Voice acting so bad

[LLSmoothJ]

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."

[zaviermhigo]

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])

[Krissey]

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.

[SummonerSenah]

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.

[Preypacer]

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.

[Dualgunner]

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.

[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.

[Dualgunner]

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.

[Adire]

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.

[KeluBehemoth]

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.