[Aeana]

Usually most of the characters she portray, at least the ones I heard, sounds somewhat similar to Welch...but oddly better. Only character she voiced I couldn't tell if it was her right away was Lust from FMA.

I prefer when she sounds like Kaine.

[Esura]

Gotcha. I'm an old fart (my first gaming memory was playing Pong at a friend's house in elementary school), and I've been playing RPG's since the 8-bit days. I think my perspective's probably a little different because of that. For me, voice acting's nice, but not essential. If done badly, I think it can hurt a game more than it helps. I suspect a lot of people who got into gaming in or after the PS 1 era probably share your feelings, since fully voiced RPG's have become so prevalent since then. Kind of a shame, though, since that's one more thing feeding into the whole unsustainable development budget spiral the industry's stuck in nowadays.

Voice acting is hardly feeding into the burgeoning budgets developers have nearly as much as graphics and the demand for high graphics is apparent everywhere. Heck, the OP stated, "I'm talking, full-on HD, top-tier graphics, high-budget, but dialogue boxes with gorgeous hand-drawn portraits (with multiple expressions) and absolutely zero voices". If they are going all out, it would seem highly illogical to exclude voice acting if graphics, and essentially everything else are going to be top-tier.

I prefer when she sounds like Kaine.

Kaine is good. I can still hear the Laura Bailey twang (for a lack of a better word) when she raises her voice though, which I like if its not overdone. Cheria and Catherine are my favorite characters voiced by her.

[Y2Kev]

End scene! It's not the voice acting, it's the writing!

[Esura]

Prefer to read, because I can imagine the voices in my head and I read fast enough to never hear a full VO sentence anyway. On the other hand if I ever have to read another " ... " in a JRPG I think I'll scream.

They do that in visual novels and other games besides JRPGs too. I think they did it in Yakuza 3 a few times as well as many Zelda games.

[Darkmakaimura]

JRPGs usually have bad English voice dubbing. So, I'm not bothered by dialogue boxes.

[Why would you do that?]

I really like the way Zelda does it. It's not complete silence. Characters will yelp an "Aye!" while saying something like, "Hey, Link! Long time no see!" or, "Ooooo!" when saying something like, "What an impressive maneuver!"

That's not real voice acting, but it makes the characters seem very alive.


Generally, I like voices, and I don't usually mind if they're bad. However, I am completely OK without voice acting, unless the game's brought to America, and they replace an existing Japanese dub with silence (Mega Man ZX) or not voice the whole game (Tales of Symphonia, Legendia, the Abyss).

[Dark Schala]

Yes, we need more Laura Bailey.

I think you picked the wrong video.

I dread hearing Rise tell me what to do in P4G again as a result.

I really like the way Zelda does it. It's not complete silence. Characters will yelp an "Aye!" while saying something like, "Hey, Link! Long time no see!" or, "Ooooo!" when saying something like, "What an impressive maneuver!" That's not real voice acting, but it makes the characters seem very alive.

I like that as well. In a small way, it gives me a starting point for their voice and then I read the dialogue in the voice if I feel like I like it. I think it's quite quirky, and it serves its purpose. I don't really need the whole thing read out to me.

[Tellaerin]

Voice acting is hardly feeding into the burgeoning budgets developers have nearly as much as graphics and the demand for high graphics is apparent everywhere. Heck, the OP stated, "I'm talking, full-on HD, top-tier graphics, high-budget, but dialogue boxes with gorgeous hand-drawn portraits (with multiple expressions) and absolutely zero voices". If they are going all out, it would seem highly illogical to exclude voice acting if graphics, and essentially everything else are going to be top-tier.

For the sheer amount of dialogue in JRPG's in particular, having every line voiced can run a fair bit. And the best way to get a budget under control isn't to say, 'We're spending lots of money already, so let's just spend more!' It's a question of looking at what things can be cut altogether to save money, and what can be done more cheaply. And cutting voice acting (or limiting it to the cutscenes) would definitely result in savings. That becomes even more relevant when we're talking about a JRPG that's been developed by one company/branch and is being localized for english-language release by another outfit with a separate budget for the localization. If it's a question of getting JRPG releases in English with limited/no voice-acting or not getting them at all, I'll gladly take the unvoiced version.

