Is the FF series better without voice-acting?

Demon

Demon

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A praised feature of X was that the characters finally had voice-acting. However most of the well-praised Final Fantasy games didn't have voice-acting.

I like some of the voice-acting performances, but generally I'd say they could have been better.
 
doesnt really matter to me, I'd prefer without though.

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I don't mind voice acting but my fav FF games have been the ones without it.
Either way I don't really mind too much.

Although since 10 the voice acting in FF games has gotten a little better. Hopefully by the time FFVsXIII comes out they'd have mastered the voice acting
 
Well, to me, some voice actor's suited that character but, some don't. The way technology is, i'm sure it would have happened either way. I always had a fun to giving my FF characters (before there was ever voice acting in FF) different voices and what have you simply because it entertained me to try and act out how i'd picture the character. It always kept me from getting out of the game because I had all kinds of characters to voice out XD /loser


I mean, voice acting does take a load from reading all the dialogue but, sometimes its just awful :ffs:


I guess, it doesn't really matter all that much to me. I'm kinda leaning toward its better without though.
 
It kind of depends. There are several characters from the voiced games so far where I've been really impressed with the voice-acting and it does do a lot to make the important cutscenes seem particularly cinematic and significant. If however, we get atrocities such as FFX's infamous laughing scene, then it really does make you want to stop and mute the volume. xD

As Kaylee said, with the unvoiced FF games, you have fun in giving the characters your own imagined little voices in your head, allowing you to have a bit of fantastical form of input in what is an otherwise very highly scripted overarching narrative. Of course, that was mainly lost from FFX onwards, although as I said before, it's really lent itself to the cinematic nature of the FF games now. It is a shame though when sometimes you experience some poor voice acting in some scenes and you just cannot simply re-imagine that character with an alternative voice that would suit you. :lew:

To actually answer the topic, it doesn't really matter to me much. An FF game good enough in other departments would outweigh any poor voice-acting. I personally love the pre-FFX games more, but it's not down to the voices or lack of them.
 
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I liked when it didn't have voice acting so you could imagine what your character would sound like and it gave more of a feeling that you were interacting with the game better and getting involved with the characters. Some of the dialog from the earlier games was great and people took what a character said differently like they could have saw a sentence they thought it funny and someone else might have thought the character is just a prick for what they said

I do like the voice acting and some of the characters sound great as the voice suits them perfectly but some of the voices are really bad and can put you off wanting to play the game cause they sound terrible or make stupid noises

Anyway with no voice acting you could just read the dialog and listen to music because with voice acting if you don't listen to what the character says you haven't got a clue what going on unless you played the game before.
 
I would be fine if they dropped it.

If it meant that there is more game, more side quests, more backstory- than drop the voice acting.

I prefer to read the dialogue myself, the reason being is my character would not sound like that i.e. my tidus would never scream like a little girl. I would rather be able to supply my own voices to the characters enabling me to have even more influence on the game.
 
Well I generally like them if they have voice acting. Reading text does get tedious sometimes. Overal it is not a big deal but I like anything better with voices. Some FF characters have amazing voices while some just fail really badly. Yeaj I used to imagine what the characters would sound like when they werent voiced. Dissidia had some really atrocious voices. I didnt imagine some sounded like that but meh whatever. Voices are just there so you can be interested and they do make a game fail or make it better. Not too bothered. For instanc eI thought Terra's voice was well done and I like it. Exdeath made me go what the hell and so did some others in Dissidia.
 
I prefer the voice acting mainly because all of the reading can get a little tiring. Plus, I just generally like the actors they pick for each game. There have been a few exceptions of course, but the majority of the actors have been good.
 
If it's good, have it. If it's terrible, ditch it. :mokken:

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Even though I must say I loved the voice acting for Balthier and Auron :jess:, and I love it in other series (Xenosaga, Star Ocean etc.), I'm not really a fan of voice acting in FFs. It feels like a more personal experience when you can read the dialogue at your own pace, and make up your own voices for characters in your head.

I've always felt like the music in FF holds a big part of the storytelling, and there have been many times (particularly in IV and VI) where I would be watching an intense emotional scene, and just go through the dialogue really, really slowly because it made more of an emotional impact, and over a bit of time the music really sinks into you and sets the mood. However with voice acting, it just happens without much control on your part, and so it's the same experience each time you play. Whereas if you have no voice acting, you could take different scenes at different speeds depending on your mood, and have a completely different experience each time you play.
 
