Voice acting so bad

The VA in Heavensward is actually an improvement on ARR simply because they're hiring actual British people to voice their British-accented characters =/

I had to switch to JP voices because the cringe at listening to Americans forcing what they think is a "British accent" was way too much for me. The characters in HW speak a lot more smoothly, and it shows in some improved performances. I do miss Gideon Emery though, his performance as Urianger was swoonworthy as always.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chessala

Such is the fate of English dubs. I have yet to see ANYTHING dubbed in English that is not horribly unfitting. SE just met the standards.

I personally stay with the Japanese and I am not intending to EVER use English OR German. I can't even stand the trailers.

---

Watch DBZ, Yu Yu hakusho, And shaman king in Japanese.

Then watch them in English dub.

There are even special cases where it becomes a toss up between the characters specifically. Like Soul eater in japanase maka is amazing but in English not so much but at the same time stein, death the kid, free and Death are fantastic and it feels like they nailed the characters better than the Japanese voice actors.

I dare you all to go watch the English dub of Wakfu, you will never complain about FFXIV voice acting again XD

What I don't like with VA is that they always change the actors so frequently that I have trust issues now. It's confusing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Riardon

What I don't like with VA is that they always change the actors so frequently that I have trust issues now. It's confusing.

---

Trust issues from changing VA's? Really? I mean, with constant patch updates, VA's simply may not be available later on.

Can't say personally. I tried watching it with japanese audio and got bored of the cutscene in five minutes. Haven't been able to go back to it since, which is odd cause I typically watch anime exclusively in japanese, but there you go. I find the english dub more fitting, and I rather like the middle earth way of speech. 'u' It's enticing!

Hate the voice acting.

I wish SE could afford the likes of Lena Headey or Sean Bean :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chessala

I have yet to see ANYTHING dubbed in English that is not horribly unfitting.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nestama

Have you tried watching Cowboy Bebop in English, Chessala?

---

Cowboy Bebop has one of the best Anime dubs. I recommend watching it in both English and Japanese.

From the FF series itself, FF12 had excellent performances all around, even though the voice compression in that game made them sound worse. The DS version of FF4 was also wonderfully cast as well.

One of the characters, can't remember which, really rushes their lines. It sounds ridiculous like they wanted to record their lines and get the hell out of the studio.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yasuhiro

This your first Final Fantasy game or any post SNES RPG or something?

---

It actually is my 1st Final Fantasy game. And?! RPGs aren't my thing, but I like playing with friends on this one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ashkendor

Trust issues from changing VA's? Really? I mean, with constant patch updates, VA's simply may not be available later on.

---

I was fine until I heard Merlwyb's new voice and I was like "YOU ARE NEITHER A LADY NOR MORRIGAN FROM DRAGON AGE, MA'AM." Now I am suspect of any new voices. >_>

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ranulf

X/X-2 had a terrible English cast, lol.

Matt McKenzie (Auron) was the only good one.

---

I liked John Dimaggio's voice acting too. He did a great job with high-energy Wakka, and a complete 180 turn-around for the more stoic Kimahri.

Overall, I quite like the voice acting in FFXIV. There are a few which seem rather wooden, but on the whole it works rather well. I feel that a lot of what people dislike is more to do with people's own perceptions of what a character should sound like, and not necessarily what SE were aiming for. Either way I certainly don't think the voice actors are at fault for the divisive opinions. A lot of it is down to script and tone.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonio_Xul

It actually is my 1st Final Fantasy game. And?! RPGs aren't my thing, but I like playing with friends on this one.

---

- 1st FF game
- complains about text in RPG's
- RPG's aren't my thing

Only on Final Fantasy XIV Official Forums.

I have tried various English dubs for shits and giggles, including the series mentioned, and have yet to find one that makes me stay past 5 mins on the first episode :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chessala

I have tried various English dubs for shits and giggles, including the series mentioned, and have yet to find one that makes me stay past 5 mins on the first episode :)

---

It must be such a real struggle to have such refined tastes.

https://media.giphy.com/media/13l8PPJVkf8szC/giphy.gif

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nestama

The only English voices I had issues with in Heavensward were Merlwyb and Urianger. Everyone else is decent.

---

Merlwyb's new voice is a travesty. It's so quiet and subduded. Where's the commanding power that you'd expect of a (former) pirate leader?

