|
Voice acting is a part of the video gaming world inextricably nowadays.
Yet it appears not to carry the same respectability of voice acting in other
entertainment venues, because its quality is widely varying. Even if the
quality was universally outstanding, however, I would still advocate the
option of subtitling. I recognize this to be an option that will not entice
massive support, but it is something I would welcome and hopefully not be
alone in.
Dubs are of highly varying quality, this cannot be denied. Going outside
of the video-game realm for a bit, the same aura of competence surrounding
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is absent from, say, any given Godzilla vs.
___ movie. Live action movies cannot be dubbed successfully while keeping
the feel originally intended for the film. The voice of an actor is too
integral to a performance to allow it, and the fact that many countries dub
everything coming into them only lowers my respect for them. Picture Star
Wars dubbed into German, which I have seen a portion of, along with a bit of
Spin City dubbed into French. France, Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, the
Spanish-speaking world, Brazil and Portugal - all of them and more dub
everything coming onto their TVs and their theaters. (Comparatively) not
much non-English material makes its way to the English-speaking world, but
what does is almost always dubbed also. Thus is the precedent behind
widespread dubbing established.
It is quite true that video games are not like non-interactive
entertainment forms. Reading a subtitle in the middle of a heated action
experience is not practical. I stand by wanting to have the option of doing
so, however. Consider a hypothetical character in a US-developed RPG with a
pronounced Alabama accent. In being dubbed for other languages, any attempt
to replicate the Alabama accent will fail, meaning that an integral
component of the character is lost. The character could be reinvented with
an accent specific to any given language, but only by altering the character
substantially. This is why I want the option to have subtitles. While
Japan may not have accent variations as striking as those extant in English,
accents are present. Sakura Wars comes to mind here - Li Kohran has a
Kansai accent in the games, which lends her speech a distinctive flavor that
is impossible to replicate in any dub.
Then we come to the final aspect I'd like to cover - that of my preferring
not to understand battle quotes instead of being bombarded with atrocious
ones. Plotline dialogue often comes with captions anyway, so instituting
subtitles is not hard. But in the middle of a battle lines are rarely if
ever necessary to understanding the course of the story. And even if they
ARE, I prefer to hear incompletely intelligible speech rather than things
like this Rogue's Gallery of Bad Moments in RPG Voice Acting:
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night:
Example 1
Example 1
Grandia (PS):
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Star Ocean: The Second Story:
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
And Shining Force III Scenario 1:
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
To anyone who hasn't listened to any of the above, at least listen to THIS one, for
it provides the title of the piece and is another SFIII moment of horror. It is through
this clip that I can best make my case for having subtitles or the original
language option - hearing that clip scores of times every playthrough has
burned it into my mind. "Kono reiki ni tae ra re ruka" means something
close to that, but sounds soooooooooooo much better. No argument.
| 
RSS feed
iTunes
