Do you enjoy voice acting in rpgs?

[KawaiiKid]

I'm wondering what your opinions are on voice acting, and if you like it or not.

I personally think it adds a lot to the game, and gives the characters more of a personality. My favorite way to implement it is similar to how Lunar does, where the main characters and a few important characters have voice lines, but not EVERYTING is voice acted. All battles are voice acted though.

Imo it adds a ton of depth to the game. Unfortunately it seems like it would cost a fortune to hire any voice actors, not to mention I have no idea how to do a pipeline of adding all the files to the text in such a massive scope of that of an rpg.

 

[Pots Talos]

I tend to read faster than any voice acting so full voice is wasted on me.
I do like "barks" or one liners or whatever people call them and battle voices.

 

[cotodigital]

Not at all. I like the idea that less realistic games (no need for voices, lack of music in favor of just sound effects) work better, because the interaction implies heavy imagination instead of just having everything in front of you at all times. This also applies to photorealism. I don't really see the point or merit of it.

There's a nice quote from Jean Renoir, it's about cinema but at the end of the day, cinema isn't that different from videogames:
"I wonder if our technical advances don’t simply herald complete decadence. Technical perfection can only create boredom, because it only reproduces nature. Imagine we are able to perfectly recreate a forest with cinema. We can recreate the thickness of the bark on the trees. The screen is even larger. It surrounds the audience. We are really in the middle of the forest. We can touch the trees and smell the scent of the forest. There will be machines to emit the subtle odor of moss. What will happen? People will ride a scooter to a real forest and not to the movies. Why the hell would anyone go to a movie when they could have the real thing? So imitating nature can only lead to the death of an art form."

You don't often listen to audiobooks with different actors for each dialogue. To me it totally ruins the mood.

Other reasons:

• Remember those classic catchy tunes from videogames? Check them nowadays, do you find memorable music in any RPG released in the past 20 years? I don't think so, and that's because you can't have full loops of music playing endlessly as voices are everywhere, NPCs saying "hey man you back from killing goblins! must be amazing haha", cutscenes, even battles are filled with "hyaaa, haaaaaa, ryaaaaaaaaaghhhh, take that, america number #1, take the vaccine!". I liked music back in the day, now it's just not there
• Terrible voice acting quality, JRPGs don't have the budget for good actors. There are too many accents and in some games, having some guy with a cowboy accent saying HOWDY PARNER in perfectly american english breaks everything, same as if they force ye old english but it sounds like they're just British.
• JRPGs have tons of dialogue, which makes it more expensive.
• I'm anxious as hell and having to wait for dialogues to end annoys me (even though in most cases you can just skip it)

So yeah, to me there are more negatives than positives. Often I try to lower voice sound volume to 0, but even if I do, there's no cool music to listen to and you realize how braindead the dialogue is.

 

[gstv87]

People will ride a scooter to a real forest and not to the movies

if people think that going to the forest is going to provide them with the same emotion as being in the movies watching a story that just happens to take place in a forest, rightfully removed from the movies they are, because evidently they fail to realize the point of the movie as an art form.

a breathtaking forest scene in a movie is there to provide the story with an environment in which to develop.
you take the story out, and the movie becomes a very expensive motion picture of a forest.
you take the forest out, and the movie becomes the narration of a story, which you might as well be listening to as an audio book.
you can't split the movie into it's component parts and expect the sum of the parts to be the same as the whole thing.

Check them nowadays, do you find memorable music in any RPG released in the past 20 years?

I tend to prefer voice acting (when it's good!) even with written dialogue.
especially if it's a 3D rpg with cutscenes.... the animation helps build the characters and the whole scene.
I want to add voice acting to my game (it has been a pivotal point of the development since the beginning), but I realize it's an aspect that requires A LOT of fine tuning, and I have a lot on my plate to deal with, so if it can't be done, I might just cut it from the project and call it done.
the thing with voice acting is that it relies heavily on the word *acting*, and acting goes both ways: it's the interpretation by the actor, of the written lines by the director.
if the director can't correctly convey what they want, it doesn't matter if the actor is good, it will still sound sub-par.

 

[arsMori]

As someone already said above, I read faster than the voice actor, the dialogue tends to get cut off. Also, bad voice acting could totally ruin the energy of your game, so it would be best to not include voice acting at all than to throw in half-baked voices. I mean, look at this video, the scene was supposed to be tense but the voice actor's casual tone ruins the atmosphere.

I feel like it depends on the game. Voice acting helps add immersion to the game as well as make the player empathize more with the characters. It also adds more flavor to the game, since the tone, speed, intonation, etc. of someone's voice adds an extra layer of personality of the characters.

For the typical RPG, I'd prefer that normal dialogue would be ok with grunts, hums, whatever tics, and then the more fully voiced scenes would be battle scenes and/or serious cutscenes. If it were something like a visual novel, then I'd definitely say yes.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

I voted for "It depends."
I don't mind voice acting, as long as it's good.
That said even with okay voice acting, it can feel weird. For instance, two years ago I was playing through The Strange Men series; the first and second game did not have any voice acting, but the third and fourth did. This sudden shift really annoyed me, because the characters sounded very different than what I had imagined. There was unfortunately no option to turn off Voice Acting, unless I wanted to turn off all sounds. Going on the Steam forums afterwards, I wasn't the only one annoyed at these changes.
If you do add full voice acting, please have an option to turn it off. That way it is up to the player if you want to listen or not

 

[Ami]

sometime i enjoy without the voice,so i can feel the dialogue with myself
sometime i enjoy with the voice (as long it needed & be good at voice acting)

 

[Gallas]

Streamers love voice acting since they don't have to read the text. Since streaming is so important to marketing today, it is an important point to be considered.

