Paring back voice acting?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I had a discussion recently about the Shepard VAs in Mass Effect. You know, it's just the standard gender voice actor discussion. I find MaleShep to be more as I envision the character ("Trying to shock me is like trying to shock Captain Kirk. I have already seen whatever it is you are about to do") and this is primarily because of the roles I associate Jennifer Hale with. Also because people who save galaxies should have moustaches.

Well, in DA:O they chose not to give the PC a voice because they thought that people would read the dialogue lines themselves, in their heads at least, thus turning it in to a first-person, rather than third-person narrative. Apparently Shigesato Itoi used only kana in Mother 2, even though the SNES could render a practical amount of kanji, because he wanted people to do the same thing. Likewise, look at Dissidia: even though a lot of Terra's lines are straight from FF6, she got a lot of backlash because her voice and body language was seen to not fit her well.

Sure, sometimes when the VA is really on, it makes the character (Albel would still be fun because of his belief that he is the villain, but it's Crispen fucking Freeman's cackling that pushes him over the top), so it's not that all VA is necessarily bad. But given the rising cost of game production and some of the misfires we've had in VA lately, as well as increasing interactivity in the medium, do you think perhaps voice acting will seem less mandatory in games as we go on?

[Meeplelard]

People who say Terra's voice and body language didn't fit her in Dissidia...really just didn't get the point of Terra's character at all.  Some people actually viewed her as this unstoppable bad ass killing machine after her amnesia stage, for example...um, no?  She was still clearly a timid, soft spoken character (which her Dissidia character is), just had more confidence.  Its also people who think that they based Terra "only off the first 2 hours of the game, and missed all her development!"

Um...no shit?  That was kind of the point; they weren't branching off from her development, it was more a character reboot.  Cloud, Squall and Tidus had the exact same effect on them, but people ignore it cause hey, who cares about those 3? They get enough attention.   People whine about "Why is she hiding behind Onion Knight when she's the one whose protecting children!?" ignoring that Onion Knight is NOT the same as the children of Mobliz (Who are implied to be younger and, you know, civilians), the whole lack of the Love factor in Terra's character (something clearly dropped cause its incompatible in Dissidia, replacing it with "Dreams" which fits better while still consistent with her character)

Basically, what it comes down to is people don't know the characters they're fans of, and Dissidia proved that a lot of supposed "Terra fans" don't actually like her for what she is, but like her for the false image they made of her.  I think FF7 characters are the strongest example of characters liked for all the wrong reasons.  I've seen plenty of other characters get equated to minor factors of their personality as being the source of their development, like Zidane being "nothing but a ROGUE LIKE LADIES MAN!"  No, that's Edge (ok, Edge is also a hot head, but be quiet), Zidane is actually the Fun Loving, Obsessed with Helping People guy, constantly worried about his friends guy that Dissidia paints him as.
Or Cloud?  He was always a rational, introverted guy that Dissidia painted him as.  Yet, people remember him being somewhat like the Kingdom Hearts/Advent Children variant of this "Anti-social, bad ass action hero!!!!" Ok, congrats for completely missing the point of Cloud's character, since you described SQUALL more or less dead on.

I've heard a better complaint being that Terra's VA was hurt by bad voice direction, not necessarily the voice itself being a bad fit for her, which...personally, I saw nothing wrong with it (or anybody in Dissidia really.  I'll grant its not Square's best case of VA, such like Crisis Core was definitely overall better at this execution, but it certainly wasn't horrible), but its a more reasonable complaint at least, since its at least not randomly painting this false image of Terra to claim it didn't fit.  There were some awkward moments where trying to match the lip sinking made the english dialog sound a little off ("I won't let you...get away with it!" comes to mind.  The odd pause in the middle to match her lip movement makes that line come off as awkward, where as in the Japanese, it was more appropriate due to the words being said.)  Obviously, characters like DK Cecil or Garland, who cover their mouths entirely, have no excuse if they ever pulled that shit.  You'll note Battle Dialog, including the Victory, Loss and Challenge quotes, are all somewhat better quality and more consistent in this regard cause there's no Lip Sinking to match up with.  

My general point is...her actual voice and the way Dissidia displayed her were actually consistent with FF6.  A lot of people probably were upset that they took more a character reboot route, making her appear more Damsel-in-Distress like for the plot scenes rather than the strong willed heroine she is portrayed as in the game's ending.  They also act like she was totally cowardly and running away from everything...
That's kind of funny cause it was Onion Knight, her "Guardian" who was the coward.  She even tries to call him out on it (just his Enthusiastic, Outgoing personality kind of overpowers her soft spoken one) in his scene with Ex-death.  The scene with Kefka wasn't her being afraid, that was Onion Knight jumping in before she had time to react, and she certainly didn't run away from Cloud pointing the buster sword at her (actually, if anything, she told Cloud TO run, as she was afraid what she'd do to him, not the other way around.)

