[zkylon]

I don't mind lack of voiceacting at all, but I think something in between (like Persona) is the best way to go. Voiced dialogue for cutscenes and non-interactive dialogue, then loads of plain text for everything else. Best of both worlds IMO

[Augemitbutter]

i don't need voice acting in a game. i read way too fast, proper VA can't keep up. however, i feel its necessary in live action cut scenes. but i don't need those either.

give me text with cool and plenty of hand drawn portraits.

[Wyndstryker]

Yay.

IMO, if there is VA, just use a fictional language so you don't have to redub it. Save money while keeping some sort of realism if people want to hear a voice.

If no voice though, there needs to be SFX for every character that gets scrolled on the screen for old-times sake.

[Rahxephon91]

Since voice acting has improved and is good, I see no point to go back to such an outdated presentation. No, text boxes are stupid, games need to have actual cutscenes, anything less just comes off as cheap.

But I really see no reason to not have voice acting when Atlus and Square games have good voice acting.

So I say nay as what you are describing sounds like crap.

[Pupi18]

*Plays Star Ocean The Last Hope and Enchanted Arms*

Yeah I rather have no voice acting than horrible ones.

EDIT: Voice Acting on Opening and Ending would be nice if done (Folklore)

[cosmicblizzard]

Yay. IMO, if there is VA, just use a fictional language so you don't have to redub it. Save money while keeping some sort of realism if people want to hear a voice.

I do like this approach too even if I don't think it should be used all the time. More JRPGs with Ico/SOTC language or Animal Crossing-ese would be nice.

[Gozan]

Text is still superior to voice acting - without actual humans or the hand-guided care in animated movies, the character animations never manage to match up to the voice acting, putting them somewhere between ventriloquist dummy and string-manipulated corpse; nor do the separate bits of voiced dialogue match up to each other in a way which make it sound like a believable conversation even without the sloppily timed button presses triggering the next line.

If the problem is the silence when people are supposed to be talking, an acceptable compromise would be Sims-type gibberish.

[Lindsay]

That would look weird as hell in a high budget HD game with realistic character models.

It doesn't look weird in Yakuza but maybe that doesn't count as realistic? This kind of thing looked fine last generation and rpgs hardly ever go for the "realistic" look. If its truly high budget then it shouldn't be taking the cheap way out anyway!

[Y2Kev]

I'm really disappointed in you, Kevin. I would expect you of all people to know it's "yea."

Blame iPhone

and also yourself or god

[HappyBivouac]

Yes please. Voice acting is a big part of what killed the genre. You can't make a big, long, epic, gorgeous game like FF9 if you want to voice act the entire thing.

[cosmicblizzard]

It doesn't look weird in Yakuza but maybe that doesn't count as realistic? This kind of thing looked fine last generation and rpgs hardly ever go for the "realistic" look. If its truly high budget then it shouldn't be taking the cheap way out anyway!

I haven't played the HD Yakuzas, but aren't they mostly just standing around?

Just imagine something like FFXIII with all its body and facial movement. Now imagine the same thing, but in all the cutscenes, everyone's mouth would be closed and text boxes would appear instead. It would look really awkward.

[Rahxephon91]

Yes please. Voice acting is a big part of what killed the genre. You can't make a big, long, epic, gorgeous game like FF9 if you want to voice act the entire thing.

Huh?

They did.

It was called FFXII and it was great. And it has great cutscenes. FFIX would be so much better if it had voice acting.

And then they also made Xenoblade. And guess what? It has voice acting.

[Electivirus]

I'd much prefer voice acting, but either way is fine.

[HappyBivouac]

Huh? They did. It was called FFXII and it was great. And it has great cutscenes. FFIX would be so much better if it had voice acting.

The entire thing wasn't voice acted. Only a bit of it was. And yeah, it's a great game with great voice acting, but it's an exception.

[Rahxephon91]

The entire thing wasn't voice acted. Only a bit of it was. And yeah, it's a great game with great voice acting, but it's an exception.

Only a bit?

Pretty much 90% is voiced.

[Syril]

I haven't played the HD Yakuzas, but aren't they mostly just standing around? Just imagine something like FFXIII with all its body and facial movement. Now imagine the same thing, but in all the cutscenes, everyone's mouth would be closed and text boxes would appear instead. It would look really awkward.

