Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

[Mop it up]

I've never really been a fan of voices in games. I like to read the text and imagine what that character would sound like, and this is usually quite different than voices they choose. To me, it would just be weird to hear Link's voice (beyond the unintelligible exclamations when swinging the sword), because I've already envisioned it so many different ways in each game. To have it locked down to one specific voice would just be weird, especially if I felt it didn't fit.

[Armak88]

I used to enjoy JRPG's until voice acting. I can't handle that every person is either a 12 year old or a chain smoker.

[broodwars]

I've really enjoyed the inclusion of voice acting into my games, especially in ones like the Mass Effect games where it really does help elevate the game to an incredibly cinematic experience.  I've been playing games for over 20 years now, and if I wanted to read reams of text I'd pick up a book.  Games are a visual and auditory medium, and having to spend hours reading (usually clumsily-written) dialogue just bores me after a while.  There's partially why these days that when I play a JRPG I just ignore NPCs that don't look important (and why I only read about half the Secondary sections of the Mass Effect Codex): I just don't care, and having to read a couple paragraphs of text that don't matter and I don't care about...from people I don't care about just wears on me.  Voice acting helps make that much more bearable and pleasing, since it's much more passive.  I can just listen to the conversation.

I understand the point of view that people like having their own voices in their heads for the characters in their games, as I once had similar feelings about books.  For instance, I love the Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings books, but after listening to Jim Dale's masterful performance of the former in the audiobooks and the BBC's incredible radio drama version of the latter, I just listen to those these days.  To me, immersing yourself in the performance just adds that certain something to the experience that's hard to replicate with just reading.  It's partially why I enjoy listening to old 1930s/1940s radio dramas as well.

[NWR_insanolord]

Voice acting is hard/expensive to get right, and I'd rather have no voice acting than bad voice acting.

[broodwars]

Voice acting is hard/expensive to get right, and I'd rather have no voice acting than bad voice acting.

And that's the attitude that usually leads to experiences never evolving and becoming better: "well, I'd rather have none than take a chance and possibly get a bad result."  I'd rather have Nintendo actually experiment with a real effort at incorporating the best voice acting they can manage and fail than never try and always get the same predictable result that we've had for decades now.  Maybe they incorporate Voice Acting into the next Zelda and it's just as bad as Arc Rise Fantasia's, a result so putrid it becomes the stuff of internet memes for years to come.  But then, perhaps Nintendo learns from their mistake and actually assigns a budget and a competent voice director to the next one.  Perhaps the next one is better and they improve from there, and so on.  We'll never know unless they actually make the effort to try, and as long as Nintendo fans are content to always get the same experiences they've always had they never will.

[NWR_insanolord]

If Nintendo did voice acting and people hated it, their response wouldn't be to do it better next time; they'd just stop doing it at all. Bad voice acting can ruin a game, and since I never cared much about it in the first place I'd rather they not do it. This isn't Star Fox 64; "so bad it's good" doesn't work for Zelda. I suppose if they put in subtitles and gave the option in the menus to mute the voices without muting the rest of the game it would be fine by me.

[broodwars]

I suppose if they put in subtitles and gave the option in the menus to mute the voices without muting the rest of the game it would be fine by me.

That's a reasonable compromise.  I'm always in favor of giving the player choice in how they enjoy their games.  If you want to enjoy the game with all text, you have an option that allows you to do so.  If you want to enjoy your game with voiced dialogue, that option's there too.  Everyone's happy.

[Mop it up]

I'm glad Tales of Symphonia had an option to turn off the voices, the acting in that game was like a Saturday morning cartoon. Though this caused a problem with a few cutscenes where the text scrolls automatically, and it would go through it too fast to catch it all.

[DAaaMan64]

My dream Zelda game is the one that becomes the new best one the series.

[ThePerm]

likes the above post


the thing with Zelda is...its an old series with traditions. I know Nintendo doesn't like to make new series' but thats the only way I can see some of these things becoming included with Nintendo games. I don't like a lot of voice acting, and this is mainly because voice acting is rarely up to par.

also this is the problem i see considering Nintendo is a Japanese company

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtd8-PxX8vc

[Caliban]

When it comes to voice acting I don't think we can equally compare the Japanese with the North-American just yet. In Japan it's an industry of professionals, a competitive industry that has been in existence for many years. In North-America you either have the "Hollywood" Actors or Actresses do the job (mostly video games), and then you have the long standing these voice actors/actresses that to my eyes can only be seen as amateurs because they have no competition in the anime industry that they dwell in mostly, and so they see no means to improve themselves.

