English Full Audio?

[Kai]

Kind of a deal breaker if its not.

[Alpha-methyl]

True enough, Little Jacob was tough to understand. I use english subs no matter what too. I think what I'm looking for in my voice acting is the emotion they meant to represent in the scenes, which is why despite not understanding much of it, I almost exclusively choose Japanese - unless it's one of those rare games that have un-subbed banter or dialogue too fast to read. I think a big part of it for me, is that I've been reading subs for so many years (since the dawn of gaming that had subs, and the dawn of fansubbed anime) that It's second nature to me to catch it in the corner of my eye. You just get good at it, I guess.

It just takes so much out of whatever is happening, to hear a voice actor completely fumble the emotion, motivation, or line, and it contrasts with what is going on. That's really the reason I choose the Japanese audio over anything else. I can't stand that jarring experience of being taken out of the mood... it's almost bad enough as to ruin some of the games for me.

I guess I've been doing it so long, though, that now I can more or less understand what they're saying (minus the intricacies) ... I don't like having to read subs while I play either, so I can relate to that... but I suppose it just ruins it for me further, when what is being said doesn't match the situation because the guy reading it ...just didn't know his motivation or what the characters he was supposed to be talking to were saying, and THEIR motivations. Hard to do, recorded by yourself in a studio, which is usually how it's done - and you can definitely tell when lines are recorded in tandem - they sound natural...

I wish it didn't stand out so much for me, the awkwardness, and ruin whatever it is I'm playing, but... I doubt I'll ever reach the point where I can forgive dialogue being so far departed from the gravity of a situation or the dialogue of their comrades... I guess it just comes down to what ruins the experience for different gamers. I want that impact - so if I have to read subs, 9 times out of 10, I'm going to do so exclusively ;) I'm not knocking others who believe differently, just stating that I can't imagine being able to do so myself.

[Nero Chaos]

" I'm not knocking others who believe differently, just stating that I can't imagine being able to do so myself. " - so, we came to conclusion, the best way is to give the player a choice - the voice language, the subs language, subs on or off. As it is normal for video today.

" and the dawn of fansubbed anime " yeah, in our anime fandoms it's common ideology: dub is for noobs, voiceover is for amateurs and subs is the only true option for a fan. Still, if I had a choice, I always watched voiceovers: still hear original intonations and getting a meaning from voiceover with 146% attention on video and not having to fatigue eyes reading subs.
And still, on normal anime trackers it's a rule to have the clear original voice track remained in files besides dub or voiceover tracks and add optional subs. Just in case.

[Alpha-methyl]

Oh yes, there's always a valid argument to be made to give a CHOICE. I was only stating my personal opinion. As to how it applies to anime - people call it elitism - but I try to give my REASONING as to why I can't. It has nothing to do with elitism or whatever else people who get upset about it claim - good friends of mine that I work with give each other ♥♥♥♥ about it EVERY DAY - but it's jokingly. "Noob" never had anything to do with it (at least, among decent people) - just that, some people, like myself, can't help but notice the cringey awkwardness of the recording process and acting. Even without understanding full Japanese, I can detect THEIR awkwardness too - it's just far less because of how dramatized they make it.

When they try to dramatize any japanese anime / game in English? the cringe is FAR more apparent. But I guess it was never extra effort to pay attention to the subs AND the video. I know many people can't, but for me I still doubt that'd be enough for me to be able to stomach most english dubs. Always will be exceptions - but man... *shudders*.

A good example... any time a character shouts "NARUTO!!!!!" in Japanese, it sounds ... like they're worried. In the English, it often sounds like they don't know what their setting is or the motivation they actually have for shouting it. It just appears much more obvious to me, perhaps, than most who regularly listen to the dubs - but I can't NOT notice it, and that example sums up 99% of all of those types of dialogue.

Perhaps, if the recording process were different, much of that would be alleviated, but that's not usually how the process in America works. Japan's is worlds apart for most studios... and it's detectable to an ear used to hearing the language.

[Nero Chaos]

That's why I prefer voiceovers: apart all said before, voiceovers are made by fans for fans. No money involved. So they're doing their best just because they want to. Some of them even know japanese and correct crappy subs if necessary

[Alpha-methyl]

It''s great when they do - it's just unfortunate that it always feels so awkward - because to tell the truth, I'd LOVE to be able to play a lot of these games (and watch a lot of the anime I love) in my native language, English.

