[General Discussion] Best and Worst of VAs

I see these are virtually all RPGs. How little games you guys play.

PC games have had excellent and professional voice acting for years. Everyone remembers Lucasarts games, I personally like Grim Fandango and Full Throttle best. Not only did most of the games have tons of well written dialogue, they were delivered with care and poise, giving you properly fleshed out characters talking and reacting to themselves, instead of the hollow double monologues you're mostly used to in games. Manny's and Glottis' banter is especially excellent, Tony Plana is just that great. Half-Life 2's work was also wonderful. Brilliant delivery and timing, and a surprising amount of subtlety in such a hectic game where you can miss a lot.

Many Rockstar games have also excelled in writing and voice acting, with Bully and Manhunt being particular favorites of mine. Brian Cox just added that much more talent to the pool.

Halo 1 and 2 are also very fondly remembered by me. 2's storyline was a bit of a mess, but its actual dialogue was great, excellently delivered by some talented actors (I'd never heard of). And Jen Taylor is of course lovely.

In terms of dubs, I've found most of the RPG dubs being praised as great are merely standard anime dub level. Overacted, ill-judged and usually terrible at pronouncing japanese names to boot, they will still somehow manage to stand out when the rest is even worse. I loved Grandia 1 to bits and the voices themselves are well picked, but the acting itself is pretty dreadful. The only RPG I recently remember with competent voice acting is FFXII. Balthier and Basch were particularly good.

The best dub I can recall is still the first Metal Gear Solid. David Hayter somehow lost his ability to act after that, focusing all his efforts into making his voice gruff, but his performance in the first MGS is still fantastic. The rest of the cast fared just as well, producing an extremely satisfying listening experience, so crucial for such a story and cutscene-heavy game.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Monkey King

Star Ocean 2
Did I mention how interested I was in the remake? Maybe Precis will be usable without blood shooting out my ears. We're not kidding here, folks, she is THAT shrill and annoying to listen to. Nobody could agree on how to pronounce Rena's name; Leon says it two different ways! And Ashton's penultimate attack... "Oh, the all-mighty Tri-Ass!"

Pretty much why I went and burned myself a copy of the undub version, even though I own the game already.

How ya doing, buddy?

As in, someone took the US release and haxed the japanese audio back in place and then torrented it. So now it has english text, but Japanese audio.

They've done this for Wild Arms 4 and 5, a few Tales games and Persona 3 recently, but they're not always succesful (Tales games still have pieces of english here and there, I heard). But the Star Ocean 2 one I grabbed out of curiosity, same for Stella Deus, as the dub in that was dreadful.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I suppose it only worked in favor for REmake, since I felt the GC version had surprisingly good VAs. I especially liked Jill, but then I like everything about Jill :3

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?