Is FF7:R’s dialog so much better because it’s now made for the west?

[ultima786]

People would sometimes claim that one of the reason why Japanese games' voices dialogue (such as FFX or Kingdom Hearts 3) was because the game was being developed with Japanese language structure in mind, and that could partly explain why voices were always so stilted. English voice direction would have to be shoe-Horned into a gamr
Built for Japanese acting.

So what happened here? The characters sound so great, banter sounds human, etc, even if it can be over-the-top in places. Is it because the game Is being built around English and a western audience first-and-foremost? Certainly Japanese dev see the shrinking console market there giving way to mobile gaming, compared to the alive-and-well console market here in the west like the US.

What are the factors that are making this game succeed in its voice production?

 

[Kalentan]

I think it's just that they take it more seriously then because it's made for the west. Japanese fans wanted this too.

 

[nsilvias]

it sounds just as bad as ff xv
i dont know what you're smoking op

 

[Fat4all]

it hasnt really stood out to me as good or bad

 

[Soulflarz]

I think it's just that they take it more seriously then because it's made for the west. Japanese fans wanted this too.

Click to shrink...

.

Everyone loves ff7.

 

[Terraforce]

Aeris being nuked is already a good sign of changes being made.

 

[Lumination]

Aside from not gushing with friendship, I haven't seen anything indicating 7R has made it out of the realm of KH3 dialogue.

 

[Deleted member 4869]

it sounds just as bad as ff xv
i dont know what you're smoking op

Click to shrink...

FFXV's localization is one of the most praised aspects about the game. And FFVII Remake seems to be even better.

 

[Teiresias]

I'm not sure where you got the impression the voice acting or dialog in any of the reveal footage and demos was any good.

 

[Inugami]

Did we watch the same thing? The banter was pretty bad, and worst of all it completely destroys the vibe they were going for.

"This robot looks deadly and it's a real threat to us! Now let's spend the next 5 minutes not shutting up and doing tons of quips back and forth."

(edit) The reason this works for FFXV and not FF7 is because in FFXV you're playing a group of 4 friends... FF7 you're playing a group of terrorists and the new guy who used to be one of your enemy and thus aren't sure you can trust him.

 

[sanstesy]

It's bog standard dialogue with middling at best writing and there is much better VA out there as well.

Comparing anything to Kingdom Hearts 3 will make a game look like the best thing ever, though.

 

[VariantX]

I thought the translation wasn't good in the first place and standards have gotten alot higher since the late 90's

 

[Hailinel]

People would sometimes claim that one of the reason why Japanese games' voices dialogue (such as FFX or Kingdom Hearts 3) was because the game was being developed with Japanese language structure in mind, and that could partly explain why voices were always so stilted. English voice direction would have to be shoe-Horned into a gamr
Built for Japanese acting.

So what happened here? The characters sound so great, banter sounds human, etc, even if it can be over-the-top in places. Is it because the game Is being built around English and a western audience first-and-foremost? Certainly Japanese dev see the shrinking console market there giving way to mobile gaming, compared to the alive-and-well console market here in the west like the US.

What are the factors that are making this game succeed in its voice production?

Click to shrink...

FFVII's original localization was hilariously awful. The fact that they're doing a better job at it this time around shouldn't come as a huge surprise.

 

[Nakenorm]

I just think SE are getting better at localisation OP. They clearly struck gold with XII but haven't been able to reproduce the same quality since then but I'm happy to hear that they've apparently stepped it up once again.

it sounds just as bad as ff xv
i dont know what you're smoking op

Click to shrink...

It really doesn't. And people who've played the demo and seen the BTS stuff have been comparing it to Uncharted because of how natural the banter/dialogue feels.

 

[Inugami]

FFVII's original localization was hilariously awful. The fact that they're doing a better job at it this time around shouldn't come as a huge surprise.

Click to shrink...

This can't be overstated... It needed a total rewrite by a native speaker. People shat at times on Ted Woolsey for his liberties with Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger, but aside from the censorship he was forced to use and changing the names (For the better, but that's IMO) his translation work was easily some of the best of the 90's.

So yeah, FF7R has the much better script and translation but that's what you should expect nearly 25 years later.

 

[The Unsent]

This poster are sick :p

 

[FunMouse]

I liked what I saw and can't wait for more. Also watched Maximillian's video of the backstage demo impressions and gushed over the banter and cutscenes. Made me More hyped for it.

 

[B.K.]

The banter during the boss fight was terrible. I hope there's an option to turn off voices during battle.

 

[Strings]

This can't be understated... It needed a total rewrite by a native speaker. People shat at times on Ted Woolsey for his liberties with Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger, but aside from the censorship he was forced to use and changing the names (For the better, but that's IMO) his translation work was easily some of the best of the 90's.

So yeah, FF7R has the much better script and translation but that's what you should expect nearly 25 years later.

