Sure, that's fair; Understanding the language is essential to critiquing the full performance, I agree.
I plan on playing it in English, but I am dissatisfied with Gladio's voice and wish his pitch and intensity were more like the Japanese VA counterpart. In the end, the character design and background helps establish the character's performance and these two voice actors are working from the same template. One sounds better, to me, merely in an aural sense. I would say this is similar to stating your choice for another English actor to fill the role, but the comparison is more immediate here because we have the footage on hand to judge these two performances in such a sense right away.
It is in this sense that I think others probably view it the same way, and my point is that these people should not be gathered in the same group as the one you've described where they speak of the superiority of the Japanese performance without understanding the language to judge in full. I actually feel that casting a blanket as such is a bit disingenuous, wouldn't you agree? That being said I haven't really seen that sentiment in this thread so far. I am open to corrections, though.
And I fully support anyone who wants to learn the language. I would love to once I find the time to dedicate to it and work it into my life.
I think Gladio's voice is fine. It's true his voice is more intense in JP but that doesn't necessarily mean the JP voice will be better reflective of the story and the character in that story.
Star Ocean 3 is probably one of my favorite games to use as reference for dubs. In SO3, most of the English VAs talk kind of normally most of the time but the story (the situations the characters encountered) worked with that those types of characters. Fayt may seem like a boring character to most people (and his English voice doesn't always sound exciting) but he felt like a real life person (just some random person) that accidentally got himself into problems that he needs to solve. Fayt's VA did well because that's how I'd imagine a real person in a RL person would act in those situations. And I liked SO3's ending. To some, the ending in SO3 may be cheesy but it actually just felt genuine (which is the most important thing personally, and especially with the plot twist in SO3).
Learning Japanese is very rewarding, as it has grammar embedded with emotion and nuances that English simply doesn't have (along about 5 levels of polite/casual speech) and which might get lost in translation unless you add 1 or 2 additional lines to it. (the FFVII fan translation is a good example of that).
This freedom of translation in FFXV's case might not be a bad thing, but I prefer that they stick as close as possible to the Japanese source material.
Japanese has more politeness level but I'd actually say it distracts from emotions and nuances.
Japanese has more formal politeness levels based on situation than the individual.
When you speak in Japanese, you speak based on status and situation, rather than how you personally want to convey certain ideas or emotions.
For example, in the work place, you'll always speak a certain way in Japanese. However, in English this isn't necessarily the case. For example, there's more cases of casual bosses or casual co workers else where. In this case, they are letting their personality and their specific likes and dislikes get through through words.
In Japanese language, priority is politeness is based more on the type of expectations you'll have (even if they don't truly fit with how people personally feel in more formal settings).
Another thing to note is that in the majority of Japanese media, actual politeness level is significantly reduced. For example, most scripts and dialogue in Japanese are casual level in terms of politeness. This means more of the nuances or politeness level in Japanese media isn't really any different than English.
In the internet, Japanese are also less strict with their politeness level (kind of why you have cases where Japanese may seem a bit more blunt on the internet than otherwise).
This freedom of translation in FFXV's case might not be a bad thing, but I prefer that they stick as close as possible to the Japanese source material.
In some cases, I'd agree but other times I've found localization changes to better.
Now, first thing is first is that the original vision is not nessarily the best. In Japan, there's lots of adaptions of a similar work (manga, anime, etc), and sometimes done by different people (different writers, teams, etc). There's more opportunity to try to improve things.
Finally, as for how people hear English vs Japanese.
The thing with Japanese in general is that it's spoken in a different way in video games and in anime than in real life. Most notably, things are a bit more dramatic than they are in real life.
A few quick examples of major contrast is when a character seemingly dies in Japanese games or anime vs in real life.
In Japanese culture, when someone is missing or something bad may seemed to happen, there's much skepticism and emphasis on a hope for a return (for politeness).
However, this contrasts hugely in most games or anime (even if they supposedly do take place in Japan). In Japanese games and anime, most of the time when a character seemingly has something bad happen to them, the scene is often sometimes a bit too dramatic (even if later, it turns out they never died or nothing bad happened, which is actually the case in most Japanese stories that in genres that don't actually kill off characters).
