Opinions on the V.O. for This Game

[Tobias Nightbringer]

I'd love to see Lena Headey do some voice acting for FFXIV. She's utterly brilliant as Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones and her voice work in Dishonored was great as well.

 

Oh god. She was SO good in Dishonored. I didn't expect it out of her, honestly.

 

What voice did she do in Dishonored? I never played the game but I know the major characters at least. Though I don't watch Game of Thrones (I know, heresy) I would assume the level of acting behind the mic would be as good as in front of the camera.

 

 

I looked up Thancred cutscenes from 1.0 and.... hnnnggh. It's T. Axelrod now.

 

LOL, when I read the "It's T. Axelrod now." I imagined you saying it with a very flat 'meh' sounding tone after being all giddy about Thancred 1.0

[LiadansWhisper]

I just looked it up, and Thancred was voiced by Crispin Freeman in 1.0... Why did they change his voice actor!? O, cruel fate! Time to go cry and swoon.

 

Okay...okay...

 

I am so upset now.

 

:cry::cry::cry:

[Dravus]

I'd love to see Lena Headey do some voice acting for FFXIV. She's utterly brilliant as Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones and her voice work in Dishonored was great as well.

 

Oh god. She was SO good in Dishonored. I didn't expect it out of her, honestly.

 

What voice did she do in Dishonored? I never played the game but I know the major characters at least. Though I don't watch Game of Thrones (I know, heresy) I would assume the level of acting behind the mic would be as good as in front of the camera.

 

Callista Curnow.

[Swift Nightclaw]

I think a lot of people just have unrealistic standards when it comes to voice acting, especially since very few games - let alone MMO's - have managed to pull it off flawlessly.

 

Nope.  Sorry.  Not agreeing with this.

 

I guess I've just been spoiled by WoW (which blows my mind).

 

Let's do some comparisons, shall we?  This is the voice of Lorewalker Cho, an integral character to the Mists of Pandaria expansion.  Tell me this isn't an amazing voice actor?

 

 

-D--GWwca0g

 

 

 

 

Not really fair to throw Lorewalker Cho into the mix.  That's like...cheating.

 

Lorewalker Cho is freaking JIM CUMMINGS!

 

Monterey Jack from Rescue Rangers.

Don Karnage and Louie from Tale Spin.

Winnie the Pooh, Tigger.

Darkwing Duck himself!

The voice of Ed in Lion King (so eloquent in that role, yes? haha)

Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog

FREAKIN' SHREDDER IN TMNT!!!

 

Lorewalker Cho doesn't get to enter the comparison circuit.  Jim is too awesome.

 

Unless a game has Peter Cullen and Kevin Conroy as well.

 

Blizzard heavily improved the voice acting in Mists of Pandaria by going to the actual actor's guild and pulling professional voice actors in for it.

 

The voice acting for Final Fantasy XIV in English? Ehhhhh, not so great.  I mean, I do like some of them, but others not so much.

 

The Ul'dahn sultana is one of my favorites.  Raubahn is hit or miss.  His voice acting at Cartenau is pretty bad.  The lack of inflection from Ken-E-Senna doesn't bother me, actually.  She's not exactly entirely normal human, so perhaps that's common for her to speak in an unusual way to us.

 

It's not bad enough for me to cringe, but like someone else said, it's generally either okay or underwhelming.

 

What drives me nuts is how so many characters have some quasi-British but not British accent. Not the accent themselves, but....every person? Uldahn royalty lalafell, hyur, miqote...all same general accent? Disappointing, really.

[LiadansWhisper]

I just looked it up, and Thancred was voiced by Crispin Freeman in 1.0... Why did they change his voice actor!? O, cruel fate! Time to go cry and swoon.

 

Who is his voice actor now? Never played 1.0 so had no idea. Dat Alucard voice! All of the swooning

 

I looked up Thancred cutscenes from 1.0 and.... hnnnggh. It's T. Axelrod now.

 

Some...dude...

[Tobias Nightbringer]

Who knows, this might be his breakout role! He's only done real minor things thus far. Was in FMA and Hellsing apparently.