[Ian Sane]

If Nintendo did voice acting and people hated it, their response wouldn't be to do it better next time; they'd just stop doing it at all.

Well that would just put us back where we are now so what difference does it make?  At least with this we get a chance they could do it right.
 
I find voice acting is a lot like story in a game.  I don't dislike stories in my games but I dislike BAD stories.  The problem is a lot of videogame stories are bad.  They come across as poor fanfiction written by people who want to make movies but lack the talent to do so.
 
I dislike BAD voice acting.  That doesn't mean voice acting is bad.  And aside from poor acting, there is a direct relation with the quality of the story itself.  If the dialog is **** having someone act it out for me makes it all the more painful to sit through.
 
But if you have decent dialog and decent acting and the storyline isn't batshit retarded then voice acting works really well.  Nintendo actually has a pretty good translation team.  The dialog in the Mario & Luigi games for example is pretty funny and sharp.  Having that dialog acted by professionals and not the Nintendo mailroom staff would probably be pretty good.  Nintendo also has the advantage that, though their stories are not very impressive, they keep their stories simple and straightforward so they avoid a lot of the melodramatic teenage angst that other Japanese games have.
 
Zelda's dialog is probably going to be a decent translation.  Zelda's story is probably going to pretty cliche and uninteresting but certainly not outright embarrassing.  If they hired decent actors they could probably pull it off.

[NWR_insanolord]

Nintendo's translations are great; I'd argue the Treehouse group is consistently the best localization team in the business. Bad voice acting would tarnish their excellent work.

The thing here is that Nintendo doesn't want to put voice acting in Zelda. Even if it were free and easy, everything we've heard from Aonuma and Miyamoto seems to indicate they still wouldn't want it. It's something they don't want to do from a creative perspective, and on top of that would be costly and time-consuming to get right, and that adds up to be something that has very little chance of happening.

[Deguello]

Zelda and voice acting just don't mix for reasons both internal and external to Nintendo.

As insanolord mentioned, this is just an artistic decision for Nintendo.  It helps that it's economical too, but Zelda games actually have quite long voice credits these days.  The fact that they are limited to "exclamations" and "flavor sounds" is purely a creative decision.

Another reason is that Zelda actually has quite a bad history with voice acting.  I mean just go listen to the CD-I stuff.  That would be enough to turn anybody involved with the creation of future Zelda games away from voice acting forever.

Lastly, is that this is Zelda, one of the most revered game series in the history of games.  The bar is set so high that it could not feasibly be passed in one try, and if they fail badly, fans won't suffer their repeated attempts to get it right.  For an example of this, look at the industrial-strength bitching about the new Metroid's voice acting, which is actually pretty average to above-average as far as games go, but because it's a long revered Nintendo series, anything less than perfection is a stab in the heart.  Hell, look at how many people still kvetch about Mario's voice, 14 years later.

I also second insanolord's immense praise for the Treehouse.  Considering the amazing amount of variety in games they localize, that they can find ways to differentiate by tone, period, mood, and age level is truly magnificent and they are definitely not appreciated enough for it.

[Dirk Temporo]

Another reason is that Zelda actually has quite a bad history with voice acting.  I mean just go listen to the CD-I stuff.  That would be enough to turn anybody involved with the creation of future Zelda games away from voice acting forever.

You'd have to be an idiot to think that the CD-I games are an indication of ANYTHING AT ALL involving Zelda, Nintendo, or video games in general.

[Deguello]

I don't think I was saying Nintendo made them.  If anything it was a godsend that the CD-i was a major flop or else those three games'  (THREE) taint might have ruined Zelda forever.  But rather that their example is probably remembered by Nintendo as a rather stark warning that bad voice acting ruins everything, even decidedly mediocre games like the Zelda CD-I games.  Hell what's the one thing anybody remembers about them?  The goofy cutscenes and horrible voices.

BTW, please don't call me an idiot, or infer I am one.

[Ian Sane]

I get the idea that if Nintendo doesn't totally nail it with voice acting, fans will bitch.  But fans bitched about the Wind Waker's visuals too.  If they don't get the motion controls right in Skyward Sword, fans will bitch.  This is a risk of changing anything or adding anything to the series and I think that sort of risk just has to be taken at certain points or things will stagnate (which will bring out a different form of bitching.)