SEVEN HELLS!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chessala

I have tried various English dubs for shits and giggles, including the series mentioned, and have yet to find one that makes me stay past 5 mins on the first episode :)

---

You really couldn't watch Cowboy Bebop's first episode in English? Yeesh... the voice acting would have to be Disney Pixar levels of good if you couldn't stand actually really good (and often preferred over the sub -regarding Cowboy Bebop) voice acting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lemuria

I liked John Dimaggio's voice acting too. He did a great job with high-energy Wakka, and a complete 180 turn-around for the more stoic Kimahri.

Overall, I quite like the voice acting in FFXIV. There are a few which seem rather wooden, but on the whole it works rather well. I feel that a lot of what people dislike is more to do with people's own perceptions of what a character should sound like, and not necessarily what SE were aiming for. Either way I certainly don't think the voice actors are at fault for the divisive opinions. A lot of it is down to script and tone.

---

DiMaggio's a beast when it comes to his voice work. His work with Wakka was probably the only praisable voice in X for me lol. Khimari was good. Maybe Lulu too? The unfortunate thing is, for some reason, Square related games tend to have expected misses with voice work, but those misses tend to be unnecessary. It's getting better at least. As far as games go, I grew up with voice work akin to Xenogears and its dubbed unintended comedy. That was bad... like "How did this pass? It's not even synced!", kind of bad lol.

So where we are now, compared to then, I'd say we defied the odds and brought out a mostly good dub lol. It's usually just a lack of proper direction for the bad ones. If anyone's seen Lost in Translation, with the scene where Bill Murray is shooting the commercial, that type of direction and miscommunication is how you get bad results without a long experienced performer lol.

Just for the sake of wanting to relive it: Xenogears

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yasuhiro

- 1st FF game
- complains about text in RPG's
- RPG's aren't my thing

Only on Final Fantasy XIV Official Forums.

---

I wasn't even complaining. Just a regular comment. I just said that the bad voice acting is better than no voice acting. Not a complaint. I only wished that all the text was voiced. Don't know what your deal is with blasting on anyone who says that there is bad voice acting.

To add to my previous comment (can't edit on phone), just because this is my 1st Final Fantasy game doesn't make my opinion less than yours. I'm still a customer and have a right to voice my opinion on the product. I've been playing since October 2013 casually and have been enjoying every minute of it, even if I have to read most of the text, it isn't a game breaker. I'm taking this game more serious as of late and want to work on my end game more and will continue to support this game, voice acted or not.

While going through Heavensward's story on an alt, the first thing that came to mind after hearing Ilberd's voice was "Go home, Ilberd, you're drunk."

Its not that Japanese voice actors are per se better, I can't stand weaboo haters just as much as weaboos. Its that Japan has a history of dubbing, so their voice actors are better. American voice actors are for the most part trash. English VAs are 50/50. If they wanted good American/English VAs they should have gone to DC/Marvel animated voice actors, bioware games, etc. but they didn't want to spend the money on that, so they spent it on cheap english dub quality anime VAs.

Its like this German and French VAs are actually typically better than US because they also have a history of dubbing. Think about this, in the U.S. we don't dub a lot, because for the most part we make a lot of our own media. Some of the VAs in anime actually always dub a certain American actor, for example one JP VA will always do Brad Pitt in all movies that need dubbed over for Japan. Since the U.S. doesn't consume a ton of foreign media dubbed (we now prefer subtitles) all our VAs are from anime, kids cartoons, and video games. The ones who do kids cartoons and video games aren't half bad, SE didn't hire a lot of them :/

Another thing, some of the good english VAs they hired (ones from video games) sound awful in this game, so I'm thinking this more on direction than on the VA. Some of the replacement VAs in english, were actually better quality voice actors than the people they replaced, buy yet they sounded worse...definitely a director of VAs problem.

Emotional quality can be heard without understanding a language, if you don't believe this, try it out. Try watching a movie you don't understand without subtitles, you can still pick up emotion. Sad people sound sad in all languages etc. There is little to no emotion in the English VA its awful, most are overacting if emotion is shown at all. The jp version has its overactors too, but this is particularly bad in the EN version (minfilia in JP such an overactress, i can't tell if she's annoying or Minifi is just an annoying character completely)

(I speak french fluent along with english, and can understand japanese language but not characters [illiterate in japanese basically])

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sucuri

Have you ever watched Anime, in Japanese, then the same anime in English, and said to yourself, man the English version was so much better!....?

I highly doubt it.


Just be happy the Garlean Empire doesn't rush us shrieking "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!!"

---

Yeah. Dragon Ball Z and Fairy Tail are at least two off the top of my head. Some versions I can't stand the JP voice acting. I like Mushi-shi's English voice acting too. Some the JP are superior though. It's 50/50 with me.

