Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

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MysteriousArtistX
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Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#1 Post by MysteriousArtistX »

This has been a topic I have been discussing with my crew, while I was going over all the features I wanted in my game. When we came to VA-ing I was on the fence, because:
1) It's not very easy to obtain good free VA's to begin with
2) I know I am picky when it comes to VA's, won't even deny that because I've done VA work myself and because of
3) It is a great irk when a voice and a character don't match up, which I feel other's might understand my sentiments on.

But I like to hear other opinions and maybe some advice on this.
Do you think Voice Acting makes a game more appealing?
Can it make or break a game or deem it better quality?
What about about it does?


And of course the most important question: Should I truly consider adding VA in my game?
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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#2 Post by CaseyLoufek »

Consider it's a lot of work to do right. For Bliss Stage we have good actors that match our characters and work for future shares. The problem is it's still a lot of time and effort to coordinate the recording sessions, chop up the files, insert them into the game and so on.

It will also drastically increase the size of your game.

All in all it's worthwhile but not to be undertaken lightly. If done well it certainly adds to the game but it can practically double your workload if there is a lot of dialog.

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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#3 Post by Ziassan »

Really a big risk to take. If you ask only the reader side, you'll find many people saying that yes, it's something they want. But actually they often think of the pro Japanese voice actors they hear in other VN.

Voice acting isn't that bad to have, but it's really the last thing you have to spend your time/money on :
* it asks a lot of work & time (general)
* having good actors costs a lot, and not good enough voice acting can damage a game
* the casting/choice can be really tiring and tricky, unless you have a voice director which is not a light role but is again someone to have in the team or to pay
* you can't change the text once the voices are recorded !
* some lines can be good to read but weird to hear, that means you have to write the dialogues thinking about that
* it increases the size of the game, while a part of the players would just don't want to have voice acting and still have these taking place on their computer

And I probably didn't think of many other points.

But still, if you're making a big project and already know some people in this area / some experience, it can be a good plus. But be aware of what it asks before starting something like that ahah.

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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#4 Post by LateWhiteRabbit »

This is one of those things that must be done perfectly or not at all. Bad voice acting can really detract from a good game.

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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#5 Post by Minnfae »

Personally, I hate any kind of voice acting in games, unless it's something small like Mario in Super Mario 64
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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#6 Post by fleet »

I don't have a problem with it, but I won't do it in my VNs because it increases file size (upload and download speeds are major concerns to me because of my slow internet connection).
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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#7 Post by darlo »

I want to use VAs in my current (and first) project as I think it'll be a benefit to my students (making this for one of my schools). I'll be giving it to them on CDs so I (hopefully) won't have to worry about file size.

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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#8 Post by luminarious »

The World Ends With You had the right amount of voice acting. NO WORDS! Just laughter, grunts, that kind of sounds. These added some character, but weren't annoying.

Main thing I have against voice acting is that I can read about 80 pages of a regular softcover book in an hour. Unless your VN is a radio play, skip the voices, except maybe in cutscenes..

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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#9 Post by dramspringfeald »

Do you think Voice Acting makes a game more appealing?
-I feel that voice acting can enhance a game and if done right make a game more appealing. However poor VA's can drag down a games 'power' like "Kingdom Hearts" Aerith and 'Leo.' who sucked the air out of the game when ever they spoke.

Can it make or break a game or deem it better quality?
Well Disney/Square have shown that having horrid VA's will not really effect a game not to mention being an 'indy' game devloper using non standard programming/ resources will go a long way.

What about about it does?
It's usually an issue of poor VA's using Bad lines that tends to drag a game into the dirt, Mostly the Writing but coaching the VA staff will help with some of it.


So I am Yeah because most of the common problems can be fixed before it becomes an issue. the only real problem will be the size of the game. they tend to inflate a file rather quickly. :/
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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#10 Post by Razz »

Do you think Voice Acting makes a game more appealing?
Definitely. The biggest thing I think OEL games fall short on vs. japanese is there's no voice acting. (i can think of two games)

Can it make or break a game or deem it better quality?
Yes, both.

What about about it does?
If it breaks the game it'll obviously be atrocious voice acting, probably best to add in a way to make it optional.
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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#11 Post by TrickWithAKnife »

I guess in some ways it depends on the game.

Originally I had hopes to have voice actors for most of the game I'm working on, but quickly realised it's unrealistic.
In my case it's a vital feature, because I want to teach the player Japanese with correct pronunciation.
It's also a giant flaming pain in the butt to be honest.

I think if you are going to have voice acting, you need to be certain of certain factors:
  • How many voice actors you have
  • How many voice actors you need (or whether some of them can voice more than one character)
  • How the voices sound when recorded
  • If their voices match the characters
  • Whether the voice actors can commit to the amount of audio you need
  • If you are OK with the file size of your game increasing quite a lot.
It may be better to have partial voice acting in some cases. I remember playing a lot of PS1 games that used partial voice acting, possibly due to the storage limitations of the game CDs.

It's been said before, but bad voice acting can lower the overall quality of a game.
If you are unsure, perhaps have the potential voice actor(s) record some samples, and get the views of other people.
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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#12 Post by darlo »

I've just realised something that might put a dent into the use of VAs in my game. The main character has a customisable name which comes up a lot in conversation.

I want to keep that aspect there to give that bit of freedom to my students (not to mention there're a few little extras should they name the character after me or another teacher, lol), but couldn't imagine having voice actors prepare a thousand names 'just in case'.

An alternative would be to modify the scripts so that we have a lot of "them" "they" "you" and so on (no he's or she's as I'm trying for genderlessness), or possibly even keep the text as is (name shown) but have the VAs use the alternative words.

Commence mulling over.

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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#13 Post by Victoria Jennings »

darlo wrote:I've just realised something that might put a dent into the use of VAs in my game. The main character has a customisable name which comes up a lot in conversation.
In Persona 3, they just skipped over the protag's name in convos. For example, if the line read "Hey, [name].", the VAs would just say "Hey.".

Someone mentioned TWEWY, and yeah, I'm actually really for that approach. Besides cutscenes and battle quotes, the only full lines were really short things, like "Ask away." and "Sir!".

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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#14 Post by MysteriousArtistX »

Ah thanks for all the replies friends, for the most part I see most people have similar views as I have had. It pretty much confirms my iffiness, but some of the suggestions have given me incentive to maybe go about it in other ways.

I really liked the suggestion of maybe just using the occasional sound effect though [laughs, grunts, etc], it's given me some ideas. I might also test out the VA-ing aspect in the demo like someone suggested, if it get's a negative response I'll nix it. But that only depends if I can find proper voices of course.
[I completely agree with you dramspringfeald, the KH voicing was horrible. You said only Aerith and Leo which is nice, I'd say majority of the non-disney folk :cry:]
I'm not worried about file size, as I said - it's a large game [in every aspect]. But for now I'll keep all this advice in mind and notes :lol:. Thank you again everyone! :]
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Re: Voice Acting: Yeah or Nay?

#15 Post by Victoria Jennings »

MysteriousArtistX wrote:
the KH voicing was horrible.
Hilariously enough, KH's shoddy voice work seemed to be infectious. As much as I loved how TWEWY was voiced in the original game, in KH:3D, Neku sounded like a completely different person, Joshua is pretty much evidence that his VA's voice is growing more high-pitched with age... and speaking of, Rhyme sounded older than Joshua. I:<

Also, the acting just plain sucked.
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