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[kunonabi]

Depends on the game and the character's performance. Making a game with Ulala, Travis Touchdown, Bayonetta, Frank West, Francis York Morgan, or any of the first 3 Silent Hill casts without the original voices is an immediate pass for me.

 

[Paltheos]

Not a deal breaker for me. If a game can be better as a result of not voicing stuff, I'd probably prefer that. Bad VAing tunnels your brain down a particular path versus reading it in your head. There are downsides for sure.

I'm in a weird headspace right now. I finished Persona 5 Royal a couple months ago which, despite some spotty localization, had generally superb VAing. I'm playing Trails in the Sky 3 now (patched with the Evo VAs, which adds voicing to like 80% of everything) and I can't imagine playing these games without the character voices now.

 

[Happosai]

We all know that voice acting and being involved in the scene was just bad for many old games but that doesn’t hold them from being enjoyable depends on the story and the way it plays..

But today is it all about voice acting?

for you .. will you consider this factor as an important one ?



I’d like to know your thoughts

it's usually a fun experience to listen to voice acting. However, I found the new dubbing of RE2 unbearable in some parts compared to the original. I feel simple is best and they don't need to sound Hollywood dramatic.

 

[Rikkori]

Absolutely, it adds a ton of flavor to a game. Even multiplayer ones can benefit tremendously from it, see for example the massive success of voice acting in DotA 2.

 

[M1chl]

A lot. Voice is really important to me when it comes to people and when it comes to games/movies, etc.

Why would I watch Transformers otherwise?

 

[JSoup]

Game with reasonably good voice acting and moving up have good voice acting.
Game with less than reasonably good voice acting and moving down have bad voice acting.
Not complicated.

Also depends on the game. The voice work for SotN isn't great, but I still love it. The voice work for DQ-pick-a-number is good, but I'm still grateful for an option to turn it off.

 

[petran79]

Waste of time. By the time they voice 1 line, I can read 5. Don't mind it in porn games though

 

[The Alien]

Yeah...I think it's the variable that can take a good game to great.

Joel's voice from TLOU adds so much to.the character. Especially when u have a good voice actor who sounds nothing like him in real life.

The Order 1886 is not a great game...but it does have a lot of great things in it (monsters, story, setting, graphics), but the standout for me was the characters who also happened to be perfectly voiced. The voice acting made u buy into the characters so much more.

 

[Carna]

Xenoblade Chronicles is probably the best jrpg dub I heard, non of the cast members are generic anime dub actors from Funimation and Bang Zoom who get by, from signing paid autographs that that aren't even worth it.

 

[hyperbertha]

People playing english dubs of japanese games and then complaining about bad 'voice acting'. Go to options and switch that english to japanese please.

 

[GreyHorace]

It does for me, though I don't mind it if a game doesn't have any voice acting. It's just a feature to add to the overall gaming experience but when done right it can make a game really memorable.

Take Baldur's Gate 2 for example. I don't think that game would be the RPG classic that it is without David Warner's memorable performance as Jon irenicus.

Or how about Mass Effect? I was blown away (as were many others) playing as the female Commander Shepard because of Jennifer Hale's fantastic voiceover.

And as good a job Henry Cavill does portraying Geralt of Rivia in the Netflix Witcher series , Doug Cockle will always be the White Wolf to us gamers.

Lately though, voice acting has given way to full motion capture performance. And while I can understand DunDunDunpachi 's complaint regarding the overbloated budgets of AAA games because of this, I think it allows for some great performances that really add to a game. And you don't need to hire bigtime Hollywood talent for a game (*cough* David Cage *cough*) when some talented unknowns. As Rockstar Games has proved with people like:

Steven Ogg as Trevor in Grand Theft Auto 5

And Roger Clark as Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2.

 

[Enjay]

Modern day voice actors and their sense of self-importance make me wish gaming would eliminate it altogether and just bring back text windows.

 

[MrS]

Great voice acting and performance capture can propel moments in games from being good and serviceable to being beautiful and memorable . Thinking of a few Ashley Johnson scenes and Mads Mikkelsen/Norman Reedus scenes in particular here that were beautiful and the most enjoyable this gen which I won't forget for a long time.

 

[Skullkid94700]

Depending on the game and the style of play. In a series like Fallout, having the protagonist speak isnt necessary, but having the companions speak is absolutely needed. But, in a shooter like Halo or Destiny, its not as important.

But, Im also a person who has played Garry's Mod mods and multiplayer for almost a decade. So take that with a grain of salt.

 

[jakinov]

I don't want to read.

 

[NahaNago]

Most of the games I love have limited or no voice acting. So mostly it just depends on the game.

 

[Aidah]

VA is not a requirement for me, but if it's done well it can add to the experience. Simple expressions with text can work well enough though.