Scrapped Princess and Fullmetal Alchemist are a few of the animes that come to mind where I actually prefer the dub to the sub. And there are several where I like both versions.

As far as FFXIV, I feel like the quality of the voice actors in HW is probably better but the fact that they changed nearly the entire cast was REALLY jarring. I got through a pretty good portion of HW trying to acclimate to it, but I just couldn't do it.

I'm spoiled by the voice acting in this game here.

The voice acting in that game ranges from very good to excellent, and every character with dialog - literally every character - is voice acted; from important characters down to incidental side NPCs chatting with each other, etc. And it's all well done.

What gets me is that they have some of the same people doing VA work for FFXIV, and yet it doesn't even come close. I know, for example, that Kirsten Geary (the woman in the first cut-scene in that link) is voice acted by someone who's done work in XIV. Couldn't tell you who it is, as it isn't a main character, and most everything I've heard in this game is largely forgettable.

So, it's not a lack of talent that XIV's VA work suffers from. I think it's lack of direction, and that they seem to want to make everything so "base" in this game, kind of a "least common denominator" thing. They do it with dialog as well, it's like they're feeding us what they consider to be their idea of the most generic fantasy game story/voice acting they can get.

Characters in TSW (again, linked above) have personality, identity, quirks, etc. I can't wait to hear what many of them are going to say (or do) next. They're interesting, and relate-able. In XIV, otoh, characters are uninspired speakers for underwhelming dialog; they're only there to serve as bland text-to-speech avatars, and little else.

This kind of underwhelming approach extends beyond the voice-acting, too. I don't know what happened, but the end of ARR, and into the beginning of HW, there was some really great stuff, some very heavy stuff going on. Yoshida mentioned that he wanted to go darker and more mature with the story and such. And they did that, at first. But now it seems like they're resorting back to the "generic fantasy 101" approach, and it's annoying. It's as though SE doesn't trust its players enough to "get" what is happening, or to understand the context "between the lines" of what a character is saying. We were moving into Weeknight Prime-Time Drama territory with things, but now it's slipping back into Saturday Morning Cartoon land.

Almost inevitably, a character says something that's really clever, insightful, or makes the player (heaven forbid) actually think... and soon after, another character, or some other means, basically spells it out for you.

To illustrate what I mean, I'll use a made up example.

Character A is talking to Character B... Character A says, "I fear our informant has forgotten where their loyalties lie, and it might be time to "retire" them".
Character B, understanding exactly what Character A is actually saying, responds with a kind of mild surprise.

It's quite clear to anyone paying attention, as well, exactly what Character A is saying.

But then comes Character C, who is unimportant to the overall scene, and only there for this one purpose. They gasp, and say "The undercover informant we've been using to gather critical details has been passing info to the wrong people, and now you mean to kill them!". And out the window goes any sense of nuance, or chance for the player to put it together them self, in their own mind.

I can't tell you how many times I've /facepalmed in this game because of stuff like that, and SE's insistence on treating its players like we're all idiots who need every little thing spelled out for us or we "might not get it on our own". Is this another area where Yoshida is "concerned about stressing us out"?

Another thing that happens in 3.2 (and I'll wrap this in spoiler tags)...

When you're in that room with Alphinaud, after the whole ordeal with Estinien/Niddhog interrupting the speech, etc. It's the room you're in before heading to Ishgard, after being exiled, where Haurchefant brings you and Alphinaud something to drink, etc..

In walks Alphinaud with two hot mugs. It's immediately apparent what scene that is a call-back to, and your character's reaction to it confirms it. But do they leave it at that? Do they let it play out in the player's mind, to remember that scene as they would, so the reaction is their own?

Nope... They have to, yet again, spell it out, by showing a couple flashback images from that moment. Yet again, not trusting the players to "get it", and believing we need to be spoon-fed every little detail.

I felt like they were beginning to take off the kid gloves by the end of ARR, and was really excited to see how they would handle things to come later. Sadly, it appears they decided to abandon that direction, rather quickly, and return to the spoon-feeding and Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Sad.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sucuri

Have you ever watched Anime, in Japanese, then the same anime in English, and said to yourself, man the English version was so much better!....?

---

I did watch Fullmetal Alchemist, yes.

You guys have to stop comparing this to anime.

This is a AAA, world renowned title that's probably more popular in the west than in Japan.

Expecting anything less than the absolute best of everything from a FF title is absurd.

Every other modern game in the series has had amazing graphics, dialog, story, and voice casting.