I think every game developer should use their strengths. If voice acting is something you are good at doing (or getting others to do), then you should do it. Use every strength you have.

I'm an old fogey who played most RPGs without voice acting. I can read faster too than the voice acting. I prefer text.

I won't deny that voice acting conveys more personality. But I HATE when only part of the game is voice acted. Do all or none. (Unless it is like battle shouts or a Kefka laugh or something.)

Voice acting will not fix bad writing! If your game isn't written well, the greatest voice actor in the world will not save you. If your characters just stand there with dialogue spewing forth without any movement or animations, voice acting also will not save you.

Once you have the lines voice acted, it is difficult to change them.

Voice acting really has nothing to do with the *game* anyway as it is a production value. I've never refused a game because it didn't have voice acting.

 

[ElCheffe]

I chose "depends" for very simple reasons:

- Depending on the amount of text, voice acting can slow down the overall game pace
- Bad voice acting can ruin a game, no matter how good. Even AAA games sometimes fail when it comes to voice acting
- For key scenes it can add a lot of dramatic effect and underline the importance of a certain event

So, in some cases a good voice acting can improve a games atmosphere, but too much or bad quality can absolutely ruin gameplay.

 

[ATT_Turan]

not to mention I have no idea how to do a pipeline of adding all the files to the text in such a massive scope of that of an rpg.

Trigger sound effects within a text window

Hi all, I'm looking for a very specific piece of functionality that I haven't been able to find a plugin for, or figure out a workaround on my own. I'm using Yanfly's message core, which I know many of us find indispensable for so many reasons. One thing it doesn't allow us to do within...

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[Sharm]

I only enjoy it when it's good and it perfectly fits the characters. The second one is something that can be too easily overlooked, just because someone is good doesn't make them right for the part, and if they're wrong, not even the best talent won't make it less jarring. Even then it can still get annoying, because like a lot of other people here, I read a lot faster than characters speak. Having the option of increasing the speed of the voices could help that, but outside of audiobooks I've never heard of anyone having an option like that. So, yeah, I'm in the "It depends" group, but I lean a little more to the side of no voice.

However, something to consider is that having voiced characters can open your game up to a wider audience. There are lots of cases where reading text could be harder for a user than not, like if they're young, are visually impaired, have ADHD and/or Dyslexia, if they're a non-native speaker, and so on. Voice options could make your game more accessible to them. It's also becoming more common for people to feel daunted by the idea of reading a lot of text. This isn't the case for hardcore fans of the genre, so you'll likely get a skewed perspective from the poll.

 

[TheoAllen]

I don't mind either way.
I read subtitles/text in the end. Voice acting is just a flavor. Mainly because it is not my native language, I need to crosscheck what I heard and what is written. When voice acting is done well. I also appreciate the scene sequence they made. I don't read, I watch them and treat them like a movie (as long as the scene is within the acceptable length and not breaking the flow of gameplay). Most of the time, I don't skip, except when I'm watching that for the second time and when it is long.

I guess I'm in the "it depends" group, but more of the yes side.
Even I made a typing sound effect script/plugin to substitute voice acting. I appreciate the noise when someone's speaking. I sleep when there are no noises. Yeah, it doesn't have to be voice acting. But noises.

That being said, I don't think RPG Maker games need voice acting. The last time I saw an RPG Maker game did voice acting, it was cringe. But it was many years ago and I forgot the title.

Also in another hand, having no voice also means you are free to imagine what kind of voice does the character has when speaking. It is all in your imagination, which can be pros for having no voice.

 

[AeroPergold]

I like voice acting in RPGs but Tidus' laugh haunts my dreams. Wish someone could mod FFX and replace his laugh with this:

 

[freakytapir]

Tidus' laugh haunts my dreams

See, it is supposed to be a fake bad sounding laugh. They are 'fake laughing' in that scene.

Now that said, voice acting is a multiplier, not an addition. Great voice acting will elevate a scene, but terrible voice acting will kill it.

Bad voice acting < no voice acting< Good Voice acting

 

[Kuro DCupu]

^ Same as above me. Only if it's good.
Voice implies the character's mood and personality, so that's pretty helpful to boost your storytelling.

 

[freakytapir]

Oh, just to add to my thoughts : Voice acting only certain scenes is jarring.
You're reading text, merrily skipping ahead at reading speed, and suddenly one voice acted line comes along? I'm going to feel like an idiot if I skipped it.

 

[QuexpRPG]

It depends on the sound quality and if the voice fits the character...and the mood. I prefer them to be here and there throughout a game but don't mind more as long as I have the option to turn them off in my settings.

 

[bgillisp]

Depends. If the VA is not in my language I find it distracting as I read, and since I can read faster than the VA I prefer it to either have language options or be able to be turned off. Also badly done VA is I reach for the turn off button fast.

 

[Kyuukon]

Very hard to pull off but when it's done right it adds a lot. Also depends on the type of game, like they said above sometimes imagining it works better lol. But in short, unless you can afford professional voice actors I wouldn't really bother with it.

 

[AeroPergold]

See, it is supposed to be a fake bad sounding laugh. They are 'fake laughing' in that scene.

Now that said, voice acting is a multiplier, not an addition. Great voice acting will elevate a scene, but terrible voice acting will kill it.

Bad voice acting < no voice acting< Good Voice acting

Well I know that since I had seen Projared's review on the game and that's when I learned that was very much intentional but its meme status still stands regardless.