Official Lack-of-Japanese-Voices Complaint Thread

[Suikoden2]

[Let]

[rothcol_shepard]

[Dice]

[Let]

[ChibiGoku]

Wow, there... is so much to read here, I really don't even know what has been covered, what has been said, or really, if it's been pointed out.

Anyways, I suppose I will put this as my 2 cents, despite this being one of my very first posts here. I do have a lot to say, so bear with me, alright?

Regarding the lack of Japanese audio in the Tales series, I'm in the middle ground here.

First off, I am in absolute support of providing the original audio for a video game, as I would be for any foreign programming or film work, not just restricted to Japanese productions. Personally I believe in a product in which the audio had been recorded in another language, it should have the original audio track associated with be allowed to be included on the Video or Game release.

I understand, however, that is not always possible due to rights issues, but I do find it particularly bizarre how many Anime localization companies have been able to secure the rights to use the Japanese audio with minimal problems compared to video games. However, going by that logic, I would imagine the contracts may also be set up differently in the sense compared to how voice actors are signed on board a project for Video Games. There have been a few cases this happens with Anime as well, where rights issues surrounding voice or music rights become a problem.

Other issues that do occur is a combination of technical and space concerns. Technical in the sense by including the Japanese audio along side English (and whatever possible other languages), it increases the amount of time needed to check the localization, to make sure nothing broke or cause problems down the road in the video game. This is especially true if the game itself was not designed to allow for multiple audio tracks or text.

I should also address this, that I am in absolute support of dubs being produced for anything. I always encourage it, as it does also give a different take on how characters are portrayed in another language, and it gives me something new to look at. It also helps the casual market get into the game, since there is definitely a preference towards their own language (and that makes sense), as well helping people follow along who have trouble reading quick for cutscenes, as I see this commonly sited as a problem with subtitled anime.

Now, having said that, I should also address my thoughts on the Tales series' localizations. In regards to the dubs that have been produced for the franchise, it varies from "Decent" to "Mediocre", which can be in the same game. Each game, in terms of their dubs, have their strengths and weaknesses. Tales of the Abyss, which I recently played through in English, it was odd getting used to the English voices, due to having only seen the anime before hand, which was in Japanese. Most every voice in the game grew on me, though the ones that was mostly problematic was Tear's and Ion's to me. Tear's I can tell she really tried, but couldn't quite do it, while Ion's was a bit more consistent, just the delivery on some of the scenes failed to work for me.

The only time have I absolutely been horrified by one of the games dubs was Tales of Eternia. However, fairly a good amount of early game dubs had this problem, so it was not restricted to just Eternia. The other problem, which seems to have been fixed as of recent, was that the Tales games were only a partial dub, to keep down costs. This is the one that particularly bothered me, even though I understand it would've been the only way to keep localization costs down. I think the worst example of this was from what I heard, was Tales of Legendia. Hopefully someone can address me, but I heard quite a chunk of the game was not dubbed (I believe the "Second Part" of the game, as it's referred to).

Now, to be fair, there is something else I want to address. Something many people who do not understand the language, but wish to have it. One common issue I see thrown around is that people want the Japanese voices, because they are "better". I'm going to flat out say this, and this may cause some controversy here, but this is not always the case. In fact, I did have some issues going through Tales of Eternia in Japanese, due to Farah's voice actor in Japanese, despite it being Yuko Minaguchi. The best way I can put it, at least early on in the game, felt like she was just reading a script at times, or that she was forcing her voice too much. It just felt inconsistent at times. Some of the voice actors had a couple of problems here or there, but I was overall alright with their performances.

Another game I like to site in this whole situation, is actually not a Tales game, but the first Sonic game that had full voice acting: Sonic Adventure. You guys may know that game for it's... wonderful dub, but did you know that the Japanese audio is just as equally bad and even more inconsistent than the English dub? All the characters performances change from scene to scene. Sonic's, for example, Junichi Kanemaru was changed his voice at least a couple times for Sonic in the game and barely put any proper emotion into the character. Tails, who was voiced by a 8 year old boy at the time, also had problems with poor direction, similar to Sonic. I dare also sight the scene where the Tornado is falling at the beginning of his story... About the only one who seemed to even know how to really deliver his lines was Dr. Eggman, who was voiced by Veteran Voice Actor, Chikao Ohtsuka. Even then, it's not without faults.

Oddly enough, when the characters voice themselves in the commercials leading up to the Japanese release, they sounded fine. So, one has to wonder what happened on the direction the voice actors were given in the game.

Regardless of the issue, it can also come down to personal preference and taste, as well as no matter what language something is recorded in, there is almost always faults with it. However, for people who clearly site the Japanese audio is "better", and not even have a grasp of the language (though there are performances that can transcend language, just how bad they are), you really need to understand Japanese, as an acting language, is not perfect. Even in video games. They can have similar problems thus found in English dubs of various things, as well as other languages.

Anyways, I think that covers everything I wish to say. That definitely took longer than I had intended.

[ImperialX5]

If you don't buy the games, no more games will come out even if they can afford the dual audio. Which they can't if you don't pay them... Yeah, dual audio would be nice (mostly for this one,) but there's that whole thing about only knowing one language. If you know Japanese, awesome, you get the games a year or twelve in advance. If you don't know Japanese... well, support the ones translating it and bringing it over to you.
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The Graces Gods
Xillia Stuff

[Nae]

Low sales are not based on whether or not a game has dual audio. If it games isn't popular, is isn't going to sell well.
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天の力. 僕わ要る与える私力! 神の力! 天翔破!
Ten no chikara. Boku wa iru atae ru watashi chikara! Kami no chikara! Tenshouha!

[FireG]

And yet people decide to boycott because of a stupid reason like dual audio by not buying the game new.

[Crystal Power]

What!? People will actually not buy the game because it's not dual-audio... -_-
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~Aerith Gainsborough~

[Radge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJN6x62Q5Ds

At least our dubs now don't have these kind of quality...

(Skip to the number 1 or 2 game in that list)

Imagine ToX dub like THOSE
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My Backloggery - BLESS XSEED!

[Arrei]

Augh, Animal Soccer World broke my brain.

[Dice]

[rothcol_shepard]

[BlueFuji]

You should be grateful in general they still bring the games over despite their less than stellar sales.
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