The thing is will not-quite-perfect voice acting irritate fans enough to effect sales?  Realistically that is the true risk, isn't it?  I didn't like Wind Waker's look but I still bought Phantom Hourglass which has the same look.  However I hated Phantom Hourglass's controls and did not buy Spirit Tracks because it had the same controls.  One thing I didn't like lost them a sale and the other was not severe enough to.  And those are the stakes they have to take into account if a new idea is not well received.  I don't think voice acting would lose too many future sales so I think it's an acceptable risk.

Nintendo may very well consider this an artistic decision.  I just personally don't believe them because they don't carry the same artistic credibility with me that they used to.  You can't release quick cash-in spinoffs like Link's Crossbow Training and then talk about artistic integrity of the Zelda series.  It's already too late.  If you're willing to recycle assets from Twilight Princess to make a spin-off for a quick buck then you're willing to not have voice acting to save a few bucks.  Nintendo has already demonstrated that Zelda is just a product name to them.  If they want the series to be "sacred" again they have to work to reestablish that reputation.

Though unlike the IGN guys I'm not going to give two shits if Zelda has voice acting or not.  I don't think it's essential, I just don't think the concept should be banished from Zelda forever.

[broodwars]

I don't think I was saying Nintendo made them.  If anything it was a godsend that the CD-i was a major flop or else those three games'  (THREE) taint might have ruined Zelda forever.  But rather that their example is probably remembered by Nintendo as a rather stark warning that bad voice acting ruins everything, even decidedly mediocre games like the Zelda CD-I games.  Hell what's the one thing anybody remembers about them?  The goofy cutscenes and horrible voices.

So because another company (Phillips) made 3 terrible Zelda games that featured terrible animated cutscenes and terrible voices (and terrible game design), that means that Nintendo should just throw out the idea of doing any kind of voice acting altogether?  That makes absolutely no sense, unless you're advocating that Nintendo is normally in favor of having really terrible production values whenever possible.  It's like arguing that Nintendo should never have let Retro do Metroid Prime because First Person Platforming didn't work in Turok: the Dinosaur Hunter.  Bad elements of games get made fun of all the time.  The reason everyone remembers the CD-I Zelda games for those terrible production values is because they're the ones most easily visible on YouTube (that, as well as the Angry Video Game Nerd's videos), and yet despite how terrible those games were the franchise went on to do Ocarina of Time and still has a huge fanbase.

[DAaaMan64]

BTW, please don't call me an idiot, or infer I am one.

Its Dirk, he comes in on occasional and calls people dumb. Its been that way for years. Take it like a man, I like to read it.

[Deguello]

You can't release quick cash-in spinoffs like Link's Crossbow Training and then talk about artistic integrity of the Zelda series.  It's already too late.

If this is the metric for what's artistic I'd imagine the list of truly artistic games is quite small, as you can find spinoffs and cash-ins for everything.  But since said spinoff has absolutely nothing to to with this game, it's pretty much immaterial and yes Nintendo can still make creative decisions about a game despite having released another game which subjectively may or may not have creative designs (as it was a software pack-in for a peripheral), so this point is pretty much moot.

I don't think voice acting would lose too many future sales so I think it's an acceptable risk.

Well if it's that unimportant, why bother?  And how come the position is that it wouldn't "lose too many sales?"  If it's going to lose them any sales, why in the world would they ever want to?  Shouldn't they want to sell more?

Edit:

So because another company (Phillips) made 3 terrible Zelda games

Hey, Zelda's Zelda. All those low-information Zelda fans in 1994 who really didn't follow the whole games scene would think the series went bat****, especially after three straight games of this crap.  Thankfully they died quiet and obscure deaths, but just imagine if Nintendo themselves tried this sort of voice acting 3 times in 7 years, starting with Skyward Sword.  It would absolutely destroy the series.

The reason everyone remembers the CD-I Zelda games for those terrible production values is because they're the ones most easily visible on YouTube (that, as well as the Angry Video Game Nerd's videos), and yet despite how terrible those games were the franchise went on to do Ocarina of Time and still has a huge fanbase.

As far as I know Youtube didn't exist in 1998, and these games remained very, very obscure and almost mythical until the mid-2000s.  Part of the reason that Ocarina of Time did so well was because for all of the fans, that was the next Zelda game after LttP.  Now imagine the three CD-i games were released in between.  How would Ocarina of Time have fared then?  Would interest in Zelda have even survived?

