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Why do WRPGs tend to go with British dubs while JRPGs are more Americanised?

It's funny to see people so desperately claim Dark Souls as a JRPG, genre is dead and you people just need to accept it ✌
I find people's desperation to run away from Souls games/Bloodborne being labeled as JRPGs of any sort (even the wholly accurate "Japanese action RPG") far more amusing, and I say this as someone ultimately indifferent to SoulsBorne. And it's been pointed out to you multiple times by now how dense it is to conclude that JRPGs are "dead" when Japan not only never stopped making RPGs, but one in particular just released last week has at least several active threads devoted to it.
 
I find people's desperation to run away from Souls games/Bloodborne being labeled as JRPGs of any sort (even the wholly accurate "Japanese action RPG") far more amusing, and I say this as someone ultimately indifferent to SoulsBorne. And it's been pointed out to you multiple times by now how dense it is to conclude that JRPGs are "dead" when Japan not only never stopped making RPGs, but one in particular just released last week has at least several active threads devoted to it.

I wouldn't go that far but I would say the Souls games are as Japanese as it possibly gets. The whole gothic/macabre atmosphere is mistakenly attributed as Western when Japanese games have been using that since the Castlevania/Ghost-n-Goblins days. It's more about Beserk and less about King Arthur.

As far as the Western English-accent thing, it's strange to me that anything ancient or epic fantasy always gets portrayed with British accents. I always hear American accents with a lot of the characters when I read ASoIaF. Sure, it's based on Ivanhoe, post-William the Conqueror England, the septarchy, and the English Channel (which was sometimes referred to as "the Narrow Sea") but so much of it is something only an American could write.
 
I too wonder where this trope came from. Tolkien's dwarves were based on the Jews, he even admitted as much. It wasn't even an antisemitic thing; he admired the solidarity, industriousness and overcoming of hardships he had witnessed.

I find it annoying when Americans say "British accent" when they mean "English accent". Scottish, English, Welsh, Faroese and Irish accents are all "British".

It's like id I called somebody with a Mexican accent "American". It's technically correct, but insultingly broad.

They don't even mean 'English accent', they mean 'Oxford English accent'. I've never known an American to refer to Scouse or Geordie!
 
Am I remembering wrongly or wasn't it that Xenoblade was never intended to be released in the US in the first place? So they just got English actors for a UK release. Then when fan pressure got it stealth released in the US (Gamestop only, wasn't it?), well they weren't going to do a brand new dub.
 
Probably because anime fans like shitty anime voice acting

Ain't nobody likes shitty anime voice acting. If anime fans liked shitty anime dubs, you wouldn't see such vocal demand for dual audio in every game. If anime games would get proper quality English dubs, they might even escape their tiny niche audience a bit.
 
Probably because anime fans like shitty anime voice acting

Cause that accent is synonymous with olden times anachronism.

British accent is better than american accent.

Lord British.

EDIT: Americans (and WRPG developers in general) have an ingrained sense, supported by a hundred years of media across movies, radio, TV, and video games, of the British accent being associated with medieval/fantasy. That association is much weaker for Japanese developers, and American accents in general are more closely associated with the English language.

All great responses.
 
Speaking of accents; why aside from Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag are westcountry and Welsh accents only used to portray hugely unintelligent farmer types in games?
 
Is it not also insultingly broad to call the Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Faroese "British"?

I spoke to a Japanese guy in Tokyo who told me he had visited England. When I asked him where , he said "Wales"

The whole of the Uk has something like 37 distinct accents and dialects, so I generally find the whole "British" thing slightly irritating.
 
When you have a game genre with many titles that are heavily inspired by medieval europe times, having the characters actually speaking in a European accent is more convincing to non european markets I guess.
 
Why is that? 😗

Because people use it as a descriptor when all it tells you is that it's an RPG and a general idea of where the developer is from. It doesn't give you any indication of how the game actually plays. Persona and Nier: Automata are both JRPG's for all intents and purposes, but they play very differently. Diablo III and Fallout 3 are both WRPG's for all intents and purposes, and they are nothing alike.
 
Speaking of accents; why aside from Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag are westcountry and Welsh accents only used to portray hugely unintelligent farmer types in games?

At a guess, it's playing on an english real world stereotypes about welsh people shagging sheeps being a thing. It's hugely offensive, but it's a stereotype that exists in the real world.
 
You have games such as The Witcher 3, Dragon Age, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Planescape: Torment, all of which have British voice acting

Keep in mind The Witcher 3's leads were often American. Geralt has a batman American accent, Triss has a sexy American accent, Dandelion has a whiny-ass "I want to punch you in the face" American accent. Pretty sure all the supporting Witchers have American accents too.

Seems to me that a lot of Western movies and games want British accents for most characters in fantasy/medieval settings, but still expect American accents for the heroes. Most ridiculous example will always be Kevin Costner's American accent as Robin Hood... seriously, what the hell were they thinking?
 
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