I told you so back here. I also understand that what I am about to say may be like saying, "getting kicked in the nuts is a real bummer." FFT again. The JP version doesn't have any voice overs. The NA version does and it actually does take away from the art. They are cool but not in a way that makes the game better. Anyway, check it out and make the call for yourself. If you so desire.
Still on pre-order. Still going to actually take a day off work for this one.
Source Dorks is a pop culture blog written by a circle of friends who frequently meet to play games and geek out at Source Comics and Games in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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9 comments:
"The NA version does and it actually does take away from the art"
How so?
I was reading our blog while surfing and doing some other stuff. I checked out your may post and watched the video, with no dialog context some of the scenes were a bit long. I then checked out a recut shorter version placed on a Carmina Barana (sp?) style soundtrack, that added a lot.
I then was opening up a couple windows including the square-enix site you linked and the playstation trailer site. The square-enix was loading a tad slow, so I went in and hit stop on the trailer site, it must have just loaded the soundfile, as a totally black screen played the dialog.
So now I encountered both parts seperately. The video which I found a tad hard to follow not knowning the background story, and then the 'voiceover' except it wasn't 'over' anything, simply filling in the blanks I had from seeing the silent japanese text only version 10 minutes earlier.
I then reloaded the trailer site to get the final product as intended.
I think just the medium of voice can be a powerful one. In fact, if you look back at a lot of dramas from history, the stage was very sparse and it is just a guy or a few guys talking, yet this can be done very powerfully. I think if anything we lack the ability to close our eyes and listen, if we aren't getting eyecandy were are bored.
True, the voice actors are not the best. I am sure that they went budget on that aspect, but still, it was pretty good, and very enjoyable to just listen, not to see.
And yet the final product bringing both halves together, the voiceover somehow ruins the art? changes the artistic bent and merit?
I don't understand. How do you see the art ruined?
I mean, I can open up a page of shakespeare and read the words. Then I can watch the same dialog performed, close my eyes so I don't have facial expression nor gestures, and find the timing, the spaces left between words can be such a powerful tool for coloring the meaning, for conveying so much more with nothing.
Opening my eyes, adding facial expressions and gestures further colors the meaning, but not as much as the timing of the words (again this may be throwback to the days when most audience members are watching too far away to see a face, not slapping in a DVD/tape of the production)
I just don't understand how a voiceover can lessen the art. True bad anyhing can detract from good parts, be it bad background music, bad voicetalent, bad translation/akward wording. Is that your accuzation? That the voicetalent is lacking to an extent it distracts you from the underlying merit of the images?
Please explain more how the art is diminished by this/any voiceover
Adding voice does not automatically make something better. Bad voice acting sucks and can make the experience worse than simply reading the dialogue.
no, adding voice does not automatically make something better. Does it automatically make it worse? That is what Tim's comment made it sound like, and that is what I disagree with.
However, if the comment was 'This specific example is Bad Voiceover, it makes it worse than no voiceover' then I misinterpreted his statement.
I fully agree that one bad element can pollute the whole.
Starwars the Phantom Menace would have been better if we would have heard no talking and instead were reading subtitles.
Adding voice in video games nine out of ten times makes them worse, because game makers just aren't competent at writing or directing the spoken word.
VO budgets account for an embarrassingly small fraction of most game budgets and most rely on the only barely talented anime dubbing community.
There are great examples of dubbing and voice in games, but you could probably fit all those games in a backpack.
Hey Andy, nice post and good and pertinent questions. Although you came across watching or listening to the parts seperately as an accident what it brought about was pretty cool. Maybe if I listened wihtout watching my opinion would be different. Then again we are talking about me and my opinion here so probably not. But it is a neat idea. I will answer your two specific questions in reverse order.
First, the guys have already given you the history of voice acting in video games. That history being one of 'miss or miss' more than 'hit or miss'.
Second, you asked, "How do you see the art ruined?" I never typed the word ruined. I don't see the art as ruined just lessened. So I can't defend something I didn't say. Remember, I also typed that I will be going to extreme measures to play this game (again) on release day.
Bringing us to your first question, "How so?" and my third point. The short answer is that I am being a snob. The long answer is as follows. Remember from our previous conversations that we agree that a movie can't really do a book justice compared to our own imagination? My feelings here are along those same lines. When I watched the video without voices I felt more emotions than when I watched it with voices. The simple and subtle sound effects over the very unique hand drawn graphics was new, novel and well done. See especially the scene where the camera is panning left following Delita riding the Chocobo and then stops when it gets to Ramza's back but the rider keeps going. Very well directed and set up. The sense of Ramza'a heart stopping at the same time as the camera stopping is a great layer. I will admit that I was moved. Now when I watch the video again with the great movement, art and SFX and the added voice over the voice over literally rips me out of the scene.
It takes away from the other three parts of the art because they are now not as noticed.
Especially since many video gamers are already gun shy about voice overs and flinch out of habit. Or tense up waiting for them to suck but hoping that they don't.
Overall I think the no voice version fits the style they were working with better . . . better than the bastardized version. :)
it actually does take away from the art.
well, you didn't say ruin, true. However, you didn't type the word lessened either. I think my use of the word ruined might have been a tad strong, but it was definately in tune with the general attitude you were projecting in your post.
