Why is there no english audio?

[Norus]

I don't want to read 20 or how ever many hours long it is of subtitles. =-/

[Simply Booba]

Originally posted by Kobiax:

I don't want to read 20 or how ever many hours long it is of subtitles. =-/

My brother in christ..neither 0, nor Kiwami, Kiwami 2, Yakuza 3/4/5 or 6 had english voice over. Did you play those? If you did, was it truly so bad? If you didn't, you're missing out on literally Kiryu's entire story because of a lack of english VA. That's a bit absurd js.

[General Plastro]

Originally posted by Kobiax:

Even Triangle Strategy and Octopath Traveler I and II had text and voice acting. I mean come on. It's 2023 not 1993. :lunar2020thinkingtiger:

Exactly, staying monolingual is also a bad idea in 2023. You start to at least pick up japanese basics when listening to it.

Originally posted by Kobiax:

Good voice acting adds a richer and more immersive experience compared to reading text. If they can't spend the money on voice actors I'm not spending the money on the game. :praisesun:

One has to truly be special to not add understand context from a foreign culture. Have you never watched a subtitled movie? You dont read the entire time, you glance at it and mostly look at the main things going on, not the letters.

Subtitles are done specifically so the brain can quickly read them, theres a whole damn metrics used to make them as smooth as possible.

[Simply Booba]

Originally posted by Kobiax:

Even Triangle Strategy and Octopath Traveler I and II had text and voice acting. I mean come on. It's 2023 not 1993. :lunar2020thinkingtiger:

Mmm..chronological snobbery. I love fallacious nonsense. It's (current year), therefore I'm right! For god's sake Sea of Stars has no voice over at all and it is a banger of a game in the very vein of the two you just named. In spite of the higher quality animations it has the DNA of a game back on the SNES. I am not seeing where "It's 2023" has jack to do with quality.

[Xabi]

The japanese audio is so much better, Kiryu's voice is dope.

[Simply Booba]

Originally posted by Xabi:

The japanese audio is so much better, Kiryu's voice is dope.

It's certainly iconic. I hear Takaya Kuroda and my mind instantly snaps to Kiryu in the way that I hear Kevin Conroy and snap to Batman. As far as protagonists in any media go, Kiryu's up there for me, absolutely.

[Canucklehead79]

Originally posted by Xabi:

The japanese audio is so much better, Kiryu's voice is dope.

I can't actually imagine it with an English dub, and the Japanese voice work is amazing. They really get into the characters and Hidenari Ugaki sounds exactly like the kind of freak you expect Goro to be.

I tried playing like a Dragon with the english dub for a bit, but was too strange so went back to Japanese.

[Whackar]

YongYea's voice acting is terrible, enjoy your ears bleeding if you'e going with the english dub.

[KaitoKid]

Yep, gotta stick with the one and only Kiryu in Japanese. Also Bakamitai is in this so why would you even want it in English.

[ele]

'cause English voice actors are terrible.

[Icevail]

That's a you problem, not a we problem.

[Norus]

Voice actors in FF13, Judgement, Triangle Strategy, DragonBallZ, Yakuuza Like a Dragon, Ghostwire Tokyo, Tales of Arise, and so on and so on and so on were all good. So what you people lying about?

[Whackar]

Originally posted by Kobiax:

Voice actors in FF13, Judgement, Triangle Strategy, DragonBallZ, Yakuuza Like a Dragon, Ghostwire Tokyo, Tales of Arise, and so on and so on and so on were all good. So what you people lying about?

Yong's voice isn't deep enough to voice Kiryu, it just doesn't fit the character and overall it's not as expressive as his original voice actor. Look up some clips of his voice acting, sounds very amateur and sometimes straight up comical. It's your choice to play with the inferior voice though, nobody's stopping you.

[mjc0961]

Originally posted by Valk:

Originally posted by HoldTheLube:

I don't want to listen to YongYea screaming at the top of his lungs.

You do realise that they've hired YongYea as a voice actor and not as an internet personality right? Anyone with any level of professionalism isn't going to treat a voice acting role as "just another youtube video".

Although if the game doesn't end with a hearty "YOOOONG OUT" I'm going to be very disappointed

[sdzeroX]

There's definitely more reasons to want audio in your own language than just preference. Not everyone has the ability to read at the text rate of subtitles due to dyslexia, among other neurological reasons. I use to have issues of reading something and it totally loses meaning. So I'll have to double back again to correct it. I've gotten over it for the most part, but reading subtitles can be tricky if I can't focus.

I do have gripes about English voice acting though. I know there can be better fits and performances with better voice direction. Emphasis on voice direction. Which is usually the culprit to bad voice matches and delivery. Not to mention the lack of auditioning and shortlist of go-to actors used far too much. Usually out of nepotism. Which is why we hear the same voice actors all the time rotating through various games with rarely any new talent making a peep. It's definitely a big problem in the industry that's not being addressed.

[wasabi™]

I know it can be hard to pay attention to reading subtitles whilst engaging in gameplay at times but trust me it is 100% worth it. The actor who plays Kiryu is fantastic and once you get used to ithen it just becomes second nature and you wouldn't want it any other way.

You also don't want to start off the franchise with this one. Pick up and start playing Yakuza 0, you can get it dirt cheap nowdays and it will introduce you to the world and the characters and it will get you used to hearing the Japanese voice actors.

I can guarantee you won't regret it.