I think having voice acting is great. Especially in the modern games. I didn't mind the absence of voice acting in Final Fantasy IX and under, but now that the games are becoming advanced, it's good to have them. The cutscenes wouldn't be as cinematic without them and it would just be strange having PS3 graphics - voice acting. They wouldn't be able to pull off such explosive and entertaining cinematics. But if the voice acting is bad, ditch it and find new ones. I actually seemed to have became so picky, that I find it unacceptable for modern games to have text dialogue >.<
 
I believe the voice acting fits better with X and the FF's after that. Back in the day before they had voice acting it seems like they had cutscenes and mini scenes that weren't so heavily dependent on voice acting. Right now I couldn't personally see the need for it during VII which I'm playing through. The little screen texts seemed to work just fine...and during the cutscenes there was more focus on what was going on rather than what was being said.

With the games being more advanced nowadays and with game companies going for the more "cinematic" effect with all of the cutscenes and the focus on character relationships, I couldn't imagine a FF without it...no matter how ill fit the voice may seem or how irritating the voice actor is (Vanille :jtc:). Nowadays instead of voice texts like "I'm sad about this" or etc...In Versus I'd rather hear the tone in the character's voice when they talk to someone else to really get the feeling of them being sad ...instead of a text where I don't really need to "think" about what is being said as its a no-brainer...which leaves out a more real sense of emotion.
 
Gamingway said:
Even though I must say I loved the voice acting for Balthier and Auron :jess:, and I love it in other series (Xenosaga, Star Ocean etc.), I'm not really a fan of voice acting in FFs. It feels like a more personal experience when you can read the dialogue at your own pace, and make up your own voices for characters in your head.

I've always felt like the music in FF holds a big part of the storytelling, and there have been many times (particularly in IV and VI) where I would be watching an intense emotional scene, and just go through the dialogue really, really slowly because it made more of an emotional impact, and over a bit of time the music really sinks into you and sets the mood. However with voice acting, it just happens without much control on your part, and so it's the same experience each time you play. Whereas if you have no voice acting, you could take different scenes at different speeds depending on your mood, and have a completely different experience each time you play.
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This does a pretty solid justice to how I feel about this. The voices I imagine for the characters go a long way to shaping how I think about them (food for thought, how many people on these boards do you know what they actually sound like? do you hear different posts in different voices?), and too often voice actors are chosen that ruin it for me. Taking the time to absorb the scene fully, hearing the voice I choose for the characters, and rereading a particularly meaningful/important line before I move on is invaluable to me.

Then again, I read a lot of books, and the atrocious voice acting in X/X-2 was my first exposure to voice overs in a FF game, so my opinion is pretty tainted by that. I've just started playing 12, and while I enjoy the voice acting in that (I'm not having to buy the soundtrack and play it while muting the TV), it doesn't really impress me or make me need voice acting. Even in 7 the body language did an okay job of conveying feelings and by 9 it was more than enough.

I would have really liked if the write-ups in the bestiary in 12 could have been played while running around like tapes in Bioshock. Just a thought.

Personally, I think the ultimate solution would be to have the option to turn on/off voice acting and subtitles. That way you could read, listen, or both. Not like it would take much effort to tell the game to not load audio files for dialogue. I have my doubts that'll happen. Oh well, as long as they keep subtitles around so I can turn the sound off in worst case scenarios, I'll be happy.
 
I've never really had an issue with the VO in Final Fantasy, I wouldn't class it anywhere near amazing but at the same time I wouldn't class it as dreadful either, though I do think it adds a different dimension to the game having voice acting. Personally, I don't think FF VO is anywhere near as good as voice acting in western titles, but between voice FF titles and non-voiced FF titles I couldn't really care less.
 
First off, I'm one of those people who when playing a game with text dialogue, I make up my own voice for the character. Like Rydrum, I probably wouldn't imagine an annoying laugh for Tidus.

Jquestionmark said:
for thought, how many people on these boards do you know what they actually sound like? do you hear different posts in different voices?
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I don't know what anyone sounds like but for maybe a couple of people or more, I kind of have. However I don't do it as much as with game characters.
 
No, I love the voice acting.. I'm terrible at pronouncing names and places with voice acting they do it for me... I still have a hard time pronouncing Tifa and Tidus right lol..
 
WITH Voice acting is way better, only if the VA's are ace and well picked..otherwise it will backfire..

Reading constant of text without voice is old..its BS imo..yeah it used be awesome as you could imagine the voices yourself and fantasizing along..but no more..

Reading walls of texts is BS..IMO...

I liked FFX because even in real time they gave NPC's also voices,.. EPIC ! :griin:
 
I love when a game has voice acting but I don't need it by all means. I mean I won't feel that a game is empty/not completed if there isn't voice acting in it. I just simply enjoy when there is!:D It gives a kind of... "new age" feeling to a game, but the "mute" ones are cool, too! I also love the feeling they have and when I have the chance to create the character's voices in my head. ^^

So I don't think the voice acting changes anything when it comes to FF games. They're cool with and without it, too.
 
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