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Voice Acting in Video Games
naia-the-gamer | 2:31 PM on 06.06.2008 14 comments


Voice acting has become a standard in video games. Much like the evolution from silence to talkies in film, we see the same jump in video games. We no longer need to read words on the screen. We can hear it, assimilate it, and enjoy it like a movie.

However, unlike the film industry, the video game industry regularly sees games that come from all over the world. Japanese games are not set-aside in the tiny foreign games section. They play a huge part of the industry. The same thing applies to companies in Europe such as Rare and Ubisoft. Because of that, video games often see a waiting period in between domestic and international releases from companies. They have local offices busy at work to make the game in the native tongue, and to hire the voice actors in that language.

When I watch a foreign film, I prefer to hear in the language for which it was written. The writers chose the words that they did for the sound, the rhythm and flow that worked in their native language. Frequently when those words are literally translated into others, they lose the magic they once had in the native tongue. How could a “play-on-words” in French really make sense to English speakers without some major compromise? On the other side of things, when I watch a dubbed movie, I can’t help but to feel like I lost something. I remember watching Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in French class as a kid, and felt like it wasn’t quite right. I knew enough French (and knew the Disney movie by heart) to know it didn’t translate quite right. It made me wonder what native French speakers thought of it.

I’m in the same situation playing video games made from foreign countries. Some companies try hard to make it more than a literal translation but a true localization to make things fit for the US audience. Intelligent systems do it better than anyone, taking the witty puns in the Paper Mario games and making them equally as humorous here in the states as they are in Japan. Most companies don’t handle this with quite as much care. The result when the voice acting is implemented, it feels forced and unnatural. Most dubbed voice acting is outright terrible and I would prefer to have to read subtitles than have to listen to the alternative.

I am not completely closed minded in the idea of localized voice acting, however. I know there are exceptions to the rules; some companies do take the time to make it feel natural and forget you are playing something foreign. Disney and Square-Enix did that quite nicely with the Kingdom Hearts games. They took the care to hire well-known actors who were familiar with voice-work. Hayden Panitierre was best known as the voice of Dot in A Bug’s Life before she took on the role of Kairi (and later our favorite cheerleader in Heroes). Haley Joel Osmett frequently does voices on Family Guy. Not to mention, Disney hired all the voice actors who regularly play the Disney voices, and when they couldn’t hire the originals found top-notch sound-alikes. Everything flowed well. The timing of the animations still lined up. There were no uncomfortable pauses, they made everything fit and fit well.

So the question that lies is this: Why can’t they all be that good?

Perhaps the reason why Kingdom Hearts worked so well is because Disney is a film company first and foremost. They most likely either sought our their voice actors or held casting calls in places like Variety (or wherever they post auditions) that Hollywood actors could see. They had the money to make their wishes well known. Perhaps this is something more companies should factor in their budget, particularly the ones who can easily afford it. When I say this I mean big companies like EA, Activision-Blizzard (whatever they are called now), Capcom, Konami, Squenix, Nintendo, Sony etc. They should be proud of their work and accept nothing less than the best actors to make their vision come alive. If the localization has awkward pauses in the dialogue, then they should hire programmers to try to fix that. I would welcome a delay in release if I knew a game receiving fixes like those.

I’m not completely familiar with how recording voice work for a cartoon works, but I feel like there has to be some sort of interaction between the actors when dialogue between two or more people happens. I feel that when I watch Disney or Dream works movies. I rarely feel that when I play localized video games. The dialogue frequently sounds like the actors are in rooms by themselves and have no context to which they can relay their lines. There is no “in the moment” magic that is supposed to happen with good acting between multiple characters. Good actors become their characters. Bad actors are reading lines. This is something publishers/developers NEED to invest in to keep the medium evolving. I also wonder if the voice actors get the chance to watch the dialogue of their games in their native Japanese. If they heard the Japanese voice actors’ tone perhaps they would get a better idea of the context for their lines and execute them more effectively.

