Video Game Voice Acting fails

[Soviet Heavy]

Recently, and I might piss off a few people with this, I found that Triss in The Witcher 3 sounded a bit off. Nothing terrible, but she just kind of sounds like a Hollywood starlette, not a witch in a medieval setting.

I kinda feel that way for Witcher 2 as well. She's much better when she's being sarcastic, but her swooning voice just sounds a little weak and forced. But when she's deadpan, she's pretty funny.

"Oh yeah, the brothel sounds lovely."

 

[BodomBeachChild]

I wish I could go through all the lines I hear read terribly. BUT the most current offender IMO is Fo4. Jesus can you people sound any more bored doing your lines?

 

[Dragonbums]

Honestly half the characters in FE: Fates have bad voice acting. Not like they way their voice sounds is bad. But you can tell the lost VA's from the ones that have done it for a long time and know how to get it right after the first or second try.

 

[Zhukov]

Recently, and I might piss off a few people with this, I found that Triss in The Witcher 3 sounded a bit off. Nothing terrible, but she just kind of sounds like a Hollywood starlette, not a witch in a medieval setting.

Agreed.

Hers sounded like the kind of voice that one would expect to find drunkenly staggering down the corridor of a student dorm in California, not negotiating the underworld of a medieval city or calling fire down from the heavens.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

It's...something. Definitely something.

Were voice actors delivering those lines, or was it a text-to-speech program? At least in the first video, it sounded all text-to-speech.

Not that that justifies how bad it all was. I'm just curious.

I don't actually know. I think it's a person. I don't know for a fact it was a person. I can't find credits for the game anywhere, so I can't even name check the VA, if listed.

It's really funny, though. My main reason for thinking it's not text to speech is because I don't think there is a letter combination that would produce the unique "loioif" sound that Goldman uses when he says "life-cycle". Or "emeryoyr". Those are approximations, of course, as I said, I don't think they even have textual representations.

I was wondering what was going on too.
It was funny at first but then it never let up and I was thinking" Is this real? This can't be real."
Seriously, it's beyond "fail", I almost think they were doing it on purpose.

 

[EHKOS]

Some of the animals in Animal Crossing are pretty bad, where others nail their lines. It's pretty strange how skewed the talent was.

I was going to say Leo Stenbuck from Z.O.E. 1, but I went and watched a few things and realized it's the fact that the actor does too good of a job imitating a whiny kid.

Although I will bring up Sonic's ah.

 

[DoPo]

Seriously, it's beyond "fail", I almost think they were doing it on purpose.

See, I don't know. That would certainly be my guess. It makes way more sense to me that somebody was given a a script and told "read this as monotonously as you can" then at least few takes were attempted with the sound director yelling "CUT! NOT LIKE THIS, MORE MONOTONOUS! AND DO A WEIRD GURGLING SOUND WITH YOUR THROAT RANDOMLY!". That's more believable to me than a guy turning up and droning everything in one take without anybody saying "Dude, can you repeat that and at least try?"

 

[BrawlMan]

<spoiler=Devil May Cry 1>
<spoiler=House of the Dead 2>

<spoiler=Mega Man X4>
For the the last two, there was great voice acting in the Japanese dub. Whoever did the English dubs for HotD 2, FF CD, and MM X4 weren't even trying.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Maybe not "bad" exactly but the voice acting in Dragon's Dogma can be... something. Were the Pawns supposed to have bad voice acting? The whole expressionless/soul-less thing?

"THE PATH SPLITS HERE MASTER, LET'S BE DOUBLY SURE ABOUT WHICH WILL SEE US TO OUR DESTINATION"

***** we've walked from the Tutorial Town to Gran Soren like 10 times... pls no.

See also a few voices in Guilty Gear Xrd SIGN. Chipp has a terrible voice, Axl has a bad fake cockney accent and Ramlethal suffers from the same problem the Pawns have. Character is supposed to have no real emotion and that's really hard to distinguish from classic "just reading their lines in a monotone" bad voice acting. When she throws out the occasional snarky line the voice is good too.

*wins round by poke*

"How anti-climactic..."

It's hard to win in English dubs since Japan just has a complete national treasure in their voice acting industry as a whole.