You can NOT compare this game to Japanese dubbed cartoons. This is a billion dollar franchise.

If anything, I'm actually fairly certain that in the precious games, the Japanese was the dubbed version and the English versions received world class treatment.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KeluBehemoth

You guys have to stop comparing this to anime.

This is a AAA, world renowned title that's probably more popular in the west than in Japan.

Expecting anything less than the absolute best of everything from a FF title is absurd.

Every other modern game in the series has had amazing graphics, dialog, story, and voice casting.

You can NOT compare this game to Japanese dubbed cartoons. This is a billion dollar franchise.

If anything, I'm actually fairly certain that in the precious games, the Japanese was the dubbed version and the English versions received world class treatment.

---

Citations needed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonio_Xul

I wasn't even complaining. Just a regular comment. I just said that the bad voice acting is better than no voice acting. Not a complaint. I only wished that all the text was voiced. Don't know what your deal is with blasting on anyone who says that there is bad voice acting.

---

I just want to let you know, judging by my past experiences with the person you're talking to, you aren't going to get anywhere.

Any opinion differing from theirs will only bring out personal insults and generalizations about your entire server from them.

This is actually my first FF game as well. I skip most cut scenes, but the ones I skip most are usually non-voiced cut scenes, so I too would prefer bad voice acting over no voice acting.

For most of the fan base it's pretty important.

I would take no voice acting over bad voice acting personally, as FF1-9 had no voice acting and were all amazing games.

For most people familiar with the series, it's an insult to the title.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KeluBehemoth

snip

---

Before I delve in, I noticed that you posted twice initially. Did you know you can circumvent the character limit by editing your post? It de-clutters the thread and keeps your points concise. Also, I'm not sure why you seperate every sentence with a line break, it makes it look like you can't contain your thoughts into a paragraph, which is fine for twitter, but is jarring when people actually read it.

Now that that's out of the way, you do know that the pool of English voice actors is pretty shallow, right? I mean, not only do you have to deal with the fact that they actually want to do the job you're offering, but god forbid something happen to them like with what happened to Yugiri's voice actor. You should already know that 2.0 was made with a hope and a prayer, and that the voice actors they originally contracted for it were not signed up for very long contracts. ARR was a beautiful surprise to SE when it released and it's sudden rise in popularity is the only reason why the game has the budget it does now. Unfortunately, even an increased budget does not guarantee they will get the old voices back. I know the real reason you hate the English voices is because you have something to compare to, and it's a shame, but they just weren't able to get the old voice actors in time. In terms of others comparing your love of Japanese voices, it's easy to compare it to Anime since it's a common complaint of those who watch it. The Anime market is nothing to sneeze at either, and I'm pretty sure that both industries have to pull from the same pool of candidates under similar time constraints. Honestly, I've come to realize that the reasoning behind it normally is not because they are better actors, but because you can't tell whether or not they're bad (Unless you actually know Japanese).

It's unrealistic to expect the things you're expecting from the team since they really only have so many resources that they can allocate. I find it weird that you try to compare this to "every other modern game in the series," since the only one it can be compared to is the FF XIII trilogy, which many fans believe to be a failure. Keep in mind, this game is massive compared to the linear game worlds of FF XIII, and that the game still has to be somewhat supportable for the PS3. There are limitations to what they can do in the world right now until they drop support for that system. To think that you can make an MMO with 4k resolution graphics with no errors or massive hits to frame rate is a pipe dream.

What's funny is that you're somewhat right about the English voice actors being better than the Japanese ones in ARR (unless you meant previous Final Fantasy games, which I have to say that you're definitely wrong on). The game was definitely not given "world class" treatment in Americas and the EU, and in fact, they massively underestimated the number of English players they'd get on release. Hell, I made my character on a Japanese server initially because all of the NA & EU ones were full.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

A while back, YoshiP commented that the Japanese don't like the Japanese voices either. They only sound better because you aren't native in Japanese and can't tell the difference.

---

Pretty sure I can hear lack of emotion and cheesy accents regardless of the language it's spoken in.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Preypacer

Another thing that happens in 3.2

---

Actually, that scene kinda brought to mind an entirely different scenario, though partly because I'd watched some FC mates run around in that particular part of it...

Mainly, the drugged drink we were served in Falcon's Nest. I pretty much looked at those mugs Alphi brought in and said, "Whoa whoa! Last time I had a warm drink in a cutscene, I ended up unconscious on the floor. No way am I drinking that." xD

I have gripes with the voice acting too. Not that I think their terribad or what.

