What are your thoughts on the voice acting?

[Fendred]

So far I'm preferring the Japanese voice overs. In before someone says its just because I don't understand what they are saying, I don't know any other language except English and the European voice overs don't sound so hot either. Although I think Lahabrea was done pretty well on the English side.

[Enkidoh]

I'd rather they not have voice acting period - most the acting is stiff and wooden as anything, with some of the voice talent horribly miscast (Minfilia especially, that is not how I imagined her to sound at all). I guess being a traditional RPG player I'm used to reading dialogue via text box rather than hearing dialogue spoken like an interactive movie, but that's the way games are sadly nowadays.

Also if it was text heavy it would restrict the game to those who have a competent level of literacy - accessibility being a key aspect of the game's design, so having spoken dialogue does have it's advantages.

[Inflorescence]

The voice acting is 99% horrible, but that's pretty standard for voice acting. I like...Y'shtola, and even though I abhor the way she speaks, I think Kan-E-Senna was very well acted for her character. Very "quiet voice big stick."

[rockso]

the maelstrom leader forgot her name. even in the trailer it's terrible. "damn it all!!!" standing there expressionless no body movement. I have voices turned off in the options. it's just soooooo bad.

[Zourin]

There's voice acting?

It must have been so bad I turned it all off. I miss having a proper localization team rather than third-rate voice actors reading off Google translations.

[Noshpan]

The English voice actors for Yda and Papalymo just... it's like "nails on chalkboards" to put it nicely. Especially Yda's. I preferred what I imagined their voices were in my head during the beta(s)! D:

[Fendred]

There's voice acting?

On the Japanese side they have some very talented voice actors that have casted in various anime and games. I haven't looked at the english voice actor list, but I don't know if I'd recognize any names there. I think the voice actors probably didn't get a whole lot of input on how their character's were supposed to sound, and a lot of the lines are not necessarily standard English. Plus, in the case of some characters like the Maelstrom leader, what is meant by a "strong female character" voice means something different in Japan's culture than it does in the U.S.

[DMooseJ]

Yeah, aside from Gaius and the Limsa leader's VA's I have heard of precisely none of these people in other roles, and most of the time there seems to be a reason why. Minfilia's VA is very stilted and Cid's sounds kind of bored. I wish I started the game with Japanese VAs, but because I'm just so used to the English ones I can't get used to the switch and I end up going back.

[DefendPopPunk]

I prefer the Japanese because I don't speak it well enough to tell if their acting is bad or not. This isn't the case with English :-P

[Khyra]

Voice acting is a more competitive and desirable profession in Japan than in Europe and America, for the most part. Not that there aren't talented voice actors in America, but the pool of them is going to be a lot larger in Japan. (FWIW I speak some Japanese, so I can increasingly understand the Japanese voice acting as well, and I do think it is generally better).