Aonuma talks realistic Zelda Comments by Tom Bramwell

I hate voice acting in my games. It slows the action down. Thank the gods that some games allow you to switch it off completely. Realism is not that important. I play games to escape realism. Other than some sports and racing games, I prefer games to have their own unique worlds, creatures, rules, laws of physics, look, feel, etc.

no voiced dialogue in the game

\o/ -o- \o/

Yyyyyyyyyyyyes!

/punches air

yoyo, they gave this reason for all games without "voice acting". while I can see their point that when you read a text you probably will fill in your own personality - think about the voice style of Link in Wind Waker - you would subconciously fill in the voice of a boy...

yet it's just a lame excuse for "solly oul disc is just too small to suppolt voice acting and we spale the time fol othel thing like left-handed light-standing enemies killing...

Zelda is the only game that doesn't get problems with this - the excellent Sphinx was reviewed to death because of the missing voice acting...

See, for me Voice acting is a good thing. I mean fair enough if you have an RPG and you've created the character from scratch, then i dont really need a voice actor for the main characters voice, cos hes me effectively.

I think it adds alot to a character.

Anywho... realistic graphics :S

--yet it's just a lame excuse for "solly oul disc is just too small to suppolt voice acting and we spale the time fol othel thing like left-handed light-standing enemies killing... --
Ignorant prick. Have you no respect for ppl of a different culture?

Voice acing a good thing? Nah... it depends on the game. GTA:SA, yep! works a treat! Zelda, no mate... not at all.

For me voice acting is a real turn-off.

1. It takes too long, as mentioned.
2. It's rarely any good whatsoever.
3. As mentioned in the article, you have less room for the player's imagination.

I really hate it when it can't be turned off or subbed.

edit - tpfkanep: don't feed the trolls :)

I'm glad there's no real voices, because then we won't have to suffer some whiny american brat dubbing Link into English when we get it over here (FFX, I'm looking at you).

Rant: publishers, when I play a Japanese game I want to hear the original Japanese voices with English subtitles, just like I would when I watch a Japanese film. Why do I never get that option?

Voice acting is good.. when time is taken with it.

Rpgs - bioware have proven time and again high production voice acting works well, even Fable has good vocal shennanigans.

I'm not saying Zelda should have it, but voice acting is a good thing.

I cant think of one genre where well produced voice acting hasnt added to the game.

shenmue 2, where on the DC with japanese voices and english subs i believe to ave been much better than the dubbed xbox version... my memory might be playing tricks tho.

Yes, that's also a good point, I prefer to hear the original language in the voice acting if it must be in there. Also I wish if they're going to localise the voice acting to the EU they'd do the English in British English, it really frustrates when you have to wait for a release cos they're localising, but then just get lumped with American voices and American spelling - i.e. they've clearly not done any UK localisation at all.

Having said all I have already, I can't imagine Resident Evil 4 for example with text instead of voice acting.

Glad there is no voice acting... Because it is always crap. Beyond Good & Evil is the only game that I can say I appreciated the voice acting.

M

"--yet it's just a lame excuse for "solly oul disc is just too small to suppolt voice acting and we spale the time fol othel thing like left-handed light-standing enemies killing... --
Ignorant prick. Have you no respect for ppl of a different culture? "

I agree with you tpfkanep.... captain-future is a stereotyping racist bastard, and im suprised others on this forum havern't picked up on it... if it was meant as a joke, then it was in very poor taste....He should be banned from playing any games from japan forever.

in reguards to the article tho, i can see Eiji Aonuma's point about using voices in his game, the zelda series has never had to deal with giving Link a voice and it never has to, he really doesnt need to justify the lack of voice in Z:TP...so far it looks great, and as long as it plays as well as all the others, then it will be an instant hit to zelda fans and non-zelda fans alike.

roll on release :)

The switch to realism worked well in Final Fantasy VIII... I don't see why it can't in Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

They are two different kinds of quasi-role-playing-games, but they both held onto anime style visuals long after the natural switch-point.

I like voice acting in RPG's - if only because Nippon never *quite* translates and characters have some surreal outbursts. But it's not really a necessity, especially in an action (rather than dialogue) driven title.

Psychonauts has great voice acting

I used to love the voice (and physical) acting on Resident Evil.

"Jill? Wesker? What happend to Jill and Wesker?"

Voice acting: sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Not wanted by me in Zelda.

The only people that do good voice acting tend to be disney and pixar, end of.
This is probably due to the voices being recorded then the action made to fit the voice rather than the other way round.
Some games with 'better' voice acting are still let down in places, which to me totally suspends the immersion. Look at EQ2 for example where they have over 900million hours of voice overs, most of them are weak, all of them ultimately boring as you read the subtitle and click next to get on with it. There seem to be a couple of companies specialising in game voice overs and you can recognise the actors accross multiple games, even though they are not very good actors.
Some of the blame has to be placed squarely with the developers and their plain terrible scripts. Even Olivier would have trouble delivering some of the lines and sound even half convincing.

