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Josh: VAs have evolved, certainly, over the years. From mini sound bytes at random times to full-blown cinematics, VAs have been present in RPGs for quite some time. What do you make of this evolution, and what is in the future for VAs?
Liv: I think that there are going to be more and more games entirely voice-acted.
Liv: Much like Final Fantasy X.
Brian: Well, it's definitely apparent that the overall quality has been improving.
Theo: As game disc sizes get larger and larger and developers get more and more ambitious, we'll get more and more VAs, methinks.
Cara: Like graphics - it's been improving, and each game builds on the last (or doesn't in some cases...).
Neill: Just look at Oblivion - in a few short years we've gone from well-voice acted one line introductions to half a DVD of audio with all NPC's fully voiced.
Liv: Hopefully, with more voice acting, the voice actors will get more experience with the genre and get better.
Theo: Games without VAs will become less and less common.
Brian: Yes. Smaller publishers still may have to stick with traditional text, but I think soon we're going to start seeing games that make the text optional if there aren't any already.
Liv: That would be weird!
Cara: Hopefully the developers won't forget to make good games in this process of evolution. VA is great, but it won't stand alone.
Liv: Even with the VA, I always read the words too.
Neill: But that's a good thing, I think. If you have more text, the VA can't get annoying. For small companies who don't have the resources or the networking for good actors, that's a good thing.
Brian: Liv, I hope you're right about the experience part though. Dubbed anime in America has been pretty uniformly bad for years now.
Liv: I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY.
Josh: I believe Xenosaga had the option of removing subtitles, but that was only for cinematics and not NPCs.
Liv: I detest dubbed anime.
Brian: I didn't mean to get us off track - just making the comparison and hoping that RPGs and games in general don't stagnate in the same manner.
Liv: One thing I hope that more companies will do is include an option for either Japanese or English.
Josh: I understand, there are a lot of similarities.
David: Yeah.
Josh: Liv: Agreed.
Cara: Wow, you really think they'll have every NPC voiced? They did that in Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim, but Ys had a small cast.
Cara: On sweeping, worldwide games, I would hope they would avoid VAs for NPCs. That strikes me as tedious (and expensive).
Neill: Most of the RPGs I play would normally be voiced in English first...
Brian: I really like the option to have either one.
Liv: Because I know that whatever they do, I always choose Japanese.
Brian: I don't see why not. I'm not sure what the storage is on Blu-Ray or...well, any of the new standards.
Josh: Well, as much as I like some Japanese-voiced things, they aren't infalliable by any stretch of the imagination.
Brian: Definitely not, but us English speakers can't really tell the difference sometimes.
Liv: Brian: Very true - we're so ignorant.
Josh: I'm mostly referring to the 'Squeaky-Japanese-Girl' VA.
Liv: Although that's better than trying to translate that into an English voice and completely changing the character.
Brian: Oh, I don't mind that particular type of VA. Since we're not discussing anime, I'll leave it at this: Chiyo <3
Brian: Flonne was that type of character in the JP VA for Disgaea though, and it grated on me less than the English equivalent.
Neill: I don't really mind when they change the character. If a VA can voice it differently, but the script still sounds real, its just two versions of a good thing that are both good.
Liv: For some reason, I find that a lot of English voices just resonate with arrogance whether or not they mean to.
Cara: A change in pitch doesn't have to mean a change in character.
Theo: I think it's just over-acting.
Liv: Yeah - this is probably true.
Brian: Yeah, I agree.
Josh: I think that we get NA actors that try to emulate the JP actors, so they end up changing their voices to 'try to fit the character' so to speak.
Theo: I wouldn't be the one to choose Japanese over English.
Neill: I would really rather they didn't.
Brian: Japanese take their voice acting much more seriously than Americans do since anime is such a big deal over there. I'm pretty sure their game and anime voices pull from the same pool of actors.
Liv: That's why companies just need to choose voice actors whose NORMAL voices match the character's personality already so they sound natural.
Cara: Eh, so do ours usually. I swear Llyod from ToS is Robin from Teen Titans.
Brian: Over here, we're still learning, and I think a lot of VA subconciously equate 'games' with 'kids', and kids NEED over-acting sometimes to get the points.
Neill: Things are definitely improving in that department though. Take Oblivion for example.
David: It does feel like I have heard the same group of VA over and over.
Liv: I would agree - maybe that's why the dialogue is so weird sometimes as well.
Liv: It's been kiddied down a bit.
Neill: Yeah I have that problem too.
Neill: When something is VA by someone I've heard before I spend less time listening and more time trying to figure out where I know 'that voice' from.
Brian: Heh.
Liv: Ahaha, I do the same thing.
Theo: I think that will change with time - as the industry grows up, so will the actors.
Cara: I think that'll peter out eventually.
Theo: And the actor pool.
David: DQ was a nice change of talent as far as I could tell.
David: Though I wish the hero HAD a voice.
Theo: Indeed.
Brian: Yeah, I was about to say: eventually we'll have the same kind of experienced actors to pull from as they do in Japan, and things will even out a bit as we get more well known VA names and less random people off the street.
Josh: Yeah, I appreciated the British VA - it was just a nice change.
Brian: Yeah, DQ WAS really good. Yangus especially.
Neill: ...Blimey?
Liv: I enjoy accents - they just sound more authentic (to me).
Brian: COR blimey.
David: And don't forget the pose.
Neill: I enjoy accents too, but I still found Yangus annoying. Although I think this was due to the childishness more than the VA.
Josh: Alright guys, final comments!
David: I welcome more VA in games.
Brian: Quality voice acting is good, and there needs to be more of it. :D
Liv: There needs to be a Japanese and an English option.
Liv: And more voices already suited to the characters so that you don't have unnatural voices.
David: Let me control how often they talk in battle and as long as I can skip ahead I'm happy.
Theo: I say: voice acting will soon become a benchmark for games (especially RPGs) to aspire to. All good RPGs will have VAs. If used well, they can double your pleasure. If used improperly, they can cause rash and discomfort.
Cara: David: That's what I was trying to say.
Josh: Hehe.
Liv: Ahaha, double your pleasure.
Josh: Well, thank you all for participating!
Liv: Yes, thanks~! =)
Josh: You've made our first RT a pleasure.
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