Voice acting so bad

[The_Last_Dragoon]

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.

[Ranulf]

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.

[Noxifer]

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

[Auxilio]

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

[Chasely]

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

[Joe_Schmoe]

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

[Rowyne]

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!

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.

[ElHeggunte]

"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.

[Gaddes]

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??)

[Chessala]

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

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!