I was thinking about it later, along the very lines you propose. That in this case it is similar to a book vs a movie, where a person's mind's eye fills in many details.
However, a book is so drastically different than a movie (length, total lack of visual clues, only descriptions, many elements of what is going on in a characters mind not properly translating on the big screen...and that is on a a very 'true to book' screenplay. Changing storyline, altering characters, etc.)
And of course, with a book vs movie you are looking at two entirely different creations. An animated sequence (or acted I suppose) with subtitles in one language vs voiceover, those are very close. I guess to me that is more similar to objecting to a bad coverart on a book, it would have to be really really really bad for it to have any impact on how I viewed the book.
So, what areas of this voiceacting is lacking? I can't say I think the voiceacting is deserving of an emmy, but I can't say it is bad either.
It is a little sad that the marketing powers that be declare that for sale in USA they HAVE to do voiceover, and I can definately imagine that it is.
I do suspect your mind was bracing for the worst, and found what it expected, but for me I didnt' find it bad at all
I think we are having two different conversations.
I have yet to make a judgement call on the merits of these specific voice overs in this specific game. My point has always been that these voice overs take away from the whole instead of making the whole better. I feel that in this situation even if the voice overs were the best voice overs in the history of the universe they would take away from or lessen the piece.
We agree that "It is a little sad that the marketing powers that be declare that for sale in USA they HAVE to do voiceover, and I can definately imagine that it is." That is what I was lamenting with the lesser american palette crack in the may post.
BTW, 'take away' and 'lessen' are synonymous with each other while 'ruin' is not.
After I buy and play the game, IN OCTOBER, I will make the call on the VO work on it's own mertis.
Fair enough, ruin was too harsh.
I am glad you defined your position of even the best voiceover would have been bad.
"My point has always been that these voice overs take away from the whole instead of making the whole better"
How specifically does the voiceover remove from the whole?
I can understand that in some specific circumstances less can be more. However, in my experience this is usually in cases where there is sensory overload, or, for example, when blackandwhite imagery allows a specific to stand for universal.
I can even understand that this specific animated sequence may be a case where less is more.
The simple and subtle sound effects over the very unique hand drawn graphics was new, novel and well done
You will need to elaborate more on this. I can definately see how a wordy dialog would conflict (although even in subtitles it would detract with it's lengthy unwieldyness) but the dialog itself, and the voiceover is also fairly sparse. I don't see how it can lessen the newness of the images, nor their novelty, nor their technical merit. Is it a timing issue? Are the voices stressing and intensifying in areas where the images are shifting focus? (And I mean contextually reaching a cresendo a second or two after the visuals are doing 'slowly fade to black' not screwed up dubbing ala old kungfu movies were the punch and the soud effect are delayed, which is the same thing only literally, not contextually)
Look, also realize I am not saying you are wrong. Obviously if we plugged a emotionmeter into your scawny melon it apparently would read 10 on the 'tug timmy's heartstrings' scale, and something less with. But why?
I have yet to make a judgement call on the merits of these specific voice overs in this specific game. My point has always been that these voice overs take away from the whole instead of making the whole better.
In the above statement, how broad do you intent 'these voiceovers' to be? Is that saying that all FFT voiceovers, either in this intro or other scenes. take away from the whole. Or is it that all japanese anime videogame cutscenes are lessened by voiceovers? (or even all movies are lessened by voiceovers, we should have never gotten away from silent film!)
Again, I can understand how BAD voiceover can damage a scene. I can understand how certain scenes using a 'less is more' concept can be damaged by adding voiceover.
What I don't understand is this universal 'rule of thumb' that voiceover is always bad in videogames, regardless of how many examples you can list of previous crap jobs.
Or maybe another way of asking it is, if the company hired you to work for them, demanded that a voiceover of some sort was present due to their conceptions of the basic american videogamer (true or not) Even realizing that for this instance a voiceover isn't going to add, only detract, what would you alter so it detracts LESS.
I mean, we can all watch a soapopera and laugh at the bad acting, but if the actor said 'okay smartguy, give me some constructive criticsm' what would you tell them?
And for Gus,
There are great examples of dubbing and voice in games, but you could probably fit all those games in a backpack.
can you name a few?
Gears of War, Half-Life 2 and Psychonauts are all well written and acted. Most "bad" voice overs use the same talent that anime uses, who are largely hacks. It's also a mistake to use huge celebrities. The smartest folks find great actors who may not have huge marquee value, but are capable of giving nuanced performances. Robert Guillaume in Half-Life 2 is a perfect example. Gears of War was wise to use respected voice acting talent John DiMaggio, best known as the voice of Bender. Pychonauts is just brilliantly written.
Part of the problem with JRPGs is they must first be translated -- which is in itself a hornets nest. Piling too-literal translation on top of second-rate talent makes the voice acting fairly turgid. FFXII had perhaps the best acting in the entire series and it still wasn't all that hot. It didn't help that the source material already questionable. I'll point to Level 5 and their current attempts at quality VO in JRPGs -- particularly Dragon Quest VIII. They hired a firm from the UK that specialized in voice acting. While some of the performances were merely okay, the end result was heads and tails better than most games imported from Japan.
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