One thing that’s always put this author off JRPGs and anime in general is the diabolical dubbing, which is part of the reason why your humble host prefers the cheap skate approach employed by recent Yakuza titles and Freedom Wars. There are probably exceptions, but by and large, this scribe just doesn’t feel like English voice overs work in predominantly Japanese media – maybe it's a personal thing.
Either way, this Final Fantasy XV trailer sounds like nails on a chalkboard from where we’re sitting. Not only is the dialogue cringe-inducingly bad – “Rise and shine, your highness” – but the actors themselves sound infuriatingly detached from what’s actually occurring onscreen. Fortunately, we live in an age of Blu-ray discs, so we just hope that Square Enix will find the space to include the original Japanese voices, too.
[source joystiq.com]
Comments 42
"That thing is an Astro Shard."
@get2sammyb pretty sure his says Astral Shard. Sounds fine to me! Better than most jrpg's to be honest. Not top notch voice work, but it wont distract me!
Would rather have Japanese with subs tho. Always so much better than dubs!
"I could do with a barrrrth."
I like it. It definitely gives me a FF vibe.
@SuperSilverback Haha, fair enough. If this is like any other recent Final Fantasy, it'll all be a meaningless MacGuffin anyway.
For the record: I do think the game seems neat.
@get2sammyb yeah his is the worst of all. Maybe it was Astro, but the way he says it makes it hard to confirm :/
Dat music doh. Mmmmmmmmhmmmmmmmm
Eh, I didn't mind it. Either way, the game looks absolutely stunning. Can't wait to play it!
Haha why am I not surprised I always pick Japanese anyway...it somehow always sounds better, English dubs are most of the time cringeworthy.
It has its charms though, like its part of the FF experience.
@AyeHaley the day Final Fantasy has a great English dub is the day i stop playing
It's awful. The big dude sounds like Donkey Kong and the why in the heck would you give the others normal western dialect and then give the guy with the glasses an (terribad) English accent.
Just...Please. No. The issue is, no past FF game has had dual audio so I don't have high hopes that we'll get it. Even though, of course, there's no excuse to leave it out.
While I haven't watched it yet, I have to wonder why they can't just get people from anime dubbing companies. Easy way to find quality.
I present to you the most ridiculous English dubbing in a Final Fantasy game:
I didn't think it was that bad, sounded like FFX to me, just lacking the greatness that is Wakka. You want bad dubbing try Arc Rise Fantasia on Wii. I've played JRGs for 15 years - and watched a lot of dubbed anime - but that is far and away the worst.
@ShogunRok - Is that the British dub? I don't remember Tidus sounding like that.
@rjejr As far as I'm aware it is the dub. It's absolutely hilarious and to this day I have no idea why he does it.
Yikes...
Jeez, within the first three lines I thought it was a gag dub. Definitely not the best first impression.
As awkward as it sounds, I'll probably stick with it. Why? At least it's in a language I understand clear as day. Try as I might, whenever I've seen subbed anime in the past or swapped voice tracks, I just can't stand listening to the Japanese track because it gets rather grating listening to a language you can't understand at all (I know there's subtitles, but you'll still hear the voices while you read it), and just feels odd to me, like it's something I'm not supposed to see or whatever. I really hate it though when it's a young kid talking and their voice is so squealy. So I usually just grin and bear the English track, or switch to a German track if available when English is really bad (I'm German, and I understand most German, somewhat).
I'm sorry if the way I worded my comment makes it look offensive and rude, as I do not mean to come across as such.
I was expecting worse actually. My favorite dub of all time has to shenmue. So bad it's good.
Oddly though, English dubs tend to have more variety than the original voice work. There only seem to be around 10 or so varieties of voice acting in Japan regardless of genre and they're very fixed and predictable. At least that's how it seems after living here a long time.
@rjejr Dude, that game is legend for bad voice work. My brother was telling me stories of this so called game he played on Wii that had literally THE worst voice acting of any JRPG he had ever played (and he's been playing these kinds of games for 20 something years). That game was Arc Rise Fantasia lol.
And all hail the Wakka, ya?
I thought there were a few characters more decent than others. Certainly not the worst I've ever heard, though I would appreciate a quality voice cast in a Final Fantasy game for once, or any JRPG for that matter.
Yeah, that's just atrocious.
But the music. Oh my.
He said I can sit it out, so I will.
@get2sammyb
"Sit this one out champ."
Just listen to that music, tho.
I've been playing through FFX HD again, and anything is an improvement over Tidus.
To us foreigners, it seems most Brits speak an atricious form of English too. So I am quite happy with most campy dubs of Japanese games. Still better than a Warrior game in Japanese only, where you miss half of what they are saying because there is no time to properly read the subtitles.
@Vorlon But the English, er, invented English? Haha, s'all good. I was being flippant in the article on purpose.
I never realised quite how bad some of the FFX dub was until I played through it again in the recent HD collection. Oh well, it won't bother me too much either way, and for all the purists there is still hope for a dual audio subbed version, as Lightning Returns I believe provided this as optional free dlc?
As long as this game doesn't turn out anywhere near as bad as that looked, I'll be relatively happy. Would be nice to see a true return to form for the series, but I am now starting to genuinely believe those days might have passed for good. Oh well, time will tell, fingers crossed I'll be proven wrong!
Game looks great but the more I see of the characters, especially with those voices, the more I think of this as One Direction in Final Fantasy.
Do you think...um...Troy Baker is going to be in it? Haha.
Until 1:42 I thought women did not exist in this world.
I will wait for Xenoblade X instead, I think it could even release before this too!
@JaxonH - And all hail the Wakka, ya?
Ya! I know he got a lot of crud for being the Jar Jar of video games, and there may have been some backlash for his supposedly Jamaican accent, but seriously I always liked the dude. His fun attitude and Auron's gruff helped elevate the other weaker characters.
@sinalefa - XCX will release before this. I have no idea when either 1 will release, but if only 1 releases in 2015 if will be XCX. Wild guesses XCX Nov 2015, FFXV Feb 2016 (after at least 1 officially dated delay for Oct.)
@get2sammyb LOL the Jurassic park pic
@get2sammyb kind of. english is a mix of celtic,german,all sorts. lol.
@get2sammyb @SuperSilverback @AyeHaley @NintendoNaut I enjoyed the english voices in the trailer, but that's probably because I always prefer english dubs when it comes to both anime and video games.
I can watch some anime subbed if there's no dub, but for video games they must have english voices, or else I refuse to play them.
That's why I plan on skipping both Tales of Hearts R and Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, whenever I own a PSVita.
The english voice actors will have another 6 years to do a better job anyway, so s'all good.
:/
Feels like anime dubbing, I don't mind it. But man those graphics and gameplay for a rpg look frikkin amazing! !
@ToddlerNaruto I personally don't understand that decision because 99% of English dubs are absolutely atrocious. If you want to miss out on great games because you can't read subs that's your loss.
@NintendoNaut I don't mind watching anime subbed, but with video games I just dislike having to listen to the Japanese voices or read English subtitles.
(no offense to Japan, it's just I don't know their language)
I'm still really unsure about this game. It looks "off", like it doesn't what it's actually doing. However, I have pre-ordered it, as GAME have messed the price up and currently have this, Kingdom Hearts 3 and The Division listed at £2.00 each. If they honour those prices, sweet!
I really like dubbs, but these voices are terrible. Prompto is the only one whos voice fit the character and thats not saying much. Ignis is the worst!
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