What are your thoughts on the voice acting?

[Penguinmayhem]

Why did they get someone to dub over Minfilia who clearly cannot do the accent she's been told to do? It really really sounds bad.

Though I'm still hopeful for John DiMaggio.

[Nestama]

The English voice acting isn't stellar. I WOULD use the Japanese voice acting except that I understand Japanese and the difference between what's being said and the english text ends up being more annoying to me than mediocre English voicing. If you don't understand it and want to use Japanese voices with English text more power to ya. The Japanese voice actors ARE better but that doesn't mean it isn't still cheesy as all hell (cuz it is). Overall I still use and prefer the English localization.

Well there's always the French voice option... unless you know French as well. If that is the case, mad jealousy heading your way!

[Rynia]

I only recognised one voice actor in the English while playing, and that was Urianger - the voice of Balthier for crying out loud, miscast of epic proportions there. So few lines for such a great VA, and on top of that he would have suited Thancred so well (imo, obviously).

A quick glance at the cast lists I can find include several big names who don't even voice a named character (Steve Blum, Claudia Black, Nolan fricking North) while all the named characters I can find are voiced by relative unknowns. I find this mind-boggling, but can applaud SE for giving people who aren't "names" the chance to show their stuff.

What bothers me about the voice acting, however, is how terrible pretty much all the VAs are at English accents. They all sound like Americans putting on a bad "posh" accent, Minfilia being the worst of the lot. As a British person, it really grates.

[Mjollnir]

What bothers me about the voice acting, however, is how terrible pretty much all the VAs are at English accents. They all sound like Americans putting on a bad "posh" accent, Minfilia being the worst of the lot. As a British person, it really grates.

This. I find the English VA atrocious. Presuming that S-E will never go to the lengths of re-recording this crap, I hope that one day they make it possible to replace the soundbites in order that some dedicated fans can reread it. There were a couple of really good fan VAs (not all, mind) in the 1.0 project that was done last year.

[Sarlazzar]

English voice acting has always been horrific, gives me goofy bumps...

[Steffie]

You can switch to JAP audio for voice acting ?!?!?!? TEACH ME sempai

[Velo_Vandore]

I don't like it, but I blame the script. Way too fanciful and theatrical, but with nothing particularly interesting really being said. There's next to no drama in the plot, and the characters are ever so plain - give it a bit more attitude!

The class quests were a little more interesting and emotionally involving, but without voice acting (i think?). The red and white judge armored characters from the empire had some attitude, and I felt the voice acting was better as a result.

Give us some reason to actually care about the main characters in the game (except our own which is praised to oblivion), and I don't mean because they do a cool attack or act quirky / funny - give them some personal motives we can sympathies with and relate to. I have no idea why these guys all decided to be Scions except that they are good guys with a strong sense of duty to their people :|

Then add some depth and conflict within those characters. Like sure we face great challenges, but the only struggle is actually beating the enemy - one attempt at this I guess was Minfilia's struggle to leave Uldah and move to Mor'dohna - and the reason? - "Well we've been here a while" - OMG so heartwrenching.... yet this is really dragged out for what it is.

I don't want to drop spoliers but at one point there are hints of betrayal from one of the scions - I was very excited by this, and eager to find out the guys true identity / backstory! Does he have some conflicting allegiance or promise? Does he hold some grudge against the scions? Does he lose himself to some personal dream or thirst for power? No... Ultimately the reason is very anti-climactic "he's under a spell" kind of thing. Wouldn't it have been more interesting if Minfilia was just wrong about the character, and that he had some grudge against the scions and accepted the evil power willingly. If he redeems himself later then fine, but being utterly possessed doesn't make the character deeper in any way - they are the same boring, 1-dimesonal knight of justice, controlled by the same, boring 1-dimensional evil villain. I care equally little about either and wouldn't feel too bothered if either one died.

When the voice actors are given emotionally interesting / complex characters to play, then we can look at their real talent, but it's not fair to judge their potential with this dialogue - it's drivel :/

That said, it's easy to criticize and the plot is on par or even slightly better than a lot of MMO games, so I can accept that it hasn't been the main focus of attention.

[Haprimac]

I wasn't impressed with the English VAs at all, so I tried the other languages. I never liked Japanese, and German wasn't my cup of tea, either. French strangely enough suited my tastes even though I don't know any French (besides the greetings I've learned in many French DF groups). I really like how they put so much emotion to the voice acting. Merlwyb, Alphinaud, Cid, Livia Sas Junius, Gaius Van Baelsar and Nanamo Ul Namo being my favourite voices.

[LineageRazor]

I normally prefer English voice-acting when given the choice between English and Japanese. That said, I do agree that the English voice acting is lackluster. I think that it has more to do with the strange, semi-archaic dialogue, though, than with the talent of the voices.

I still stick with the English, though, rather than listen to the Japanese... When dialogue is spoken in a language I can't understand, it's pretty much just irritating noise to me. So, I pretty much go with English or no voice at all - and I don't hate the English enough to shut it off.

[NovaUltimatum]

I think it *may* have been better if our character's had voice actors of their own. It wouldn't add much of an overhead compared to the current voicing costs. I'm not sure though, what do you all think? At the moment it just feels like we are playing as mute warriors of light, so there's less of an impression.