To be fair, this type of thing doesn't happen only in Japanese media but it's most notably in Japanese media because it contrast a lot with how Japanese culture in real life actually take those incidents.
Another thing is I find Japanese (in original script) is not subtle.
What I mean is in real life, when someone is sad or something (and around strangers or even with friends), they may hold back and only subtly reference that they are sad or something through their emotions or words.
In real life, if you want to know how a person is feeling, you may have to really examine the person and how they are acting, the words they use, etc.
In Japanese media, in most cases characters just outright give away their emotions. In real life, most people don't like to show their emotions (if they are sad for example).
In emergency situations, people instinctively do things before they actually talk. In Japanese media, usually there's more of exposition by characters than actual reacting to the emergency situation through actions.
Most people may have only listened to Japanese dialogue through anime or games, so when they hear more of it through anime and games, it doesn't sound strange.
However, in English (or whatever native language that isn't Japanese), when you hear the voices or attempts to localize that specific type of dialogue in Japanese, it may sound weird or just corny.
Hearing dialogue that may be cheesy is different from just reading it. So, when people read subs and hear Japanese voices, it may not be as cheesy as hearing the actual dialogue out loud.
To go over it again:
1. People that do not hear normal everyday Japanese dialogue, associated Japanese anime or game dialogue as normal. So, Japanese may sound fine in that case compared to English.
2. Lines that may be more cheesy heard than read (with subs with Japanese voice overs).
Anyway, the point I'm saying is that (not specifically to the people I quoted but in general) is that most people can say they prefer Japanese but I disagree with Japanese being actually better.
In fact, that's why some shows like Power Rangers is actually somewhat popular in Japan even though Japan already has Super Sentai.
Power Rangers SPD Voice Cast Interviews.
A scene from Power Rangers Turbo dubbed in Japanese.
Sometimes people argue against dubs (like Japanese people in a Japanese setting should be talking Japanese, etc), when in Japan there's lots of Japanese dubs of non-Japanese characters in Japanese. Sometimes, it's just better and more simpler to listen to it in the original language. Subs as popular as well.
Finally, English vs Japanese.
English has the most words and also specific connotations with them. English has a lot of words that mean similar things but they have different connotations. There's not really true synonyms in any language (usually, when there are two or more words that mean the same thing, eventually each word starts to have a certain extra connotation or difference over time).
English is probably the most developed language due to simply having the most users "and" also the fact there's no official rules for English (no regulations for English compared to some other languages). New stuff constantly gets added to English all the time.
Having more words (especially each with more specific connotations) means more ways to describe things, more ways to convey information, etc.
Having more words and more ways to say things also means more ways to differentiate a character from another type of character in stories (or in real life).
In Love Live (for example), Rin is a character that adds "Nya" at the end of the her sentences sometimes. Now, the "Nya" thing is done quite a lot in Japanese. It seems a bit typical at times. That's why I sometimes like English localization since there's more ways to make characters distinctive or show their personality.
In English, I'd say there's more gimmicks and more ways for you to differentiate yourself or add personality to your speech (and also without it being as obvious). There's many different types of speeches associated with something specific basically.
Let's take a Japanese word like Nakama vs comparisons in English. Nakama by itself means comrade, allies, friends, etc. If there's no established context for how a character uses Nakama, it's basically a neutral word. It can mean either just the people you are allied with but not necessarily friends or it can mean friends (your allies are also your friends). It doesn't lean towards a specific way.
In English, there's many possible substitutes for Nakama. Comrade is an example that is more positively influenced. Allies is more formal (close to Nakama). Crews, colleague, compatriot, companion, buddies, mates, etc.
These are just examples of various English words that mostly mean the same thing but have small subtle differences that can allows you to both differentiate yourself and/or refer to a more specific thing.
Anyway, there's actually lots of English localization changes (and dubs) that I actually prefer over the original versions. In fact, I'd say English scripts were better before dual audio started being more main stream.
