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Should Zelda Wii U get Voice Acting?

No, it should not.
1: Good voice acting doesn't make a game better, bad voice acting can hurt it a lot.
2: They should reduce the story telling anyway. More pure gameplay, less boring story bits.
3: Voice acting is annoying because you can read much faster than people speak, so you either endure the boring story bits for longer or you interrupt the voice acting, which is a mood-killer.
4: Nintendo should allocate all ressources towards gameplay mechanics and world design, not towards superficial elements such as voice acting.
 
I think voice acting would be great, but I don't trust Nintendo to do it well enough.
 
I'm not a Zelda veteran. I've only just now starting to get into the series (and I'm absolutely loving it) but I think it would be great to have voice acting in the new one. Maybe have some sort of floating text pop up when characters say important things? That would solve the problem of not having hints by reading the text and seeing the bold hints in them. But not sure how it can be implemented without it being distracting.

Even if link doesn't speak but everyone else does, it would be a great step forward if they can nail the voice acting.
 
Wait, are people suggesting removing the text boxes altogether? As someone who turns subtitles on all the time nope nope nope nope.
 
No more than it already does. Fire Emblem has voice acting, and every time I hear Lucina talk I don't hear Lucina, I hear Laura Bailey.

I don't want Zelda characters identified by voice actors like every other voiced character in every other thing, the non-dialogue is what makes them stand out. It's worth all the text scrolling in the world, for my dollar.
 
Not at all. The only way I will take VA in my Zelda, is if its the greatest VA performances we will ever hear. The last thing I want is for poor VA to ruin the experience or mess up on those critical moments. I don't trust voice actors enough to get the job done.... Now an unknown language I'm a little more open to but even with that I'm skeptical.
 
Mysterious said:
I'm pretty sure this argument has been beaten to death,
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It sure has.

So what do you think?
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I think it's a terrible idea driven by gamers who think every modern game "should" have voice acting for no reason other than other games have it and they don't like to read.

It's a bad idea. It wouldn't turn out well. And I don't think the voice acting in Kid Icarus is good.
 
ramparter said:
Yes but not actual language. Gibberish is the way to go.
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Yeah gibberish I'd be absolutely fine with, too. It doesn't slow down the game, shouldn't be too expensive, provides some personality to the characters, but is not too explicit, so that everyone can still have an own idea of the character's character.
 
at this point if you make link talk, everyone will just say he sounds stupid

keep the generations of links to come mute, get other characters voices
 
What's the deal with Link talking? He doesn't evn have lines. He NEVER talks through text, why would that change if they add voice actng.

This is NPC voice acting we are talking here.
 
I'd be open to it, but i know full well the voice acting would be terrible if it actually was implemented.

Frankly if given the choice between crappy voice acting and text, i'd prefer just to keep it as text
 
Yoshi said:
No, it should not.
1: Good voice acting doesn't make a game better, bad voice acting can hurt it a lot.
2: They should reduce the story telling anyway. More pure gameplay, less boring story bits.
3: Voice acting is annoying because you can read much faster than people speak, so you either endure the boring story bits for longer or you interrupt the voice acting, which is a mood-killer.
4: Nintendo should allocate all ressources towards gameplay mechanics and world design, not towards superficial elements such as voice acting.
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I disagree with this point (the first part anyways), I think good voice acting can do a lot for the immersion of a game and definitely enhance the experience. I just haven't seen an example of a Nintendo product where I felt the voice acting was any good (at least at the level of something like Mass Effect).
 
decoyplatypus said:
Forgive me if I am misunderstanding your complaint, but if the problem is speech interrupting gameplay, wouldn't the simpler solution be to increase the text speed? In games with voice acting I usually just click to display all text and then quickly move on to the next line. I bet I hear less than a quarter of the recorded voice-acting for a given speech. In any case, it's not the voice-acting that speeds things up; it's the ability to rush through the text. If Zelda added voice-acting but forced you to listen to all of it before proceeding to the next "line," you'd have a much larger interruption in gameplay. Of course there are situations where a character could theoretically just say the lines without the player having to engage him/her at all (e.g. random vendors yelling at you to come and sample their wares), but those are generally one-line characters anyway.
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I meant it as in doing away with text bubbles altogether during gameplay. No "click to hear next line", just seamless talking.

