I'm getting tired of these remakes and their lack of proper accessibility options

[stinkyguy666]

Hi my name's BubbleButt64. You may remember me from threads such as "Will there be subtitles in Spyro Reignited?" and "Why are there no subtitles in Crash N. Sane Trilogy? Will they be patched in?

Anyway Spyro Reignited is finally here and guees what, still no subtitles at all for cutscenes. In minor instances you'll get characters that have text-boxes but it's not consistent throughout the game at all.

Imagine being hard of hearing and playing these games when they originally came out and not understanding a word of what they're saying in cutscenes. Then years later you find out that these games are being remade and that the voice lines are being entirely re-recorded and you think "wow! now i'll finally understand the cutscenes because they'll have subtitles!" only to find out that no, there are not subtitles.

Well, you don't need to imagine because that's literally the world we live in.

This is bad and I hate that hardly anyone points this stuff out. I genuinely feel like review points should be deducted for this sort of thing.

If Nintendo did this with BoTW we would publicly call them out right? If a new Sonic game released with no subtitles we would hear people calling it out, right? Why do I barely hear it for these games?

After my disappointment with Crash, it just sucks to see them make the same mistake again. These are modern remakes with outdated mindsets. They re-recorded all voice clips for these games too so they clearly have a transcript lying around somewhere.



I've had a little stab at creating what I would've liked to have seen, it's not great, but they really dropped the ball by not including subtitles.

 

[Optimator]

You are absolutely right. At minimum, it would be better if such games had to include a warning on the game cover informing potential customers that the game is not accessible for everyone. Would it make the cover look ugly? Yes, and that's partly the point. Fix it or have a big ugly info box on the cover.

 

[Windrunner]

Yeah this is unacceptable in this day and age. Luckily it's now rare but When it does crop up it significantly reduces my enjoyment.

 

[Deleted member 864]

I was disappointed to see subtitles weren't in, in fact subtitles is usually the first thing I look at when starting a game just to make sure they're on. Sorry OP.

 

[wbloop]

I always play in english, which isn't my mother tongue, so having subs on is a good backup when I have trouble understanding what they're saying due to slang or other stuff. RDR2 is one prime example where subs are critical.

Spyro may not have the slang issue, but it still sucks to have no subs as a backup.

 

[Sejanoz]

Totally agree with you. Hope they can patch them in

 

[Ultima_5]

that's super weird that they don't have subtitles. I understand how settings for color impaired can be over looked, but idk how anything comes out these days w/o subtitles.

 

[Qwark]

Honestly any modern game should have at least some form of subtitle support. Sorry that you have to deal with that OP. I remember the original thread about Crash, I can't believe they haven't done anything to fix it... and at this point I don't expect them to.

 

[Megatron]

Totally agree with you. Hope they can patch them in

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That would be nice. Unfortunately they are still working on patching the rest of the games in, so I'm not optimistic.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

yep. i played a bit of crash trilogy on my brother's ps4 and was super disappointed with the lack of subtitles. i'm not a native english speaker and always fear i'm gonna mishear something, so i always turn them on. a game not having subtitles would mean i'm not gonna play it.
it's not like the crash games had a ton of cutscenes either. it's unacceptable imo that they never bothered to patch the game to add subtitles. my complaint isn't even that important, but such an easy thing to add would mean a lot to people who have impaired hearing.

 

[Weltall Zero]

As a Spanish gamer that much prefers to watch media in English (and often, that's the only option), but sometimes can't understand what some specific characters say (or mumble, or demonically incantate), fuck any game that doesn't have subtitles. This should not be acceptable in 2018.

 

[TwinsUltra64]

I'm Italian and I have no problem understanding what the characters are saying, and I play the games in English.

 

[FakePlasticTree]

On that subject, are we Europeans forced to deal with the localized dubs as opposed to the original English cast?

