FFXIII Japanese voices unlikely for 360 Comments by Robert Purchese

Well that's a deal-breaker if ever I heard one...

I was going for the PS3 version anyway, but that seals the deal.

Of course its not a deal breaker. They have not made any final decision it seems, so for Xbox they could put the game on more than one dvd, or offer the Japanese language track as a free download on Xbox live. Simple.

"Are there many people who would like to play with Japanese voices?"

No, everybody loves listening to the whiny Californian out-of-work actors that we'll get instead.

why is that a deal breaker? It makes sense. The 360 version is only available outside of Japan, so for the 10 fans that might want it in the original language it doesn't make financial sense. To be fair, if you've made it this far in the series, the lack of a Japanese dub isn't going to be a deal breaker.

The only reason they are including the Japanese track on the PS3 is because of the added space BlueRay provides.

To be honest i am just glad that its coming to 360 full stop. I don't think i have the right to start throwing my toys from the pram or am in a position to now start issuing demands...



EDIT: Early morning spelling! :)

Thank goodness for Blu-Ray. Without it, developers have to compromise and that usually means an inferior product.

The PS3 version is the one to get in my opinion. The game was built for that architecture and will make full use of the system. The Xbox360 version will never be as good. Hey, if they have to cut back on the audio tracks due to lack of space, what else will they need to remove in order o squeeze it onto DVD?

^^^

I dunno - if it came on 4 disks like LO then that's 18.8GBs of space, the extra 22gbs on a BlueRay could be used for just additional audio streams.

Maybe FF will come on 5 disks. Or 6. Who knows.

To be fair, if you've made it this far in the series, the lack of a Japanese dub isn't going to be a deal breaker.

I'd say the opposite, if you've made it this far you'll cry in jubilation of there being the option of an english dub, it means I can be blissfully ignorant of the awful dialogue that gets translated.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Square Enix might not even be able to implement Japanese voices over multiple discs.

It would be like splitting a world map into 2 discs, it wouldnt look good for the game to swap discs just to load up the 2nd part of character voices. Only then to keep swapping discs if you're going back and forth between specific sections of the game.

It would be messy.

Anyway, I think everyone knew there wouldl be cutbacks in the 360 version (and possibly the PS3 version...) despite SE saying there wouldnt be. The majority of the FF fans are currently on the PS3 (I presume anyway), if an FF fan wants the complete game they would most likely get it on the PS3.

Good news. It was all gibberish anyway. Waste of space.

Besides, anyone that doesn't actually know Japanese will have a hard time figuring out of the acting is just as bad as the supposedly English ones. I think people find it more palatable because they're playing a fantasy game and Japanese is exotic and magic.

I agree they can make a free DLC like Fable II which has the english version available on Xbox Live for non english version.

@Steroyd

You've kind of missed my point there. While fans might be ecstatic at the prospect to get rid of the awful dubbing, the very fact that this game is now likely to follow suit of its predecessors isn’t going to stop them from buying it. To be honest, I’ve never minded the dubbing in all the talky FFs, it’s certainly not as bad as some game dubbing that I’ve heard (as I’m sure we all have).

The old adage rings kind of true in this instance (at least for me) - How can you miss what you’ve never had?

Whats the size of the Fable 2 audio pack?

Wouldnt an Xbox Live release be ridiculously over the size limit by a couple of gigabytes? Especially for an FF game...

It seems DVDs aren't big enough any more :(

Besides, anyone that doesn't actually know Japanese will have a hard time figuring out of the acting is just as bad as the supposedly English ones.

How is that a negative thing? Ignorance is bliss. ^_^

If I'm not aware that the acting is bad, the cutscenes won't be cringe worthy to watch = W.I.N.

@Zulu

It's as stupid a selling point as wether a game has trophies or not, just to be clear.

The old adage rings kind of true in this instance (at least for me) - How can you miss what you’ve never had?

Because others started doing it.

@hiddenranbir

I agree with that. Most Japanese voice acting is rubbish too - lacking equally in both emotion and emphasis. A combination of the fact that we can’t understand it, and that our focus is elsewhere (subtitles) is enough for us to overlook that.

Just because something is in its original language doesn’t automatically make it better. And this isn’t film so the overlaid track isn’t as obvious (kung fu films ftw! ;)

I read it as meaning that the european ps3 version will be missing the original dialogue as well simply to keep it in line with the gimped xbox version:

"With PS3 being on Blu-ray there would be enough memory, but on Xbox probably not."

"At the moment we're thinking of releasing the voice in English only."

No mention of it being specific to the 360 version...

or is that just me being paranoid? :)

I doubt they'll leave the japanese voice track in for the ps3 either. Allowing a choice implies that that the other just isn't good enough and for Square, in their flagship game no less, I don't think that's a viable situation.