I just can't, unfortunately ;) now, Fansubs, I'm all about, but I'm so used to reading them, it doesn't bother me. If there were any english voice overs that captured the intensity and drama of the Japanese, I'd be all for it, but I have yet to find any that do, sadly. I would be using them, if there were.

A good example for anime fans... take Erza vs. Azuma on Tenroujima in the anime "Fairy Tail" - the dialogue and battle audio etc are SO INTENSE and dramatic in Japanese ... but then you watch the english version... and all of that is lost. I wish there were English voice actors who could actually capture that mood, that intensity.... but I doubt there ever will be.

Some of this just doesn't translate across the language barrier I guess....

[Doomerang]

I don't know, I can kind of sympathize with not voicing 170 characters. That would go way beyond the reasonable cost for the game.

[Nero Chaos]

Most voicing in Warriors series doesn't depend on what character you're playing, just a very few inbattle phrases for each character.
Again, in DW4 or Orochi 2 that wasn't a problem.

[Kai]

They could just pause the game during any story conversations, or mid-mission instructions. A little design change could be better than investing in dub at all. A lot of japanese games do that, ive only had this issue with Warriors games. Id rather jump from the window than play any of the Ryu ga Gotoku games dubbed, I too value the originality. But Warriors games missions are time sensitive, and playing on higher difficulty its annoying to keep track of everything.

I would like to be able to play in its original voices and listen/read everything, i tried playing through Samurai Warriors 4, but got annoyed halfway of missing things all the time and left it.

[Professor Knockers]

The problem I have with non-English audio in games like SW, DW, and WO is a lot of events give you cues via dialogue. I can't say how many times I've had to play stages repeatedly trying to figure out when something is happening. In earlier DW games on PS2, I'd hear the English dialogue of an officer announcing a key event, and I'd go rescue or assist or whatever needs to be done to successfully accomplish a specific goal. But with Japanese dialogue, I can't tell what's happening, and I almost always miss the subtitles.

So in WO4, an objective such as "Defeat Lu Lingqi within 1 minute of her appearance" is extremely easy to miss. I see the big red "FAILURE" pop up, and I think "WTF? I didn't even know she appeared already."

[Nero Chaos]

exactly what i've been talking about

[D-Black Catto]

Publicado originalmente por Alpha-methyl:

I would rather kill myself than play ANY Japanese game without a Japanese voice-over.

How about calling historic chinese characters anything else than their actual historical names?

Do you enjoy hearing Lu Bu being called "Ryofu", Chen Gong turning into "Chinki", Zhuge Liang into "Shokatsu", Wang Yuanji into "Ogenki"?

Seriously, o genki? You know what that means literally?

Or is your knowledge of Japanese so little that you literally don't understand anything you hear and can't make out individual words?

[General Plastro]

English dub is funny mostly for the trashy and lol moments that the old PS2-era games had.

Otherwise the JP dub has always had superior quality (and still retain the sillyness, i love JP Nobunaga with the overly dramatic tone)

[Cypher]

Gonna throw my two cents in this one as well. As much as I would like to see a dubbed Orochi game, the production costs would be unfeasible, just on the sheer amount of actors that would need to be hired for such a large cast of characters. Even if they were going to do it, you wouldn't get Johnny Yung Bosch voicing Yukimura. It would be like DW9 where they hired a cheap studio with even cheaper interns that don't really know how to VO. Trust me: nobody wants that.

[Professor Knockers]

Johnny Yong Bosch voiced Zhang Bao in DW8. In fact, most of the English voices in DW8 I recognized from the Bleach ensemble. So they hired a lot of notable talent for that game, why not WO? The Warriors franchises aren't some multi-million dollar production triumphs, not like Diablo or The Witcher. Seems to me they're just being greedy.

WO4 is a half-assed game, laziest implementation to acquiring 5-star weapons, and now they're going to charge $60 for the standalone WO4U, versus $40 for the expansion to the already $60 original release. So if you were one of those fans that bought WO4 at full price on release day or whenever, they're royally screwing you on the expansion.

[devilmalice]

It's a trend Koei made lately with their spin offs. I believe it started with WO3. And yeah if wanna english dub you won't find it in spin offs. But will it change in future titles, I highly doubt that.