[K'dath]

I just looked it up, and Thancred was voiced by Crispin Freeman in 1.0... Why did they change his voice actor!? O, cruel fate! Time to go cry and swoon.

 

 . . .

 

/throws entire computer desk out the window

[Lament]

Unfortunately, I do agree that MMOs, for whatever reason, tend to be lower on the scale of VO acting in comparison to single player or even multiplayer (that is not on the MMO scale). So not sure if the ones that are less than par just have not refined their skills enough yet or they just do not care enough to bring quality to their work.

 

That's easy. The problem's the budget. Voice acting is expensive, and not every localization company wants to dish out the $$$ to pay for good VAs. For locally made MMOs, you have a better chance at finding good voice acting (e.g. WoW, GW2).

 

FFXIV really has no excuse, but Kingdom Hearts aside (and even then only the Disney cameos and the protagonists), SE doesn't really have much of a history of caring about the quality of localized voice acting.

 

What really gets me about the voice acting in FFXIV is Urianger (aka Balthier in FFXII, Fenris in Dragon Age 2, a bunch of Sylvari in GW2 etc) - we know this guy, we know he can do better, and even he sounds uninspired and wooden. Doesn't sound like most of them were trying. ):

 

But look at it from the bright side: at least it's not Ragnarok Online 2.

[Dravus]

A lot of the voice acting that is deemed 'wooden' may very well be intentional, though - especially when dealing with races that aren't human and thus don't necessarily have to sound like we do. An excellent example of this is Trahearne in Guild Wars 2, who I suppose is infamous due to how many players came to hate him for allegedly stealing the show and having 'bland' voice acting. I found it to be pretty fitting, though - the guy was a scholar forced into becoming a leader. He inspired those under his command through getting results rather than being overly charismatic. I found it to be pretty refreshing. 

 

In FFXIV, Kan-E-Senna suffers similar criticism...largely because her tone doesn't change regardless of the situation at hand. This is fairly common when dealing with folk who are wise beyond their years. Those of you lucky enough to have met inspirational figures who are both humble, kind and willing to give advice and aid to those around them will note that they are often soft-spoken and very rarely lose their temper. In that context, Kan-E-Senna's voice doesn't sound all that terrible.

[Faye]

A lot of the voice acting that is deemed 'wooden' may very well be intentional, though - especially when dealing with races that aren't human and thus don't necessarily have to sound like we do. An excellent example of this is Trahearne in Guild Wars 2, who I suppose is infamous due to how many players came to hate him for allegedly stealing the show and having 'bland' voice acting. I found it to be pretty fitting, though - the guy was a scholar forced into becoming a leader. He inspired those under his command through getting results rather than being overly charismatic. I found it to be pretty refreshing. 

 

In FFXIV, Kan-E-Senna suffers similar criticism...largely because her tone doesn't change regardless of the situation at hand. This is fairly common when dealing with folk who are wise beyond their years. Those of you lucky enough to have met inspirational figures who are both humble, kind and willing to give advice and aid to those around them will note that they are often soft-spoken and very rarely lose their temper. In that context, Kan-E-Senna's voice doesn't sound all that terrible.

 

I agree with this. I never really found Kan-E-Senna's voice unfitting. It's always the same tone, sure, but that much seemed appropriate with her personality and her position. To me, it was more a sign of her character than one of bad voice acting.

[Lament]

Given the overall lack of quality and wooden sound of the voice acting of humans too (eg Minfilia), I'd disagree. There's a difference between purposeful monotone and just plain sounding monotonous; the Elcor in the Mass Effect series are a good example of this. A character sounding wooden and a VA's delivery sounding wooden are different things. Gideon Emery is a highly prolific voice actor, I've seen him do much better. Urianger is by far his most forced-sounding role in my book. It just doesn't seem like he was trying.

