My backlog is becoming untenable. There are games, games that I started months ago, sitting in a pile that appears to be growing of its own volition. Where the hell did that copy of Pro Evolution Soccer even come from and why is it sitting in the “to play” pile? No one in my home even likes soccer!
The worst of the lot is Persona 4. Rather than hide myself away like some horrid realization of gamer stereotype, refusing to venture into the sun until the game is complete, I’ve been working through Persona since early December, taking it a bit at a time. It’s starting to drive me crazy. A few days ago, I fired it up for the first time since mid-February and was treated to one of its scarce animated cutscenes. Turns out that bear suit made a dude! Yeah, not a dude wearing a bear suit. The bear suit formed a dude inside of it. More startling than spontaneous dude generation was hearing the characters’ voices. I had forgotten they could talk you see. This is because, with very rare exceptions, I always turn off the voice acting in RPGs. Why? Because the voice acting is almost always terrible. Dragon Quest VIII’s British cast and Final Fantasy XII’s gang of breathy stoics are exceptions to the rule. Most of the time, you have to deal with screeching whiners who insist on naming every single thing they do and I’ll have none of it. Honestly though, I wonder why voice is considered a necessity in modern design.
A few weeks back, some folks were pretty upset when Square-Enix said they would not be adding an English voice track to Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume in addition to losing the game’s already completed Japanese voiceovers. A few years back, the entire internet flipped its wig when Eiji Aonuma said The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess would not have spoken dialogue.
My question to you, dear reader, is what’s the big deal? Is voice acting necessary in every game these days? Does it actually make an RPG, or any game really, better or worse when you can hear its characters speaking? Should a game be criticized if it doesn’t have voice? What if it only has limited voice?
Let me know.
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