No English Dub

[UhOhIPooped]

Based on the most recent trailer today, it looks like there will be no english dub. While several of us will still buy it, this is going to hamper some sales which is an unfortunate mistake.

[DogMeat]

I beat the first game not long ago. Yeah the voice acting isn't that great, but I didn't mind it. I'm early in the sequel. It seems like its better in every way to the original which I already liked. Really gorgeous for a PS2 release.

Originally posted by kiteless 凧無し:

These games aren’t dialogue heavy anyway. I understand the non Japanese speakers wanting English voices but it’s not some jrpg filled with expository dialogue

Which makes it all the more disappointing that they couldn't dub it if it doesn't have that much dialogue.

Originally posted by Rainfell:

Which tells me that somewhat, the developers are listening. They saw the sales of Black Water and saw that people want this game. There was a fan patch for the Wii version for crying out loud. I'm hoping (even if it's only a tad optimistic) that they will see this game do well and consider patching English dub later.

That would be really cool.

Originally posted by Rainfell:

Right now, I think they are playing it safe, as Fatal Frame fell off in the West before. Just my 2 cents.

Bit of a gamble though. Looks like they're going to lose some sales from those who wont buy it without a dub.

[Good Night Owl]

Originally posted by Rainfell:

As one of the older fans of the series, I can understand a little why it didn't get a dub. Fatal Frame fell off when 4 didn't release in the West due to some legal problems with a bug I believe back when it was coming for the Wii - like wise, Black Water was made for a console that didn't sell well.

When they re-released 5 and saw the overwhelming support, they decided to go ahead and re-do 4 which never got a port.

Which tells me that somewhat, the developers are listening. They saw the sales of Black Water and saw that people want this game. There was a fan patch for the Wii version for crying out loud. I'm hoping (even if it's only a tad optimistic) that they will see this game do well and consider patching English dub later.

Right now, I think they are playing it safe, as Fatal Frame fell off in the West before. Just my 2 cents.

IDK, has there EVER been an instance where devs patched an English version in ANY game? Why do that after a game's honeymoon phase? It doesn't make financial sense.

Releasing in the west, but with no english dub version tells me that previous titles sold well enough to release in the west, but not well enough to justify the cost for further voice acting.

[Pure Mind Games]

Originally posted by Azukaos:

I know peoples have hard time reading and playing at the same time but for me it's like when you watch anime.

I watch dubs, I like to pay attention to what is happening, not read subs.

[Tracido]

Originally posted by Good Night Owl:

Originally posted by Rainfell:

As one of the older fans of the series, I can understand a little why it didn't get a dub. Fatal Frame fell off when 4 didn't release in the West due to some legal problems with a bug I believe back when it was coming for the Wii - like wise, Black Water was made for a console that didn't sell well.

When they re-released 5 and saw the overwhelming support, they decided to go ahead and re-do 4 which never got a port.

Which tells me that somewhat, the developers are listening. They saw the sales of Black Water and saw that people want this game. There was a fan patch for the Wii version for crying out loud. I'm hoping (even if it's only a tad optimistic) that they will see this game do well and consider patching English dub later.

Right now, I think they are playing it safe, as Fatal Frame fell off in the West before. Just my 2 cents.

IDK, has there EVER been an instance where devs patched an English version in ANY game? Why do that after a game's honeymoon phase? It doesn't make financial sense.

Releasing in the west, but with no english dub version tells me that previous titles sold well enough to release in the west, but not well enough to justify the cost for further voice acting.

No, it just tells me this is a billionaire owner of a company that deserves NONE of the workers labors in any sense at all. However, I support the company to just give what is possible to those developers so they can continue simply working..

[kiteless 凧無し]

Originally posted by Tracido:

Originally posted by Good Night Owl:

IDK, has there EVER been an instance where devs patched an English version in ANY game? Why do that after a game's honeymoon phase? It doesn't make financial sense.

Releasing in the west, but with no english dub version tells me that previous titles sold well enough to release in the west, but not well enough to justify the cost for further voice acting.

No, it just tells me this is a billionaire owner of a company that deserves NONE of the workers labors in any sense at all. However, I support the company to just give what is possible to those developers so they can continue simply working..

Every big company is run by a billionaire and every big company is filled with underpaid staff, you either accept things for what they are or boycott every massive company in existence. Good luck with that, especially if you want to eat.

