[Feedback] Wuk Lamat's English Voice

[Xellith]

Playing the game the game in french, I never paid attention to this whole drama. Yesterday, I saw the "Sphene, listen to me" cinematic in english, and I could not stop laughing. After that I checked a few videos on the net, and if it does the job for casual discussions, as soon as she needs to express more emotion, she is limited. I can see why some people say she lacks range as a voice actress. From what I gathered, it's her first credit as a VA. Some full fledged actors are bad a voicing stuffs despite being good actors. You don't give a role that predominant to a total newbie.

I think she has the ability to perform. I just think that she wasnt given adequate direction. But hey. Could be wrong. You can see the direction given the english VA are often all over the place for numerous characters.

[Raven2014]

I think she has the ability to perform. I just think that she wasnt given adequate direction. But hey. Could be wrong. You can see the direction given the english VA are often all over the place for numerous characters.

Why does it have to be one's fault or another and not both. I doubt there is a single person on this planet listen to that line and thought "this is great, fantastic!" Especially the VA themselves. If I were them and my director told me to sound exactly like that I would protest, because I would think they're trying to sabotage my career on purpose. Yes, the whole English VA package itself is very questionable, but that line went beyond bad. It's iconic and legendary bad. I won't be surprise to see if it stay as a meme 2-5 years from now.

[Boblawblah]

Eh, give Wuk 50% less dialogue, and redo the "SPHENE" meme and we wouldn't really be having this discussion. For the majority of the time she's really not bad at all, especially when compared to a lot of other English VAs, which weren't that great to be honest either.

[Underscore]

People dislike the VA not because the VA is a T, ...
But ofc people can definitly make the arguement that hiring a T is maybe not the best choice for the female MC, since it is kinda obv, that the vocalrange will be limited especially if you want to convey emotions.
Which I dont see as an transphobic argument.

I didn't know a person could be a letter T.

What's that short for? Come on, say it.

[AnimaAnimus]

I think she has the ability to perform. I just think that she wasnt given adequate direction. But hey. Could be wrong. You can see the direction given the english VA are often all over the place for numerous characters.

Not to rehash this arguement, because ppl go really messed up places with it. And I have been a pretty big defender of her simply because we didn't know much about what was going on. But, her very defensive social media responces have been making the rounds and she did say on twitter or one of her social media platforms, that being trans limits her vocal range. Something about if she goes to high in pitch or something that she will not sound feminine so she just cannot do it. But she also said that we basically just need to deal with it. So...

I am a member of the lgbtq community as well, and even I am sitting here thinking, "well honey, if being trans limits your vocal range, maybe its time to reconsider your career or at least the roles you accept." The expectation she has for us to give her a pass on being completely flat in her performance is rediculous. I would have much rather had a masculine sounding Wuk than what we got. It's not transphobic to expect at least a somewhat good performance from your main character's voice actress. And if they wanted to hire a trans artist, there are plenty out there who have a much higher range. No idea why we got stuck with whatever this was. imo she had to have just the right connections or threatened to make a heck of a stink to get this gig.

[Nestama]

Again, thank you for responding like this.

No worries. And yeah, neither of us are going to agree on the VA quality, so agree to disagree on that. I do think the director absolutely deserves most of the blame though. The VA's for Thancred and Y'shtola have had years of VAing these characters, yet that was the best they did? Nah, something ain't right.

I may also put some blame onto whoever thought Sphene was a good name choice, too. Sure, in Japanese it sounds cool ("Su-ven!" "Sven!" for French), but in English... it's so dumb. It's one syllable and we say it with two e's in the middle. I get they wanted to keep the gem as names theme going, but why not something like... ohidunno, Beryl? Sure it would make certain fans go into fight or flight when hearing "Queen Beryl" and it might sound similar to barrel, but at least it sounds better than Sfeen.

[RabendaShin]

It's crazy to think were in a time where we must gaslight our ownselves into thinking bad stuff is good let alone name calling to get a false narrative out woo boy. You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villian.

When Wuk Lamat showed up for the first time, I said in my FC discord that I wasn't feeling it. I disliked it - but was going to give it a chance. The hatred I got from the people who actively pushed to have "Accepting, Friendly and welcoming" in the FC recruitment message was crazy. Not much later I left that FC, hopped server. Granted, I should have done that sooner.

All in all I am happy more people, like content creators and FFXIV fans in places outside of Twitter, are not filtering their opinion and stating it publicly.

[Barachim]

Arcadion fight two: Cutesy song, cutesy japanese VA. English team = Deep voiced southern belle.

I don't think English VAs have the vocal range to replicate the cutesy Japanese VA voice. It usually sounds fake and irritating. I know I couldn't stand Vanille in FFXIII because of it.

[Raven2014]

I don't think English VAs have the vocal range to replicate the cutesy Japanese VA voice. It usually sounds fake and irritating. I know I couldn't stand Vanille in FFXIII because of it.

You just have to find the VAs with the talents for it. Sphene's English VA is ok (outside of instance). Chantal Strand can also put up some really decent performance.

[BabySneed]

imo she had to have just the right connections or threatened to make a heck of a stink to get this gig.

Well the VA is Kate's friend, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say that Kate decided to get her amateur VA friend a big job and heavy promotion as a favor (over getting someone actually suited for the role), so that checks out. Realistically if there's an explanation to be had for the bad voice casting it's probably simply nepotism and a little bit of SE being fine with cutting costs on a character with an absurd amount of lines, so they allowed Kate's unprofessional VA friend to be cast since it was cheap.

Honestly the embarrassing quality for Dawntrail's English dub isn't even necessarily on the individual VAs (though that's part of it with certain ones like Wuk's), but on the localization lead/voice director for bringing in a bunch of random amateurs with absolutely no regard for whether or not they're suited for their roles, and on top of that having very little quality control in general, with as other have pointed out stuff like Y'shtola's VA sounding like she's recording her lines over the phone. I used to play in English and started playing with the German dub for DT, and just hearing clips for the DT English dub makes me wonder how we went from God-tier voice work, in both the casting, acting, and direction departments like Emet-Selch's, to whatever happened with the dub in DT.

A bit of a shame too because personally having not played in the English dub I actually found Wuk to be likable enough for the first half before she started really overstaying her welcome and getting forced into everything, whereas a lot of people playing in English instantly found her to be annoying because her English voice acting is annoying. SE really ought to keep some standards when it comes to their English localization department, I mean people who play with English audio are a very sizable chunk of the player demographic after all, so it makes no sense to cut corners there of all places.