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Do you think Suikoden VI should include voice acting? |
No, bring back to the good old text dialogue days |
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7% |
[ 3 ] |
Yes, keep it there |
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35% |
[ 15 ] |
Yes, keep it there, but give the player the option to turn it off |
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50% |
[ 21 ] |
I don't care either way |
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7% |
[ 3 ] |
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Total Votes : 42 |
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Captain Hero
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Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 8:23 pm Post subject: |
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We've all gotten a taste of voice-acting in the Suikoden series, and it will be awkard, for me especially, if they suddenly remove that feature. But I voted for adding a feature that could turn it off, to statisfy another group of people that are not big fans of Suikoden or Konami's voice-actors. But if they (they being 'Konami') do decide to remove voice-acting from future installments, it wouldn't really btoher me so much as to the point of me not playing the game. I play the game not because of the voice-acting, but because it's a Suikoden game and Suikoden always gets much <3 from me.
Thief wrote: |
That said, I would choose voice acting over the deadly silence of Suikoden III's dramatic scenes any day, for sure. |
Haha! I remember when (S3 Spoiler) Chris Lightfellow massacred the Karayan villagers and Lulu. I just couldn't find myself to be invloved in that scene because they were so quiet. XD _________________
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Flamo Bringer
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Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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*For the spoiler* yes it is indeed so quite and awkward and there's no life in that...
and to keep on the topic, i do say that i wanted to keep it just there :wink: |
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Zelphiel
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Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 10:38 am Post subject: |
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I think it should be left in. I really enjoyed the voice acting in Suikoden V. For the most part I thought it was done very well. I think players should have the option to turn it on and off though. Also a scene skip option for when you're playing through it for the 5th time and you don't want to sit through a particularly long scene or a scene you don't care for. That's the one thing that I wished was in Suikoden V that wasn't. (as far as game options go anyway... there's a few other things that it lacked that I wanted in other areas) _________________
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SuikoGator
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Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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I agree with what was said earlier. I think in this day and age, it's impossible NOT to have voice acting and cutscenes.
That said, I do prefer "the good old days" of no cutscenes or voice acting. I find voice acting and cutscenes to interrupt the experience of the game, they are frequenly jarring and obnoxious, even when done well.
There were so many powerful and memorable scenes from Suikoden I and II... Remember when *SPOILERS*Ted is attacked at the palace and returns to Hero's house. When Gremio is killed, when Leknaat appears, when Odessa dies, etc. The many scenes between Nanami and Hero. Or Jowy. Shu and the Fire Card with Apple. *END SPOILERS*
The music, text and player's imagination make these scenes memorable for me. Much more so than Voice Acting cutscenes. The most memorable scenes from V for me weren't cutscenes but scenes similar to the style I mentioned in Suikoden I and II. I wish I could go into further detail on those here, but I'm sure most of you know the types of scenes I mean.
These are unfortunately a thing of the past though, and at least non-cutscenes still hold that magic for me. |
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KarmaConstable
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Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 1:42 am Post subject: |
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Sailor Sexy wrote: |
NO voices, EVER. They have never, ever done voices in a game that're worth a damn, S5's voices were not tolerable, they were just as bad as any of them. |
Never played Metal Gear Solid or its sequels before? I thought the voice acting in those games were top-notch. David Hayter is by the way the most impressive voice actor I have ever heard. Not all VA is awful. I will concede that RPGs tend to have the worst voice acting of any genre. I also expect that, outside of Square-Enix, they generally have among the lowest localization budgets of any genre.
I've always thought that American English translations of anything Japanese (not just games, but anime and live action stuff as well) have a sort of fun campiness and you have to take it with a large grain of salt in order for it to be enjoyable, i.e. Iron Chef, a show I actually enjoy dubbed in all its weirdness. English voice acting can ocassionally be good but is never actually good.
Great, says the lead of the localization team for the game. We have a translated script for the game from Japanese, but oh man, we have to toy with the length of the lines in so many places, because some phrases or even 'words' in Japanese take a lot longer or a lot shorter to pronounce in English so we can match the movement of the characters' lips. Let's drag out certain lines/words/syllables and shorten others not because it would enhance the dramatic effect of the cutscene, but because the pre-rendered or pre-programmed cutscenes dictate how long sound can eminate from a character's mouth.
Such is the dilemma of the translators and voice actors. Sure, some of fault is in the VAs who don't know which parts of their lines to best lengthen/shorten the pronunciation of, but in all honesty, I don't think for the majority of projects they work on the VAs have much to work with to begin with. They can't ad-lib, there are sync problems, some translated scripts are awful, and the VA are probably told by the localization team to bring as much 'life' or 'personality' to their characters as possible given their limited speech time. For the most part, VAs don't add any nuances to their characters that live actors can, and if they did, most people would probably complain that they were adding unnecessary gimmicks to otherwise admittedly bland stock characters.
Until the American localization teams have the keys to alter the lengths of mouth movement and sync it with the voice acting during cutscenes, which may not even be feasible since you'd be toying with at least the game's graphics engine--a beast unto itself I'd assume--American VA will continue to be, as a norm, forced and awkward. |
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Yvl
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Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 1:57 am Post subject: |
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Delsaber wrote: |
Keep it in, but give us a Japanese language option just in case. |
Quoted for Truth.
