Voice acting killed Final Fantasy

[Daedalus1942]

I know a lot of people feel the same way I do about the quality of recent FF releases. 7-9 are 3 of my favorite games ever, with awesome charactors, story and everything else, with enough variation between them to make each one uniquely special.

Then 10 came, which was ok, although everything seemed slighty worse, the charactors wern't as good, story was worse, and the plot and gameplay were annoyingly linear.

12 had the most boring one dimentional charactors ever, with an equily dull story to boot. They added some nice extra bits, and it wasn't as linear as 10, but I just didn't care. Without a compelling story or charactors it felt so empty.

And now 13, which I think Yahtzee nailed in his review. Exept Sazh, all the charactors were annoyingly smug and whiney, and everything just so damn linear.

Anyway, I'm gonna go ahead and blame voice actors above all, for filling everything with annoying phrases like "Heros don't back down!", and generally making everyone annoyingly optomistic and stereotypical. At least I could charactorise them myself without, but now they just take on the ultra bland persona projected by the voice actors, reciting optimistic phrases, and exactly filling the stereotypes I'm trying to imagine they arn't.

Honestly it sounds like your axe to grind is with Final Fantasy XIII itself rather than the Final Fantasy games in general. I thought the voice acting in XII was decent and apart from Vaan, the characters were fairly likeable and believable.
As for XIII, I can't really say the voice acting was that bad. While I'd happily strangle Hope and Vanille's voice actors, and while Snow's arrogance was a tad offputting, the rest in my opinion were wine.
Sazh is believable as a character and a father, lightning's a ***** for most of the game but then you learn her real name and she starts to open up more as she realizes everything she did was for the wrong reasons.
Fang is probably the most likeable out of all the characters. Overall, they didn't annoy too much, apart from hope.
I was watching that special cutscene between Lightning and hope where she keeps telling him "we can't lose hope". I was watching it and thinking "I'd very much like to lose Hope actually". "Have him die in some horrible tragic accident or something".

 

[Daedalus1942]

Its not dead, ff 10 was great, 12 sucked, and 13 rocks.

Why, praytell did Final Fantasy XII suck? You're entitled to your opinion, but just saying it sucked isn't good enough. What are your specific reasons for hating it? It's one of the better games in the series in my opinion, especially with the innovative and new ATB gauge battle system. The gambits were a genius idea.
So... I ask you, why did "it suck"?

 

[Azalin137]

Voice acting didnt do it.......The loss of turn based combat did

 

[old account]

Voice acting killed FF? No, you've got it wrong. All those anime fanboys/fangirls, who argued that 'Sephiroth' is the hottest fictional character, and drew half naked pictures of him on deviant art, are the reason for why no one takes Final Fantasy seriously. I'm going to stop here before I go on my giant 'Final Fantasy was better before FF7' rant.

So it was more about graphics then? I'm actually interested to hear how you feel about this.