@zuluhero

"why is that a deal breaker? It makes sense. The 360 version is only available outside of Japan, so for the 10 fans that might want it in the original language it doesn't make financial sense. To be fair, if you've made it this far in the series, the lack of a Japanese dub isn't going to be a deal breaker."

It is nowadays, since almost every other JRPG does have that option. I always hated US dubs. They're awful. Only one which was doable was Disgeaa.

BLURAYPOWAHS

But to be honest, if I owned a 360, I wouldn't care... I tend to play with the Western voices as I prefer to watch the action on screen rather than reading text down the bottom....

oh and someone has mentioned, no mention of soundtrack choices on either platform anyway.

I think the 360 version would likely come on more than one disc regardless. Personally I like the option for Japanese voices - it tends to feel right and the English voice overs are generally not that great. If they do a good job on the English voice overs then the point is moot for most people.

If the US versions make it out well before the Euro ones then I'll be importing and that will most likely mean I have to go the PS3 route too.

I see the idiot trolls are here already.

It's not even been decided whether Japanese language will be included or not, so go find something else to troll about.

Besides, Lost Odyssey managed it just fine and anyone who claims that having to swap a disc once every 12-15 hours of play is a hardship is only here for one reason, and that reason ain't constructive or reasoned conversation.

I'd rather them give me the options to completely disable voices, japanese or english or whatever. Am I the only one who prefers a good ol' mute RPG? I'm kinda liking Devil Summoner because of that.

@Ashen-Shugar Its not a problem with people swapping discs all the time...

Its fine for a totally linear game like Lost Odyssey to be spread over 4 DVDs. Depending on how FFXIII was designed, its most likely impossible (or too messy) to split up voices. If I'm wrong, then Square Enix have no reason to even ponder this question of whether or not voices will fit.

These comments are laughable

Like it or not there is an element of geek snobary here that none of you will admit to.

Many feature length anime movies (and jp games) have fantastic western dubs and whining about it just means that you (maybe subconsciously) think it's cool and more hardcore. It's not like live action stuff where the mouths don't match.

As others have pointed out, Japanese voice acting can be just as bad as English voice acting.

Would I rather watch a Miyazaki movie with the original dub? Most probably, because I suspect he had some say in the casting as part of his vision. Would I be happy to watch the dubs with the voices of Lauren Holly or Gillian Anderson? Of course, they're absolutely fine.

As for western dubs being awful... Mass Effect, Fable 2 and GTA4 have great voice acting for a game. Being a JRPG doesn't automatically mean the voice acting will be bad.

@Malek86

I miss the old text only RPGs but would like some voice acting in the cutscenes. For one, I'm not fussed about having Japanese voice acting as I don't speak Japanese. English will do me just fine considering it's the language I speak.

I don't speak Japanese, so this doesn't matter to me.

If there's an option to turn of voices in RPGs I always turn them off. Takes me back to the days when there was no voice acting, which ironically for me made the whole experience much more immersive

He'd better not be suggesting that they cut the option from both platforms because the fucking 360 can't support it.

@JohnnyWashnGo

"Thank goodness for Blu-Ray. Without it, developers have to compromise and that usually means an inferior product."

Forced installs due to slow disc access.

Ring a bell?

Of course the other option is to replicate data accross the bluray disc, also to speed up slow disc access.

Using bluray forces compromises.


"The PS3 version is the one to get in my opinion."

Not for the masses who aren't interested in the PS3 it isnt.


"The game was built for that architecture and will make full use of the system."

No, the game was built to be multiplatform from the start.


"The Xbox360 version will never be as good."

If any version gets compromised it will be the PS3 version. The PS3's poor GPU and segregated memory architecture will make sure of that.


"Hey, if they have to cut back on the audio tracks due to lack of space, what else will they need to remove in order o squeeze it onto DVD?"

Nothing. See Lost Odyssey.


The big question is how the hell are they going to fit FF13 onto a bluray disc without forcing you to have massive installs, or multiple installs? We know for a fact that data for PS3 games have to be replicated all over the bluray disc or the game will take days to load. The effective capacity for a bluray disc (without a forced install) is not that much greater than a DVD.

My guess is they will take the MGS approach and force you to install before each chapter, which incidentally, takes a hell of a lot longer than swapping discs at approximately the same point.


So much for your saviour bluray, eh?

Eurogamer. Home of the omniscient.

Surely the issue here is that FFXIII may be the first multi platform game to differ purely because of the space limitations of the media format for each system. Previously we've had reports that suggested even blu ray was insufficient for some games. Perhaps the first real hardware limitation for xbox will come from the DVD drive?

@Ashen-Shugar

"I see the idiot trolls are here already.

It's not even been decided whether Japanese language will be included or not, so go find something else to troll about."


