[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Armando

Noone's being a weeaboo, he was just musing out loud about how he hopes we don't get shafted on the localization. Granted this is S-E we're talking about and not some minor game company but they've shafted us before (*cough KH Final Mix cough*)

That's just it, SE's pretty much always been on the mark with hiring vocal talent, particularly since Kingdom Hearts, but FFX (the most commonly bitched about) wasn't really that problematic, either.

Hence, its pointless to muse about it. It will be fine. And most people who complain about acting have never set foot on the stage or put their voice to the mic in a recording booth. Its not as easy as it looks.

If anything, SE would be more careful about adding VA to the classic Final Fantasy games than any other.

[Armando]

If anything, SE would be more careful about adding VA to the classic Final Fantasy games than any other. These aren't exactly throwaway remakes to them.

Touché.

[Mhurron]

Originally Posted by IfritnoItazura

English dubs have come a long way since the insufferables like Ranma 1/2,

Those Ranma dubs are the whole reason I prefer subtitles on everything that wasn't made in English.

My god that dubbing job was so bad.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Cowboy Bebop was an anime series that I could go either with the dub or sub and the english actors captured the sound of the japanese actors pretty well, although the entire production had a lot of western inspiration to begin with.

Going back to FFIV, we're clearly only going to see voiceovers here and there and FFIV's characters still leave much more to the imagination of what those characters sound like than, say, the characters of FFVI, which are much more solidified in the imagination of gamers.

For a guy like Kefka, its hard to imagine casting anyone less than Mark Hamill and using his version of The Joker. Hell, that's pretty much who Kefka is in terms of character.

And FFVII has done a fairly good job with the voices. Barret and Tifa were only slightly off, but the rest of the casting has been pretty dead-on. Cid pretty much sounded like I expected a Cid to sound. I was extremely impressed with Dirge of Cerberus in terms of story and casting, I can't find one character to complain about there.

[Lucky7]

Thanks for the link. Really nice video! Too bad its coming for the DS and not the PSP like the previous two titles. I've been playing FFI for the PSP and having a blast. As soon as I'm finish I'm picking up FFII.

Originally Posted by Jonastb

This was the very first FF game I ever played. I actually wanted to play a SMN/BLM in FFXI to be like Rydia. This was before I actually played FFXI and realized I couldn't.

I never played FFIV and I'm a newbie here, so I have to ask. Why you can't play SMN/BLM in FFXI as it was displayed in FFIV? Did SE re-designed/re-defined the class for XI?

[Armando]

Cowboy Bebop was an anime series that I could go either with the dub or sub and the english actors captured the sound of the japanese actors pretty well, although the entire production had a lot of western inspiration to begin with.

Well, it's Steven Blum, come on! Just kidding, every character had some excellent voice acting. Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi also has some hot english VA.

You know, I still haven't seen the English dub for Advent Children D:

Speaking of Kefka, this guy isn't half bad. Not bad at all.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Lucky7

Thanks for the link. Really nice video! Too bad its coming for the DS and not the PSP like the previous two titles. I've been playing FFI for the PSP and having a blast. As soon as I'm finish I'm picking up FFII.

It would have been wasted on PSP, considering DS is where the portable market share is. The umpteenth FF and FF II remakes for PSP were more sloppy seconds than anything else. Crisis Core is the only SE PSP title so far with any real work put into it, next to KH: Birth by Sleep.

SE really only plays ball with the market leader in terms of exclusives and in the handheld world, PSP is a distant second. Most of the real production goes to Nintendo DS.

I never played FFIV and I'm a newbie here, so I have to ask. Why you can't play SMN/BLM in FFXI as it was displayed in FFIV? Did SE re-designed/re-defined the class for XI?

Rydia was a SMN and BLM in one in FFIV, she was both jobs at the same time - a full black mage and a full summoner. FFXI only allows you to use a subjob at half its power, so SMN/BLM in FFXI would never have access to high tier Black Magic like Rydia did.

[Lucky7]

I'm enjoying FFI. The gfx are way better than they were originally and in the GBA version and AFAIK the entire story is there. Its a good distraction. I do agree 100% on Crisis Core. That game looks amazing. I can't wait for SE to make an US market announcement of it.

Thanks for the SMN/BLM explanation. I didn't know anything about Rydia.

[Malacite]

Rosa's pretty cute in CG (Note: I generally don't care for blonds either >.>)


I just wish they'd done this on PSP instead. I'm not a big fan of the N64 level 3D that the DS does. Especially after seeing FF1 and 2 on the PSP. My god that's some lovely 2D art.

