English or Japanese VA?

[Moth]

I just got the game, are the English ones any good? I usually prefer English, but it entirely depends on the skill of the voice actors.

[The King in the North]

Japanese is better, I played the game in Japanese VA and then watched a video of English VA and I had to shut it down after a few seconds.

[♥]

simon is pretty much the only character i like in english, otherwise, original VA.

[cbastien2a]

It s more immersive in gameplay to play in VA because you understand all the order, and quick talk during the battle. Sometimes you even hear ennemy react to your move !

But i really prefere Japanese voice during cinematique because the character and story are close to anime

[Lanzagranadas]

Originally posted by The King in the North:

Japanese is better, I played the game in Japanese VA and then watched a video of English VA and I had to shut it down after a few seconds.

Same here. The English VA in the VC games has allways been bad.

[Arisato]

I always choose Japanese when playing Japanese games. English dub is not my thing no matter how good it is, I have no problem if English is the original language though.

[Stoibs]

I'll forever be confused and never understand why people want to listen to something that they presumably can't understand :S
The whole "It sounds better" doesn't make sense to me either when it's a language that I have no knowledge or comprehension of, it's all nothingness white noise to me.

Currently playing Yakuza 0 also where the Jpn audio is the only one available, I'd much prefer it if there was no voices at all and it was just text based honestly since it adds literally nothing to the experience from my perspective.

To each their own though I guess.

[cbastien2a]

One thing : Anime.

After watching tons of Anime even if i only understand few word, the voice ect; seem familar.
Japanese voice feat better with story, character, chara-design ect... for me it's more immersive to play with this voices.
When i see minerva/rylei I'm not thinking :"Oh this is brit girl/ american girl".
They also have pretty dumb name such as Neige, who is the french word for snow. ( Yeah i'm a frenchie).
Same thing for Raz, i cant believe one soldier on the earth can be as stupid as him XD. For me he is more like an anime character than a video game character.

So for all this reason i prefer japanese voice, but the english voice aren't that bad and they are pretty good. I think it's more a personnale choice than a real better acting.

But like i said, playing in english in the real + in battle because you understand short call radio when you are on the battlefield.

I'm don't have a high knowledge of Metal gear saga but Snake seem me more legit with english voice than Japenese Voice, juste because yeah he could be an American super soldier.

[Lanzagranadas]

Originally posted by Stoibs:

I'll forever be confused and never understand why people want to listen to something that they presumably can't understand :S

Because the original voice acting is usually way better and more enjoyable than some D-quality soulless dub. And to understand we have subtitles. It's the same reason why a lot of people prefer allways watching movies in their original language to appreciate the real tone and intention of the original acting, which is oftentimes ruined in the dub process.

[cbastien2a]

Sometimes other location or equal, and on few case better as the original.

Gurren Laggaan is better in VF than in VO, better casting, better synch ect.

It's right, not all the re-acting are even half-equal as the original, but you need to stay open minded and let's the chance for another location.

[Sugoi]

VC4's dub isn't bad, but it isn't as good as the original which has an all-star cast.

While there are plenty of Japanese games with poor voice work, it's overall pretty uncommon to have a dub that meets or exceeds the original. In recent memory the last time I thought a dub was on par with the original was xseed's really excellent dub of CS1&2.

[Stoibs]

Originally posted by Lanzagranadas:

Because the original voice acting is usually way better and more enjoyable than some D-quality soulless dub.

But I addressed that in the rest of my post.
Vocal audial sounds and tonal shifts or inflections that I have no way at all of understanding that are stringed together are meaningless to me and don't at all come across as something being 'better' or 'worse' as far as I can tell; it's just noise.

[Young Erusean Officer]

I'm not fluent in JP but I still preffer it. English is nice to figure out the chatter in battles though. A lot of battles have unique ones too. I wish they'd do it like Ace Combat and put subs on top.

[袁銀-ゆん-Yun]

Originally posted by cbastien2a:

I'm don't have a high knowledge of Metal gear saga but Snake seem me more legit with english voice than Japenese Voice, just because yeah he could be an American super soldier.

If I recall Hideo Kojima is very perticuler about his work and the quality there of. The original english voice actor for Snake and Big Boss from the series first to Peace Walker had to go through multiple auditions per instalments to make sure he was up to the job. (Hideo also wanted to have him replaced so deliberatly made the audiotns hard). For Phantom Pain and Ground Zero though, he got replaced entierly by someone younger.

Originally posted by Stoibs:

I'll forever be confused and never understand why people want to listen to something that they presumably can't understand :S

I think that's mainly down to language perception. Some people have the ability to decern the auditorial tones much more easily then others. To theses people, these shifts in tones are enough to give one a perspective of a character's traits or personality, or the mood of a scene.

Alternativly, the other side of it could be laungue familiarity. For example, Manderian is my first language, but I grew up in close proximity to Japan so elemnts of Japan will always make it's way to where I am. This allowed me to effectivly discen the Japanese language and interpertation at a later age, even when at that time, my understanding of Japanese may have been less then a grade schooler. I learned English second, but realisticly I was exposed to English as a third language. To me back then everyone sounded the same, I was unable to differenciate English tones or sounds. Up until my perception of the language was adiquete a few years later.

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As for the OP

I recommend the Japanese VA. I preffer the Original launge to a work rather then a dub, since it does bring it closer to the original intent and meaning. With few exciptions like MGS where the work's dub was directly "handled" by it director.

[Pass_the _M]

Originally posted by Stoibs:

Originally posted by Lanzagranadas:

Because the original voice acting is usually way better and more enjoyable than some D-quality soulless dub.

But I addressed that in the rest of my post.
Vocal audial sounds and tonal shifts or inflections that I have no way at all of understanding that are stringed together are meaningless to me and don't at all come across as something being 'better' or 'worse' as far as I can tell; it's just noise.

technically its all noise. lol and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ english Riley is the worst noise.

[ukie]

Originally posted by Stoibs:

Vocal audial sounds and tonal shifts or inflections that I have no way at all of understanding that are stringed together are meaningless to me and don't at all come across as something being 'better' or 'worse' as far as I can tell; it's just noise.

It's completely up to personal preference, my only criteria on switching to Japanese or English voice or completely muting sound altogether is whether I can imagine and like a certain character with that voice. Understanding what they're saying is secondary to the tone/pitch/inflection for me; if I cannot like or at least tolerate the voice then the dub fails since it detracts from the character in my head instead of help fleshing the character out. When I have issues with English dubs, most of the time it's because the character delivering the lines sound forced / fake, not because of what they're actually saying.