I tend to like both the Japanese and English voice acting. I personally can't stand Gackt (both acting and singing), so I was glad to have some guy called Oliver voice Genesis for CC's English voiceover. Both Japanese and English voices have redeeming and poor qualities in some ways.
Advantages of having voiceover is quite clear- I need not repeat what is already said many times, but at the same time, having Japanese voices only can be an advantage in that the lip synching situation for English versions won't be needed. The one game I've seen with AWFUL lip synching was Infinite Undiscovery because Tri-Ace didn't bother with it. There was basically no editing. They just stuck the (awful, melodramatic- have you heard Capell in one particular scene??!) English voices over it. Thank goodness that FF isn't like this.
No voices will mean a game will come out faster with less production time. That is good, but personally I like voice acting. It's true that XII and XIII right now have/had long production times, but without the VA, characters like Balthier and Gabranth (you must love that sinister muffled-like voice) would be lifeless. As for X's generally poor VA? FFX was the first game to have it, and Squaresoft weren't as experienced at this sort of thing or that multi-conglomerate then that I suppose it wasn't all their fault.
Advantages of having voiceover is quite clear- I need not repeat what is already said many times, but at the same time, having Japanese voices only can be an advantage in that the lip synching situation for English versions won't be needed. The one game I've seen with AWFUL lip synching was Infinite Undiscovery because Tri-Ace didn't bother with it. There was basically no editing. They just stuck the (awful, melodramatic- have you heard Capell in one particular scene??!) English voices over it. Thank goodness that FF isn't like this.
No voices will mean a game will come out faster with less production time. That is good, but personally I like voice acting. It's true that XII and XIII right now have/had long production times, but without the VA, characters like Balthier and Gabranth (you must love that sinister muffled-like voice) would be lifeless. As for X's generally poor VA? FFX was the first game to have it, and Squaresoft weren't as experienced at this sort of thing or that multi-conglomerate then that I suppose it wasn't all their fault.