Voice acting so bad

[IndigoHawk]

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.

Exactly. It's the same how an exotic accent sounds sexy and interesting to foreigners but is nothing special where everyone has that accent.

[Yasuhiro]

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.

Don't know why this comment is getting so many likes.
What if you're someone who can speak fluently in both English and Japanese and you find one better than the other? What's your response to that?

[Colorful]

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.

Maybe some don't like them due to personal preference, but a lot of them are established voice actors, at least that's what a IMDb tells me.

It must boil down to either a poor script, or incredibly poor directing then. If you take a look at the JP cast they're almost all high profile, been in several games and anime, if they were bad I don't imagine they would have been hired, even the English cast has a lot of high profile names. To name an example of what I believe to be poor directing (spoilers for 3.1+), there's the voice of Y'shtola's new VA, Robyn Addison. She sounds fairly... robotic? Not sure how to describe it, but I've asked several friends and they agree, she does have her moments but it's mostly like someone's reading their lines for the first time while being recorded, now compare that to her role of Sera in Dragon Age: Inquisition. I never had any problems with Sera's voice acting, I felt as if it was great and matched the character perfectly whereas Y'shtola's performance is done so poorly I almost switched back to the Japanese voices (luckily a few like Krile, Alphinaud and Tataru really stand out).

[Theodric]

The English voice acting in 3.0 is a lot better than it was in 2.0 - people really should give it a chance instead of brushing it all off as terrible just because some of the 2.0 voice acting wasn't great.

I'll never understand the obsession with people claiming that the Japanese voice acting is 'so much better'. You do realise that the vast majority of people playing on the NA or EU servers won't be able to understand it, right?

This is also not the first RPG to make heavy use of British accents and dialects. I firmly believe that it fits - and it's a lot better than yet another game being voiced by Americans and nobody else.

As for 'established voice actors', honestly a lot of them tend to be overrated. Not without talent, perhaps, but some are so ridiculously overused (appearing in the majority of major titles) that the novelty wears thin. Especially if they have a distinct voice and don't pull off different voices.

[Yasuhiro]

I'll never understand the obsession with people claiming that the Japanese voice acting is 'so much better'. You do realise that the vast majority of people playing on the NA or EU servers won't be able to understand it, right?

Personal preference it's not an obsession and it doesn't matter about not understanding voice acting is a beautiful thing regardless of language anyone with half a brain can tell who's giving it there all in a performance and who just rocked up to the studio to say their lines and leave.

[ProvidenceBreaker]

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.

I find that hard to believe when you have award wining talent like Shuichi Ikeda, Rina Satou and Rie Tanaka involved. The English cast are literally whos that will have no legacy to speak of.

[Colorful]

As for 'established voice actors', honestly a lot of them tend to be overrated. Not without talent, perhaps, but some are so ridiculously overused (appearing in the majority of major titles) that the novelty wears thin. Especially if they have a distinct voice and don't pull off different voices.

I've never had this problem myself, but that's mostly due to my piss poor memory. I didn't even realize they had replaced the voice actors for Heavensward until someone had told me and then I listed back to the older ones. As for not understanding the language, while that may be true you can still tell if some things are better, obviously you can't tell with pacing which is a problem with cutscenes in FFXIV due to the dialogue system being click to proceed, but you can feel the emotion behind the voice, which is something some characters sorely lack... FFXIV's facials animations really don't help either, but that's another topic.

I'd rather see "overused" established actors than ones "new" to the industry, especially when we rarely have voice acting. If they're going to pick up relatively new people, at least them practice their roles with many lines of dialogue instead of giving them an hour of voice work per expansion, and then getting rid of them for the next.

[Pells]

Don't know why this comment is getting so many likes.
What if you're someone who can speak fluently in both English and Japanese and you find one better than the other? What's your response to that?

My response is: If there are any who are fluent in both, I'd like for them to post about what they prefer and why. It'd be interesting to hear from them, but my guess is they'd be kind of meh on both, just slightly less on one, and probably varying over what is preferred based on specific passages and speakers.

Not entirely unlike favoring gruel over white toast for breakfast because it's a cold day.

[Chessala]

Such is the fate of English dubs. I have yet to see ANYTHING dubbed in English that is not horribly unfitting. SE just met the standards.

I personally stay with the Japanese and I am not intending to EVER use English OR German. I can't even stand the trailers.

[Nestama]

Have you tried watching Cowboy Bebop in English, Chessala?