It wasn't that much of a graphics issue, I do prefer the 16bit of Final Fantasy 6 to the shitty quality of FF 7. It's more about the 'fandom' that came from the anime crowed when they noticed "Hey this game should a show because Tifa/Sephiroth (depending on your gender or sexual preference) is hot". Actually, in my previous message, I never mentioned graphics. But here is a little blog I did a while ago about my anger of Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy 7, where shall I start. This was the only game in the series that I look back on and truly wish that it was really 'final'. Maybe if this game never existed, we would never have had FF8, FF X, the God terrifying FF X-2, FF XI (the only MMORPG that no one played) and FF 12. (Notice how I left out FF9, that is because it was fucking awesome!)
What ruined Final Fantasy for me was not the voice acting that came into play, or the refurbished graphics that slowed, or at time froze your Playstation. The biggest reason why I started hating the Final Fantasy serious is because of the horrible, lame, *place adjective that depicts 'bad taste' or 'wrongful doing' here* story plots. Especially from Final Fantasy 8. Let me take a minute and explain to you my hatred of this game before I move to the more depressing matters.
Have any of you played Final Fantasy 8? If you haven't, don't pick it up. If you see in a store, break it. You would be doing the gaming community a good deed. If you have played this game, answer me this... Did you understand what was going on? No, of course you didn't understand what was going on, because even Squaresoft at the time didn't know. After the first disc, or what I would call repetitive game play and character introduction, it seemed that the writers were pulling stuff out of their ass in order to keep up with this trend of making epic role playing games more then two discs.
Here let me summarize FF 8 for you right now. You are this ***** ass little kid, who I can only guess is anti-social because he use ellipses more then an emo kid watching his date get laid at prom. Anyways, he actually finds enough strength to become part of this organization call SeeD (military type organization full of high schoolers, created to run errands). After you barely pass your exam, because you will never get higher then a 'D', trust me, you never will; You run along and form a little motley crew with the objective to kill the sorceress. Now let me explain why... She's evil, that's all you need to know. After you fail, and you fail twice, you are taken away to a prison. But it is okay because you escape (that is always the best part of being the protagonist, right? Nothing can harm you or set you back). Well lets move on to the best part, when you get out from doing your time in jail, you learn about an attack against your home town/school building. This is where I started getting pissed off. When you get to the school, you are automatically forced to do this, i guess you can call it a side quest. This 'side quest' has nothing to do with your objective of stopping the sorceress, or from the side quest you were just on, which was 'to some how evacuate the entire school'. Now this might have been a problem if this was an actual school, but if you have this game, Final Fantasy 8, play it real quick, just the first part at the beginning. Now walk around the school and count how many students there are. Not that many right? Maybe 20-some, tops? There is only one teacher, and she's been traveling with you this entire time. (So what have these kids been doing in a school, with no teacher? Who cares?) Anyways, after you finish this ridiculous mission you join back up with your group and then you are given the biggest bomb shell of your life. Your headmaster and the sorceress are lovers! Oh it gets better. Later down the line you figure out that all your party members, along with you, were orphans together, and guess who was your foster mother? Yes you are right, the sorceress. I stopped playing that this point and put in a better game ( Legend of the Dragoon).
Anyways, let me explain my now hatred for the FF series. It is because of you. You and you and you and you, and possibly your friend. All you anime fanboys/fangirls who only cared about this game because 'OMG, Sephiroth is hot' and 'OMG Sephiroth sword is so cool' and 'OMG Sephiroth this and Sephiroth that'. These are the reasons why I dislike Final Fantasy. Everyone decided to jump on the bandwagon after they saw some guy dressed in black carrying a sword (or some barmaid girl with ridiculously large breast) . All these people care about are their erotic dreams of this long haired mama's boys, who wanted to destroy the world because he's different. So what? Every Final Fantasy villain has wanted to do that. Maybe I would care more about Sephiroth's story, if I haven't see half naked pictures of him posted everywhere on Deviant Art, or came across horrible erotic stories on Fan Fiction. Final Fantasy 7 was not ruined by the horrible mismatched diamond pixel graphics. It was not ruined by the unoriginal plot basis that is was built upon. It was also not ruined by the love triangle that was so obviously thrown in there (in fact this could be a good argument on why I actually like this game). It was ruined by fans of this game, and not fans of this series. It's because of you anime fans who care more about looks and popularity, rather than caring about plot and character interaction.
If you talk to any actual Final Fantasy fan, you would be told that "Yes, Final Fantasy 7 was a good game... but there are much better in the series." Does anyone care about Final Fantasy 6? That was seriously the best Final Fantasy (my opinion). It was a decent length (longer then others around that time), graphics were just fine, the characters were introduced in an appropriate manner and the development of these characters actually made you care about them later in the game (this was the first game I play where I actually cried because I thought Celes killed herself). This game had everything. A good script, a nice environment, a wide variation of monsters, a good script, an easy combat system, great graphics (for being 16bit), characters you love and cared about, a struggle between freedom and governmental tyranny which proceeded the battle of good and evil, and a good script. I can tell you how much of a story this was. I sometime wish this was a book so I can read it. Sure, there were a bunch of side quests and party jumps/changes, but they were tied to their main objective (unlike FF 8).
I hope this 'summary' of my rant proved useful to you.

 

[Daedalus1942]

Its not dead, ff 10 was great, 12 sucked, and 13 rocks.

Why, praytell did Final Fantasy XII suck? You're entitled to your opinion, but just saying it sucked isn't good enough. What are your specific reasons for hating it? It's one of the better games in the series in my opinion, especially with the innovative and new ATB gauge battle system. The gambits were a genius idea.
So... I ask you, why did "it suck"?

