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Would the Addition of Voices Be a Plus or a No-no?

Are voice actings a good thing or not?

  • AWESOME!

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Forget about it

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Garo

Boy Wonder
Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Location
Behind you
No no. Voice acting already vastly diminished my enjoyment of another near-perfect series (Metroid Prime 3) by killing what made that series great, and I'm not about to let the same thing happen to Zelda. The minute characters open their mouths to say anything other than gibberish, the childlike fantasy aspect takes a huge blow and Zelda becomes far more commonplace fantasy than unique Zelda fantasy.

And why is it needed or wanted anyway? Whenever a game is voice acted I find myself skipping through as much of it as I can, preferring to stick to the written text and absorb my story at my own pace, not at the pace of the voice actors. This, to me, is a very clear example of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" - and fixing it would actually break it.
 

Dio

~ It's me, Dio!~
Joined
Jul 6, 2011
Location
England
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Absolute unit
A cast of good Hollywood calibre actors would do the series the world of good. I think voice acting in zelda has been put off for far too long and it is now a case of when it will happen rather than if. Fantastic games including Fallout 3 and Elder scrolls Oblivion have good voice acting without the protagonist ever having a voice actor himself so It certainly can be done for zelda. Games such as the Halo and Fable series have fantastic voice actors some of which are famous Hollywood actors like Terrence stamp and Ron Pearlman (who played Hellboy in Hellboy) from halo 3 and Michael Fassbender (who was Magneto in X-men first class)from Fable 3. If it works in other games it can work in zelda. I found in twilight princess that It was annoying to see peoples mouths move as though they were talking and only got to read a textbox. If they get a decent cast, and I'm sure they will, people will not be saying it was a mistake. I think Michael Clarke Duncan would make a great Ganondorf.

Voice acting will make the experience even better as you will not be distracted by reading a textbox whilst enjoying a cutscene. Textboxes seriously hold the game back as they cant have the characters in cutscenes move around or perform actions whilst talking. Even if the voices were in Japanese It would still be better than silence.
 

JuicieJ

SHOW ME YA MOVES!
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Location
On the midnight Spirit Train going anywhere
No no. Voice acting already vastly diminished my enjoyment of another near-perfect series (Metroid Prime 3) by killing what made that series great, and I'm not about to let the same thing happen to Zelda. The minute characters open their mouths to say anything other than gibberish, the childlike fantasy aspect takes a huge blow and Zelda becomes far more commonplace fantasy than unique Zelda fantasy.

You are the first person I've ever heard say that the voice acting in Prime 3 ruined the game. And I think there's a reason for that.
 
Joined
Aug 17, 2011
Location
Melbourne, Australia
im going to say no way in hell.

thing about zelda is i have in my own head exactly what each character sounds like. whenever i see anyone in multiple games or multiple playthroughs i hear the same voice. and how i hear them isn't the same as how my friends do so really characters have more than one voice.

if voice acting came in i'd feel less connection to other characters especially if there voice acters changed from game to game that would be really sad

edit: oh and I thought that TP had too many too long cutscenes anyway. i love te theatrics of zelda but with TP it kinda just felt like they were trying to make me digest a story when i just wanted to play. little things like that are why i never finished TP. I dont intend to finish TP one day anyway
 
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athenian200

Circumspect
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Location
a place of settlement, activity, or residence.
I would like to concede to detractors of this idea that no official Zelda game made by Nintendo has ever had voice acting, so it's unprecedented and breaks with tradition. I will also concede that the CD-i games had poor or mediocre voice acting, which may make you afraid that any voice acting that is included will detract from the gaming experience.

I feel that what will be needed eventually is a compromise. There will always be purists who do not want voice acting in a Zelda game, but there will also be other people who feel that voice acting enhances their immersion and emotional experience of the game. So first, there should always be a text version of the spoken dialogue displayed onscreen. Secondly, there should be be an option to disable voice acting entirely, so that the game is playable without it.

I am not sure what to say about whether Link should be mute. Some people may be pleased that Link himself was not voiced, while others may criticize the decision stating that it's "unnatural" or "rude" for Link not to respond when others speak to him. I do think that Nintendo should start out with a mute Link, to get fans used to the idea of voice acting. I am however open to the idea of adding voice acting to Link later on, if voice acting by other characters is very well-received by the fans and people seem to want it.