Skyward Sword had tons of movement in cutscenes, and it didn't come off as awkward to me. Just because there's no voice acting doesn't mean their mouths can't move.

[Chacranajxy]

I prefer the various sounds text boxes make over voice acting, even if it's good. And I like being able to fly through dialog sequences instead of having to sit around and listen to all the lines. Reading is fun, kids.

[joe2187]

Voice acting has turned many jRPGs into bad anime.

This, It always turns me off.

We need a variety of different voice actors in games/shows.

I kind of get sick of hearing the same people voice 20 different characters.

[TriGen]

I don't mind lack of voiceacting at all, but I think something in between (like Persona) is the best way to go. Voiced dialogue for cutscenes and non-interactive dialogue, then loads of plain text for everything else. Best of both worlds IMO

I was gonna bring up Persona as well. I don't need to hear everything, but if I didn't get to hear voices in Persona 4 it would of lowered my enjoyment, so there is a middle ground.

[Rahxephon91]

Skyward Sword had tons of movement in cutscenes, and it didn't come off as awkward to me. Just because there's no voice acting doesn't mean their mouths can't move.

A perfect example. Having pretty great cutscenes with lips flapping with no sound. God they looked dumb. Which is a shame, becuase other then that they were pretty good.

[Sega1991]

Been playing through Final Fantasy 4 DS and actually super super disappointed that they took out the feature to name your party just because they added voice acting.

Even though voiced cutscenes make up maybe 5% of the total dialog in that game.

[Nemo]

Hells to the yayeah

dialogue boxes accompanied by character motion can often convey emotion much more better than VA, especially for funny stuff. Good VA is expensive, RPGs these days don't have that luxury if they want success. Hell I see awful VA moments in stuff like FFXIII

[WickedLaharl]

Nay. A game with such a budget should absolutely have voices and a proper localization done.

[Ghost_Protocol]

Yay, there are too many examples of JRPGs with fantastic english voice acting for it to be a negative anymore. Dragon Quest VIII, Tales of the Abyss, Persona 3/4, Final Fantasy XII, etc

[br0ken_shad0w]

As long as they let me read and skip at my own pace instead of taking their sweet ass time to finish text. I'm looking at you 999!

[cosmicblizzard]

Skyward Sword had tons of movement in cutscenes, and it didn't come off as awkward to me. Just because there's no voice acting doesn't mean their mouths can't move.

I loved SS, but I thought it looked pretty weird at points. Even if it didn't, it doesn't really have the same amount of action and movement in cutscenes as FFXIII does. Try to picture Sazh and Vanille's exchange in chapter 7 (or was it 8) without voice acting, even if their mouths did move.

Been playing through Final Fantasy 4 DS and actually super super disappointed that they took out the feature to name your party just because they added voice acting. Even though voiced cutscenes make up maybe 5% of the total dialog in that game.

I'm pretty sure it never had that feature and you always had to go to the name changing guy, who I think is still in the DS version.

[RurouniZel]

Text is still superior to voice acting - without actual humans or the hand-guided care in animated movies, the character animations never manage to match up to the voice acting, putting them somewhere between ventriloquist dummy and string-manipulated corpse; nor do the separate bits of voiced dialogue match up to each other in a way which make it sound like a believable conversation even without the sloppily timed button presses triggering the next line. If the problem is the silence when people are supposed to be talking, an acceptable compromise would be Sims-type gibberish.

Or Zelda-like quips as well. I'm with the camp that prefers that Zelda games don't have "proper" voice acting; just little sound bytes that give you a feel for the texture/pitch of their voice.

[Snuggler]

If a high production value RPG had no voice acting whatsoever, it wouldn't feel right, but I'm definitely cool with some text boxes. I even prefer it in some cases, since I process information much faster that way and I have a tendency to just skip past voiced parts when they drag on too long. When it comes to portable RPG's I usually prefer all text.

[leng jai]

I think Lost Odyssey more or less already did this and got it right. Pretty sure only the cut scenes were voice acted?

I think so. Lost Odyssey is a bit different since there are so many cutscenes you barely notice the lack of in-game voice acting.

[Syril]

I'm pretty sure it never had that feature and you always had to go to the name changing guy, who I think is still in the DS version.

When you meet Namingway in the DS version, he has a midlife crisis when he realizes that his job is now obsolete and constantly changes professions for the rest of the game.