Good 2D > Bad 3D

[Armando]

I don't know, FFIV's 3D character models look a lot better than FFIII's. And yeah, it'd probably sell a million times more on DS so...

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

I honestly don't want to see FFIV, FFV or FFVI on PSP for a rather specific reason:

Prettier graphics have lead to smaller party formations since FFVII.

FFIV allowed up to five characters in the party, most others allowed up to four. Ever since FFVII its always been three and I always found levelling all characters - sans FFX - to be extremely tedious as a result. FFX solved the issue by letting you tag in any of your party during most fights. They didn't have to so anything more than defend for a round to gain APs for the fight.

Every FF since with three-character parties should be follow that design, but nooooo, back to the stone ages of FFVII with FFXII. If you're gonna make me form PTs, at least do it like FFVI and have scenarios I can push them through and level them evenly. I know that makes hell for voice overs but you know what? Fuck voice overs.

[Gobo]

I think most people hit the nail on the head. I just don't want it to sound bad. Bad VAs can make a game semi-annoying to play. And from hearing was available so far, the JP VAs sound pretty good. My comparison wasn't to JP VAs as a whole, just to IVs. (For example, I find the EN Organization XIII Member's VAs better than the JP's, save the 5 from CoM, since they have no EN voices) Its very true that S-E has gotten better with VAs since the ear bleeding parts of X were, but even the occasional bad egg gets through. (Personally think Mena Suvari's Aerith sounds like she smoked some bad pot. She might have improved for Advent Children, I never watched it).

And bbq is right. DS=$$$$$$. This first 1/2 the fiscal year alone is a 3:1 sale ratio in Japan. S-E knows they can push the DS to its limits (See current CS screens and battle screens for KH: 358/2 Days for good examples) to make a good looking game.


And since I didn't add enough, ()()()()()()()(()()()()()()()())()()()() :p

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Aerith was such a throwaway character in Advent Children it wasn't even worth worrying about. Crisis Core and FFVII remake have plenty of room to find a good actress for her and I think they will.

A lot of FFX's issues were also tied to the process of writing/editing their first Final Fantasy game with full voiceovers. I know a chick from Japan that sat and played the JP version of the game with her boyfriend and she said the JP VO was some of the worst acting she had ever heard (I have the FFX Vocal Collection, they're terrible singers, to boot). And there really wasn't a good way out of that laughing scene in Luca other than to edit it out entirely, but even as horrible as that scene might have been, it did have an important place in the flashbacks later.

Most of the casting was spot-on, though and the delievery was good.

[Gobo]

Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten

Aerith was such a throwaway character in Advent Children it wasn't even worth worrying about. Crisis Core and FFVII remake have plenty of room to find a good actress for her and I think they will.
A lot of FFX's issues were also tied to the process of writing/editing their first Final Fantasy game with full voiceovers. I know a chick from Japan that sat and played the JP version of the game with her boyfriend and she said the JP VO was some of the worst acting she had ever heard (I have the FFX Vocal Collection, they're terrible singers, to boot). And there really wasn't a good way out of that laughing scene in Luca other than to edit it out entirely, but even as horrible as that scene might have been, it did have an important place in the flashbacks later.
Most of the casting was spot-on, though and the delievery was good.

That laughing scene in Luca was horrid, but ya it was important for flashbacks later and in X-2, though thankfully mute in the latter.

IMO, the only really bad character VA was Yuna, and you could blame it Hedy Burress's inexperience with voice acting. When you are doing voices with John Di Maggio, Terra Strong and others, its not hard to look really bad. And she did improve for X-2 (must think about battle system, not story x_x).

[Malacite]

Graphics aren't the issue at all. It's not that hard to fit 1 or 2 extra characters on the battle screen (especially given the size of some of the boss monsters... I'm looking at you Diamond Weapon >_>)

It's purely a limiting factor for difficulty purposes decided by the developers. We're not talking about an FPS here where frame rate really matters.

And I agree with you Armando that the 3D certainly looks a bit better than III's did, but I still prefer the lovely art of FF1 and 2. UMDs are better for audio and video too, and lord knows the PSP could use that title for the sales boost but oh well.

As long as they don't pull that mognet bull shit again...


The beauty of FFIV was that like IX (which had 4 people btw BBQ. ) the game forced you to use different characters at different points of the game on a regular basis so that no one got neglected. I hate RPG's that randomly force you to use a specific character for a boss fight that you may not have been using because suddenly you may find yourself utterly screwed and unable to progress.