 

[Spider RedNight]

Peter Dinklage failed so hard with Destiny they had another guy come redo his dialogue after the game was already out.

I second this. I swear I found it way more enjoyable when Nolan North came in and Dinklage left. That might have something to do with preference, though - and the nickname "Dinklebot" sound fuckin' dumb.

Uhmmmm okay so I love me some Silent Hill. I have a little bit of a problem with the voice acting for 2 and The Room, mostly Angela and Henry, respectively. I mean, I know Henry's supposed to be a quiet type with little to say but did they HAVE to make him sound stoned all the time? "What.. the hell...?" Like five times. It's ridiculous. I think the other voice actors in The Room were okay at worst.

Then again, if I have one more person say "wah wah the redub of Silent Hill 2 is so shitty, the original voice actors were GOOD" then I'll reach through my computer and gouge their eyes out with my pinkies. You can prefer the original voices all you want but I draw the line at "they're much BETTER and the new ones SUCK". Like... how dare you say Troy Baker and Liam O'Brien suck. Ignorant douche canoes.

That's just my opinion though. Unless yours differs, then you're wrong

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Bruce Willis in Apocalypse. Christ.

Also, the infamous Tidus laugh in FFX. I'd post the original, but this is way more amusing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj-brCekxSE

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I simply must point at House of the Dead 2

Ninja'd!

I'm even more a fan of the now super-rote boss fight intro formula. Terrible voice acting is one thing, laughably predictable game design is something else altogether. There's a lot of juicy tropes in the subtext of Goldman's spiel.

"This is the most ultimatest enemy EVAR! IT HAS NO WEAKNESS!"

*insert a UI animation pointing out a weak point*

"You'll NEVER defeat it!"

*insert a baseline-competent light-gun player's ability to take down the Emperor in a minute or two, half that if there's two players*

 

[mardocOz]

Also, the infamous Tidus laugh in FFX. I'd post the original, but this is way more amusing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj-brCekxSE

Was wondering if someone had mentioned this.

Geez, I hated this scene. It committed the worst sin an RPG can possible commit - it made me hate the protagonist. I found him annoying. And I know how it's supposed to be endearing and it's all called back later and all that... and that's fine. But I hated this scene so... very... much...

Anyway, another example would be Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast. Like or loathe the game, it had some pretty terrible VA work (and I'm not just talking about Tails here either, although he is possible the most annoying).

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

And the legendary so bad it's good.... Metal Bawkses

I'm going to nerd out a little here, but the thing that really makes that cutscene for me is that Chaos Predator tanks use the same chassis as the Rhinos in that cutscene. So Chaos have Bawkses too, they just have a turret on top of theirs.

 

[Dalisclock]

Also, the infamous Tidus laugh in FFX. I'd post the original, but this is way more amusing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj-brCekxSE

Was wondering if someone had mentioned this.

Geez, I hated this scene. It committed the worst sin an RPG can possible commit - it made me hate the protagonist. I found him annoying. And I know how it's supposed to be endearing and it's all called back later and all that... and that's fine. But I hated this scene so... very... much...

What's really sad is that as much as I love to use that scene when talking about stupid shit in games, that scene didn't bother me much. I think part of it was that I'd already seen it god knows how many times before I actually got to that point in the game, but frankly, having to listen to Tidus talk for about 7 hours prior to that had already lowered my expectations for the VA so much that the scene was merely "meh" by that point.

And what frustrates me is that his Narrating voice isn't that bad. It's his speaking voice that sounds idiotic, so it's not that the VA is terrible, he's just doing a terrible job on purpose(no doubt by direction). It's like listening to Vanille in XIII, when you know her VA talks like a NORMAL PERSON IRL and not the Pinkie-Pie-on-Cocaine thing Vanille does.

 

[DoPo]

<spoiler=Devil May Cry 1>

That's DMC 2, not 1.

 

[BrawlMan]

<spoiler=Devil May Cry 1>

That's DMC 2, not 1.

Check again. This scene never happens in Devil May Cry 2. I played DMC1 enough times to know what happens.

 

[DoPo]

<spoiler=Devil May Cry 1>

That's DMC 2, not 1.

Check again. This scene never happens in Devil May Cry 2. I played DMC1 enough times to know what happens.

Sorry, my bad.