• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Silent Hill HD Collection's new SH2 voices revealed

Zombie James said:
This is like Twin Snakes all over again. Yeah, the voice acting is technically better but there's more that goes into voice acting than just good timing and delivery. Maria/Mary's new voice sounds like she's 20 or 30 years older than she should be. The new James sounds bored instead of confused. The voices just don't fit the characters.
how old SHOULD Maria/Mary be out of interest? to my knowledge her age is never stated in the game.

yes, she sounds OLDER, but we don't know how old she's supposed to be afaik.
 
plagiarize said:
how old SHOULD Maria/Mary be out of interest? to my knowledge her age is never stated in the game.

yes, she sounds OLDER, but we don't know how old she's supposed to be.

Does she look closer to 25 or 50?
 
Zombie James said:
Does she look closer to 25 or 50?
she doesn't look either to me. and she doesn't sound either with the new voice acting.

i don't think the voice coming out of the body sounds too old based purely on what the model looks like.

edit: picture was too big and a bit spoilery. edited out.
 

kunonabi

Member
yep, I'm skipping this. I love Mary Elizabeth and she does good voice work but she sounds completely wrong for Mary and she really doesn't do a good job distinguishing her from Mary. Eddie sounds like somebody trying really hard to impersonate the original VA, an James sounds like generic dubbed anime hero #6497

Angela was really the only VA from the original game that I just couldn't stand. I don't even want to know what they do to SH3 at this point.

Mary Elizabeth would make a far better Claudia than she would Maria/Mary
 
Zombie James said:
This is like Twin Snakes all over again. Yeah, the voice acting is technically better but there's more that goes into voice acting than just good timing and delivery. Maria/Mary's new voice sounds like she's 20 or 30 years older than she should be. The new James sounds bored instead of confused. The voices just don't fit the characters.
I don't think TTS technically has better voice acting.

Maybe the old vs new dub of Akira would be a better comparison if you are familiar with that.
 

Oneself

Member
Smision said:
who cares, nobody could deliver lines this poorly written.

nobody except Tommy Wiseau.

actually, did Tommy Wiseau write silent hill? honest question.

Nah, that would have been Silent Hill: The room .... oh wait.
 

UrbanRats

Member
I get the complaints, after all SH2 is my favorite game and that old cheesy VA was pat of it.
But, it's still too little material to judge the quality of it.
So far, i kinda dig the new James, even though the older one sounded less serious, which made for a special Lynchian combination.
Maria is not bad, but the original one was perfectly fine, honestly.
Eddie was'nt good at all in the original VA, but i'm not liking this one either.

Also, the soundmix quality sounds VERY poor, wtf?!

EDIT: Also, fans are going to pick apart every line and delivery, but that's normal.
For example Mary in the "I am, if you want me to be" line, was more ironic and snarky in the original version, which i liked more.
 
Rahxephon91 said:
Maybe the old vs new dub of Akira would be a better comparison if you are familiar with that.
That's probably the best analogy I can think of. The old dub is, realistically, pretty terrible, and the new one is pretty competent, but there are still tons of old-school fans who bemoan the new dub because they are so nostalgically attached to the old one.
 

Cudder

Member
I'll admit it's probably all nostalgia that's creating the "shock" in me towards these new voices, but I don't get why Konami would preview the new VO unmixed? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. These cookie cutter "clean studio" voices are probably going to help give everybody the wrong reaction. Still hyped, though!
 
Commanche Raisin Toast said:
lulz @ people that don't understand that it's not about the quality it's about the character and the associations with those voices. they even say that these HD remakes are for us to experience them again, suggesting nostalgia.
Man, it's people like you...
I go quoting a post to respond to, and then someone like you has to just go and do it for me! GEEZ.


I'm not terribly upset with these, as it will really depend on the entire package whether or not they work. I have to say, though, Mary Elizabeth as Mary/Maria is really not working for me. I mean, she's doing a good job, but her voice is so recognizable in the songs that it just feels way out of place.

Not wild about Eddie or James, but hopefully the game will change my mind.
Looking forward to the Angela/Laura reveal, as Laura's VA has to be better, right?
 

bsb

Neo Member
Considering the original SH2 voice overs were performed by the understudies from the Bumfuck Nebraska Dinner Theater Players, this can only be an improvement.
 