Say, you open a chest, and instead of the "you found a red rupee, it's worth so many green rupees yadda yadda" popping up, Link just stashes it away and has his companion (Navi/Fi/whatever it's gonna be this time) explain it while you already walk away from the chest.
 
Foshy said:
I meant it as in doing away with text bubbles altogether during gameplay. No "click to hear next line", just seamless talking.

Say, you open a chest, and instead of the "you found a red rupee, it's worth so many green rupees yadda yadda" popping up, Link just stashes it away and has his companion (Navi/Fi/whatever it's gonna be this time) explain it while you already walk away from the chest.
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Now imagine Fi says it all the time. I didn't have a huge problem with Fi in Skyward Sword, I could just mash the A button if she was getting annoying, but if she was constantly talking and telling me "oh yeah, 5 ruppees, that's five times one ruppee", I'd rage.

I have to think of Charmy's speaking role in Shadow the Hedgehog and shudder (though the game obviously is shit, too).
 
I would love to see a cross-cultural 'faux language' of Hylian similar to the lyrics in the Nier soundtrack.

The highlighted text, which is a staple of the franchise could have those phrases 'echoed' or played simultaneously with a spoken whisper of the phrase to give it some mysticism.



....but if it's British English I'll boycott the fucking game.
 
Timeaisis said:
Now think at all the JRPGs that have terrible VO. Imagine that on Zelda, and that's where I'm coming from.

That's my problem.
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so hire competent people instead
it's not like nintendo is a poor third party JRPG developer, there is hardly a lack of quality voice actors and actresses around in 2014
 
I'm open to it. I was all upset that Isaac got a voice in Dead Space 2 but ended up loving it because Gunnar Wright nailed the role. Some people might feel like they lose ownership of the character but I never felt like I was Link. I can't customize him to be like me like I could in a game like Skyrim.
 
beril said:
Or they could just remove the elaborately produced choreographed story sequences, and it's win win. I really don't want Zelda to become a cinematic cutscene fest; the latest console games have already gone too far in that direction.

And for regular NPC dialogue, voice acting is just too damn slow. Modern Zelda games aren't really known for their frisk tempo to begin with; imagine every line being read out. And skipping forward with voiced dialogue doesn't really help immersion
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I agree with this.

If Nintendo wasn't so focused on making Zelda heavy on narrative, I wouldn't mind the continued lack of voice acting.

As it is now, they make "story" a bigger focus with each iteration. There's no reason there shouldn't be voice acting at this point.

No more than it already does. Fire Emblem has voice acting, and every time I hear Lucina talk I don't hear Lucina, I hear Laura Bailey.

I don't want Zelda characters identified by voice actors like every other voiced character in every other thing, the non-dialogue is what makes them stand out. It's worth all the text scrolling in the world, for my dollar.
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I'm sorry, but I think this is more a product of you being exposed to voice acting as an industry.

I doubt the vast, vast majority of people would know they're listening to Laura Bailey, or be as affected by it.
 
I just wish they'd be consistent, no matter which way they went. If Link is a silent hero, how come I get so many text box choices as to what he says? How come sometimes picking "..." means Link will be quiet, and other times "..." apparently results in a silent explanation to the other character? And what's the difference, really, between a character that will making grunts and yells as he hops and slashes, and will make emotional noises when something upsetting is happening, and a character that says, you know, words?

Anyway, just wish they'd pick something and go with it.
 
ramparter said:
What's the deal with Link talking? He doesn't evn have lines. He NEVER talks through text, why would that change if they add voice actng.

This is NPC voice acting we are talking here.
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Well technically OOT/MM Link does talk In TP, quite a bit. Does this mean he needs to talk in the future? I'm not sure but at the least it should put to rest the notion that he isn't a character of his own.

Personally, I wouldn't mind Link talking, but it probably won't happen even if they do add voice acting.
 
CaptainGyro said:
You can't hear people speaking and imagine it's another voice instead? I think taking something out that actually exists, imagining it doesn't exist, and replacing it with something else imaginary shows a lot more imagination than just throwing a voice over a blank slate in your head. Imagination is not only about adding in stuff that wasn't there, it's about taking out stuff that was already there.
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Not really. That's pretending you didn't just see/hear the thing you saw/heard and lying to yourself. There's quite the gulf between imagination and hallucination.
 
The only answer is yes. I think the only reservation naysayers have is if the voice acting is bad. If the voice acting is great though, then why wouldn't you want it? And yes that goes for Link too.
 