I actually liked all of them in ARR, but when I went into HW content, suddenly all the voices changed and correct me if i'm wrong but they all sound.. British? I don't have an issue with British accents, it's more of the continuity (or none thereof) when transitioning from ARR into HW. I understand that from the company's POV there may be issues getting the original casting back, or perhaps there were an issue with availability at the point of recording HW script.. but having them have the heavy accent out of nowhere just sounds weird for some reason, it's like the characters I knew... sort of gone.

Up til now, I think the Ishgard voices are nice.. just everyone else is.... meh I guess. I'm no expert on voice acting so this is just my opinion =p

They changed VAs because British VAs were cheaper. the original VAs had already done a bunch of cutscenes, but all that work was scrapped.

Quote:

---

Voice acting so bad

---

I'm thinking it's more bad casting than acting. I got the same issue with WoW and Diablo 2 as well, they sound like they were all done by one guy and one girl even though many voice actors were used. I think next time they should loosen the purse strings a bit and hire actors that don't sound like one another. Otherwise it's like I'm listening to either high, low, or mid. >:\

EDIT: Actually, listening to helium/sulfur hexaflouride voices in this game would be awesome! They need to add that to the sound options menu lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aquaslash

Merlwyb's new voice is a travesty. It's so quiet and subduded. Where's the commanding power that you'd expect of a (former) pirate leader?

SEVEN HELLS!

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LadyVal

I was fine until I heard Merlwyb's new voice and I was like "YOU ARE NEITHER A LADY NOR MORRIGAN FROM DRAGON AGE, MA'AM." Now I am suspect of any new voices. >_>

---

I had two big issues with the change in VAs from 2.x to Heavensward. First was Merlwyb. I liked her in 2.x because she sounded like Captain Janeway from Star Trek Voyager, but the VA in 3.x was terrible and stiff! I can't even stand listening to her! The other was my beautiful Goddess in a child's body, Kan-E-Senna (*sigh*). She sounds more adult now which just doesn't make sense. She's a Padjal! They're eternal children.

When I become attached to a character's voice, it's difficult for me to adjust to a change, too.

However, the one change I did approve of was Alphinaud. His VA in 2.x just sounded snotty, but his 3.x VA was much more likeable. Of course, maybe snotty was the idea. ;)

I always prefer English when possible, because it's more immersive to me than subtitles and a language I don't understand. I don't have a problem with most of the British accents, honestly, even if I know they're not genuine it doesn't mean that they're necessarily unpleasing to the ear. It think it would feel out of place to have a fantasy game in a medieval setting and the VAs largely have American accents because we're such a comparatively young country. At least they try to make people from various city-states and stations in life sound different.

Anyway, if the OP really thinks this is horrible, I only have two words: Linda Ballantyne.

"Youwillnotdefeatmeagain!" - Lahabrea, Aetherochemical Research Facility, 2015

I honestly don't have that much of an issue with most of FFXIV's voice acting, both ARR's and HW's. It can sometimes be lackluster and some of the VAs have been changed for the worse, but there are very few cases where I would outright call it "bad". Bad would be games like Blade & Soul and Black Desert where the voice acting makes you want to find religion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ranulf

Pretty sure I can hear lack of emotion and cheesy accents regardless of the language it's spoken in.

---

Not really, no. But this is generally the common assumption people have, that somehow they know the quality of another language's performance even though they aren't familiar with intonations and accents/dialects... but what might sound good to an english speaker might be over-the-top crazy theatrical to someone who speaks japanese. If I were to base my opinion of the japanese audio purely off of how it sounds, I'd say it doesn't sound like it has as much tonal variation as some english delivery, but again, I do not speak japanese and thus do not know what a legitimately well-acted line sounds like. If you're fluent in both, then that's fine; you should know what good acting should sound like. But otherwise, better to stick to passing judgement on languages you're familiar with.

As for the newer English cast, overall it's passable, save for the horrible changes to Merwylb and Urianger (why would you ever get rid of Gideon Emery??)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LadyVal

It must be such a real struggle to have such refined tastes.

---

I decided to do the graceful thing and take this as a compliment, thanks! I am very happy with my refined taste :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nestama

You really couldn't watch Cowboy Bebop's first episode in English? Yeesh... the voice acting would have to be Disney Pixar levels of good if you couldn't stand actually really good (and often preferred over the sub -regarding Cowboy Bebop) voice acting.

---

To each their own is all I say. I didn't like it - I also don't like Cowboy Bebop in general, though!