Valve is run by a multi billionaire so you seem quite happy to fund him with your massive game collection

[Sengan]

Shaking my head at all these Americans in this same exact thread on every Japanese game's forum thinking English is the only other language in the world.

Neither English nor Japanese is my native language and *a lot* of people in the world are in my case. The vast majority of them, actually. And all of us, we *really* don't care about having an English dub "to understand what they're saying".

For me it just makes it unbearable to listen to because English anime dub voicing style is grating to the ear, something I never could understand because English non-anime dubs (meaning, the original dub of games developped in the West) are great.

Where I'm probably a minority, though, is that I do understand both English and Japanese aside from my mother tongue, so yeah in my particular case that's another factor leading to my preference of Japanese dubs in Japanese games and even something that makes me *not* buy a game if it only has EN dub and no JP.

The Dark Age of the 90s-00s RPGs with only EN voices is over, and I'd really prefer it to stay dead.

[Good Night Owl]

Originally posted by Sengan:

Shaking my head at all these Americans in this same exact thread on every Japanese game's forum thinking English is the only other language in the world.

Neither English nor Japanese is my native language and *a lot* of people in the world are in my case. The vast majority of them, actually. And all of us, we *really* don't care about having an English dub "to understand what they're saying".

For me it just makes it unbearable to listen to because English anime dub voicing style is grating to the ear, something I never could understand because English non-anime dubs (meaning, the original dub of games developped in the West) are great.

Where I'm probably a minority, though, is that I do understand both English and Japanese aside from my mother tongue, so yeah in my particular case that's another factor leading to my preference of Japanese dubs in Japanese games and even something that makes me *not* buy a game if it only has EN dub and no JP.

The Dark Age of the 90s-00s RPGs with only EN voices is over, and I'd really prefer it to stay dead.

Good for you. Enjoy the game, I'm gonna find something else.

[Karosu-Maker]

Funny how someone complained in another thread a couple of hours ago how bad was the game wasn't in spanish. Most people called him/her a whiner.

And here I find this thread of people finding out the game doesn't have english dub. Lol

I'd like the game to be english dubbed too, though. I like understanding what ghosts say, at least in the first playthrough, I just find the situation very funny.

[JonPringus]

It's good that it doesn't have a dub. People shouldn't interact with art incorrectly, and dubs sure are an incorrect way to interact with art.

If you have a visual impairment, that's another issue, but we should treat dubs as the accessibility features that they are instead of whatever dub-apologists keep doing. Unless we're going down the path that games are just products like a big mac that can be adjusted however to fit target markets.

[DogMeat]

Originally posted by Karosu-Maker:

Funny how someone complained in another thread a couple of hours ago how bad was the game wasn't in spanish. Most people called him/her a whiner.

And here I find this thread of people finding out the game doesn't have english dub. Lol

I'd like the game to be english dubbed too, though. I like understanding what ghosts say, at least in the first playthrough, I just find the situation very funny.

That's only funny / ironic if the same people calling the person who wants a Spanish dub a whiner are whining (like me) about wanting an English dub.

I'd like to see everyone get the option of a dub in their native language and the option to play in Japanese.

Originally posted by JonPringus:

It's good that it doesn't have a dub. People shouldn't interact with art incorrectly, and dubs sure are an incorrect way to interact with art.

If you have a visual impairment, that's another issue, but we should treat dubs as the accessibility features that they are instead of whatever dub-apologists keep doing. Unless we're going down the path that games are just products like a big mac that can be adjusted however to fit target markets.

I'd argue that horror is an art and not offering the experience dubbed to a native tongue somewhat harms that aspect of the experience. If a ghost is giving off certain flavor text, or perhaps even more important dialogue during a fight and that isn't translated you are missing out.

[Karosu-Maker]

Originally posted by DogMeat:

Originally posted by Karosu-Maker:

Funny how someone complained in another thread a couple of hours ago how bad was the game wasn't in spanish. Most people called him/her a whiner.

And here I find this thread of people finding out the game doesn't have english dub. Lol

I'd like the game to be english dubbed too, though. I like understanding what ghosts say, at least in the first playthrough, I just find the situation very funny.

That's only funny / ironic if the same people calling the person who wants a Spanish dub a whiner are whining (like me) about wanting an English dub.

I'd like to see everyone get the option of a dub in their native language and the option to play in Japanese.