Would you say that you sit and listen to every line of dialogue in an RPG like that as it's spoken, or do you fast-forward through some of it at your normal reading speed? Is it something that you'd personally miss if it wasn't present, or would you say it's more a question of 'feel', as in 'any modern JRPG without this feature just 'feels' cheap/low-budget/etc. to me'?

[zerokoolpsx]

Mostly prefer Yay, unless the voice acting is absolutely horrible. If it hurts my ears like nails going down a chalkboard. I'm gonna read the dialogue.

[CSX]

If it gives me another Nocturne, then sure

[br0ken_shad0w]

I'd say JRPGs suffer more from bad dialogue than bad VAs. Even the best VAs couldn't save the lines in the Kingdom Hearts games.

[Fimbulvetr]

I think you picked the wrong video. I dread hearing Rise tell me what to do in P4G again as a result.

Gee, it's like an endless stream of 'em.

[Dapperk]

What recent JRPG's have had bad voice acting?

Your favorite RPG for one.

[PerZona]

Same, I don't mind. Would prefer that over bad VO any day.

[Rahxephon91]

Your favorite RPG for one.

Final Fantasy XII?

Nope VA is great in that game. Like all the FF games.

Xenogears? Yeah the va is bad, but things have pretty much improved. It also hardly has va.

Resonance of Fate? No, the leads are actually decent. It's a pretty average dub, but the story is pretty meh anyway.

If you are trying to make a lame attack on XIII, well your factually wrong on both accounts. XIII is nowhere near my favorite game or FF and it's voice acting isn't bad at all. I don't care what you think of FFXIII. Calling it bad is factually wrong. Each character was perfectly casted and for a great majority of characters they come off as more natural then thier Japanese counter point. Snow, Szah, and Lighting sound much more natural and athentic in English. Ditto for for Fang and Hope. The only character who sounds a bit unatutal is Vannile and that is possibly the fault of the voice direction asking for her to imitate the Japanese. But other then it's a very carefully done production. And for XIII-2 you have of the best voce acting in a jrpg with great performances between the two leads. You want to have a problem with what they were saying? Sure, but the way it was said was pretty much better then any other jrpg not called FFXII.

And thats true for a lot of jrpgs.

Lets not even talk about thier work on DQVIII, a dub of something that did'nt even have voice acting before. A dub that adds more character to the game. And well there is of course FFXII. Kingdom Hearts of course has fantastic voice acting, but I'm not sure who is really responsible for that.

The spotty area's with Sqaure are in it's dubs for it's non-internal games, which they seem to just give to other companies like 8-4. While Star Ocean 4 may have tunred out bad, a game like Nier has been pretty much praised for it's voice acting, with it's leads turning out pretty great performances. I don't think people would reflect as well on Nier on Kaine if the va's weren't able to delver the more softer and subtle parts of their persona.

Then you have Atlus who has taken great strides with their localizations. P3 and P4 have great va. I'm not sure how you can argue that they don't. The proof is in the fanbase. The characters are seen as enduring and personable and part of that is because of thier voice acting.

Even Namco does a decent job with Tale's localizations. They sound like anime, well they are. But as far as it's concerned they didn't go with the cheapest dubing studio to dub any of their recent Tale's releases. And the quality shows. These dubs don't sound like anywhere as bad as badly done 90s jrpg dubs. And I'm sure Ni No Kuni will follow suit.

So really I don't get the complaints about dubs today.

[dragonlife]

Definitely fine by me.

[Jintor]

Do it. Lightens dev costs, allows for more dialogue, removes possibility of bad VA (also good VA, but eh).