I think another problem that arises with using voice acting is keeping up with different iterations of the same character. Zelda is a series that likes to change art styles, and main characters like Zelda and Ganondorf appear in new ways in each game.

To hear the same voice for these characters throughout new iterations would be strange. Like-wise, hearing different voices for these characters would be strange.
 
I'd love to, either in proper english or even some evolution of those "words" they mumbled in previous games.
But Link has to stay mute.
 
I want voice acting in all my games, so yeah. If it doesn't work out they can chop it up to "trying something different" and move on
 
Yes, I think that would add a lot. Silent text boxes would feel really dated and out of place in the epic world they're creating. It already did in TP and SS. But Link doesn't have to speak. Do it like in Skyrim, Dark Souls, etc, it works just fine.

BGBW said:
Wait, are people suggesting removing the text boxes altogether? As someone who turns subtitles on all the time nope nope nope nope.
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Yeah, no, those need to stay. Most RPG-ish games have both.
 
I actually wouldn't mind. I'm not the biggest fan of the more modern LoZ games(OoT and onward, not counting the newer top-down games like ALBW, MC, among others), so I don't have some attachment to a mute LoZ world. If anything, I thought VA in the LoZ was to be a given when technology improved to the point to allow it. Sometimes it's good to embrace change, and I think the winds of change should blow over the LoZ series.

Then again, if they never include VA, I wouldn't care either.
 
Yea I think it's time. I haven't played a main series Zelda since Twilight Princess, and constantly scrolling through text felt archaic in 2006.

Something tells me Nintendo won't change it tho. They will probably claim that text is 'traditional' or something, when really Zelda should have been fully voiced since Wind Waker. Think of how much more charming a Zelda game could be with appropriate performances
 
CaptainGyro said:
Uh that's what people/little kids frequently do when they imagine things. They pretend and lie to themselves that something isn't there
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But adding to nothing isn't what you said, you specifically said replacing something that is already there. Either way, the latter isn't something that interests me, but the former very much is.
 
I really hope it does get voice acting, but I know it won't. I hate reading everything. I'm fine with link being silent, but I just want the game to go to the next level with voice acting, but it's hard to do since you need quality voice actors.

Its easier to just leave it out and fully expect Nintendo so go the safe route as always, which is the opposite of what I want.
 
Link should have voice acting too. Mainly to be consistent - Link DOES talk in the series but they never show it, but that's okay cause of the text boxes. But to hear the others reply to him when he doesn't say anything would be weird with voice acting.
 
Markitron said:
Yea I think it's time. I haven't played a main series Zelda since Twilight Princess, and constantly scrolling through text felt archaic in 2006.

Something tells me Nintendo won't change it tho. They will probably claim that text is 'traditional' or something, when really Zelda should have been fully voiced since Wind Waker. Think of how much more charming a Zelda game could be with appropriate performances
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Nintendo is very stubborn for some reason and it's fracturing the fanbase.
 
AHUGECAT said:
Nintendo is very stubborn for some reason and it's fracturing the fanbase.
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Horrible voice acting would cause that much more than not having any. Zelda is a game that doesn't need it. Throw in people talking Hylian(gibberish)if you want, but please, no cheesy voice acting.
 
Razzorn34 said:
Horrible voice acting would cause that much more than not having any. Zelda is a game that doesn't need it. Throw in people talking Hylian(gibberish)if you want, but please, no cheesy voice acting.
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Well yeah any cheesy voice acting ruins any game, which is why Nintendo needs to make it a high priority to get talented voice actors in all versions.

Nintendo needs to make Zelda relevant again but they are doing everything they can to make sure it isn't. Which is a shame cause OOT is my favorite game of all time and Wind Waker is 22 all time for me.
 
Personally I'd be happy with a fictional Hylian language and subtitles. I think that could be very atmospheric. Unfortunately as we saw with Pikmin 3's gibberish language plenty of people still considered that "archaic" and "Nintendo being too cheap to give us the production values we deserve."

At this point I'd just say go with full voice acting for the good of the series itself, in the hope it would get people to stop fixating on comparing Zelda to "contemporary standards" and just play the game.
 
I kinda like the way voice acting is done in Zelda games a lot. You know, how every character just makes a unique sound as the text scrolls?

I'd like it if they kept that.
 
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