Heavensward Voice Acting

I'm almost done with the new story, and the voice acting's been holding up. I'm definitely not saying that every single thing is the greatest voice I've heard, but I've felt this way of all English voice actors, some just don't hit it for me. But, looking at the overall picture of all the voice acting, I've been enthralled, and found myself listening to the entire dialogue box, instead of reading it really quickly, and clicking to go forward to get the cut scene over with. I can't speak my enjoyment, and appreciation enough about this go around!

Voice acting got wayyyyy better. Cid sounding all British now was a bit of a shock but overall it's 100x better performance wise than the previous installments.

I explain Alphinaud's voice by saying he hit puberty. Although he pronounces some words awkwardly now.

Alphinaud's new voice I actually like, in ARR he always came across as very cocky, arrogant even, here he's kind of more likeable, even though he gets Raubahn's name wrong.
Overall though i'm not too happy with the new VA's, by the end of ARR I found myself liking the characters, the new voices though just totally destroyed any connections I was starting to feel toward the characters.
Merlwyb for example, she used to sound so badass and commanding, why replace her?! Raubahn just doesn't feel right to me anymore, and Urianger! Why! his new voice just destroyed any charm he used to have for me.
I'll get over it eventually, but please, please don't just decide to replace the voice cast everytime a new expansion or story arc comes along, quickest way to destroy the players immersion.

You're not alone! the voice acting was amazing this time around! I stopped skipping CS and started watching for just this reason lol.

Yeah, I miss the old guys cause we got used to them. It's jarring to hear new voices. However, I know contracts change and Sqare/Enix doesn't have the same pull over the english voice acting community as it does the japanese, so they were probably busy with another project. But... I donno. Tataru sounds off to me, and Merlwyb, and I loved Urianger and he's different, and suddenly Raubahn and Illberd have accents outta nowhere and it's all weird.

only voice i cant stand now is merlwyb i had to skip the scene its just so wrong

I guess I'm in the minority then... I dislike some of the new voices and miss the old voices from 2.0. Alphinaud's voice is worse now, it would better fit him if he was older, and at times the voice acting is "emotionless" on some scenes where he should be more shocked and sad like the "NOOOO!!!" part towards the end of the MSQ with a certain someone.

Raubahn sounds worse now and doesn't fit him, but some of the new voices same roughly the same as the old voices so it's not that bad. But honestly not feeling the voices this time around for some of them.

Though I do like Ysayle (Iceheart), Hilda, and Yugiri's voices.

Overall, I don't mind the new voice actors. Urianger sucks now, but I approve of Tataru because <3Fiora<3. The quality of acting itself has been improved. I just got to the 2nd major scene involving Raubahn at around 55. His speech before he sends me on my way to find someone, got me going "f**K yeah!"

I had changed my voices to Japanese forever ago because I really didn't care for the English ones at the time, this was probably 7 months ago. I've been so impressed since I've changed it back to English with Heavensward. It's sooooo much better!