...yeah, I kind of went off on a big tangent, but lets be honest here; people who say it didn't fit...mostly just don't really know the character they're talking about.  Its like how I initially thought Lymle's voice in SO4 was stale and dry, kind of lacking in emotion...but then I read her in-game bio and recognized that was intended, and was willing to accept the voice more after that.


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Regarding the "Is Voice Acting bad these days" comment?  It...really depends on the scene.  There are some instances where voice acting doesn't really do much to help a game.  FFTA2, which I'm playing now, there's really not much TO show in terms of emotion, personality, etc.  You can get a good enough impression on the tone and style the character is speaking just based on the dialog.
But then we have scenes from Crisis Core...I can't honestly say that Zack would have come off anywhere near as effective as he did without voice acting.  Or really, anyone in Crisis Core.  Genesis' constant poetry would have been MORE annoying without voice acting, actually, cause then you're constantly reading random poetry, not having the appropriate visuals to get an idea of what the point of it is.

And then voice acting adds flair to gameplay elements.  Valkyrie Profile, for example, always felt more interesting for fights cause of the Voice Acting; yeah, true, gets cheesy hearing the same "It shall be engraved upon your soul!" over and over again...but at the same time, there was that kind of charm to it.  Hearing characters go all "HAVE AT THEE!" in their unique styles at the beginning of each fight helps mold their personality, as does their own victory lines.  Replace VP with other games that did the same thing.  Heck, even little nuances like FF10 Final Enemy kill quotes, like Tidus' "Seeya!", Wakka's "Booya!" or Auron's "Farewell" just give the cast that much little extra coloring.

So yeah, really depends.  Games like Tales of Eternia, the voice acting, even ignoring its horrible quality, didn't feel like it served a purpose in plot scenes, since Voices without action kind of don't mesh well, which is exactly what ToE was.  But then we have these full interactive scenes, and...well...would any of those SHC scenes be as hilarious without the voices to go along with the antics?
Note that activity does not need to be full CG characters ala many PS2 games; simple still shots with exaggerated motions like, say, Disgaea, work well too...heck, Disgaea is a fine example of that for a number of reasons.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Personally I think good VA is increasingly necessary these days. It's just much harder to sell me on a scene that doesn't have it. We know that most of human communication isn't words... it's body language and voice tone. Thus, having well-done character animations and voice acting are essential for selling me on the human element of communication.

I think everyone knows my opinion on silent mains (and lack of VA when other people in the game have it only makes them worse!) so yeah, not going to belabour that point.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Personally I think good VA is increasingly necessary these days. It's just much harder to sell me on a scene that doesn't have it. We know that most of human communication isn't words... it's body language and voice tone. Thus, having well-done character animations and voice acting are essential for selling me on the human element of communication.

I think everyone knows my opinion on silent mains (and lack of VA when other people in the game have it only makes them worse!) so yeah, not going to belabour that point.

The DA:O main isn't silent, just as an aside. They're just not voiced. They get lots of dialogue.

Anyway, then wouldn't you say that therefore it's not as much acting that's important, it's directing? Since body language is just as important, and it's an aspect that you can avoid the pitfalls of audiences typecasting an actor (as I apparently do with Jennifer Hale), would you say that is the first priority?

Also: never going to mention Dissidia again. Learned my lesson.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The DA main had no independent dialog as far as I saw (player chose everything), so s/he falls under what I was referring to when I mentioned silent mains. We can refer to them as immersion mains if you prefer... people who you might want to not give VA to on the grounds that they are supposed to represent the player. However, if these people aren't going to have voices separate from the players, why should we give them separate appearances even? So basically, if a main isn't going to have VA, I think they should be totally first-person so that I might actually be sold on the immersive experience. If they are still an avatar of the player but are considered separate enough to have a clear, player-chosen appearance, then no reason they can't have player-chosen VA. It probably means voicing all the main's lines with 4-10 different VAs but that's the price you pay for reflecting player choice.

Anyway... Body language is indeed very important and artistic direction / character modelling is indeed a key part of storytelling in games (as well as animated movies). Whether or not it is more important than voice, though, does not change the fact that both are important.

[Grefter]

The importance of not VA a main with player selected Dialogue is less about getting the voice wrong and more about the cost of doing it.

It is a thing that is more detrimental to get it right.  Either have full VA and a good character and do it right or have player chosing dialogue and have it be really fucking good dialogue, which DA does.  Mass Effect is an odd scenario of giving you a good character with good VA but having limited player choice.  It is an interesting hybrid and one I would like to see more of, but I don't think it is the pure unadulterated future.

