No English Voice-Overs. Again.

[SunSailor]

I know, there are a lot of fans of the japanese sub, but I'm a player, who plays a lot with his ears as well. A japanese sub maybe more authentic for some, but I like to understand the voice lines. Yet, I don't have the time, talent and urge to learn japanse myself, english, spanish and french were challanging enough for me.
Really would love to see english subs again, missed out the Ryza series because of that.

[Araragi Koyomi]

You will probably, likely, and unfortunately miss out on this and future titles as well.

[jclosed]

Personally I don't care too much about English Voice-Overs. I want to have a good game to play first of all. I even do not use that English dub that much if it's present. For some reason it does often not "fit" the character in the game very well. Of course there are exceptions to that.

So - I certainly not going to drop a game because it has no English voice-over. Sure it's nice to have (in some cases), but it's far from critical for me.

If you dropped the Ryza games for that, you really missed out. I am afraid you can forget all together about the Atelier series, and lot's of other Gust games. It's your choice of course, but you will miss out a lot of really nice games now and in the future.

Oh - And you are talking about subs too? As in subtitles? I guess you mixed up subs and dubs? If not, I have to inform you that all Atelier games here on Steam, Ryza included, have English subtitles. If you think they have not, I have to say you are not very well informed, because it's clearly said on the store page.

[Tha'rān Qatsimiya]

Ryza and this game as well have English subs.

[midnightShade29]

I agree. It sucks as I loved Rorna on the vita. Was going to pick up Ryza, and this game but damn no English dub is a big turnoff. It will have to be an amazing game for me to buy it without English. Or they could at least do what was done on ps1 and make the battle sounds English and the reset just text. I'd be fine with that.

[Valk]

Originally posted by midnightShade29:

I agree. It sucks as I loved Rorna on the vita. Was going to pick up Ryza, and this game but damn no English dub is a big turnoff. It will have to be an amazing game for me to buy it without English. Or they could at least do what was done on ps1 and make the battle sounds English and the reset just text. I'd be fine with that.

Why on earth would they go backwards like that though? Ontop of this, I swear the MAIN argument people make in favour of dubs is that they "don't want to read the subs because immersion/slow reader". Removing all voices bar battle boops would completely defeat the point (To say nothing of how you could just mute the voices and have the same effect). Its almost like you just don't want to hear Japanese to the extent of wanting a worse experience.

[SunSailor]

Originally posted by VB Driver:

This is a budget series. Not Persona. No extra dubs for you.

The series had English subs before Ryza. But easy, no buy then. Simple as that. I‘m the customer, I decide with my wallet. I win.

[Valk]

Originally posted by SunSailor:

Originally posted by VB Driver:

This is a budget series. Not Persona. No extra dubs for you.

The series had English subs before Ryza. But easy, no buy then. Simple as that. I‘m the customer, I decide with my wallet. I win.

You're the customer, you decide with your wallet, you decide to get to not experience the game over something so stupid. You lose. :P

[Kuronomi-chan]

English dubs were unpopular in Atelier games, so they didn't bother with them anymore,

[Kaezeribato]

The main argument for people saying to play with Japanese VA is because at least you'll hear the original text and not a rewriten version...
All Japanese game translated in english see their text modified to a certain extend, some are totally rewriten. The Three Ryza game had mediocre English translation.

It's extremely easy to just read, the character speak slowly. It does not detract from the game, as you have nothing else to do that read or listen when the character talk.

That's not even talking about the second argument. English VA for Japanese game are bad and cost way too much money.

[Valk]

Originally posted by Kaezeribato:

The main argument for people saying to play with Japanese VA is because at least you'll hear the original text and not a rewriten version...
All Japanese game translated in english see their text modified to a certain extend, some are totally rewriten. The Three Ryza game had mediocre English translation.

It's extremely easy to just read, the character speak slowly. It does not detract from the game, as you have nothing else to do that read or listen when the character talk.

That's not even talking about the second argument. English VA for Japanese game are bad and cost way too much money.

You were doing so well and then you said English VA are bad and cost way too much... Them being "just bad" so to speak is entirely subjective, because it just isn't true nowadays. A lot of dubs are really improving at the moment because there's finally an audience that wants good dubs and not "anything in their language", especially now that you've also got a push towards actual dubs and not "trying to be the original". Think about how older dubs usually suck massively due to how the characters still try and behave like an anime character and it just does not work with the voices, whilst more recent ones have been trying to put the performance first and make a convincing character over a "faithful anime" one. Gone are the days of those annoying squeaky vtuber wannabe characters in dubs. I'll always stick to whatever language a game was made in myself though, be that English, Japanese, Russian, French or so on.

[Stoneface]

i always use the japanese ones, just matches the characters better, plus english usually has alot of missing voice overs for some dialogue, the japanese ones have waaaaay more

[Kaezeribato]

Originally posted by Valk:

You were doing so well and then you said English VA are bad and cost way too much... Them being "just bad" so to speak is entirely subjective, because it just isn't true nowadays. A lot of dubs are really improving at the moment because there's finally an audience that wants good dubs and not "anything in their language", especially now that you've also got a push towards actual dubs and not "trying to be the original". Think about how older dubs usually suck massively due to how the characters still try and behave like an anime character and it just does not work with the voices, whilst more recent ones have been trying to put the performance first and make a convincing character over a "faithful anime" one. Gone are the days of those annoying squeaky vtuber wannabe characters in dubs. I'll always stick to whatever language a game was made in myself though, be that English, Japanese, Russian, French or so on.

You're ignoring that most of the time English VA have a rewriten script. Or and the majority of them over act like they where in a school play.

