Oh, good, I was waiting for this natural follow-up. "OMG ITS CALLED FINAL FANTASY FAGGOT".

C'mon, Pangalin, you know what I mean. A good story can be campy as hell, but if it goes too far it drops from campy to right shit. The only way magic-wielding heroes can be remotely cool in this context is to imbue some realism into them. The Japanese developers understand this; that's why every damn protagonist in a jRPG look like they came right out of a rock band. We, in America, don't have to copy that tactic - it doesn't apply, of course, as our rock stars are boring - but we could stop with giving them voices akin to what some fat nerd gave his character in D&D c. 1979.

Where do they drag these people from, you ask?

Well, I suspect we would need to examine the pool of people available for voice-acting in the role of "morally-ambiguous dragon knight".

The pool of voice-acting talent in the United States as a whole is kind of hilariously small: expecting that what little genuine talent is available is going to ditch their anime contracts so they can go do the third remake of a 17-year-old game is a bit of a stretch. You have to take what you can get, in these instances.

(and what you get, in this instance, is more than up to the task of handling FFIV's mostly paper-thin characters. KAIN ARE YOU BAD. NO I AM NOT. OH HO IT TURNS OUT I AM.)

lolin' at the description of Nomura's shitty costume design as "realistic"

I once had a dream where I had clown shoes and lots of shoulder pads that were actually pouches. I think I was also pregnant, but that might have been a really big pouch. You know how it goes.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. But you know, if they are going to remake a 17-year-old game, you think that they would, I don't know, get the characters a bit more... three-dimensional. It follows that as the game becomes graphically three-dimensional, the characters should, too.

And maybe the problem here is I'm not expecting extremely talented people to take over. Christ, let me do the voice of one of the characters. It's probably not too hard to do better than "My voice is deep I'm a morally-ambiguous dragon knight arrrrg".These characters' costumes bear obvious references to wildly-popular Japanese rock celebrities. I understand that the clown shoes don't exactly elicit the same feeling one gets from appreciating Greek statues; regardless, the characters are made to look like they belong on the streets of urban Tokyo so that teenagers in Japan can relate to them. Since the costumes here have no basis (so they just look ridiculous) the least I think they could do is make Kain talk like a goddam normal human being. And Rosa wouldn't sound like an idiot, either.

But I guess that all of this is superfluous, if I can just turn voices off. =/

I'd like to just mention that both FFIV and Tactics 2 are on Gamestop's shelves and the resident mook said it would be released in July (So, the US)

So, get those Preorders going if you're inclined to so do. I probably will after picking up Ninja Gaiden II, or next paycheck, whichever comes first.

Don't worry Hachifusa, I know what you're saying and I agree with you. I just didn't bother to make a big deal out of it because I had already read previously I could just turn the VA off anyway.

I rarely have a problem with English Voice Acting, but this is definitely outright terrible. Talking Tales of Eternia (Destiny 2) on the Psone terrible; aka, they took homeless people off the street and paid them with the garbage behind a restaurant terrible.

Why couldn't we have, oh, Crispin Freeman + Cam Clarke?

I'm going to take a wild guess and assume this is what you think they SHOULD sound like. Because, like, to be able to bitch about what a person sounds like you had to have had a real-world basis for it right?

YouTube Video

No, Mo0. Stop being silly.

Knights and wizards should look and sound like teenage rock stars! So we can relate to them.

Good lord, that would've been insane. Either one of those voicing either of the characters could've worked out very well.

Well, now we have to wait to find out what the other characters sound like. I'm really interested in hearing Cid's voice.

What the fuck are you saying? PSOne voice acting was awesome.

COME 'EEEEEEEEEEERE, BARNEY!!!

I read these comments (catching up on the thread amid its recent activity) and was expecting atrocious acting.

Y'know, for someone who is a big advocate of leaving the audio-tracks "as-is" (Japanese voice track, no dubbing), the voice acting isn't that bad. Still, I don't like how they are trying to tweak it toward a forced, older English speaking manner.

Oh well. Even if there are some horrid voice actors that haven't been unveiled, there's always the undub. The Jap voice track hit all the right spots, and it sounds like they were trying to match that to the best of their ability (ie: a very, very deep-voiced Kain).

Either way, I don't see what all the ruckus is about. I was afraid they'd grab the same dudes who voice act for almost every fuckin' RPG nowadays. If the voice acting in this bugs you, clearly you haven't seen early PS1 voice actors. Ohh, good lord... :psyduck:

No, knights and wizards should sound like normal people. In Japan they happen to be voiced by forty-year-old rock stars that appeal to teenagers. That's because that's the demographic. In America the demographic they seem to be aiming for is 28-year-old obese nerd who lives in parents' basement.

Stop being silly.

There are, really, not enough facepalms in the world.

Here, I'll try this one more time.

They're not normal people.

Because they are knights and wizards.

That is the whole point of an RPG.

(Playing characters which are not like yourself)

(Characters which are not normal)

That's what the "RP" part means.

Roleplaying by definition requires you to relate to people unlike yourself.

Do you think that Cecil, a Paladin who travels to the Moon, does not sound like a normal person?

Do you think this may be an intentional decision?

But really this argument is pointless because I'm speaking from a position based upon acting, storytelling, and game design

And you're speaking from a position of "LET'S DO WHAT JAPAN DOES"

You know, my only problem with the voiceover is that they're pronouncing Cecil's name wrong.



IT'S NOT A FUCKING OPEN E, DAMMIT. IT'S A LONG I.

Christ, Pangalin. Do you do this banal little list thing in the real world or do you reserve it for people on here?

I UNDERSTAND that wizards and warlocks and dragons and whatever-the-fuck aren't REAL. I EVEN understand that it's an INTENTIONAL DECISION. I'm saying it's a BAD one. I don't say that these characters should sound like that stoner kid down the street. MY ONLY POINT is that since the main people buying this game will probably be people in their twenties that they should RESTRAIN themselves from indulging in CHILDISH decisions.

Clearly, I am NOT saying that we should make them sound like Japan. That is what they're doing and it sucks. I'm saying that rather than copy Japan we should do it the way we would here.

But really this is pointless because I'm speaking from the position that we're talking about what will most acutely stress the story/game for the player.

And you're just being bitchy.

Did you just call me banal in the middle of an argument where you were discussing how a video game remake's voices are incorrect

=( i was hoping you'd miss that.

I don't know about you, but I'd only consider getting that game for the nostalgia value. Weren't most of us children when that game first came out?
And you're being stupid.

Incidentally, there were no voices in the original, so I find no sufficient reason why they can't change the voices to a more subdued tone and keep the nostalgic parts (i.e. battle system) in check.
lol, Mo0! lol, indeed!

Because subdued voices would be boring.




Unless everyone was a stoner.




That would be funny.

You completely missed my point. The fact is, most of us were under 18 when we played that game originally. When we were that age, a lot of us could care less if the voices in, say, a movie (for lack of voice acting in games yet) was hammy. That was how all of our fantasies went in our head, with super macho voices! Why should they make the voices any different when they remake the game and add voices? Frankly, I'd rather see them put forth the effort to add voices to the game instead of just source porting and sprucing up the graphics of the game. Final Fantasy III was a much better game when they released it for DS due to the adjustments they made.

I'm going to hate the voice acting unless it sounds exactly like the voices I imagined for them. Stupid Square Enix, read my mind and get it RIGHHHTTTTTT

Seriously, guys. The voice acting isn't THAT bad. No need to be so SRS about it.