 

FWIW though, I liked Kan-E-Senna's voice the best out of the three leaders. In Japanese she sounded serene and mostly spoke in monotone, too. The majority of the localized voice acting in this game, though, is indefensible. Much of it sounds like it came straight out of a 90s console game (Papalymo, anyone?) when nobody cared about voice acting in video games.

 

I'd attribute it to SE not caring, really. In Japan the VA cast has a much bigger impact on a game than in other countries, so I doubt they paid much mind to their budget for localized voice acting.

[Dravus]

I think it might partially be a case of Gideon Emery sounding bland because he's been in so many recent games that have effectively had him use the exact same voice. I find that whilst he's a great voice actor with a distinct voice there isn't much difference between him voicing Balthier in FFXII, Lor'themar in WoW, Fenris in Dragon Age 2 and Urianger in FFXIV. I say this as someone who is pretty fond of elves when they're portrayed in a gritty manner and he pulls it off well. He's just...overused, I guess. Though from what I gather Urianger only has a few spoken lines and so it's difficult to tell for sure. I'm also secretly hoping he does some voice acting in TESO so I'm of two minds on the matter.

[K'dath]

I'd attribute it to SE not caring, really. In Japan the VA cast has a much bigger impact on a game than in other countries, so I doubt they paid much mind to their budget for localized voice acting.

 

This is 110% true on the Japanese cast. And out of curiosity I gave them a listen. Kan-E-Senna is great. Her lack of inflection feels organic, her voice is very smooth and flows elegantly. It's the serene, calm I expect of someone who professes to be one with nature.

 

Comparing to the English one made it seem all the worse, because she just sounds robotic. I suppose that's kind of ironic, in a way.

 

I'd disagree that Square doesn't care about localization though. Even though I'm quick to point out the laughably horribly moments in FFX and XII, the English voice crews were excellent. One could even argue that Balthier was Gideon Emery's break out role. And with people like John DiMaggio on the payroll for former games, you can't tell me they don't have their numbers lying around somewhere.

[Dravus]

The 'laughably horrible' voice acting would be from the likes of Tidus and Vaan, eh? I have a hunch it's intentional, unfortunately. As much as I love most of the games in the Final Fantasy series there's a lot of whiny, 'samey' male protagonists. I'm especially bitter about Basch being reduced to a side character in favour of Vaan who was seen as being 'more relatable' as a main character. This was also one of the things that drove away quite a bit of talent in the company by rubbing them the wrong way. Why the executives thought it'd be a good idea to piss off the guy who brought us Vagrant Story is beyond me, especially since it's one of the few games in existence to get a perfect 100/100 score.

[K'dath]

The 'laughably horrible' voice acting would be from the likes of Tidus and Vaan, eh? I have a hunch it's intentional, unfortunately. As much as I love most of the games in the Final Fantasy series there's a lot of whiny, 'samey' male protagonists. I'm especially bitter about Basch being reduced to a side character in favour of Vaan who was seen as being 'more relatable' as a main character. This was also one of the things that drove away quite a bit of talent in the company by rubbing them the wrong way. Why the executives thought it'd be a good idea to piss off the guy who brought us Vagrant Story is beyond me, especially since it's one of the few games in existence to get a perfect 100/100 score.

 

Tidus has good points, even a few great ones... and he also has some that are so earth-shatteringly horrible they make me cry tears of blood, a la Anima. Vaan I don't even want to talk about.

 

I completely agree though. Final Fantasy has only had one main character for a while now, with a growing collection of wigs and outfits compromised solely of zippers. I loved Basch and I thought he was a strong, well designed character who didn't get his dues. Him being sidelined by that little... abomination, was really a deal breaker for me with the game. I never did ACTUALLY finish it... especially once I realized I did not actually have to participate in combat and could go make a sandwich while the game played itself.

 

I think Square has come to rely a lot on Nomura, since his characters are always the most popular ones. But then, you know, he also has ideas like this. Far be it for someone like me to tell them how to run their company but... you know... I probably wouldn't leave someone in charge of a project if it was taking them eight years to finish it.

[Dravus]

A musical? Ugh. I still haven't managed to stomach Kingdom Hearts. Mixing Donald Duck with the likes of Sephiroth has never sit well with me and I doubt it ever will.

