Criticizing a va's performance is fucked up? Wut.
I don't think anyone is opposed to criticism. This discussion will be present next time I play MGS. But the amount of criticism has caught me off guard. I didn't know that many had a problem with it, and many angle it in a very personal way. That's not good. If anything, I've had problems with Otacon in 2 and 4. His crying was always pretty much just someone going "uhhhh-huhuhuh-uhuhuhuh". Raiden in 4 sounded like a Snake wanna-be, and come off like a dunce of a character because of it. Direction needs to change there. Snake has always been a sound and solid foundation to me, in these games. The problem with creating such an iconic voice is that it narrows down your repertoire and range. If Zoidberg was the main cast of these games, you'd be absolutely ignorant to call Billy West a poor voice actor because of Zoidberg's voice.
We need to separate the discussion of direction and voice actor before we bash either. I'm not of these media, and as such, I have no insight into the production, and I cannot judge if something is down to direction or the voice actor. I think Raiden's voice in MGS4 is atrocious. I don't hate Flynn because of it. I think it might as well just be the direction as much as him. Maybe it was 'be a Snake wanna-be'. But I think
Raiden's voice is atrocious, I don't think the voice actor does a bad job because of it. It's not obvious enough to me that it's the voice actor. Maybe I lack a skill to make the distinction there. But I have no problem as long as I see it as a character-flaw, and not a voice actor flaw. Which I think is the case of MGS4. Firstly, we have the most iconic voice in any game, ever, and you have the actor make it super-frail and old? Cudos. I think the way his voice deteriorates through 4 underlines the plot and makes the experience all the more excruciating for me. I think credit is due here to Hayter, for being able to take that iconic style and go to this place with it. Try doing a fancy impersonation or a special voice. Now make it 40 years older. That's hard enough to do with your own voice, let alone an acted voice. Maybe this became a short-coming? From what I've heard of Japan's VA, it's not such an iconic voice. It's probably fantastic acting, but there's a distinction between that and sheer uniqueness.
Judging Hayter for Snake's voice arguable shortcomings seems premature in this discussion, however. Is it the voice, is it the actor, is it the direction, is there even a problem? Let's not presuppose things on behalf of others. Not letting the guy that IS the role audition for a different direction for the voice seems completely off, too. Thinking that Hayter can only do Snake's voice would be idiotic. If they redid the direction and changed up the entire voice, we'd still have continuity with a formant and harmonies we understand as Hayter, and the new direction could underline 'different character, same DNA'.