No voice audio during final battle *spoilers*

[meteo dark]

I have normal audio with voices/music/sfx during my whole play. However, when fighting Bhunivelze, there are no voice lines playing. Only voice lines playing are Lightning's battle grunts. So far, tried both japanese/english audios and none have worked. Bhunivelze and Lightning don't say any of their lines during the battle like the beggining ("If I become the goddess of death...", getting staggered/moving to next phase, Bhunivelze casting spells, battle end ("God is defeated...").

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Any mod installed? Have you tried checking the integrity of the game files? Are you playing with uncapped framerate, and if so, have you tried capping the framerate?

[meteo dark]

No mods installed. Integrity of game files is fine. I'll try re-downloading and test fixed framerates.

[meteo dark]

Tried re-installing and capping the framerate. No changes whatsoever. I also tried the guide here to change sound settings to stereo, but still out of luck. I'm using headphones on my pc's front panel.

[Antsstyle]

I think I have already encountered this problem, though it affected lots of fights, not only that one.

You can read more in this thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/345350/discussions/0/3008927444657016294/

[meteo dark]

Yeah, just tested this again with other bosses like Noel. Special battle quotes don't really play. I watched YT videos to confirm. I was excited for the Bhunivelze battle :/

This bug really bothers me, and I can't just see myself to continue to newgame+. Kinda sad that this is a Win10 issue.

[Antsstyle]

Yeah, it's admittedly a lot of inconvenience to buy Win7 and reinstall it just for this. It does work on that, though.

I pursued it as far as I could with Square Enix support, but they were insistent that the bug wasn't reproducible on their end, despite evidence that it wasn't only my system that had this issue.

Out of curiosity - do battle quotes work in non-boss battles work on yours? (intro quotes, garb change quotes etc).

[meteo dark]

Probably not. I don't remember Lightning saying any battle quotes when changing garbs.

[Antsstyle]

Originally posted by tried42long:

Probably not. I don't remember Lightning saying any battle quotes when changing garbs.

I see... you could also report it to Square Enix if you're so inclined, the more people report this the more they are likely to look into it as not just being an end-user PC problem.

[Serafie1999AD]

I can confirm that this bug happens after updating to Windows 10, version 20H2. The battle against Bhunivelze is almost entirely without battle quotes. This is how the battle sounded before updating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acRaqjFRvcY Now none of the quotes are there. I tried using Esunada (an EP spell), and Lightning says something there, but her voice is very quiet. I tried switching to Japanese sounds in-game, and switching the system's speaker option from Stereo to 7.1, but neither restored the battle quotes.

[Antsstyle]

Originally posted by Serafie1999AD:

I can confirm that this bug happens after updating to Windows 10, version 20H2. The battle against Bhunivelze is almost entirely without battle quotes. This is how the battle sounded before updating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acRaqjFRvcY Now none of the quotes are there. I tried using Esunada (an EP spell), and Lightning says something there, but her voice is very quiet. I tried switching to Japanese sounds in-game, and switching the system's speaker option from Stereo to 7.1, but neither restored the battle quotes.

It really sucks, it takes a ton of suspense and atmosphere out of many fights (even the ordinary fights feel very robotic as a result).

The best thing you can do - if you have the time - is report it to SE, as they're unlikely to read anything here - and they likely won't fix it unless more users report it.

https://support.eu.square-enix.com/main.php?la=2&id=9521 You'll need to make an account there to report the bug, that link goes to the Lightning Returns section. (it says it's for PS3, but that's the only Lightning Returns support page, and I've been in back-and-forth with SE support by reporting from that page.)

[Serafie1999AD]

Originally posted by Antsstyle:

It really sucks, it takes a ton of suspense and atmosphere out of many fights (even the ordinary fights feel very robotic as a result).

Agreed, the battles feel plain and empty without quotes.

Originally posted by Antsstyle:

The best thing you can do - if you have the time - is report it to SE, as they're unlikely to read anything here - and they likely won't fix it unless more users report it.

https://support.eu.square-enix.com/main.php?la=2&id=9521 You'll need to make an account there to report the bug, that link goes to the Lightning Returns section. (it says it's for PS3, but that's the only Lightning Returns support page, and I've been in back-and-forth with SE support by reporting from that page.)

Unfortunately, I can't do that, since I already rolled back to the previous Windows version. This means I won't be able to send Square Enix any system diagnostics, which are vital for tracking the cause of the bug. The battle quotes are just fine after rolling back, so it's definitely the Windows update causing the problem.

I suspected the bug was caused by the game trying to use a nonexistent middle speaker to play the battle quotes, meaning the game would try to use 5.1/7.1 sound systems even when your system is configured to use Stereo sounds. I can't confirm this, though, as I'm not able to replicate the problem with the previous Windows version. I tried switching my OS's speaker setup to use 5.1/7.1 sounds even though I have stereo speakers, and even that didn't remove the battle quotes. If you have friends with a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker system and Windows 10 build 20H2, you could try to check if their devices can play LR's battle sounds.

[Antsstyle]

Originally posted by Serafie1999AD:

Unfortunately, I can't do that, since I already rolled back to the previous Windows version. This means I won't be able to send Square Enix any system diagnostics, which are vital for tracking the cause of the bug. The battle quotes are just fine after rolling back, so it's definitely the Windows update causing the problem.

You still can, they don't require diagnostics in order to send a report - you can just send them what you know, it still might help them decide to investigate this. I sent them my diagnostics after I tested it; I got two friends to test on different hardware and steam accounts and both had exactly the same bug appear on Win10, though according to SE's support, they couldn't reproduce the bug at all. Weird, given that at least 5 people have seen the exact same bug only on Windows 10.

As far as I know, rolling back anything in Win10 isn't a permanent solution anyway (as I believe it'll eventually force you to re-update it), plus unless you happen to have a recovery point or physical recovery media before the update, rolling back isn't an option.

Out of curiosity, were you doing a lot of updates, or just 20H2? I recall that this bug started happening for me around July or so, which is before 20H2 came out. May 2020 is the last time I am sure the bug didn't exist on Win10.

[Deny Sufriawan]

I thought I was the only one who experienced this.
Has this in battle voice over issues been addressed to SE?
- No voiceover from lightning when the battle starts
- Switching schemata
- Boss quotes when battle starts or when boss defeated
- Etc

[Antsstyle]

Originally posted by Deny Sufriawan:

I thought I was the only one who experienced this.
Has this in battle voice over issues been addressed to SE?
- No voiceover from lightning when the battle starts
- Switching schemata
- Boss quotes when battle starts or when boss defeated
- Etc

Yes, but they insist they can't reproduce it (They wouldn't tell me what version of Windows they were testing on, but simply said they couldn't reproduce the issue, despite video evidence showing it).

They're not likely to do anything unless several people report this problem to them, so I'd highly recommend doing that (https://support.eu.square-enix.com/index.php). Requires making an account there, I think you need to use the PS3 -> Lightning returns option to report it.