[Rinh Hallani]

I was really quite annoyed that Urianger had like, 3 lines total.  

 

Me too. A voice like that shouldn't be wasted!

 

Edit: Finally got to the end of the thread and people saying he was wooden and/or overused haha. Well, I've only heard him say a few lines, as mentioned by Liadan, so I can't really comment. I just love his voice.

[Lament]

X

 

I'd disagree that Square doesn't care about localization though. Even though I'm quick to point out the laughably horribly moments in FFX and XII, the English voice crews were excellent. One could even argue that Balthier was Gideon Emery's break out role. And with people like John DiMaggio on the payroll for former games, you can't tell me they don't have their numbers lying around somewhere.

 

Super late! But I meant specifically not caring about XIV, since it's SE Japan heading the whole thing. If it had been the NA branch of SE, things might've turned out differently.

[Reginald]

I have two characters; I played one with English VOs and the current one in Japanese. The quality seems to be roughly the same for both but I'm leaning a bit on the Japanese side because the voices fit (in a stereotypical kind of way) the characters more than the English ones. The syncing is horrible on both sides, sadly.

[Tobias Nightbringer]

I noticed some RPers here understand/talk Japanese. I wonder what their perspective is on the Japanese VO in this game if they haven't already spoken their piece.

 

Now, this is in NO way means I believe people who do not understand/talk Japanese that prefer the Japanese VO have lesser value in opinion, but I do wonder if because those that do not speak/understand the language (myself being included of course) we are more likely to think that a language that is foreign to us are better in quality.

[Arisu]

Oh. I'm incredibly conservative with voice overs in jRPGs.

If I could choose (which I can't, thankfully, for most of you) I'd see them gone altogether.

I think it's because of my relationship with games at an early age. 

I grew up a console gamer, roughly at the start of the 16-bit era, when it was absolutely unthinkable to have voice acting in video games because of technical limitations. 

The only thing you might hear would be some digitalized voice yelling SEGA or Let's kick shell! at the start of a game/stage.

Instead I used my imagination, or simply let the beautiful music "speak" the mood, and I loved it. 

When the era or "silent games" came to an end, I had a very hard time to adapt. 

 

I missed this. I wanted this.

 

Not thi---oh, wait, someone posted the Tidus "laughs"(?) video already.

 

WHY AM I TELLING YOU THIS??

...I guess I just didn't want to say "screw VOs, I hate 'em coz I just do!".

And I don't hate them, really, I'm just a silly relic of a long gone era of gaming.

Someday I'll just have to accept the winds of change...

 

So let's talk about Final Fantasy XIV. 

I admit that, as a teen, I was completely biased. Japanese voice acting was always better than its Western counterpart. 

Because it just was. 16 year old fangirl logic!

Thankfully I grew up.

While I keep the voice acting turned OFF most of the time, I have listened to both the English and Japanese voices, and in my humble opinion they are very...hmm, generic.

I think the Japanese ones sounds just like anime #129637, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for some, and the English performance has this "eeeh, not awesome, but not too bad, just glad it's not more of it" feel.

 

However, because of the game's Western Fantasy-esque setting, and as a non-English speaker, I am somewhat fascinated by the use of the language in Final Fantasy XIV. I prefer the English VOs for this reason.

It just fits the mood better for me.

 

Posted by Tobias Nightbringer - Today 09:14 AM

I noticed some RPers here understand/talk Japanese. I wonder what their perspective is on the Japanese VO in this game if they haven't already spoken their piece.

 

Now, this is in NO way means I believe people who do not understand/talk Japanese that prefer the Japanese VO have lesser value in opinion, but I do wonder if because those that do not speak/understand the language (myself being included of course) we are more likely to think that a language that is foreign to us are better in quality.

 

I also think Tobias makes an interesting point. 

 

While I can understand English far better than Japanese (although I do have a firm grasp of the basics), they're both foreign languages. I thought the English voice acting in Resident Evil (the original from '96) sounded sooo cool. I was 11 years old, and I hardly understood a word they were saying. But it was English! English! It's gotta be kick-ass!