Except it kind of has ;)

And i thought that the thread was going quite well tbh - there hasn't been any ZOMG teh 360 SUXXORS!!1! (as of yet) :P

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@XanderFish

Really insightful. Care to add anything else? :)

Edited 1 times, most recently on 13/05/09 @ 10:13

Is is confirmed to have both english and the original japanese voices on the PS3 version, though? I didn't know they confirmed it, just that it's a possibility. Who knows, the PS3 version may be compromised as well, if they want both versions to be equally attractive.

Either way, FFXII's western dub was brilliant. The compression was horrible though, so it sounded like they were talking through a broken microphone. Also, I started playing FFX again, and it's not nearly as bad as people make it to be. It's got ups and downs, but overall the voices are good. I have no reason to fear for the FFXIII dub.

@farticusmaximus

All good points and very well made.

Yup - the BD drive that comes with the PS3 is stupidly slow. You would think that Sony would have wanted to pop the bestest possible drive available to them into the machine in order to minimise read speeds. Big mistake on their part if you ask me, but probably due to the drives not being that fast at the time of the PS3 launch?

MGS installs before each chapter were a pain for sure. It is annoying to have to reinstall each time you want to jump into a new chapter but its not a big deal. Just annoying. Call me lazy but I would rather have just the one disc to play from and put up with a few painful installs then having to swap discs occasionally.

One thing that struck me about the FFXIII demo that came with Advent Children, other than it being very, very mediocre, was that it required no installs at all. I am hoping that this is indicative of what we can expect when the game launches.

As for Blu-Ray being a saviour - when I think about how Tales of Vesperia will have a new character and full voice over I tend to think that BD may just be a saviour ;)

Oh no...

From the original IGN article:

Yoshinori Kitase: Obviously, when we talk about XIII it's for PS3 and Xbox – with PS3 being on Blu ray there would be enough memory, but on Xbox probably not. At the moment we're thinking of releasing the voice in English only. Are there many people who would like to play with Japanese voices?

So seems plans so far are for English voice only (outside Japan of course).

I don't give a crap about silly high-pitched Jap voices, so hurrah.

Try to focus less on the Japanese voices and more on whether the 360's DVD drive is big enough. If developers find size limitations with DVDs, they could look towards online distribution for things like language packs etc., but what do you do if you don't have a hard drive? These are the types of questions we should be asking, not "who cares about whiny American / Japanese actors?!?".

Y'know back when the PS2 Final Fantasies were coming out I didn't really care about getting the Japanese dub.
My logic was a simple version I understand = win.
To be honest now I'd rather have the option for there to be a version with Japanese audio and English subtitles. Regardless of the quality of either version I'd rather play the game in its original context.

That being said I think the best way forward is to stick to English on the disc(s) and offer the Japanese to download to those of us who want it.

@ Coin-Op

So 2009/10: the year of PS3 then?

;-)

"No, the game was built to be multiplatform from the start."


"But FFXIII is a PS3-exclusive in Japan, and Square Enix wants to finish it before even starting work on the Western 360 version."

Conflicting views there. I wonder who to believe.

@El-Dev
Having done a bit of reading up - it seems that Square are running FFXII on a cross platform engine known as Crystal Tools which should mean that the game will be pretty much identical on both systems.

Well I'd prefer Japanese voices with subtitles, I don't speak Japanese but the voice actors for the English version of JRPGs tend to be (IMO) shite and annoying (the guy doing Capell in Infinite Undiscovery gave me a twitch). I don't know how good the Japanese guys are and I frankly don't care, they seem more suited to the roles and more in sync with the cut-scenes.

It's enough that I don't have to hear the English ones. You also don't notice just how repetitive and inane the little voice snippets at the start or end of battles are.

I'll still play it though, I'd just prefer Japanese voices.

If they omit the "voice actors", then it will save me having to skip them when I have finished reading what they have to say in the sub titles.

They could provide Japanese voices as a DLC.

I'm sure the lack of Japanese voices isn't a big loss to most people, it's FF, it'll sell regardless. It isn't like games normaly keep them.
Speaking personaly though I'd much rather be playing with the Japanese audio because a) I can vaguely practace my
Japanese and b) I won't be suffering through awkward translations and staring at the poor lip synch while having my ears assaulted by some godawful nasial-sounding "talent". That said, I'd rather have the option to have no voice overs at all, I find they jar my enjoyment when it somes to RPGs. It's not like that would take any work to do and as someone else said, it is nice to skip through text at your own pace.

@ kipper, ZuluHero, et al.

Uh, I was being sarcastic, but I guess it didn't come across as well as I intended!

I can't see the problem I would take poor acting over gibberish and reading, it would be nice for people who may prefer that I suppose.

I have a bigger deal breaker, cost. This is how it adds up to me personally:
PS3 version = £300.00 to play
360 version = £30.00 to play

As for some of the more usual multi platform issues (AA, full 720p etc) we will see what happens.