Click to shrink...

The timeframes Woolsey had to work with were also insane, and I'm surprised a lot of it came out as well as it did. Chrono Trigger was done in 30 days...

 

[Inugami]

The timeframes Woolsey had to work with were also insane. I'm surprised a lot of it came out as well as it did. Chrono Trigger was done in 30 days...

Click to shrink...

I honestly didn't know those and that just raises my respect even more.

 

[UltraJay]

Aeris being nuked is already a good sign of changes being made.

Click to shrink...

Aeris hasn't been a thing since KH1. Crisis Core used Aerith too and that was voiced.

 

[Terraforce]

Aeris hasn't been a thing since KH1. Crisis Core used Aerith too and that was voiced.

Click to shrink...

I was being facetious.

 

[KillLaCam]

Idk it might just be because of the writing. FFXV's English voice actors sounded decent to me (Ardyn was great) but it still came off as a awkward anime dub to me. So I had to play in Japanese.

But I like both languages so far from what we've seen in FF7R ,besides Japanese Sephiroth but I'll probably never like any Japanese Sephiroth better than the English ones. As a kid I'd watch Advent children in Japanese and then switch to English when Sephiroth shows up lol.

I think FFXV is the only one where I don't like the english dub, idk why. Even FFX was mostly fine to me in English. But I hated the FFXV dub right away

 

[ShinNL]

You have to be able to understand some Japanese and watch the Japanese trailers to grasp that there's more effort put into the translation than your typical game. There's a lot of Japanese sentences that just don't translate well, like "Leave it to me", "Give it your best", "It's not over yet", etc. While these are properly translated sentences, they just aren't common English phrases. So Aerith sounded much more natural with 'This is for you', rather than the Japanese 'Feel free to take this flower' (if you translated that literally). A lot of low budget translations end up with these generic lines and it's refreshing to see a JRPG not suffer through this (so far).

When a game translates those kind of lines literally, I much rather play the game with Japanese voices instead (with text remaining in English) so it actually makes sense what they are saying.

 

[Arklite]

If the characters are still making those grunts and gasps then the acting/directing is not primarily aimed at the West, and I'd say that extends to the script. If it sounds smoother it's probably the translation team more than anything.

 

[icyflamez96]

.

 

[icyflamez96]

The banter during the boss fight was terrible. I hope there's an option to turn off voices during battle.

Click to shrink...

I thought the dialogue/writing itself was fine. Hearing so much talking during the demo was a little annoying (and Barret's voice is eh), but they cut out a lot of the battle so when we're actually playing hopefully it wont be as constant as the video made it seem.

Most of this dialogue praise comes from what people heard from the behind closed doors demo. And from what I've been hearing about it, it sounds very promising.

I posted this twice in the ongoing thread (with no aknowledgement :[ so im kinda irked a thread was made about it without mentioning this interview but I digress).

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/final-fantasys-producer-asks-what-makes-or-breaks-a-localization

Don't know if this was at all made a fuss about back in 2014, but it's really interesting to look at it now and see what are probably the results of this focus from Kitase on improved localization efforts

 

[Deleted member 5148]

FFXV's localization is one of the most praised aspects about the game. And FFVII Remake seems to be even better.

Click to shrink...

This.

 

[Astral]

It's too early to tell for me. Cloud did say "you bastard" to Sephiroth though. That's super Japanese imo.

 

[Zeel]

it sounds just as bad as ff xv
i dont know what you're smoking op

Click to shrink...

But FFXV banter was very well written and natural, especially compared to that horrible shit writing in the XIIIs, yuck.

 

[Crossing Eden]

But FFXV banter was very well written and natural, especially compared to that horrible shit writing in the XIIIs, yuck.

Click to shrink...

I mean it's not super difficult to sound better than FFXIII as the voice direction was fucked. FFXV was good by comparison as a default. But the voices were still anime dub tier. And there were some straight up stinkers like Luna's incredibly fake accent and Gladio's completely unnatural voice and lack of range.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

The dialogue and voice acting fall into the passable territory. Which isn't a deal breaker for me

 

[Deleted member 721]

Idk it might just be because of the writing. FFXV's English voice actors sounded decent to me (Ardyn was great) but it still came off as a awkward anime dub to me. So I had to play in Japanese.

But I like both languages so far from what we've seen in FF7R ,besides Japanese Sephiroth but I'll probably never like any Japanese Sephiroth better than the English ones. As a kid I'd watch Advent children in Japanese and then switch to English when Sephiroth shows up lol.

I think FFXV is the only one where I don't like the english dub, idk why. Even FFX was mostly fine to me in English. But I hated the FFXV dub right away

Click to shrink...

i'm the opposite i really like sephiroth japanese voice, but not so much the new english one (the ac one was good), i'm thinking in playing in japanese because of him and barret

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

I mean it's not super difficult to sound better than FFXIII as the voice direction was fucked. FFXV was good by comparison as a default. But the voices were still anime dub tier. And there were some straight up stinkers like Luna's incredibly fake accent and Gladio's completely unnatural voice and lack of range.