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
The voices sound non-local, like they're a voiceover instead of coming from the characters' mouths, but that is presumably fixed in mixing and production or whatever. If this is the final work... not so good.

As for the quality of the voices themselves, Mary/Maria seem fine. I don't think I like the changes to Eddie, and new James sounds quite a bit like Nolan North when old James had a more distinct voice. I don't know why they had to gruff him up by 10% percent. Those are just my first impressions. Once people get used to the new voices it probably won't ruin the game for many people except serious fanatics. Never underestimate people's ability to adapt to novelty.

Also, what kind of contracts do they have with the old VAs such that paying royalties would cost more than hiring an all-new cast to re-do everything?
 

Figboy79

Aftershock LA
Sounds different, but equally as bad as the original performances.

I think the new voice actors are doing a better job at reading from a script than the original cast. I know there's a lot of love for the old voice actors, but it's always been one of the things that I felt held back the SH series from true greatness, especially considering that SH1 came out the year after the incredibly voiced MGS1.

After MGS, the standard for voice work was changed considerably, and SH was always behind the curve in that regard.

I'm looking forward to the collection, and if I ultimately decide I hate the VO, I still have the original releases for the PS2.
 
hey_it's_that_dog said:
Also, what kind of contracts do they have with the old VAs such that paying royalties would cost more than hiring an all-new cast to re-do everything?
That's what I want to know! I think there's just bad blood pre-hdcollection, and so they don't want to go crawling back to the old VAs.

I figured they were going to go really cheap with a bunch of no-name voice actors (which I might have preferred, honestly), but it sounds quite the contrary.
 
gatotsu911 said:
That's probably the best analogy I can think of. The old dub is, realistically, pretty terrible, and the new one is pretty competent, but there are still tons of old-school fans who bemoan the new dub because they are so nostalgically attached to the old one.
I played SH2 for the first time last year, it's not nostalgia.
 

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
Figboy79 said:
Sounds different, but equally as bad as the original performances.

I think the new voice actors are doing a better job at reading from a script than the original cast. I know there's a lot of love for the old voice actors, but it's always been one of the things that I felt held back the SH series from true greatness, especially considering that SH1 came out the year after the incredibly voiced MGS1.

After MGS, the standard for voice work was changed considerably, and SH was always behind the curve in that regard.

I'm looking forward to the collection, and if I ultimately decide I hate the VO, I still have the original releases for the PS2.

I'm in the camp (I'm assuming there's a whole camp) that believes the original voice acting was bad, but bad in a special way that enhanced the uneasy feeling of the game. It's not something that would fly in a game released today, obviously, given that VO quality has improved considerably in the last decade. So maybe it's good that they've tried to maintain some of the awkwardness.
 
I get that people like to keep things pure and original. But to be honest the old voices weren't great or amazing, so I don't mind them changing them if it means we get better quality audio...however on the other hand, I didn't think the originals were horrible and need of replacing, so if it's not about making these Dolby 5.1 or 7.1 or whatever and more about performance it seems unnecessary.
 

Yazuka

Member
Sounded pretty okay. I've never played the originals, so the news voices won't bother me. But I checked out that jail cell... It wasn't very good, the original video now...
 

D2M15

DAFFY DEUS EGGS
hey_it's_that_dog said:
I'm in the camp (I'm assuming there's a whole camp) that believes the original voice acting was bad, but bad in a special way that enhanced the uneasy feeling of the game.

It's why there's no good reason that you'd get goosebumps from remembering

"In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised me you'd take me there again someday... but you never did."

and yet there they are!
 
James and Eddie sound alright, but I'm not sold on Mary McGlynn as Mary/Maria, if only because I instantly recognized her voice, which completely took me out of the video, and the original Mary is hard to top -- she sold that character.
 
Sounds weird as hell, but the voices are isolated from any effects or music, so I guess they would come off pretty strange. I'm sure once everything is mixed and set in stone it'll sound a lot more natural. Really though, no matter how good the new voice acting is, it'll still suffer from the godawful script. Don't get me wrong, I love Silent Hill 2, but the cut-scenes were often cringe-worthy fare. If we're lucky, Konami will shake up the script enough so that we don't have to hear James chastising Eddie for eating pizza while there's monsters running around or Angela's elongated call of "MOMMMA!?"
 