The only reason I mention this is sometimes people want the Japanese dialogue to match with the English subs however in most cases the English subs are just captions based on the localization of the English (in cases of dual audio). That means how something is said in English may be really different compared to the Japanese. There are some games that simply just make the English script (and localization as well) as close to Japanese but I'd argue it's better to not do that for all the reasons I mentioned in my post.
I'd say English is more flexible and has a lot more ways for characters to distinguished themselves and convey information or emotions than Japanese, and again this is purely because English is a more used and varied language (which also means it develops faster than other languages). Language is something that doesn't stay the same as new phenomenal or new ideas or new things that people never thought of before (to describe something), is noticed. When it's noticed, a new word is added in an attempt to describe that phenomenal.
In other cases, it may be to add more context or something to make it easier to convey ideas or emotions. Generally, that also means the language that is used the most and (and with anyone freely adding anything to the language) becomes more developed and more capable of conveying ideas.
And that's why I defend English voice overs. People can say they like Japanese over English but I definitely disagree with Japanese being better (in language, in the acting, in the script, and in portrayal of whether a situation is similar in real life or not). Though regardless, while I prefer English (reasons above), I do agree with others that learning another language isn't a bad idea.
(Edit) To clarify some things:
1. In terms of voice acting (Japanese vs English), I find emotive dialogue unnecessary unless the scene calls for emotions. There can be some exceptions if (for example) a character has a specific trait that makes them a bit more emotive than usual but for most cases, I find putting too much emotions in dialogue to be a distraction than a help "if" it doesn't align with what's happening in the story and/or scenes.
I mentioned Star Ocean 3 since there are many cases where the characters are simply explaining their plans or talking things through and there's no reason to put much emotion in those lines. In real life, most people wouldn't either and would simply just talk or explain things in a normal tone.
In times where emotions in dialogue are needed, I find English works just as well as Japanese.
Star Ocean 3 is probably one of the most dialogue heavy RPGs and ones where the characters just talk through their plans (this happens several times in the game). Sometimes, I was really impressed with the dialogue "because" it felt like it could be a real life conversation happening in that same situation as well. This is with English voices.
While Star Ocean 3 is also kind of restrained in terms of voices (most characters aren't too emotive), it felt one of the most realistic in terms of performances. It made the characters feel real to me simply. It also helps that there is a lot of dialogue in SO3. In most games, there may be a like 2-5 minutes of dialogue at a time but SO3 had times where there were 10-20 minutes worth of dialogue. In this cases, the voices just talking a normal way works well.
In real life, there are very specific times where a person may put emotion in their voice. In "most" cases, I'd say most people hold back as it's not needed.
Another thing, in stories, you can put emotions in a scene simply with what the character is actually saying and the scenes.
I find putting too much emotions in the voices distracting sometimes. That's why I actually prefer and defend English voices. Most English vs Japanese debates seem to usually focus on emotions in voices, and like I said, there are many cases where if a scene doesn't really require emotions in voices, then I find that distracting sometimes (though it's fine if it's a trait for a character or if it is sometimes).
2. In terms of word count. To clarify, I meant to say possibly the most vocabulary to describe things simply due to being the most popular (and being the most developed). Vocabulary being individual words or phrases that mean a specific thing, words or phrases that mean multiple things, and meaning that can be made from the order of words and/or phrases.
3. In terms of localization of story and/or characters, I'd say anything is fine as long as the characters and localization still work with the story even if there are changes.
Anyway, again, the reason why I defend English voices. English vs Japanese debates seem to usually center on emotions in dialogue but most of the time, the script or story doesn't really call for putting that much emotions in the voices. In real life, there are really specific moments where a person may convey emotions through voices but most of the time people restrain themselves and just try to say things in a clear and concise matter. That's why I don't like Japanese voice acting as much since I find there's an unnecessary emphasis on emotions when the scenes don't really call for emotions in those cases. English voice overs are able to do emotions in the dialogue when it's needed but other than scenes that need it, I don't think (either English or Japanese) should emphasize emotions in the scene.
Very interesting, thank you!