As long as Steven Blum stays out of this series, I'll be fine. He's just been way way way too overused recently.
And there is an option to turn voices off. It's calledd "Volume."
I also like the voices to be there for the sake of pronounciation.
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Voice acting is, as John Layfield said, the way video games have gone. There's no way we'll be able to return to the "good old days" when it wasn't necessary. Nowadays, it would be suicide to try and create a modern game without voice acting when the technology exists to do so. |
FFXI was like that... and it just came off as underfunded rather than as giving the player the ability to think up the voices for themselves. _________________
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Sailor Sexy
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Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 3:36 am Post subject: |
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And there is an option to turn voices off. It's calledd "Volume." |
But then that would take away from the background music, which helps set the mood in many scenes.
Yes, I took the extreme stance of no voices at all, and while I personally don't want voices, I'd be just as happy if they just simply gave an option to turn them off. I just figured from an arguing perspective the more extreme answer gave me more to work with :) I'm aware of the problems dubbers face when mouth flaps are synched for a different language, but I still don't think very highly of VAs. And why assume I only dislike the English VAs? Perhaps I've forgotten and I actually did say Japanese VAs = god, English VAs = devil, but I don't think that's the case. I just get annoyed that they don't give as simple an option as turning off the voices. I'm no programmer, but it seems to me that should be a fairly simple task to accomplish. The arrogance of the companies in assuming that I want to hear somebody attempting to give a character a voice gets to me a bit.
And no, I haven't played any of the MSG games. I'm almost exclusively an RPG gamer. |
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Archy
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Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 5:29 am Post subject: |
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Of course I want to keep it. Who doesn't like hearing the voices of our Suikoden characters?
And, I felt that it gave more drama to the scenes, Lulu's death was darned boring without voicing. _________________
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If one of you were to ask, "Celes, what is Twisted Sister?" I would tell you God's honest truth.
"Butt rock." |
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Rainrir
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Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 5:57 am Post subject: |
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But then that would take away from the background music, which helps set the mood in many scenes. |
Hey, I always thought there was seperate channels for shutting down Music and Background Sounds? Its like they are seperate right?
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And, I felt that it gave more drama to the scenes, Lulu's death was darned boring without voicing. |
Or It could be ruined by horrid voice acting..or WORSE made funny by LAUGHABLE Voice Acting. _________________ Avatars are overrated! I bet I AM THE ONLY ONE WITHOUT ONE!!!! BEAT THAT! |
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Gremio
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Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 5:23 am Post subject: |
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I'd like to have it without voice acting. The problem of voice acting is that dialogues are written taking it in consideration, and as a result, you have shorter lines and corky phrases. This was evident in IV, in the many cutscenes Lino and the others used to chat with brief lines as they were in a resident evil game.
V is a good compromise though - not only the voice acting was more than decent - the writers were clever enough to concentrate speechs in the first hours of game: the rest is, for the most part, voiceless.
However, it must be said that the slightly disappointing ending is due to voice acting: I'm sure that without the hassle of being voiced, Sialeeds and Marscal would have given far more interesting speech about their intentions.
p.s. Metal Gear Solid doesn't make a fitting example: as an evolution of interactive cinema, va has always been huge in that series. And I bet it also costs a lot. To put it bluntly, none of this is strictly necessary for an RPG, and potentially dangerous for an rpg which relies on long-written dialogues as Suikoden is. _________________ my Suikoden collection |
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Delsaber
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Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 6:29 am Post subject: |
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Y'know, voice acting is one of the few elements of western-made computer RPGs which I prefer over the stuff we get from Japan. So I say Konami should seriously consider raiding Bioware or Blizzard's stable of actors. Michael McConnohie - as awesome as he his, whether the role be Suikoden IV's Glen or Diablo II's Warriv - is still like the only dude who crosses over on a regular basis. _________________ • The Caffeine-Fueled Blogonomicon - Your Best Daily Source For Inappropriate Content. |
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Rune of Corruption
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 12:54 am Post subject: |
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Sailor Sexy I don't particularly think people was specifically referring to you. I think their just venting their frustrations over japanophiles who would exalt a steaming pile of crap from Japan over a similar pile of crap from the U.S.
I think they should keep them in. If they have room for the Japanese voice acting then great. I personally think it is a treat to be able to here both sets to make accurate judgments on quality and cultural nuances. For those who want to use their imaginations on how the voices of the characters sounds they should also have a option to turn it off. _________________ arise my great fool and take over this foolish world with your foolish powers!!!!! |
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Masa
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:10 am Post subject: |
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After playing Twilight Princess extensively, I've really come to miss the voice acting I experienced in Sukoden V. I think having some voice acting really adds some depth into the game. _________________
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sybillious
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:31 am Post subject: |
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i'm for having it, but with the option of turning it off, for those who want the music but not va. that should cover all bases with minimal complaints. _________________ prinny...DOOD!
gotta gotta get a...SPICE WEASEL!
to paraphrase my fellow mod, parallax:
I hate my job with the passionately burning intensity of a thousand fiery suns. |
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Masa
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Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:34 am Post subject: |
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What I liked about Suikoden IV's voice acting was that lines of dialogue would be skipped by just pressing X. That was very handy. _________________
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