/vr/ - Retro Games

>>8882987
videogames were never good

>>8882987
The expectation of full voice acting has done irreparable damage to open world games. Bethesda could release a game right now with more dialog than Morrowind and Oblivion combined, announce that only half of it is voiced, and people would FREAK THE FUCK OUT.

>>8883021
What about that one time? They were pretty good that one time.

>>8882987
Yes and no. In some games, voiced dialogue adds a ton to the game that straight-up text wouldn't be able to otherwise. Problem is now every game has a cast of unlikable assholes that have to be witty like it's some kind of Marvel movie. The problem predominately lay within the writing itself. Too many games are wayyyy too verbose with a lot to say about nothing in particular. Blah blah blah.

>>8883042
starfox 64 and blood omen come to mind as games enchanced by having voices, yes i agree

>>8882987
Strongly disagree, especially in the case of RPG's and adventure games. Pic related

I wish stuff like Pokemon could've had actual voice acting and anime cutscenes instead of just 8-bit text boxes

Not really, in fact FFX did it amazingly well considering it hadn't been done before.
The sense of immersion is much greater with voice acting. I can't think of many examples where that's not true.
What you're actually complaining about is the script. If the script is good, voices magnify it. If the script is annoying, voices magnify it

>>8882987
voices in cut scenes
text in-game

>>8883209
>If the script is annoying, voices magnify it
So, 99.999% of script-heavy vidya? Yes, even that one game you like.
Game writers are really terrible, even Hollywood ghost writers and script doctors consistently outclass them.

>>8883465
I didn't think FFX was annoying overall. It definitely has some poor deliveries (especially from Yuna), and if you have a problem with Tidus and his monologuing, then it's definitely not for you, but it was good voice acted game overall

As for every game being written in an annoying way, I kinda agree. But again, you can't blame the voices on that. And I think if you leave the realm of japanese games, you'll see that's not really true

>>8883762
Western games are typically more annoyingly written than Japanese game tbqh

>>8883762
I actually thought Yuna’s voice was decent. Autistic in a way, but not bad

>>8883775
Yuna's voice is cute, but the lines are typically awful because of lip synching issues
>>8883773
lol ok.

>>8883775
I think I heard that her actress was trying too hard to match the lip flaps, despite no one else really doing that particularly often, which led to her performance being rather stilted. Her performances from X-2 onwards don’t really have this problem because she learned to not do that.

>>8882987
Then you think wrong. Take some meds and get some therapy.

>>8883465
Stop being wrong. You look like a cuck and retard.

>>8882987
You're welcome to your opinion, but I'm also welcome to shove your opinion up your ass by posting 1 image

>>8882987
"Professional" voice actors? I sleep. Voice actors that are some guy the devs hired off the streets or are the devs themselves? Real shit.
>>8883030
Couldn't have said it better myself.

>>8883021
then why are you here?

>>8882987
For RPGs I agree, but for action games they were improved by VA work. Try imagining Metal Gear Solid as a text-box game. It would suck.

>>8883030
The spoiled want what they want and don't give a shit about the details, so let it take a decade and cost $100 million+ of dollars to make a game that caters to their precious feelings.

I agree. Look at the zelda games with extensive voice acting. They're fucking garbage.

>>8883209
But what exactly is the nature of the immersion?

>>8882987
Agreed. I have no problem with it in cutscenes as long as the game shuts the fuck up during gameplay. Silent Hill 2 is a great example of it done right.
Not /vr/ by the way, but I've been playing Torchlight 2 this past week and it has this horrible narration voice always notifying that "you have a new quest" or your player character says "my pack is full" when you have no inventory space left. I hate that so much, it's really the only complaint I have to give that game.

>>8883031
true

>>8883030
Whenever I used to watch a game review of a japanese game I'd always hear the same complaint: "Why are only certain lines spoken and others aren't? It ruins immersion!" I would really like to strangle these critics.
Thankfully I just stopped watching YouTube videos.

>>8883209
Bad writing will make anything worse, of course. But you wouldn't say an audiobook is better than a regular novel just because a voice magnifies it, right? Your inner voice when reading through a story is more than enough and I think that it can actually lead to be more impactful when you don't hear an actor interpret the line when reading.

My opinion on voice acting is do it well, make it funny, or don't do it at all. There's nothing worse than the kind of voice acting you get in Modern Western games, where it's just kind of mediocre sub-TV acting. I'd rather read text and envision the voices in my head at that point, because it's going to be better than that guy you hired to read the lines for "Soldier 3".

>>8886546
Woops, you're definitely trying to reach out to the wrong guy here.I LOVE audiobooks and think they're definitely superior to books

>>8886587
It's very situational. I notice some writer's work shines a lot more in spoken word format, whereas with others it doesn't work at all. I can't imagine listening to a Tolkien audiobook. It would seem wrong. You need to sit with those books, and take them in. Philip K Dick is great audiobook material.

>>8886628
>I can't imagine listening to a Tolkien audiobook
I can't imagine spending time on Tolkien period. The 9 hour film trilogy was too much time

Voice acting fucked up the scope of western RPGs as they had to be streamlined and choices became more limited. Japanese had the right idea regarding voice acting, limited is all you need.

>>8886640
You kind of have to pace yourself, and be in a specific mood.
Except for the Hobbit. You can read that in a weekend.

>>8883209
>FFX did it amazingly well considering it hadn't been done before
I feel the same way about Metal Gear Solid. It's still weird to me that the PS1 game had the most genuine human-sounding voice acting in the whole series. The other games aren't bad, but MGS1 does it really well.

>>8886747
Kojima didn't have the power to completely run the ship at that point. He insists on having absolute control in the later games, and that's what you get when a guy who only speaks English as a second language is fully in charge of an English dub. The weird stiltedness is kind of fun in it's own way, at least.

>>8885538
Just to suffer

>>CHARACTERS WITH VOICES

>>8882987
Banjo games are the gold standard for vocalizing videogame characters.

>>8884308
>n-no, my video games actually have world class writing!
Come on, man, We both know that video game writing is the bottom of the barrel. No writer with even the slightest shred of ambition or talent would resign themselves to writing for games.

>>8882987
Correct. That's the moment when soul was lost.