Also when It comes to large games, generally I'd rather VA be limited to the important stuff. I find everything being voiced a waste as I end up reading and skipping the VA. For non important stuff I'd rather have text combined with expressions to add personality and character, kind of like how Yakuza does it.

It really does depend on the game though and what it's trying to do.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

English VA for Japanese games continues to be embarrassing to this day, and there's really no valid reason for that. You may not have the best in the industry for those, but c'mon, calling it subpar would be generous 80% of the time. Xenoblade is a notable exception, but it's mainly because of the accents and the fact that they decided to ditch the ridiculous Japanese recitation that simply doesn't work in English. For me, the golden era of JRPGs died the minute FFX introduced voice acting. Intentional or not, Tidus's laugh and dialogue is still brought up today for a reason (and his voice actor is a good one).
As someone already mentioned, DQ8 was JRPG dubbing done right. Trials of Mana OTOH, is just offensive most of the time.

VA is very important for AAA games, of course. You can't do The Last of Us, God of War, Gears or Halo without voice acting.

It's completely unnecessary for most indies and smaller games, and it's hit and miss in Nintendo games and similar products (completely ruined the GBA Mario ports, IMO).

I'm of the opinion that VA has impoverished the script of video games a lot compared to the text-only days, and that modern games with a good script tend to be good because the script is modeled around VA and not vice versa.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

A lot.

I'm italian and I never play games dubbed in my language. It's so bad it's unbelievable. Both on the account of awkward adaptation and horrible voice acting. Feels like they're all trying to do a cool voice and comes out as a parody, fake as fuck and ridiculous. Also feels like they're always the same 3-4 actors and you hear the same fucking tones in every single game.

Hey now, most of the time it's true but not 100%. I hear TLOU2 is pretty good in Italian, to name one. And the Batman Arkham games weren't bad, too. PS1 and PS2-era Italian dubs, now... well... Also PC games from that era, there's examples on YT that are simply hilarious.

I remember RE: Revelations on the 3DS in Italian (language is usually set to system language on Nintendo consoles). Wasn't that bad, but I vividly remember Parker delivering every line like he was apologizing for being late for an appointment, lol.

 

[J-Roderton]

Not really, but when it’s good it’s goooood.

 

[Kataploom]

I don't care whether it's there or not, but if it's there, it better fit the language I'm expecting because I'll skip a very good game solely based on that... Or give an option for mute voices.

The most common example is japanese games with anime style art. I'd rather not play a game like that if the only option given is english voices, it really turns me off.

English voices + just don't fit in my head, it's like dressing a corporate suit jacket, shirt and tie mixed with short pants and slippers and pink glasses... Just NO.

I'm latin-american spanish native speaker so I'll even take Spain spanish over english since fonetics are basically the same.

 

[Geki-D]

Yes.

At this point, your game better look and be as deep as a saturday morning cartoon, aimed at a saturday morning cartoon watching public if the voice acting sounds like it's from a saturday morning cartoon. Coming out of the TLOU2, and hearing something like THIS... I mean, I expect that quality from Ratchet & Clank, or Bugsnax but not an M rated, high profile franchise.

 

[tryDEATH]

Not really voice actors that are know in the gaming industry, but I would like to see way more actors/actresses taking roles in games and have their likeness and voice used, particularly older ones. They don't got anything else going on so I doubt they would cost an insane amount to cast and you don't really got to worry about scheduling conflicts, it is easy work for them and they are kept relevant and introduced to a whole new audience

I am surprised not more actors/actresses haven't transitioned into the gaming sphere.

 

[BDubsLegend]

Depends on the game...

 

[Paracelsus]

Yes, whenever a character talks through gameplay is very annoying.

"Gotta hurry up"
"I can do it"
"huff"
"here we go"

Shut the * up.

 

[dave_d]

You haven't heard bad VA until you've heard Valis 3 and Ys 3 on the Turbografx. (Ys Books 1 and 2 was really good though since it actually used professional VA's that worked on cartoons like TMNT and Disney.)

 

[BadBurger]

Yes and no. Great voice acting is always a boon, of course, but if the game is still good I can look past bad VA. I understand that in some cases these actors are reciting lines with little direction, while a game is still being developed so they don't have a lot of context to go off of in regards to inflection and what not.

 

[Cliff Underside]

When it's good it can really help improve a game, but sometimes it can be limiting factor. If a studio decided to add voice acting for all dialogue in an rpg, for instance, it's either gonna be very low quality as it has to be spread out among all those random npcs or it's gonna drastically reduce the amount of flavor text. In those cases I think it's better to make it all text only, or save the voice acting just for cutscenes. That's why I would say it's better suited for the more story oriented, big budget games, where there's not that much dialogue but every line counts.

 

[tsumake]

Sometimes “bad” VA can add a surreal quality to a game.