Originally posted by JonPringus:

It's good that it doesn't have a dub. People shouldn't interact with art incorrectly, and dubs sure are an incorrect way to interact with art.

If you have a visual impairment, that's another issue, but we should treat dubs as the accessibility features that they are instead of whatever dub-apologists keep doing. Unless we're going down the path that games are just products like a big mac that can be adjusted however to fit target markets.

I'd argue that horror is an art and not offering the experience dubbed to a native tongue somewhat harms that aspect of the experience. If a ghost is giving off certain flavor text, or perhaps even more important dialogue during a fight and that isn't translated you are missing out.

Not only no spanish dub, there's not even spanish text. I think his complains were valid, since other entries did have spanish text translations. Although if you want to enjoy gaming at it's fullest, it's good to learn more languages, at least english which is quite easy (I'm a native spanish speaker).

[REIVENTH]

Haiya so weak, South East Asians has mastered playing games/watch movies at listening other languages and reading subs at same time :)). You think only Western countries use english translation? The game will still sell in Asia regions

[DogMeat]

Originally posted by VENTH85:

Haiya so weak, South East Asians has mastered playing games/watch movies at listening other languages and reading subs at same time :)). You think only Western countries use english translation? The game will still sell in Asia regions

That's great and all but us inferior round-eyes are not capable of doing that, so we should get dubs.

[JonPringus]

Originally posted by DogMeat:

Originally posted by JonPringus:

It's good that it doesn't have a dub. People shouldn't interact with art incorrectly, and dubs sure are an incorrect way to interact with art.

If you have a visual impairment, that's another issue, but we should treat dubs as the accessibility features that they are instead of whatever dub-apologists keep doing. Unless we're going down the path that games are just products like a big mac that can be adjusted however to fit target markets.

I'd argue that horror is an art and not offering the experience dubbed to a native tongue somewhat harms that aspect of the experience. If a ghost is giving off certain flavor text, or perhaps even more important dialogue during a fight and that isn't translated you are missing out.

I do understand this viewpoint, and while I'm not going to argue that localized subtitles are a 1:1 replacement to being fluent in the art's origin language, I'd say the way you do interact with the subtitled horror is closer to the original experience, and thus more like the horror the artists intended, than if it was dubbed. I think especially now, subtitles can be done in such immersive ways in games that won't take away the experience for people with above a 4th grade reading level.

Granted, it is undeniable that some people without visual impairments just seem to have a brain that denies them the use of even the best of subtitles. (I think this is just a self-imposed mental block, but whatever.) I do believe in customization of games within the artist's intention to better allow each player to interact with the game in the most immersive way, or whatever you want to call it. But to use a dub if you aren't visually impaired? It's like you're playing a different game at that point, when with a little more effort and a mild change in perspective, you could be interacting with the "real" version of the game. It's why I'm so happy to see games released without a dub, people finally can't let their mental blocks get the best of them, and they have to play these games with the original voices, or not play it at all, which is a preferable outcome if we want to think of games as art.

[Tyrant (My Vision is Augmented)]

This is really odd to me. For decades now, FF fans all over the US and Europe have been wanting Japanese language tracks for the first 3 games. Ever since fans have been able to play other localized versions and watch others play the games with Japanese voices, most fans agreed - the definitive way to enjoy 1 and 2 (with mixed opinions on 3) was with Japanese voices and English subtitles. The English dubs in 1 and 2... and for the most part, 3, just don't even compare. They are fine - they work, they convey the story and usually the proper emotions needed for the scene. But the Japanese voice tracks have always been regarded as just better.

Then 5 came out, and most fans agreed the best way to enjoy the game was to skip all the cutscenes and not listen to any of the voices in any language... but if you insisted on it, once again, Japanese was the language of choice. A theme started emerging.

Now we finally get the Fatal Frame holy grail. The one we were looking for all along -- FF4 (ok, maybe for some that's going to be a remake of the Wii port of the European version of FF2 - regardless). And we get it just the way so many fans wanted it for so long - original, native voices, with intact Japanese posters and wall art, and your choice of subtitles. And all we can do is... complain about it?

Have we listened to the English voice acting in FF 1 and 2 lately? Or even 5? Do we really want that again? Monotone voices with awkward cadences that sound like they were recorded in someone's living room with a microphone from 1995? Yeah, no thanks.