I thought Max Payne 2 had great voice acting. As did Half-Life 2. And Resident Evil 4. And for the most part, the Halo games. And Toonstruck, The Curse Of Monkey Island, Jak & Daxter, Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3 and sometimes Shenmue. It swung quickly between great and terrible.

Sonic was great until he started to talk.

Sonic talks? Oh dear...

"I hate voice acting in my games. It slows the action down. Thank the gods that some games allow you to switch it off completely."

Yeah, voice acting ruined Half Life 2, Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry 3 and Xenosaga 1 & 2. Umm, I mean the voice acting was good to great in all those games and really added to the experience.

Little Big Adventure was fully voice acted and I felt it added some depth to the game. I usually dislike silent dialogues - though link usually has good actions so you know his mood anyway. Never-the-less I think that skippable voice acting would be a bonus for those of us who like that kind of thing :D

LBA was wicked :) Loved that game :)

Resident Evil 4

Feanor, what are you smoking? The voice acting in Resident Evil 4 (and all other Resident Evil games!) is WOEFUL. Thats not to say anything bad about the game, which is fantastic. In fact, I wouldnt even say the game shouldnt have voice acting - its part of the cheesy charm. But to say that the voice acting is good is just plain wrong.

"Sonic talks? Oh dear... "

Where have you been the last decade? :-)

no voiced dialogue in the game

\o/ -o- \o/

Yyyyyyyyyyyyes!

/punches air

err, you really like Zelda then?

:o)

To the few who groan about the lack of voice work: Aren't you happy that Nintendo are paying attention to incidential detail such as proper collision detection, great animation and ensuring that a series of games that have always been anything but realistic make the transition instead of hiring Gackt to do Link's Voice, and Otsuka Chihiro to do Zelda?

Very few games have good voice acting, and most have terrible scripts. The Zelda games aren't exactly known for their natural, flowing dialogues. This isn't Kevin Smith writing the exchanges here: they're supposed to fill roles in the context of the game and convey information about the game world.

I don't want the game to ruin my often troubled immersion by instructing me verbally to click the A-button, and that I can assign various items to the X and Y-buttons via the menu system. And if Jade Empire is an example of great voice acting, I actually want to have the option of switching off voices in my games from now on.

Oh my god cpt. future, die.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the topic. Hm, well, on the whole I like voice acting, I would say, but I would NEVER vocalise a Zelda game. I thought Link showed too much expression in Wind Waker (Gods, I hated that game for its bitter betrayal). The only emotions adult Link should convey are angry, hateful, justice-driven vengence (how many people can help mentally shaking down and thinking "RIGHT, young-sonny-me-lad, now you are FOR IT, mate!" when he does this?), and the characteristic Zelda-surprise. Happiness is only acceptable for Young Link. And WW put me right off'f him...

I like the voice acting in Tales of Symphonia. What? Yeah there's better, but that statement is on a par with 'I like anime/manga style artwork.' Yeah on some (Western) levels its kinda shoddy (almost), but that doesn't matter BECAUSE, Mr. Future, I can appreciate cultural transition.

" Oh my god cpt. future, die. "

wait... people are still listening to him?

/realises Teeth is becoming annoying and boring

/changes record

The voice acting in RE 4 is fine. You must be getting the voice acting confused with the deliberately cheesy script. They're not the same thing.

Nah Teeth I just got here and that was the first thing I saw!

As for 'listening'... well, I'm sure you can see the sarcastic comment lining up in my brain already.

^_^

Nah, I'm not getting them mixed up - the script is cheesy deliberately, yes, and that probably has some effect on the voice actors (in that it makes it pretty hard to deliver a convincing performance) - but one way or another, the voice acting is not good.

Why is it not good? Did they mispronounce words or something?

Well considering how fucking awwful the voice acting in every Japanese game I've played has been I guess this is a good thing.

LBA(2?) was indeed wicked, but the voice acting was by about 5 different people and my god did they grate on me by half way through the game. One of the guys had a great voice initially, sounded like he had worked on cartoons or something, but after I had heard 7 incarnations of his voice he just annoyed me intensely, sounding like he was struggling to get the last few letters out of a sentance without running out of breath.
Totally agree about the bad script given to a good actor, the end performance is going to be bad no matter how good the actor is.

Couldn't give an arse about voice acting, although if Ninty did it I'm sure they would do it great.

As for feeling the weight of the sword, I hope he means metaphoically as I'm a bit of weakling.

Bad voice acting can really let a game down, but it isn't a real problem compared to dialogue t h a t . . i s . . d i s p l a y e d . . t o o . . s l o w l y without an option to make it appear faster and skip, if replaying. (Ocarina of Time, for instance.)