characters, implementation of Alexandria, Cultural significance of the tribes etc etc.

Kate has been promoted to Lore Consultant and Localization Lead, She is likely the one behind the "Allied Society" crap, She is likely the one who hired all the mediocre VA's for English including Sena and She also likely had more input on story than people would like to admit considering the Lore consultant position and Japan going through her to not "Offend" any Latino Cultures, She is also likely the final say in English VA direction. Ultimately Koji shoulda stepped in as her boss, but he might be quite busy as a supervisor on multiple projects now and had a lil too much faith in Kate.

And lastly Yoshi P, he should have known better in his final checks of each part of the game he played, He should have seen the pacing problem, he should have noticed Wuk was around way too much and if people didnt like a brand new character that is unproven, it a bad idea for them to be around this much.

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Originally Posted by ViaDesperare

It is important to understand that some people have difficulty reaching certain tones, vocal capacity. Sena even says herself that she that struggles with exertion sounds. No one's perfect, but that does mean she won't be able to always fulfill certain grunts and I guess attack noises for the female roles. We've heard her scream with the male voices in the VO reels, but not a female one from the selection shown on reddit, so if we can find more instances of that to relate to Wuk Lamat that'd be great to get a better comparison.

https://i.imgur.com/7NzLr2n.png

But with that said, if Sena can't reach the capability to for roles not suited for her, then that role should've been given to someone who can. Her own words. She shouldn't have auditioned for a role not suited for her. If she's going to gatekeep, she herself has to be gatekept as well.

https://i.imgur.com/QNeJhqR.png

Interestingly, she's had contact w/ SQX before. There is a chance that they've been familiar with each other for a while. On twitter, I think Kate+Luis+Sena are all following each other so there's that, but IDK when the following started. For those that believe that that her voice wouldn't have landed her the role, this could be evident of a nepotism hire.

https://i.imgur.com/L51LSVT.png

https://i.imgur.com/V6l8ta9.png

If Sena does become more prominent, then that's what she's going to do. If the VA work continuous to be done in the state, you can expect more shoddy work if they're not going to hire based on performance. I'm assuming Kate has known Sena for a while, due to twitter, so I guess she's fine with ideologies like this if she's going to go out of her way to hire someone who tends to spout such cruel ideologies online.

And to finish things off.
https://i.imgur.com/oe5363l.png

I guess say good luck to ever seeing Erica Mendez, Wendee Lee, Briana Knickerbocker, Mark Whitten, Joe Zieja, Chris Hackney, Cherami Leigh, or Bryce Papenbrook in the FFXIV scene if they've not voiced a character already. (Bryce has voiced Zidane and Mobius!WoL). It was weird that that FFXIV didn't get one of them on the first expansion to be voiced in the states.

I don't think it's a lack of direction, just not the right voice for the character. We've heard most of the other VAs do ok, with Wuk being the most stand out but she is also the MC. One does wonder where the heck our money is going towards if not for decent voice acting like all the other expansions, that's not ARR.

I think I want to be done with Twitter now. There's like nothing but despair and spite there, or I'm looking at the wrong places. Fell in that rabbit hole and found interesting stuff though, really mean but interesting stuff.

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Imagine being such a talentless hack, and blaming the "industry". I have never heard such terrible voice acting even in the worst anime dubs.

In summary:
The voice acting is shit.
Twitter accuses you of being a phobe if you say it.

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Originally Posted by MatthiusAbysswalker

In summary:
The voice acting is shit.
Twitter accuses you of being a phobe if you say it.

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No one should care what people say on X

Oh I agree but I that's where the toxic positivity is and the Devs love that shit.

The VA being trans really wouldn't matter at all, but...truth be told, it impedes the way the actress can work with her voice and that's where it gets problematic.

Spoiler for last trial!

Wuks entrance and voicelines in the last trial confronting Sphene made this problem especially obvious. The actress has to strain her voice to make it sound female and higher than her natural voice. Try this yourself and then try to scream or put any emotion in your delivery. It's really hard to do and doesn't sound natural at all.

I don't care how the actress identifies at all in private, and we can all act like it doesn't make a difference for her work. But it would just be a lie.
Her voice affects her work as a VA (lol who would have thought) and makes her not the best pick for such a role.
Purely objectively, they should have casted someone whos voice is better suited, especially for such a prominent role.

The fact that Sena Bryer apparently is friends with the English localization lead Kate doesn't make the decision to hire her in spite of not being able to pull the role off look any better.
Also, her deflecting any criticism is really unprofessional behavior. But what else have we expected from someone who's second home is twitter?

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Originally Posted by ViaDesperare

cut for brevity

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My man out here doing the real investigative journalism. Sorta confirms some of the theories I've had since January when I initially made the claim of nepotism hiring. Unfortunately I've not been able to look into it much myself (probably just because I'm too lazy to make a new Twitter), but Kate, Sena and the FFXIV_EN and FFXIV_JP Twitter accounts all blocked me on the same day back then, I guess having my old character name linked to my Twitter account wasn't a good idea. I suppose I must've been onto something though if they went out of their way to block me lmao.

Yeah, I hate hearing that character speak, the voice sounds really bad. I straight up started skipping every CS where the character started talking because it was so jarring lmao

I would've loved to hear Carolina Ravassa in this role. Listened to her animation demo reel the other day and it's sooo much fun!

https://imgur.com/a/Y5ZForV

If Sena and Kate are the "beating heart" of Dawntrail, how does a localizer get to have so much power over the script itself?

I am mixed, on one level it's important to have unique voices for major NPCs and the voice is certainly easily recognizable (even before the endless repetition). I don't dislike the accent or normal delivery.

UNFORTUNATELY her voice is extremely weak and carries no weight in any high intensity moment. Listen to the moment when WL attacks Bakool Ja Ja the very first time when he knocks her back. She's meant to be bellowing in anger and it comes out as a sort of weak cough. There's numerous instances of this. She also has serious trouble with any intense emotion, her voice wavers and just becomes an unstable fluctuating version of her normal talking voice. All of the above means the VA can't do combat or emotions which is a pretty monster drawback for this game. When she's just talking its perfectly fine but it collapses under pressure.

Just my two cents. Voice sounds too masculine and sounds like it's being modulated at every line somehow. Uncanny at best, and like an old man at worst. People have already discussed the obvious things(you know what I'm talking about) with the voice actor, so I won't be touching those.

One word of Llama Tea at the end of Endwalker was all I needed to be convinced to run the game in Japanese from now on and never look back. Japanese Wuklamat is more tolerable but that only softens how annoying I find her so much.