• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Nintendo needs to fix their voice acting problems. It's ruining some of their games/marketing

KayonXaikyre

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,984
For BotW Zelda's voice was hit and miss. When she was talking regularly it's fine, but when shes trying to be emotional its spotty. Everyone else was fine for me really. Fire Emblem Warriors though I don't get why there is so much hate on that. I feel like the voices fit the characters well. It's a cheesy kind of B grade story and the voices fit in just fine in my opinion. The two main chars are the weakest though so maybe that's part of the reason.
 
Aostia82

Aostia82

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,366
The Italian ones are pretty good
For Zelda I think they used some VA from their Layton localizations
That was great
 
Bjoern

Bjoern

Member
Oct 26, 2017
626
Germany
karmitt said:
Hopefully this doesn't offend, but are you an English native speaker? Not trying to imply that your opinion is invalid, but I'm just wondering if the tolerance of the english VA for some might be due to not having the same level of exposure to the language.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm neither offended nor a native English speaker, but it shouldn't really be a question about whether I am one. It's an opinion. Some people like the VO, some don't, and that's totally okay. It has more of an anime appeal to it and I can totally see people not liking it for that reason.
I mean, my opinion is that it's good voice acting. It's not great, but it's far from bad. It's above average. A solid B-.
I've played my fair share of games with horrible VO, no matter the language. BotW is definitely on the positive side of things. It's obviously not as good as the VO of The Last of Us for example, but it sure as hell is nowhere near as bad as Chaos Wars's infamous piece of crap.
 
Last edited:
Vegeto

Vegeto

Member
Oct 26, 2017
291
Frankfurt
BotW has the worst voice acting I have experienced in the last years. Xenoblade 2 seems a little bit better, but I would love to have japanese dub. But I guess they won't do that.
 
Bjoern

Bjoern

Member
Oct 26, 2017
626
Germany
Vegeto said:
BotW has the worst voice acting I have experienced in the last years. Xenoblade 2 seems a little bit better, but I would love to have japanese dub. But I guess they won't do that.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Don't quote me on this one but I'm pretty sure they already announced that XC2 will have both English and Japanese VA. I'm not 100% sure though. Maybe I'm confusing this with FE Warriors.
 
Kenagain

Kenagain

Member
Oct 27, 2017
219
I mean I agree it's bad in BOTW but ruining their games....? That's a bit much and I don't think there are many people who consider them ruined because of VA
 
Noppie

Noppie

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,799
I disagree. Warriors, with some exceptions like Tiki, was pretty much ok to me. I never understood the comments on Zelda as well.

They might not be the best performances in some cases, but hardly ever disturbing from the main experience in my opinion.
 
Hero-of-Time

Hero-of-Time

Member
Oct 27, 2017
441
karmitt said:
Fair enough. I assumed somebody from the UK would've had a heightened disdain for Zelda's fake accent. Did at least stick out as odd/off to you?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm from the UK and the voice acting didn't seem odd in then sense it was a fake accent, more that the the delivery of the lines were just flat out bad. You have to wonder if it was a problem with the voice actor or the direction she was given...maybe both?
 
FrostyLemon

FrostyLemon

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,635
I can see the problems people have with Zeldas voice acting. I don't think it's anything to do with the actors it's more a case of getting Americans to do British accents or getting someone to portray a character when they are the wrong age. Feel bad for the Zelda VA. Imagine being the first person to give Zelda a voice and you get destroyed for it. I actually think Zelda's voice is fine. It's miphas and king Rhoam who have the biggest issues.

Revali and Urbosa are actually good.
 
Coolwhip

Coolwhip

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,628
Zelda was pretty bad yes. My gf is English and she couldn't stand her, americans doing brit accents, not goooood.

NOA is probably to blame, I'm sure the Japanese va is much better.

So Treehouse people: git gud!
 
Xenosaga

Xenosaga

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,001
I am glad they are giving Japanese VA options for some of their games. Playing Zelda in Japanese voice/English subtitles is great.
Now only if they do the same thing for Xenoblade 2 it would be great. At the moment I can't stand the English voice acting for Xenoblade 2.
 
Elfforkusu

Elfforkusu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,098
It's weird, because some dubs (FE: Echoes) are pretty damn good.

But BOTW's is ... not good. OTOH, the cutscenes in that game are poorly conceived in general, so poor voice acting is in a sense a perfect match.
 
KtSlime

KtSlime

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,910
Tokyo
SwitchedOff said:
Japanese is easily the best, English voice acting is mostly awful. I'm surprised that Nintendo's quality control allowed such bad voice acting in such a high profile game.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The problem isn't Nintendo's quality control, it is NOA's. If they didn't think the quality was good enough they should have not approved it. NCL likely does not have anyone in the correct department to determine if the English (or any language that is not Japanese) voice acting is quality or not.
 