I always liked games like FFVIII and Phoenix Wright that try and replicate speech quirks within dialogue box formats, like runaway scrolling text or characters interrupting one another with speech boxes.

[Perkel]

Reading can convey a lot of emontions which are hard to reproduce by voice acting.

[Reversed]

As long as the writing is good, assuring a the portion of the dialogue fits on the box...

I like it when they get creative; examples may go beyond the scope of this post, but I might mention things like skipping text (I mean, who loves reading the same scene again...?), pop-ups during battles, or varying the font-size to denote expression.

[Night_Trekker]

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

Yeah. Plus, fully voicing a game is super-expensive. I'd rather have more non-voiced RPGs than less of them that are fully-voiced.

Reading dialogue is a different, but no lesser, experience from listening to it. You're allowed to put your own mental spin on the lines, which is generally a good thing. lol @ people who refuse to play a game in this day and age without voice acting. Idiots.

[Replicant]

If they can't afford it, they shouldn't do voiced dialogue. Having it half and half just makes things weird. But I usually do like voiced dialogue, providing the acting is not awful.

[Conflict NZ]

Absolutely yay. No reason for nay. This isn't an expectations game, either. The only expectation I have is for good writing. I couldn't care less if I hear some d list anime actress do her best impression of a helpless sickly girl. Fucking tales.

The Persona games would lose most of their charm without the voice acting. For that reason I say nay.

[Etrian Oddity]

Yay if Atlus or the Squeenix teams who localized FF XII and DQ VIII do it.

Nay otherwise. :\

[Night_Trekker]

I'm really okay with either extreme or some mixture of the two. I'm just baffled by people who say, "It's 2012, why aren't all games voiced?" It's such a weird stance.

Yay if Atlus or the Squeenix teams who localized FF XII and DQ VIII do it. Nay otherwise. :\

Hell yeah. That's how you do it right.

[Apostate]

Yay for RPGs with dialogue, they'd remind me of the old days.

[Etrian Oddity]

Hell yeah. That's how you do it right.

It's amazing what quality you can get when you actually hire classically-trained actors to do voices instead of pop stars, celebrities, or anime/video game enthusiasts.

[Rahxephon91]

It's amazing what quality you can get when you actually hire classically-trained actors to do voices instead of pop stars, celebrities, or anime/video game enthusiasts.

Are a great deal of voice actors this? I dont think so.

[Wolf Dawgz]

I like what the Lunar series on PS1 did and voice act the important dialogue, cutscenes, and game action. Game with good voice acting>text>bad voice acting. Problem is localization can be costly which can lead the lower budget RPGs to degrade from bad voice acting. So I don't mind text based games since it gives more freedom and I enjoy imagining the most suitable voice like in books.

[Night_Trekker]

For the record, I think Zelda's approach is perfect, and I hope they never change it. People who want Zelda fully-voiced completely baffle me. It would be a train-wreck.

[Man God]

Voice acting tiers are something like this.

From worst to first:

Janitor, Porn Actress tier.

"English" done by Japanese studio in Japan.

Celebrity paid to read a few lines with bad voice direction.

Cheap voice actors.

Well paid famous ones.

Then there is the British tier. The last four JRPG games with voice acting that I really liked were all British. Coincidence??? Probably.

Script and voice director can make or break a project. Good actors with a good director and a good script is the best possible scenario.

[shinkansen.3000]

I usually make a big distinction between battle voices and event voices.

While I always leave battle voices on, regarding events the only thing that can beat no voice acting in a JRPG for me is only an excellent voice acting.

I'm perfectly fine with just reading the text in all other cases, like in Persona 3 and 4. The English dub isn't bad, but I don't like it. I really hope that at this point since they're going to redub Persona 4 The Golden Atlus pulls of another Catherine (or are they going to just replace the missing ones and add the new events?).

Too bad that you can't turn off event voices in Valkyrie Profile...

[zoukka]

I hugely prefer the fast, comics-like flow of the non-voice acted dialogue in videogames.