I think that Nintendo doesn't really NEED to add voices to the Zelda series, and in fact may want to avoid it as it would increase localization time. But if they do so, they certainly have the ability to use good quality voice acting, and to allow compromise by simply giving the player the option of turning it off. In other words, I believe the Zelda series will continue to be a good series regardless of whether voice acting is added or not. I'll likely play and enjoy the games regardless of what decision is made on this subject.
 

KratosFan

JUDGEMENT!
Joined
Jun 14, 2010
Location
Seattle, WA
Well, I'm pretty much indifferent in this situation. You see, I would be fine either way, it's not like I play the game for the cutscenes, but they do add a lot to the experience, and make it more worthwhile.

You see, if they did add voice acting, I would be okay as long as Link was still a good old silent protagonist. I would also prefer it if it was in the style of the Tales Of games or Persona games where the text is displayed while the voice acting scrolls, and you choose when it continues scrolling through the text. It could also be in the style of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, where most of the cutscenes are just scrolling text, whilst the more important scenes are voice acted, and maybe even have a cinematic touch to them. The only downsides would be if the voice acting was bad, which would be very doubtful, and that it might ruin my personal pronunciations :#

Now if they didn't do voice acting, I would also be okay with it, as it would probably coincide with the formula that the franchise has been using for the past 25 years. The only downside would be that the cinematic elements would be somewhat less.... cinematic. xD
 
Joined
Aug 1, 2011
Location
Kalamazoo, MI
The addition of voices will be an improvement.

"Oh, but the CDi games..."

Those were made by Phillips, and they had no clue what they were doing. Nintendo does know what it's doing and wouldn't screw that up. Play any good game with voice acting and tell me it would be better without it. Can't do it, can you?
 
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Rytex

Resident Netizen
Joined
May 10, 2010
Location
Random house in Texas.
i will use the exact same argument I always use...

Link, by his very name, is supposed to be a link between the game and the player. In a sense, Link is you. If Link spoke, you wouldn't be Link, now, would you? I don't mind how they did it with Twilight Princess, but definitely not full voice actors. Being able to respond to how Navi says "HEY!" or the fact that we accidentally pressed the A button when KG has "Would you like to hear what I said again?" is what makes Link so awesome a hero, that you are in his shoes. If a voice actor were added, it just wouldn't be the same.
 
Joined
Aug 1, 2011
Location
Kalamazoo, MI
i will use the exact same argument I always use...

Link, by his very name, is supposed to be a link between the game and the player. In a sense, Link is you. If Link spoke, you wouldn't be Link, now, would you? I don't mind how they did it with Twilight Princess, but definitely not full voice actors. Being able to respond to how Navi says "HEY!" or the fact that we accidentally pressed the A button when KG has "Would you like to hear what I said again?" is what makes Link so awesome a hero, that you are in his shoes. If a voice actor were added, it just wouldn't be the same.
"Mass Effect" has Shepperd talking and still doesn't ruin the player's control of his/her personality.

Also, voice actors for Link have already been used for OoT, MM, WW, TP, and the LttP remake. Hey, in WW, he says, "Come on!" So doesn't that already "ruin" everything?
 

fyeahh-gina

一剣の戦いの美しさ
Joined
Aug 25, 2011
Location
Lake Hilya, Kingdom of Hyrule.
Though I see your point here, I kind of like that the Zelda game is kind of 'mute'. You tend to focus more on the music that way. Plus, we can believe that the characters can sound anyway we want to, which won't give disappointment. Because there is always disappoint in choosing voice actors when it comes to a game. Especially one that's always been mute. Plus Link's grunts/yells wouldn't be so funny and awesome if they had a voice actor for his character. :P The "AHHHHHHHHHH" gets me everytime. xDD
 

Cuju

私はカウントダウンを実行します。
Joined
Jan 19, 2011
Location
Canada
I think that it is inevitable, to feature some sort of voice acting in future games, though full voice acting for all characters except Link would't work for me, I would really like to have expanded shibberish, like more Heys! and grunts and stuff.
 

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