More budget to voice acting?

[Nixxe]

Which is bizarre because the voice actors in AAR were terrible.

Completely disagree. Some of the voices were terrible, sure (especially Alphinaud), but they were distinct and memorable. Most of the voices post-change are mediocre and very samey. It sucked a lot of life and identity out of the game.

[Edax]

I admit I prefered Alphinaud's original ARR actor.)

Completely disagree. Some of the voices were terrible, sure (especially Alphinaud)

I know it's subjective, but to me it seemed like the original voice actors were badly directed. They seemed to stumble over the olde English lines and it often felt like the characters weren't in the same room when having a conversation. For me, a lot of the original scion cutscenes in the waking sands were pretty cringy, not because of any emotional scenes, but just because they delivered so much exposition so unnaturally.

[Enla]

I know it's subjective, but to me it seemed like the original voice actors were badly directed. They seemed to stumble over the olde English lines and it often felt like the characters weren't in the same room when having a conversation. For me, a lot of the original scion cutscenes in the waking sands were pretty cringy, not because of any emotional scenes, but just because they delivered so much exposition so unnaturally.

I think it was just bad direction as well honestly. They had some amazing voice actors in ARR, with Talisien Jaffe of Critical Role fame as Thancred, Kyle Hebert as Lahabrea, Jason Miller as Raubhan (he apparently came back and provided the vocals for To The Edge for the Warrior of Light trial), and Jean Gilpin as Merylwyb. Most of the lesser VA credits weren't bad either. I think out of all of them only Amy Bolton as Minfilia could be counted as an inexperienced casting choice? But that's just because she only has one voice credit to her name, being Minfilia, though I can't find if she's worked in dramas or theater beyond that. Point being the vast majority of the voices were from well known, highly talented voice actors. Yet almost all of them - with the exception of Jean Gilpin as Merylwyb I'd say, gave very flat and uninspiring performances. At that point it's only fair to look to the director because there's no way all these fairly well known voice talents just suddenly regressed in skill without some sort of reason.

[ItMe]

I know it's subjective, but to me it seemed like the original voice actors were badly directed.

I feel the same way.
It feels like they were told they need to add in unnatural accents and enunciate like nuts (with the major offender being Gaius).
Also, all the Lala NPCs sounded at least partially related to Toad and his ear bleeding shrieks.