That and 99% of the acted dialogue is either badly written and/or acted.

[Karsticles]

Very much yay, for all rpgs. I like reading, and using text allows devs to create more dialogue for more characters, without the burden and cost of recording. Plus I miss the days where text dialogue read more like a book than a script, describing character emotions, mannerisms and the overall mood of the conversation.

My thoughts exactly.

Plus, I was always able to give a character my own voice before. Not so much now.

[Oxigen_Waste]

Meh, who really cares, jrpgs arent exactly templates for immersion or good storytelling so what difference does it make?

[zoukka]

Meh, who really cares, jrpgs arent exactly templates for immersion or good storytelling so what difference does it make?

They work just as fine as any visual novel.

[Dresden]

Meh, who really cares, jrpgs arent exactly templates for immersion or good storytelling so what difference does it make?

What do the foremost authorities on RPGs say about this?

[Crewnh]

Xenoblade's voice acting is so good.

[Oxigen_Waste]

They work just as fine as any visual novel.

That pretty much says everything. Visual novels are hardly worth a damn, barring the odd exception.

What do the foremost authorities on RPGs say about this?

Jambalaya.

[encephalon]

Why not have a mix? Certain scenes can't really be delivered while being interrupted with text boxes.

[Cheesecakebobby]

I'm not against the idea at all, but the fact we are having this conversation demonstrates how little effort developers/ publishers (the decision is in all likelihood usually the result of constraints imposed by the latter) have put into decent voice work. If the average quality of writing and voice acting in these games was as high as the majority of popular animes, I don't think so many of us would be clamoring for silent JRPGs. I would rather play a game with such great writing and voice acting that I want to listen rather than read. While text might have its own charm in some cases, in the past it has mostly been there as a result of either technical limitations or a reluctance to invest time and money in that area (focusing on say, shiny FMVs instead...)

Edit: I should recognize that localization is an issue too. I would never watch an anime with an English dub, but neither would I want to turn off the Japanese voices and just read the subtitles. That was true before I learnt any Japanese.

[Myriadis]

I like it to have voice acting in cutscenes, but not in normal conversation. That's how several RPGs are doing it and it is just perfect.

[Metalic]

I think a mixture of both would be appreciated if done right.

[A Huge Battleship]

Voice acting is preferable, but I can easily live without it. Also it's better to have none than shitty VA work (Grandiaaaaa).

Cheria and Catherine are my favorite characters voiced by her.

Basara Bailey is best Bailey.

[shinkansen.3000]

Voice acting is preferable, but I can easily live without it. Also it's better to have none than shitty VA work (Grandiaaaaa).

Grandia was truly legendary....

I played it recently and I was truly amazed at how bad the English dubs were back then.
The situation now has greatly improved, but still is far from what I'd like it to be.

[Jintor]

Are a great deal of voice actors this? I dont think so.

Hell, if Crispin Freeman is to be believed most professional VAs are theatre trained or radio trained.

I do like voice acting in some circumstances. I really love the battle dialogue in Xenoblade - it just feels like they're a team, y'know?

[playoverwork]

Voice acting is one of many reasons I quit playing JRPGs. The "silent era" where the music carried the atmosphere, and I got to imagine each character's voice, is missed.

[Rollo Larson]

yay. i like text because it lets me control the pace on the convo. i always miss something in cut scenes.

[NoirVisage]

Nope. It would be unacceptable for modern standards with a big budget game like the one we're imagining in the OP. I don't care that japan really struggles with script and voice actors, that's no excuse to go to text boxes. Improve your flaws instead.

i take it you don't play japanese Rpg's, and saw this thread as an opportunity to point out japans inferiority.

[R_thanatos]

Oh hell yeay !!

Talk all you want , if the story is good that will entertain me ...

i have no problem with reading and any rpg enthunsiast shouldn't either..

[Paracelsus]

Yes, we need more Laura Bailey.

I didn't like her work on Cheria at all, I wish you could turn her voice off from the options SO4 style.