[ThePerm]

Zelda Cd-i isn't an example of Nintendo doing bad voice acting, its just an example of what it could be.

If they did include voice acting, the first thing i could imagine is that the Japanese voice acting would be decent and the English voice acting would be terrible.  Not only that, there probably wouldn't be a choice to switch it. Remember Nintendo always leaves out some painfully obvious things. Nintendo America has no backbone, and it seems never argues and doesn't even offers much of an advisory standpoint. Hell, id imagine Nintendo would send over an advisor from Japan and have him audition the voice actors, and not even give NoA any say.


Speaking of voice choices, i always liked Charles Martinet as Mario, but excluding his...Super Mario Sunshines voices suck. Listening to F.L.U.D. and Bowser is terrible. Bowser sounds like he should be the voice of an eagle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOgR3GOplVY&feature=fvw      skip to 3:15, 7:50

interesting the top comment from 3 months ago, and its not from me.

[Ian Sane]

If this is the metric for what's artistic I'd imagine the list of truly artistic games is quite small, as you can find spinoffs and cash-ins for everything.  But since said spinoff has absolutely nothing to to with this game, it's pretty much immaterial and yes Nintendo can still make creative decisions about a game despite having released another game which subjectively may or may not have creative designs (as it was a software pack-in for a peripheral), so this point is pretty much moot.

I'm just saying when Nintendo says they're not going to do something for artistic reasons that coincidently will save them money, I don't believe them.  That's all it is.  I just personally don't believe them.
 

 Well if it's that unimportant, why bother?  And how come the position is that it wouldn't "lose too many sales?"  If it's going to lose them any sales, why in the world would they ever want to?  Shouldn't they want to sell more?

You're taking the wording too literally.  I mean that the odds of losing any sales due to poor voice acting is probably nill.  It's like if I said "I don't think there are too many dinosaurs in New York City."
 
It's hard to imagine what the impact of the CD-i Zeldas would have been in a different age.  Back then there were a lot of obscure consoles like the CD-i, 3DO or Jaguar that you knew about if you read gamings mags but it seemed like no one owned one.  We don't have that now.  It isn't like if a Zelda game was made by Sony on a legal technicality, released on the PS3, and sucked.  I think that would hurt the Zelda brand but the PS3 is everywhere despite being the last place console.  There are no modern day equivalents of systems like the CD-i.
 
The weakening of a brand based on an "unofficial" sequel is something that is only going to affect the mainstream.  Gamers who pay attention to this stuff, and know that Nintendo doesn't make every game on the Wii, know what developer does what and would know that any Zelda made under the circumstances of the CD-i games would have no effect on the quality of the next "real" Zelda.  But the mainstream would never have known about something like the CD-i in the first place.  The N-Gage is the closest thing we've had in recent years.  I figure if Nokia, due to a loophole, made a piss poor Zelda game for the N-Gage it would have had no effect because anyone who actually knew what an N-Gage was would have been knowledgable enough to know that Nintendo didn't make it.

[Adrock]

All this talk of poor voice acting is ultimately moot. Any company can have quality voice acting in their games, even Nintendo. You need a reasonable budget and a voice/casting director who gives a damn. It's quite easy to spot a terrible actor. A good director already knows actors who can perform and are passionate about their profession. They don't even need to be name actors either. Take someone like David Hayter. He's a good actor. He consistently plays Solid Snake and could demand a larger paycheck but he doesn't because he's passionate about the material. He gave up part of his paycheck so Konami could re-record the dialog in the Twin Snakes.

It's not really a matter of whether Nintendo could have good voice acting in Zelda games. Rather, it's whether they're willing to go the extra mile. All indications point to no since Nintendo historically favors greater profit margins. Voice acting would make Zelda games more engaging, especially if Nintendo would hire some writers to pen a coherent plot, but it wouldn't help the games sell any better which is ultimately the bottomline. Nintendo knows we're all going to buy the game anyway so long as the gameplay is solid. It's Zelda, it's a multi-million seller as soon as they announce the game.

[Mop it up]

Part of the reason that Ocarina of Time did so well was because for all of the fans, that was the next Zelda game after LttP.

They could've played Link's Awakening on Game Boy. This doesn't change your point, but still, Link's Awakening needs more recognition!

[ThePerm]

deaf people would find this argument silly.