 

[Sgt. Demblant]

Activision games have been problematic when it comes to subtitles since forever. I really don't understand why, is that a company policy or something? Most major publishers I can think of have subtitles in all of their games. But Activision have been constantly dropping the ball on that front since the PS2 gen at least. It ruined so many of their games for me.

 

[Kinsei]

You're right. There's no excuse to not have something as basic as subtitles in this day and age.

 

[Apollo]

Subtitles and many other accessibility options (colorblind settings, etc) need to become standard. Not everybody needs them, but to the people who do, these options can make the difference between being able to play what everybody else is playing and missing out.

 

[Sesha]

I'm Italian and I have no problem understanding what the characters are saying, and I play the games in English.

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But are you heard of hearing?

 

[DarkLordMalik]

This is completely unacceptable. Both times it was Activision.

I remember how Capcom never even bothered to add subtitles for Resident Evil 4 in any of the 100 of re-releases on different platforms.

 

[Mirage]

Not having subtitles is ridiculous. Subtitles is always something I make sure to check for since games can tend to have hard to hear parts at times and I'm not even hard of hearing.

 

[Curufinwe]

Not having subtitles in Jak & Daxter on PS4 felt really weird.

 

[Herbz]

At least some remakes got subs, such as REmake. The original RE game had no subs.

 

[DarkLordMalik]

Not having subtitles in Jak & Daxter on PS4 felt really weird.

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That one was a simple emulation so I can understand, but if you are porting ore remastering, at least do the courtesy of adding subs.

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

WTF!? That's really weird! Pretty much all games these days have subtitles; hell, most games period have subtitles! (Indeed, subtitles pre-dated voice acting in games by a long-shot!)

That is absolutely unacceptable! I'd be fuming! I'm not even hard of hearing and I'd be fuming if there were no subtitles, I always use them in games! That is an absolute insult to everyone who is hard of hearing!

 

[Simone]

Also, why do I have to kill my eyes to read the subtitles in RDR2?

 

[daybreak]

Wait, no subtitles at all? That seems really odd, I had figured that was a given nowadays. I'm always turning subtitles on for every piece of media I consume, it's just my preferred way of enjoying something now.

 

[jerf]

I can't believe it's almost 2019 and subtitles are still dog shit. Horrible timing, terrible or small font, blocking or being blocked by HUD elements just no effort shit. TV is even worse, you'll be lucky if you get higher than 8 bit text on some of that shit.

While I'm on a mini rant, what's up with the FCC and anti piracy screens at the end of dvds still being from like the 1970's? You can't update that shit? You can't afford to spend 40 seconds in powerpoint to make something nicer? You can't even read the text on an HD TV it's so jacked.

Anywho.....subtitles! Add them ya butts

 

[PSqueak]

For that matter, im still furious that N. Sane Trilogy locks voice to whatever language your Playstation is set on.

Let me switch to english, these spaniards are awful at capturing the intensity of Dr. Neo Cortex!

 

[Tohsaka]

It's baffling that a game from a huge AAA publisher like Activision doesn't have subtitles.

 

[Deleted member 4093]

you cant just turn on closed caption?

 

[Mario_Bones]

How the hell do you not add subtitles to your game? That should be one of the bare minimum features

 

[Eumi]

Wow. That almost feels like something you shouldn't be able to do. I would have thought Sony/Microsoft were mandating subtitles for games released on their systems.

Is it literally just an attempt to get away with not making them because the originals didn't have them, or something?

 

[Cels]

too cheap to put the whole game on disc (in the case of spyro), too cheap to help out your HoH customers

i sense a theme here

 

[PKrockin]

Damn, I feel for you. Perhaps pressuring devs on social media has a chance of working?

 

[Freddo]

I seriously hate the lack of subtitles in games and STILL haven't played Quake IV because of it.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

Yeah for a game to come out in 2018 with no subtitles is a massive what the fuck. I would have thought that would be mandatory to pass certification by everyone by now

 

[Driggonny]

What in the world? I would've thought subtitles would be ubiquitous by now. Only time I've personally not seen subtitles is in early access games

 

[Vareon]

Agreed, we need to make more noise on this.