 

Considering the notorious voice acting in that game (if you haven't heard it, look it up on YouTube, but be warned, it's bad, so bad) it may be a poor example, but it's possible that you get to be more picky with your VOs the more you're familiar the language spoken, it makes it easier to judge what actually sounds realistic, overacted, bored, and so on.

 

Such is what happened to me with both English and Japanese.

[K'dath]

Since I've been re-playing through the early levels and have had to suffer through some of the cut scenes again I've actually switched the VO language to German. Which I understand on a fluent level, but am awful at communicating.

 

And I'm having the same sort of 'eh' reactions to a lot of the voices. Like Papalymo? WAY more tolerable in German. He actually sounds like a funny sort of annoying instead of just... ohgodwhy annoying. Yda? Maybe because I'm accustomed to the amount of DERP coming from the English voice actress, but she just didn't sound right. Y'sholta I kinda wasn't sure how to feel, because she was one of the ones I didn't overly mind in English and I missed her cheery British accent. And Raubahn? I just... I would recommend go rolling a new character on some throw away server and re-leveling just to hear his German voice acting. I can't even really give you an opinion, you just gotta hear it...

 

I think the voice acting in this game is just internationally 'meh'

 

 

Also, we have voices for random people yelling in the background for the memorial services... and why don't the respective leaders of the Adventure's Guild branches have voice acting!? Those are the first important characters you meet in the game! I am shocked and offended they didn't think Baderon Tenfingers was important enough to voice. And I am doubly offended he isn't voiced by Tom Kenny. Simply unacceptable Square.

I ALWAYS read all of Baderon's dialogue in my head with a 'Patchy the Pirate' voice ;;

[Zyrusticae]

I'm curious.

 

I didn't feel like the VO for the game is bad at all, or even mediocre. It's very appropriate most of the time, with the occasional moments of cringe (lol Papalymo). I LOVE Minfilia's voice, and the casting in general is pretty good, so...

 

What do you guys consider good voice acting? What about good casting (two different things, btw)? Sometimes I feel like folks have unreasonable, completely impossible standards, or maybe they have a completely different idea of what constitutes "good acting", not to mention direction plays a part as well (what you may consider 'bad acting' the director might consider 'appropriate diction', for example).

[DAISHI]

It's interesting seeing how older gamers reacted to the introduction of voice to games and comparing it to the introduction to voice in film.  In both cases there was a group highly resistant to the change. Within a generation the concept of non voicing became unprofitable.

[LiadansWhisper]

I'm curious.

 

I didn't feel like the VO for the game is bad at all, or even mediocre. It's very appropriate most of the time, with the occasional moments of cringe (lol Papalymo). I LOVE Minfilia's voice, and the casting in general is pretty good, so...

 

What do you guys consider good voice acting? What about good casting (two different things, btw)? Sometimes I feel like folks have unreasonable, completely impossible standards, or maybe they have a completely different idea of what constitutes "good acting", not to mention direction plays a part as well (what you may consider 'bad acting' the director might consider 'appropriate diction', for example).

 

Good Voice Acting:

 

Lorewalker Cho:

 

-D--GWwca0g

 

 

Taran Zhu and Garrosh Hellscream:

 

slzQOyS5TqQ

 

 

Maloriak (a boss in Blackwing Descent):

 

9MSLSLTgwQg

 

 

Sara/Yogg-Saron:

 

FVlOO7q_bj4

 

I am the lucid dream,

The monster in your nightmares,

The fiend of a thousand faces.

Cower before my true form!

Bow down before the God of DEATH!

 

 

 

I wish I could find a recording of Suna Silentstrike from the Mists of Pandaria expansion, but she has some of the most emotionally-charged voice acting I've seen in the game.  I literally teared up when I did the quest involving her.

 

There just isn't enough emotion in most of the voice acting in this game.  It's not terrible, but it's disappointing because I feel like it lets the awesome story down.