Worst voice acting?

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DaHeckIzDat
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Worst voice acting?

Postby DaHeckIzDat » February 10th, 2018, 10:30 am

We all know video games haven't always brought their A-game to the voice acting market. What are some of the worst/funniest examples you can think of?

Persona 3: the Chairman.

Heavenly Sword: Nariko and Flying Fox.

Final Fantasy X: Tidus ("HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HAAAAA!")

Arc Rise Fantasia: Absolutely everyone.

ESauce
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Re: Worst voice acting?

Postby ESauce » February 10th, 2018, 10:37 am

The original Resident Evil seems like an obvious pick. Whenever the voice actress for Jill speaks it sounds like an alien who is trying to blend in and failing terribly.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Worst voice acting?

Postby Retro STrife » February 10th, 2018, 1:03 pm

It's pretty amazing how far voice acting has come in video games. Back in the 90s, the terrible voice acting of Resident Evil was more of the norm, whereas now most games have quality voicework. Not sure if that's just from spending more money on quality actors, or something else.

DaHeckIzDat
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Re: Worst voice acting?

Postby DaHeckIzDat » February 10th, 2018, 1:12 pm

Retro STrife wrote:It's pretty amazing how far voice acting has come in video games. Back in the 90s, the terrible voice acting of Resident Evil was more of the norm, whereas now most games have quality voicework. Not sure if that's just from spending more money on quality actors, or something else.

I heard that at first, they didn't record voices like they do in movies. They had each person record each of their lines individually, alone, and then spliced them altogether when they made the cutscene. That led to a lot of stilted line reading, since none of the actors had the other actors around to play off of, you know?

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ptdebate
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Re: Worst voice acting?

Postby ptdebate » February 10th, 2018, 1:41 pm

DaHeckIzDat wrote:We all know video games haven't always brought their A-game to the voice acting market. What are some of the worst/funniest examples you can think of?

Persona 3: the Chairman.

Heavenly Sword: Nariko and Flying Fox.

Final Fantasy X: Tidus ("HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HAAAAA!")

Arc Rise Fantasia: Absolutely everyone.



The FFX laughing scene was supposed to sound awkward and forced. Watch the whole scene for context.

DaHeckIzDat
Posts: 1997
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Re: Worst voice acting?

Postby DaHeckIzDat » February 10th, 2018, 2:59 pm

ptdebate wrote:
DaHeckIzDat wrote:We all know video games haven't always brought their A-game to the voice acting market. What are some of the worst/funniest examples you can think of?

Persona 3: the Chairman.

Heavenly Sword: Nariko and Flying Fox.

Final Fantasy X: Tidus ("HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HAAAAA!")

Arc Rise Fantasia: Absolutely everyone.



The FFX laughing scene was supposed to sound awkward and forced. Watch the whole scene for context.

I did. Tidus' voice acting is so weird and stilted through the entire game that the laugh just sounded normal for him.

ESauce
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Re: Worst voice acting?

Postby ESauce » February 10th, 2018, 3:01 pm

DaHeckIzDat wrote:
Retro STrife wrote:It's pretty amazing how far voice acting has come in video games. Back in the 90s, the terrible voice acting of Resident Evil was more of the norm, whereas now most games have quality voicework. Not sure if that's just from spending more money on quality actors, or something else.

I heard that at first, they didn't record voices like they do in movies. They had each person record each of their lines individually, alone, and then spliced them altogether when they made the cutscene. That led to a lot of stilted line reading, since none of the actors had the other actors around to play off of, you know?


Yeah but did they have them do one word at a time and then splice that together in a sentence? Because not having another voice actor to play off of still doesn’t explain the cadence of the voice work in Resident Evil. It’s not just that the voicework doesn’t sound like a natural conversation, it’s that it doesn’t sound like a natural person.

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ptdebate
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Re: Worst voice acting?

Postby ptdebate » February 10th, 2018, 4:23 pm

DaHeckIzDat wrote:
ptdebate wrote:
DaHeckIzDat wrote:We all know video games haven't always brought their A-game to the voice acting market. What are some of the worst/funniest examples you can think of?

Persona 3: the Chairman.

Heavenly Sword: Nariko and Flying Fox.

Final Fantasy X: Tidus ("HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HAAAAA!")

Arc Rise Fantasia: Absolutely everyone.



The FFX laughing scene was supposed to sound awkward and forced. Watch the whole scene for context.

I did. Tidus' voice acting is so weird and stilted through the entire game that the laugh just sounded normal for him.


I didn't find his voice acting terrible, more just average. The actors actually had a really difficult time because they had to match their lines to the mouth animations which were made for the Japanese script. The unusual elocution and timing of words and phrases is due to the fact that the pauses in Japanese are totally different.

The voice I can't stand is Lulu's. She's so dry and monotone. She has a few good scenes but they are the exception.

Yuna's actress is pretty good, but she struggles really hard with the blocking challenges mentioned before. Yuna expresses a greater range of mood and emotion than the other characters, and unfortunately it's very hard to match English words and phrases to their Japanese counterparts while making it look like you're mouthing the Japanese original.

Just sharing that because I know way too much about this game and its localization. :lol:

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nesfan
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Re: Worst voice acting?

Postby nesfan » February 10th, 2018, 4:28 pm

Retro STrife wrote:It's pretty amazing how far voice acting has come in video games. Back in the 90s, the terrible voice acting of Resident Evil was more of the norm, whereas now most games have quality voicework. Not sure if that's just from spending more money on quality actors, or something else.
I've heard that back then it was common for developers to use people they had milling about the office rather than hire professional voice actors.

My vote for most hilarious voice acting goes to everyone from Chaos Wars, Dr. Light in Mega Man 8, and just about everyone in Castle Shikigami 2. Aside from those, the Turbografx-CD is a goldmine for delightfully terrible voice acting. Check out Last Alert and Final Zone 2.

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Stalvern
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Re: Worst voice acting?

Postby Stalvern » February 10th, 2018, 6:13 pm

ESauce wrote:The original Resident Evil seems like an obvious pick. Whenever the voice actress for Jill speaks it sounds like an alien who is trying to blend in and failing terribly.

Hey, don't hang Chris out to dry.

"Jill! Hair's a lockpick. It might be handy if you, the masterofunlocking, take it with you."


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