 

[hankenta]

When you made the last thread I thought to myself that there's no way they'd release a game without subtitles in 2018. I really thought all your worrying was baseless, but here we are. I didn't know before this thread that Crash released without subtitles, so I didn't know there was precedence.

 

[Ben Walker]

This is ridiculous.

 

[Psychotron]

Yeah, definitely. Red Dead 2 has subtitles for everything, and that script is gigantic. You'd think Spyro would have them.

 

[vkbest]

I always play in english, which isn't my mother tongue, so having subs on is a good backup when I have trouble understanding what they're saying due to slang or other stuff. RDR2 is one prime example where subs are critical.

Spyro may not have the slang issue, but it still sucks to have no subs as a backup.

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RDR2 subtitules are incomplete or bugged. At least, with Spanish subs

 

[Zem]

I'm actually surprised that the console makers allows a game to be certified without having subtitles. That needs to change.

 

[RPG_Fanatic]

Seeing any game with voiced cut scenes released nowadays without subtitles, just hurts my soul. There is no excuse. You have the whole script. It is not that hard to put the words they are saying on the bottom of the screen in time with the dialogue.

 

[Skulldead]

I have to agree with you there, I'm working on web and we have to made our website acessible for blind/color blind/ visual problem / attention deficit etc. But we have to agree this add one hell of a taxe and time on a project. But subtitle should be the minimum.

 

[Ted]

You are right to be angry BubbleButt64 and you have my support.

A lack of clear, usable and correct subtitles in games (or any media), is tantamount to disability discrimination. Given their size and financial clout Activision should be righteously dragged over the coals for not providing basic accessibility options.

I'd try making a scene about it on social media, call them out on their discrimination. If you can, try and tag in any local deaf/hearing impairment charities/action groups you are involved with/aware of and hope they can amplify the signal a little. A young man with hearing loss called Jamie Danjoux had a similar complaint about subtitling on a major UK broadcasters' on demand content and with some help from Action on Hearing Loss managed to get more than 25k people to sign a petition which ended up forcing Sky to at least make a pledge to get better:

We know that the way in which many of our customers are watching TV is changing, as more and more people watch their favourite shows on demand… From September, we'll begin the ramp up of subtitled Sky on demand content, working towards a target of at least 80 per cent.

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And for anyone who thinks this is only a niche problem not really worth the time for developers and publishers, consider that around 19% of the UK population suffer from some kind of hearing loss and around 1 in 1000 children are born with profound hearing loss.

#fuckdiscrimination

 

[entremet]

Even when they have subtitles, they are rather small. The issue is that the people that test these games are probably doing them computer desk style setups instead of a living room style one.

 

[Soran]

And then it come the problem with subtitles, they are far to small most of the time.

 

[Toast]

I'm still surprised there is no standard subtitle font/size/aligment yet. Saw a friend playing Alien Isolation and the subtitles were horrid.

 

[Motwera]

I dunno if I'm allowed to link to my blog in this OT, but I addressed it briefly as a poll/discussion post to see what other people make out of this issue, hopefully, to spread more awareness (excuse the writing on the post)
https://crashynews.wordpress.com/20...ns-in-both-crash-bandicoot-and-spyro-remakes/

It's 2018 and it is quite standard for many games to come with a variety of options to choose from, like graphics, gameplay, audio, accessibility and other sets of specific settings. With the reception of both Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Spyro Reignited Trilogy, this is a curious case of Activision's lack of commitment or rather a policy that we do not know of that does not enforce the inclusion of such details options for players to utilize.

Although Spyro from the beginning has more dialogue and has subtitles to read in most cases, the option to enable or disable isn't available and some places do not feature subtitles outside of dialogue boxes, much like in the original releases. For Crash, the original games also did not feature subtitles and in N. Sane, that was never added and was never addressed officially.

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[7threst]

OP I feel you. Subtitles are a must in this day and age. It's the first thing I make sure is 'on' when I start playing a new game .