They also spend their time making absurd demand, acting like some wanabe super star.
I can take Snowbreak as an exemple, the english VA lost their mind and asked for the game's to be rewriten because of their political belief. Going on and on about how the game was sexist and other nonsense leading to them losing their job. And the only reason for this is that some people contacted them on social media and told them that the game was sexist.
On the other hand the Japanese VA, who have well know celebrity, did their job proprely without starting to ask nonsensical things.

The cost of English VA is also absurdly high, they cost more than Japanese VA despite their quality being obviously lower. This is also ignoring that in Japan Seiyuu are real celebrity contrary to english one that are barely recognized by the public. Despite this Japanese are still cheaper.

Yes they got better over the year. But this does not mean that they are worth the price they ask for.

[Valk]

Originally posted by Kaezeribato:

Originally posted by Valk:

You were doing so well and then you said English VA are bad and cost way too much... Them being "just bad" so to speak is entirely subjective, because it just isn't true nowadays. A lot of dubs are really improving at the moment because there's finally an audience that wants good dubs and not "anything in their language", especially now that you've also got a push towards actual dubs and not "trying to be the original". Think about how older dubs usually suck massively due to how the characters still try and behave like an anime character and it just does not work with the voices, whilst more recent ones have been trying to put the performance first and make a convincing character over a "faithful anime" one. Gone are the days of those annoying squeaky vtuber wannabe characters in dubs. I'll always stick to whatever language a game was made in myself though, be that English, Japanese, Russian, French or so on.

You're ignoring that most of the time English VA have a rewriten script. Or and the majority of them over act like they where in a school play.

They also spend their time making absurd demand, acting like some wanabe super star.
I can take Snowbreak as an exemple, the english VA lost their mind and asked for the game's to be rewriten because of their political belief. Going on and on about how the game was sexist and other nonsense leading to them losing their job. And the only reason for this is that some people contacted them on social media and told them that the game was sexist.
On the other hand the Japanese VA, who have well know celebrity, did their job proprely without starting to ask nonsensical things.

The cost of English VA is also absurdly high, they cost more than Japanese VA despite their quality being obviously lower. This is also ignoring that in Japan Seiyuu are real celebrity contrary to english one that are barely recognized by the public. Despite this Japanese are still cheaper.

Yes they got better over the year. But this does not mean that they are worth the price they ask for.

And yet, here's the thing. 99% of the time, changes to the script are not coming from the voice actors, nor the dubbing team. That stuff generally tends to come from the localisation team if not the publisher. The issue that stems from dubs is how they have to be re-written to make the actual wording flow more smoothly, or to try and capture the same joke even though the actual joke doesn't translate properly (In this series, Hagel Boldness springs to mind as an example). This can often lead to the dubtitles issue, where the subs have just been lifted from the dub, and so they clash with the japanese voicing for anyone who actually understands a bit of japanese. It has nothing to do with political correctness gone wild or any of that. Yeah, there are a few cases of it being that, but those cases are a minority. Political correctness is, again, usually down to the publisher or localisation team and will affect the western release of many japanese games, dub or no dub.

As for the money side, well, it just isn't true. There's plenty of extremely expensive JP actors, and plenty of cheaper western ones. It moreso comes from a problem where ONE actor might be being paid more to be on the team than the entire rest combined, whilst you don't see that insane level of difference in japanese VAs usually. It also isn't usually the fault of the dubbing team when the publisher insists they need one or two massive names involved for the sake of star power, and we know this is the case because it is the exact same issue currently plaguing animated films.

Funny that you said I ignored the overacting when its actually right in there too. "Think about how older dubs usually suck massively due to how the characters still try and behave like an anime character and it just does not work with the voices, whilst more recent ones have been trying to put the performance first and make a convincing character over a "faithful anime" one." I feel like quoting that is all I need to say about that one to show this.

I find it amusing that you say they demand a price though, because they really don't. The presence of a dub basically never affects a game's price. If what you actually mean was the voice actors themselves demanding a price, well, that is just absolutely daft. See the reasons given before. If you really think there's barely any difference though, just go and compare the quality of dubs like XC3, FFXVI, FF7R and so on, to stuff like early 2000s bandai dubs. There's a league of difference. Also should probably be mentioned that there's a huge difference between a low-effort dub simply trying to cash in on an audience, and a dub that is being made properly. You can't judge them all by those cash grabs.

[LuckyToShoot]

Originally posted by SunSailor:

Originally posted by VB Driver:

This is a budget series. Not Persona. No extra dubs for you.

The series had English subs before Ryza. But easy, no buy then. Simple as that. I‘m the customer, I decide with my wallet. I win.

And a win for them as well too, since the money saved from not having english dub likely made up for the loss of a few customers as this title is very niche to begin with. Double win situation honestly, people who can't live without EN dub can just not buy it and the company get to save on budget and development time.

Perhaps one day tho, the game gets popular enough again, they might do dub again, but wouldn't hold my breath.

[Valk]

Originally posted by LuckyToShoot:

Originally posted by SunSailor:

The series had English subs before Ryza. But easy, no buy then. Simple as that. I‘m the customer, I decide with my wallet. I win.

And a win for them as well too, since the money saved from not having english dub likely made up for the loss of a few customers as this title is very niche to begin with. Double win situation honestly, people who can't live without EN dub can just not buy it and the company get to save on budget and development time.

Perhaps one day tho, the game gets popular enough again, they might do dub again, but wouldn't hold my breath.

Ryza was the best selling so far by a pretty large margin so....I doubt it's gon a get that much more popular