[Cotigo]

There's also an annoyance factor.  Playing through KotOR (1 or 2) with voiced main lines could work in theory, but if they didn't get a good VA for the main then it would absolutely ruin the game.  I spend a lot of time repeating myself to get back to conversation paths I didn't take the first time I talked to a character, and I don't really care to hear the first second of dialog repeated monotonously every time I press A.

That said, for RPGs where conversation paths and being able to role play aren't the point at all, I agree with Elfboy.  Having a main that doesn't speak while everyone else has VA kinda kills the immersion.

Also: Re: Mentioning Dissidia.  No shit, Rob.  No shit.

[Veryslightlymad]

All art can be said to go through cycles.

For whatever reason, be it an increase in technology or a fundamental difference in the philosophy of the culture that creates the art, it will become more and more realistic as time goes by.

After it reaches a certain point, there's some kind of a paradigm shift, and it starts flooding in the opposite way, becoming more and more "weird" and abstract.

Then it stabilizes and folks do their own things for a while until the next kick where someone says "REALISM IS THE KEY" and it all starts over again.

[Grefter]

I just want to reiterate the importance of budget here as well and taking into account that with games.  PC games at least are reaching the point where there is actually a chance for a few noteworthy Indie RPGs coming out that have potential to maybe actually be a market force.  When you are dealing with a game made of a five figure budget or maybe even low 6 figure you are talking really damned cheap game.  I would be quite happy to see that kind of game drop the expense of VA for example.

If there was room for this kind of game on consoles then I would be a huge supporter of them as well.  Actually I guess that pretty much is the handheld market, so take that as you will.

[AndrewRogue]

Honestly, I think the most important thing is to be consistent and tasteful in how you handle the matter, whether you choose to have VAing, none at all or a mix.

For example, comparing Dragon Age/BG to Suikoden 4. Both have silent mains, but the DA/BG main is given a "voice" of sorts (that of the player) to balance him against the voice acted PCs. Suikoden 4's main is apparently a mute who is really good at emoting his points.

Mana Khemia vs Cross Edge is another excellent example. For budgetary concerns (I imagine, at least), the dub VAing of MK was limited. However, it was handled consistently, with main plot = voiced and side plot = no voice. This was perfectly fine. Cross Edge, on the other hand, was fully VAed for the first three hours and, after that, was randomly voiced on and off throughout the remainder of the game. Worse yet, they didn't bother to voice the main villains until about 3/4's of the way through the game. Hurrah. That is absolutely shitty decision making there.

[Bobbin Cranbud]

I'd be all for paring back voice acting in JRPGs for a couple of reasons.

1. I still sometimes have the chance to play them with all or part of my old group, and we've always voiced the lines ourselves.  A game with voice acting kills this experience completely unless it's one where only a few scenes are voiced AND we can do reasonable miming of the voice actors in the game AND they're good enough for us to want to.  FF10 was the only game that fit all these criteria, offhand.

2. Most JRPG voice acting sucks.  FF10 was good.  DQ8 and FF12 were superb.  And that's... basically it, to me.  The vast majority of JRPG English dubs are done by the same studios (or at least the same actors) as anime English dubs, and I range from hating to disliking most of those, too.  Since some of the actual voice actors I run into over and over HAVE turned in performances I like, I assume it's terrible voice DIRECTION that torpedoes my enjoyment of most of these dubs.

3. Expanding on point 2., it only takes one terrible performance to ruin a scene.  Unless the WHOLE cast knocks their performances out of the park, one character can completely unsell me on a game's voice acting.

The main thing I like is the opportunity to turn voices OFF.  If I like the voice work and am playing alone, they'll add to the experience.  If I don't or am playing with a group, they'll subtract.  I can't imagine it costs significant resources to store the voices in a separate audio track from music and sfx, considering how the implementation of these different elements is usually done.  Including the original Japanese* audio actually takes significant disk space, and is less desirable to me than the ability to turn off the voices entirely.

* Or whatever; most of the games I play come from Japan, the US or Canada, but I suppose I probably have some Russian games on the PC that could have original Russian audio tracks, as well.

Now, with that said, I've played a lot of current-gen games that knock their voice acting out of the park, with no poor performances marring the experience.  Perhaps PS3 (and 360, I assume) dev costs are so high that the developers figure they might as well throw some dough at good voice actors and directors, too?  I'm not really sure of the reason, but probably the weakest voice work I've heard in a PS3 game was Valkyria Chronicles and even that was downright good, not even just tolerable.

[Grefter]

On the PC games coming out of eastern Europe front, not many of them are reaching UK/Aus/US with the native language as an option, The Witcher is kind of the exception to the norm there.  The mileage on how good the English VA is incredibly variable, plenty of them are horrible rigid just plain bad works, some are passable and some are so bad it is good territory.  Generally speaking they have not trended towards being positive additions to the games that I have played coming from that region though.