Unfortunately, not all companies can afford this. I understand that. I would challenge them to take a risk instead. By taking a risk, I mean keeping the original voice tracks. Films do it, why not video games? I can read dialogue. It doesn’t matter to me if what I’m hearing is German, or Spanish. If the text I read is English I will get the idea, not to mention I will get to hear it in the language it was originally intended. I understand that there are consumers who do not like to read when playing a video game, for whatever reason. I think parents would be happy about it was it would encourage their kids to read. I suppose the only people unhappy about that would be a mindless slugs in our society who don’t to have to “strain their brain reading a vid’ya game.” Frankly those people need the exercise to their brains more than anyone. It would be good for them.

There is a lot that could happen to help improve the state of voice acting and dealing with foreign media. Words are powerful; like music they have phrasing, a high point and a low point. Changing the words that don’t flow as well is disruptive and takes the musicality out of it. Extra work has to be done to capture the same rhythm and melody. It pays off when companies do it. Unfortunately for every one of these:



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14 comments | showing # 1 to 14

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Passionate Styos's Destructoid Blog
Nice read Naia! Just to add, the Phoenix Wright team does a great localization work with great puns and comedy that feels really natural. Also, sometimes the quality of the voice acting depends of the game (this is just an idea). For example, we have the Kojima Productions, who has the voice acting team for Metal Gear series which are just wonderful. On the other hand, we have another game from KP which is Lunar Knights. It had great production values but for some reason the voice acting was laughable.

Oh well, I think that the voice acting should be done depending of the type of game.
4knuckleshuffle's Destructoid Blog
Voice acting is nice, but it's not required for most games.
timepants's Destructoid Blog
Very nice post. Although in certain cases like Castle Shikigami 2 and the original Resident Evil, I think the cheesy voice acting makes the games more entertaining.
ShawnKelfonne's Destructoid Blog
It would be nice to get some other voice actors once in a while too. I've heard Yuri Lowenthal in so many games in the past year that it's not even funny.
3r0t1c n3rd's Destructoid Blog
Nice read.

It's a little fad over here to release games only with the (horrible) german voice track. So if you want to listen to the english voices, you have no choice but to import. >.< Why? They can't tell me that the space on a dvd isn't enough to put the english dub on there too.

In terms of quality, I'm guessing that the translater has no idea what he is working on, the voice director doesn't give a shit and the voice actors are totally clueless. The result has to be shitty.

And I'm still pissed at the way they dubbed Liquid Snake in the german version of MGS1. They turned him into a saturday morning cartoon villain! In fact, they killed the whole mood of the game with the dub...

Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gb10QHkE5s&feature=related
Zarathustra's Destructoid Blog
One of the problems is definitely budget. Localization is a surprisingly complicated and expensive process. But I think ShawnKelfonne's comment points to another problem: there just isn't a huge pool of quality voice actors to choose from. It seems like the same dozen or so regulars appear in every JRPG localized for North America. But I'm not sure that casting film actors is the best solution. Honestly, I'd be happy if publishers just made it a habit to include the original voiceovers as an option. Of course, that's limited by disc space, which is still a problem for anything but PS3 games. So, yeah...
naia-the-gamer's Destructoid Blog
@Zarathstra:

That's true. However, there has to be a decent sized pool of voice actors that do cartoons, people like Tres MacNielle, Frank Welker, Tara Strong that should be doing more video game work (I know Tara Strong and Tress MacNielle have done some). Those people are excellent voice actors. My comment on getting actors was aimed towards people who are specifically into voice acting.

Some of them are just so bad, I feel like at that rate any average joe off the street could do at least as bad a job as some of these actors.
Salty Soil's Destructoid Blog
The only part about video game voice acting that bothers me is that it seems neither the actor or whomever wrote the dialogs took their job seriously. That isn't true for all games of course, but you'd think a little effort wouldn't hurt.

Now as for the original voices in their original language, I honestly can't tell if lines are delivered poorly or excellently. What I do know is that the mandatory "Cute" Little Girl Character always sounds the same in any language with her high pitched voice and ability to make my ears bleed.
Scary Womanizing Pig Mask's Destructoid Blog
I have to disagree with "Intelligent Systems do it better than anyone" For me, nothing can beat the amazing job the localization team of the Ace Attorney did, with adding all the hilarious references to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, 300, and even Top Gun, and that's not counting all the incredible originol jokes. Admittedly though, IS did do an incredible job with the Paper Mario series though :)

I do agree with you that companies should take the route of sticking with the originol text and adding subtitles, but that just could come from my overall dislike of voice acting in general. (Unless the character is superbly voiced like Professor Layton and Luke, Star Wolf in Star Fox N64, or any MGS character, I kind of prefer to imagine what they sound like.
Dexter345's Destructoid Blog
If you want to hear some truly bland voice acting, play Culdcept SAGA. It definitely suffers from the "voice actors reading lines alone in a darkened basement" plague.