[Sega1991]

I'm pretty sure it never had that feature and you always had to go to the name changing guy, who I think is still in the DS version.

Namingway becomes a running joke in FF4 DS. The first time you meet up with him, it brings up the "name your character" dialog window, but halfway through typing it he interrupts you and says he can't in good conscious let you change your name because he's changing jobs from Namingway to something else.

You meet up with him a dozen or so times over the course of the game, and every time you meet him, he changes his job from whatever it currently was to something else, but all his jobs end with "-way". For instance, Mappingway, Livingway, Jammingway, Puddingway, etc.

[cosmicblizzard]

Ah, you're right. Forgot all about his midlife crisis, :lol

[Like the hat?]

I'm fine with it generally, but I am loving the voice acting in xenoblade, at least for most characters coughalviscough

Also voice acting often means I can't name my own characters, or if I can, every time someone says a characters name the voice either says 'you' or 'hey' or some other random vocalist ion (or they just skip saying anything where the name is) and I generally don't like when the va and text don't match.

[Fimbulvetr]

I do wish more jrpgs would have the 'animated' character portraits you see like in disgaea 3 vita, or heck, Phoenix Wright games. Has there been a jrpg where the 'body language' didn't looks so canned?

Square stuff, with Vagrant Story being the best example. I can't think of a single scene animation that looks canned.

[kittens]

I'm firmly anti voice acting.

[Lyude77]

Since I loved Raidou 2 and its atmosphere (part of which is created by the lack of voice acting, in my mind), I'll have to say yea.

I loved Persona and other RPGs with voice acting though, so I guess I don't really care either way, as long as it isn't awful.

[AlphaDragoon]

I don't mind it at all. Especially in games like Arc Rise Fantasia where the voice acting is so goddamn horrible that you're basically forced to turn it off and go old-school.

[Lyphen]

I'm 100% for this. If only because it'd help speed up localization.

[Seik]

I'd rather have no voice acting than terrible voice acting myself. I'm okay with reading.

Exactly, so yay! :P

[sky]

Text-only is fine, as long as there's a cool "bleebloobleebloo" sound as each letter appears.

[Like the hat?]

Text-only is fine, as long as there's a cool "bleebloobleebloo" sound as each letter appears.

There has to be something, or I go crazy. Tried to play tales of symphonia or whatever the gc one was, and the text boxes and text just appeared with no sound effect or anything. It honestly kept me from being able to play the game.

[chris.trejo]

Based on the quality of most voice acting, I'd prefer reading everything.

[Lactose_Intolerant]

I'd rather have no voice acting than terrible voice acting myself. I'm okay with reading.

1st post wins as always. If you can't have good voice acting, don't even spend money on it. It actually detracts from the game.

[Rahxephon91]

1st post wins as always. If you can't have good voice acting, don't even spend money on it. It actually detracts from the game.

Well it's not a problem then since most jrpgs recently have had good voice acting.

Unless you are one of those people who needs everything in glorious Nippon language.

[BlackIronCount]

i am fine with no voice acting in JRPG.
(i am glad growlanser IV have no voice rather than having english only voice) some time it's just kind of hard for me to listen to english voice when the game artstyle is very japanese styled, it just my personal preference.

[evil solrac v3.0]

absolutely yay. I'd rather make up the voice in my head than hear bad voice acting.

[beef3483]

Put me in the "no voice acting" camp. Voice acting has ruined so many games and characters for me that I think they're better without it.

[AuthenticM]

It depends on the style of the graphics. A big-budget, balls-to-the-walls graphics game such as Final Fantasy XIII would be extremely weird and off-putting without voice acting. But a smaller game, or a game without realistic-looking characters, such as Disgaea or games with chibi characters, wouldn't suffer as much.

[sonicmj1]

I don't need voice acting, but I think it'd seem pretty off-putting to have realistic-looking characters in a realistic-looking world emoting in silence like silent movie actors as text runs on the bottom of the screen. I'd need some kind of layer of abstraction in between, whether it's "worse" graphics (I'm playing Mother 3 right now, and they do great stuff on the strength of the writing and pixel art) or something like an animated portrait in the text box, or a made-up babble language.

[hardcastlemccormick]

I prefer no voice acting for all genres except Star Fox/Kid Icarus.