Deleted member 11926

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,545
I have to say that the german dub was actually decent, which is nice :D.
Maybe I should try the japanese dub some time.
 
foxuzamaki

foxuzamaki

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,608
Actually playing fire emblem warriors the voice acting is overall pretty decent
 
foxuzamaki

foxuzamaki

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,608
The worse thing about this thread is we're gonna get people in here who just saw trailers of these games and either switched too Japanese at the 1st chance or just straight up didn't play the games and so FEW gets caught in the cross fire when its super fine va, same with fates for the most part, BOTW I admit had some rough vas but zelda's voice actress wasent all that bad, in fact it seemed to improve as you got further in the game,it also had its share of great vas like revali and. Urbosa
 
carlosrox

carlosrox

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,270
Vancouver BC
BOTW was a mixed bag. I quite liked some of the voices and Zelda was usually good IMO but comparing her cry to the Japanese one was pretty damning. I actually liked the King's English voice, too.

Star Fox 64 3D and Star Fox Zero were huge sore spots for me. Just completely phoned in performances, and even more noticeable because you had a direct comparison between 64 and 3D.

Stilted voice acting is a huge deal to me though, I agree.
 
wandering

wandering

flâneur
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
2,136
The noticeably false English accents in BotW were incredibly off-putting. As was the Deku Tree being voiced by a young actor trying to sound like an old man.
 
Iztok

Iztok

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,164
I think it suits these games.

For me, it'd be weird if the voice acting was "better".
I guess it feels more like a game, the way it is now.
 
Cow Mengde

Cow Mengde

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,785
Fire Emblem Warriors is a Tecmo Koei game. Not sure why that's Nintendo's fault. Tecmo Koei's writing is also trash tier. The writing really doesn't help make the dialogue sound any better.
 
Marmoka

Marmoka

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,122
Zelda's voice acting in Spanish is pretty good, also in Japanese. But I agree that the voice acting in English was horrible. I gave it a try while looking at past memories in different language but as soon as I heard Zelda acting, my ears started bleeding. WTF was that? Why did they allow that?

Mario Sunshine's voice acting was nothing but crap as well.

Meanwhile, Kid Icarus Uprising had a great voice acting.

I would say Nintendo games such as Mario and Zelda need more voice acting. While playing Zelda in Spanish, I missed more voice acting while talking to random people or other important characters . And I think voice in Mario would fit well too, but with good actors and doing the opposite thing they did with Mario Sunshine.
 
NSESN

NSESN

â–˛ Legend â–˛
Member
Oct 25, 2017
25,379
The VA in Fire Emblem Heroes has been pretty good lately. The Genealogy banner had stelar voices for almost every character.
 
Yam's

Yam's

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,106
That's why I'm still hoping for a japanese audio voice pack for Xenoblade 2. As a non-english native speaker, I'm tired having to deal with bad dubs when offering an alternative is easy nowdays.
 
Kain-Nosgoth

Kain-Nosgoth

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,702
Switzerland
they really need to let us the choice to get the Original Voices from the get go... i really hope this will be available from xenoblade 2

but yeah recently the acting is really bad, which is a shame since kid icarus uprising was soooo goood
 
Eirwaz

Eirwaz

Member
Oct 27, 2017
153
Norway
Gettimg a good director is all it takes. They need to get people like andrea romano to direct their voice actors. Also dont be afraid to ditch some of that akward unatural japanese esque dialouge. Its just to different of a language.
 
Keasar

Keasar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,724
UmeĂĄ, Sweden
Changing the voice actors for Zelda still wouldn't have helped considering how atrociously bad characters they were.

What I do want however is them to visit the people who voiced Xenoblade Chronicles 1, I thought that game sounded pretty good in English. Or this this them? Please say no. :<
 

Deleted member 62

Guest
Content removed.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
brinstar

brinstar

User requested ban
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,351
I remember thinking FE Warriors sounded awful in the marketing lead up but when I got the game itself I was surprisingly fine with it
 
lowlifelenny

lowlifelenny

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,408
Their voice acting is typically great. The only one that sticks out for the wrong reasons is Xenoblade 2. Why they thought it was a good idea to voice their plucky young JRPG cast with bored-sounding Yorkshiremen and Scots is utterly baffling. It absolutely kills the game.
 
Galava

Galava

â–˛ Legend â–˛
Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,089
Spain's Spanish VA in BotW is quite great though... And games like FE Warriors are best for original VA, hearing it in english is off putting for me.
 
CommodoreKong

CommodoreKong

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,756
Yeah Zelda's voice actress in the US BotW dub wasn't very good and the other characters weren't much better for the most part.

I can't say I'm thrilled with what I'm hearing with Xenoblade 2 either.
 
BGBW

BGBW

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,284
Shiggy said:
That game had pretty great voice acting? huh
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh, I meant as an example of good VA work since people were posting counter examples to OP's quandary.

Golnei said:
The localised script and voice work in that game was fairly well done - it felt a lot less stilted than Xenoblade.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Also helps that most battles have unique dialogue so you're not hearing the same lines over and over like you do in Xenoblade.
 
-shadow-

-shadow-

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,110
Cinemikel said:
I may have been a bit harsh on the voice actors themselves, my apologies for that. They really need to replace the director. It is weird because Nintendo was perfectly fine up until a few years ago. Xenoblade was great, Kid Icarus was awesome. I doknt know what happened though
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Don't know if already awnsered, but still... A large part of the localisation team of Europe got laid off a couple of years ago when NOE restructured and moved. Europe hasn't delivered the same quality since unfortunately. Because damn if the original Xenoblade, The Last Story, Pandora's Tower and more of the stuff they've done weren't amazing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.