James sounds okay, but Mary, Maria, and Eddie all sound pretty bad.

I still hate that they'd do something like this. I was looking forward to playing SH2 in HD, too.
 

Goldmund

Member
Acquiescence said:
Sounds weird as hell, but the voices are isolated from any effects or music, so I guess they would come off pretty strange. I'm sure once everything is mixed and set in stone it'll sound a lot more natural. Really though, no matter how good the new voice acting is, it'll still suffer from the godawful script. Don't get me wrong, I love Silent Hill 2, but the cut-scenes were often cringe-worthy fare. If we're lucky, Konami will shake up the script enough so that we don't have to hear James chastising Eddie for eating pizza while there's monsters running around or Angela's elongated call of "MOMMMA!?"
This was clearly thrown together and won't represent the final mix. There's only so much contempt you can display for such a well-regarded game with impunity.
 

UrbanRats

Member
Sir Ilpalazzo said:
James sounds okay, but Mary, Maria, and Eddie all sound pretty bad.

I still hate that they'd do something like this. I was looking forward to playing SH2 in HD, too.
My only problem with James is that now he sounds too serious.
He had this "dumbass" tone to it, that i loved.
"aren't you Maria?"
 
Yeah, James's new actor really gives off this "anime / Japanese protagonist vibe" (and yes I know who it is). It's not like his voice is bad, it is better than the other characters we see in that video, but it really doesn't fit James at all.
 
hey_it's_that_dog said:
I'm in the camp (I'm assuming there's a whole camp) that believes the original voice acting was bad, but bad in a special way that enhanced the uneasy feeling of the game. It's not something that would fly in a game released today, obviously, given that VO quality has improved considerably in the last decade. So maybe it's good that they've tried to maintain some of the awkwardness.
I actually kind of agree, but at the same time I think this effect was not at all the intention of the original creators - clearly they wanted the game to be dramatic, not "campy-but-kind-of-effectual-in-its-own-special-way". If that was the case, I doubt so many of the scenes that were supposed to carry pathos would have ended up being mangled by the horrible voice acting (seriously, the scene where
James confesses to murdering Mary
actually made me LAUGH the first time I watched it - "LIAR YOU'RE LYING!"). Given that, I think the tradeoff of what little charm the old, weird, silly voices had for actual voice actors making an actual effort to portray actually appropriate inflections for every given scene is a worthwhile one.
 

Persona7

Banned
Rahxephon91 said:
I don't think TTS technically has better voice acting.

Maybe the old vs new dub of Akira would be a better comparison if you are familiar with that.
The recording quality for TTS was miles and miles better than the original,technically.
 

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
I don't doubt that the new voices will be a massive improvement. Looking forward to this. Atleast I won't have to put up with the old James' actor again. He's so bad I feel forced to mute the TV whenever he speaks.
 

Yuterald

Member
The awkward voices from the OG are a big part of what makes Silent Hill 2, or any SH game, interesting. There is definitely a disconnect with these new voices, but since I was there from the beginning maybe it's just the nostalgic factor that's so strong. Regardless, the atmosphere feels tampered.

This is why you never get rid of/replace your originals. Ports/updates are nice to have, but you never know what you are going to get when a company/dev updates something. I look at this collection as a convenient, supplemental version. It's not something I'd be happy about if this was my ONLY way to play these games. Oh well.
 
everybody, take your games, and let's go to the pcsx2 thread and play them in higher res and for FREE. (you're not getting my money konami! what's next ? no yamaoka score ?)
 

Goldmund

Member
Hitoribhoshi said:
everybody, take your games, and let's go to the pcsx2 thread and play them in higher res and for FREE. (you're not getting my money konami! what's next ? no yamaoka score ?)
Zimmer is already banging out those authentic cadences.
 

Persona7

Banned
Hitoribhoshi said:
everybody, take your games, and let's go to the pcsx2 thread and play them in higher res and for FREE. (you're not getting my money konami! what's next ? no yamaoka score ?)
How are they free when you bought them before?
 
Top Bottom