Click to shrink...

Actually I'm pretty sure that's the voice actress' actual accent... she just kinda isn't very good. I agree with your post tho. The English voice acting in XV is pretty low-quality and honestly took me out of some scenes. Then there's characters like Gladio that absolutely never convinced me

 

[blitzblake]

I mean it's no thick cockney accent but it'll do.

 

[Hate]

They actually localized it properly this time.

 

[Machine Law]

Japanese game localization budget from 1997 vs Global huge brand budget from 2019

 

[dyreschlock]

I think budget was certainly part of it, but the whole Japanese-to-English translation industry has had time to mature over the last 22 years since FFVII's release. Seasoned translators have a better idea how to make Japanese dialogue sound way more western, truly localizing it, rather than translating it literally.

Also, back in the day, translators would simply get a spread sheet of all the Japanese text in a game. So, they'd just translate one line at a time, often not knowing the context in which some lines are sporken. Nowadays, especially on large releases, the localization time are often part of the story planning and dialogue writing process, so not only do they know the context for sproken lines, but they can help mold scenes to make sense in both languages.

And, kinda combining both points, Japan is WAY more open to working with foreigners today than they were 20-30 years ago, in general. I think Japanese people speak better English these days, too, and are more willing to try. Back in the day, maybe they thought it was too difficult to speak English with the translation team, so they just used the spreadsheet because it was easy and cheap.

 

[Aurica]

English voice direction would have to be shoe-Horned into a gamr
Built for Japanese acting.

Click to shrink...

I really don't follow what you're talking about. Is this actually a thing? I've never done game translation, but I do freelance Japanese to English translation. I don't think you can blame bad voice acting or scripts on the original language or grammar.

It's too early to tell for me. Cloud did say "you bastard" to Sephiroth though. That's super Japanese imo.

Click to shrink...

What do you mean "you bastard" is super Japanese? Do you mean it sounds like a better translation than "motherfucker" or something?

This thread is really confusing me. I feel like I'm completely missing some logic that some others are grabbing onto immediately. The premise of this thread doesn't make sense to me. The original language doesn't lead to a piece of media being localized poorly. That's like that weird fallacy many have that Japanese is too hard for non-native speakers, like it's some magic, impossible language. It's hard, but it's not impossible. Bad translations or bad voice acting should be just that, rather than somehow connected to the grammar structure causing stilted speech in localization. What?

 

[Cheezeman3000]

Anyone who's played the E3 demo knows the voice acting and dialogue are amazing. The trailers don't really do it justice. If you haven't played the demo, it's too early for you to judge.

 

[Aadiboy]

There hasn't really been enough dialogue to judge the localization, tbh, but it just seems ok. Obviously, compared to the horrible original translation it is going to be much better. Barret's voice and dialogue could stand to be a little less hokey.

 

[batfax]

It's probably being carefully made with both audiences in mind. For example, Barret has a completely different reputation here than in Japan but I hear they're making sure to be faithful to both audiences. That probably bleeds over into every voice detail.

 

[Phil me in]

I was hoping they would keep barrets original dialogue.

 

[halcali]

I like Barrett's JP voice, but they don't need to talk so much during battles.

The banter was just average video-game banter, really.

 

[EarthPainting]

The little demo they showed made me want there to be less dialogue, which I guess means I'm not feeling this improvement yet. Not a huge fan of this type of banter in general though.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Actually I'm pretty sure that's the voice actress' actual accent... she just kinda isn't very good.

Click to shrink...

Her actual accent is Irish. And yea, the faux old English was very very bad.

The English voice acting in XV is pretty low-quality and honestly took me out of some scenes. Then there's characters like Gladio that absolutely never convinced me

Click to shrink...

I was just reminded that Ignis's actor has an English accent but in the game they made him sound cartoony as fuck.

 

[virtua_44]

Sounds human? I've personally never heard any human speak like that in real life. It sounds like pretty standard anime/superhero banter, if not slightly cornier than usual, which is never really realistic to begin with. Also Barrett's voice is pretty goofy.

 

[Deleted member 679]

I liked what Max described in his impressions, but what I've actually heard in the trailers made me hope it had dual audio, and thank God it does. The english dub sounds awful.

 

[Landford]

The banter was absolutely amazing and fits with the tone of the original FFVII, which was a mix of tongue in cheek and really emotional at times. Although its themes were dark, they were subtle, not the grimdark snorefest that people expect when looking at the "tecnofantasy" appearances

 

[Swift_Gamer]

Maybe the localization team is better? I think that makes a whole world of difference tbh. You have to adapt when you translate.