There have been a few games that kept the original voice, like DoA:XBV, and Triggerheart Exelica. I have to admit, I'm not a fan. Why? Because Japanese girls have really annoying voices.
Scary Womanizing Pig Mask's Destructoid Blog
Gah typo :(

I meant to say "originol voices and adding subtitles"
Gen Eric Gui's Destructoid Blog
"By taking a risk, I mean keeping the original voice tracks. Films do it, why not video games?"

This actually came up recently over at the Atlus boards when Arcana Heart came out with the dialogue cut out from the story scenes. Apparently, Sony wouldn't ALLOW Atlus to keep just the JP voices in the story part; apparently their rule is that if it's an "important" story part, the game MUST be voiced in English first or not at all.

IIRC, it also costs money to keep the JP tracks on the disc. Something about liscencing or something. Which is why it's often taken out.

Yeah, it's pretty messed up.
Brahms's Destructoid Blog
Nintendo has actually done a really fantastic job with most of their games- they generally know when to draw the line between an accurate translation (the Zelda games) and a more loose or goofy translation (Paper Mario series). I do wish they'd get a little more credit for that work every once in a while.
deiga-the-semivaliant's Destructoid Blog
You know, I've always seen a contradiction to the whole 'jokes won't translate well into English, so give us subtitles, please' argument. The fact that the story is being presented in subtitles instead of dubbing doesn't change the fact that it's still an English translation.


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 about me



My name is Naia (pronounced either Nay-a or Neye-a, like yay or like eye) I am I'm a starving artist in LA trying to keep my sanity. I do mostly freelance stuff and I'm always looking for people (even on DToid) to do fun projects with in entertainment. That can be either in theater, film, TV, or video games. I want to be like Kermit the Frog and be part of a group that entertains. I also love blue slimes, puppies and Sprinkles Cupcakes.

I've been playing computer and video games all my life. My dad's a programmer so we got an IBM PC very early on in the 80's. For Christmas in 1989 my parents surprised me with a Nintendo and it's been downhill ever since. I have/had an NES, gameboy (of all flavors) SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Gamegear, Sega Saturn, PS1, PS2, PS3, Gamecube, DS, PSP, Wii, and 360. Whew!

I am a HUGE Dragon Quest Fan Girl. I did NOT buy an R4 to play Dragon Quest 4 in broken beta-english. I also do NOT play ROMs because I did NOT want to play Dragon Quest V and VI ten years ago in english, not knowing if I would ever see those games in the US. ROMS are bad :P Squenix can shit in a bag and if the bag has a cute slime on it, I'll buy it. I know it's a problem.

Also, Rydia is my hero.

I like games with colors in them aside from brown and black, even if most of the world calls those games "kiddy." Screw that! I play RPGs, Action/Adventure, Platformers, Puzzles, and Point-n-Click Adventure games. I will play fighters and shooters, but they have to be the right kind of game.

I'm such a nerd, I like to keep track of all the games I've completed in an excel file (it's around 300 something). Now that my backlog is out of control I have a word document for that too. My goal is to for once and for all eliminate the backlog, or at least keep it to a number in the single digits.

I have a lot of things to say about the game industry, it's something I care deeply about and love giving my opinions. I like to rant about shit. I'm here just to share what I have to say, in hopes someone is willing to listen. If I'm not here, I'm most likely wasting my life on IRC.

Also for the record, my Top 5 Games of All Time
1. Chrono Trigger
2. Final Fantasy 4
3. Super Mario 3
4. Dragon Quest 3
5. Phantasy Star 4

Yes, I love my retro games

Currently playing: Torchlight (PC), Half-Minute Hero (PSP), Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (DS)


Thanks to The GHost for this awesome card!

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