FFXII's battle system was the stupidest thing I ever had to use. FF is not suited to fights like that. With gambits properly set up you could wander off to the toilet then go an make a sandwich, come back and it was done. I only completed the game for completions sake (I've completed every main series FF game and most spinoffs) and hated myself for enduring it.

EDIT: Double post. My bad.

I actually found it to be quite cathartik to put so much time into crafting my characters, giving them different weapons, coming up with all possible situations in my head, and using the gambits to strategise for them should anything unusual arise.
Each to their own I guess, but I quite liked being able to wander around the world, have my little minions take out everything while I watched them decimate creature after creature. FFX for me was a tad too grindy in always having to hit X. XII took away that bit and made it more enjoyable.
The plot left much to be desired, but I loved that game purely for Fran, Balthier and the original battle system.
-edit-I also found it interesting how they (in my opinion) successfully blended real time strategy elements with an rpg game in XII.

 

[Tony2077]

I like all of the ff games I've played 1 crisis core 10 12 13

 

[Mortons4ck]

*smears cream cheese on my face in anger* Why does the word EMO have to come up in EVERY discussion about Final Fantasy? That has got to be the worst word to describe anything ever...Cloud: That dude with the huge sword who won't shut the fuck up about his ANGST.

Emo:
1. Melodramatic Angst or Depression; often, though not always, unwarranted
2. One who embodies above traits
3. (adj) the nature of or characteristic of melodramatic angst or depression

I don't know, it seems like a pretty good description to me. Most teens seem angsty in Final Fantasy (say what you will about Tidus, but he wasn't emo), and Japanese drama (to western eyes) is by definition melodramatic.

 

[Faraldd]

As I haven't played Final Fantasy games before FFX (only some handheld FF1&2 on GBA), I can't really say much about this matter, but I don't mind voice acting IF it's good, but if they suck at it, I'd prefer cutting my f**king ears off. (All of these "reviews" are based on English versions if not mentioned otherwise)

Take FFX for example, it has OK voice acting(if I recall correctly), can't say more, got tired after 4 hours, let's move on.

FFXII... *sigh* It was bad on voice acting, I didn't even get a grasp of the story before 20 hours played. Maybe because the protagonist sounded like a goddamn mammoth(?) who was trying to tell me what in god's name was happening rite nao. The game itself is nice, the world is big and it still had those towns that were nice to be in and shop around, but let's move on to currently the newest FF game on the series.

About FFXIII (which I remember the best atm), sure the game is linear and all, but it's beautiful on graphics and the story is actually pretty nice. Though the "story mode" was a bit of a disappointment, the missions are the real goods of this game. About voice acting, it's surprisingly good, I actually like the English voice acting more than Japanese on this case (and I usually prefer the native language, Japanese in this case, on most games and anime overall). All the actors sound pretty good, except for the girl-whose-name-I-can't-recall with her annoying voice. Oh yeah, now I remember, her name was Vanille. She tries to be all cheerful but I'm everything but cheerful when I hear her voice.

Summary: I'd say that voice-acting brings up the emotions better, but if it's done poorly, it's only a nuisance.

One last note, Square-Enix, bring back the towns and shops on FF games, now!

 

[Gotham Soul]

I think FF6 was the last great Final Fantasy game. I know a lot of people liked 7 but I personally disliked it for some reason.

 

[Pendragon9]

The series needed more robots IMO.

It gave me a chill down my spine during the three chances you got to control them in FF6. Even if it's a minor part of the game, the diversity of it just made it all the more fun.

 

[CrashBang]

No. It's got nothing to do with the voice actors or the graphics or anything like that, don't blame them.
The storys of both XII and XIII were dull and lifeless, as were the characters and their developments and motivations. I blame the writers.
Hironobu Sakaguchi is one of the greatest storytellers in gaming history and did an amazing job until he left to form his new company. I know he developed and wrote all up to and including IX and am pretty sure he wrote X as well but didn't direct it but don't quote me on that. Either way X was a great game and I even enjoyed X-2, but everything after that is just absolute horse shit

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Wehn they merged that killed Final Fantasy for me. As every Square-Enix game has never been as good as the Square Soft ones for me. Aslong things like the Sphere grid and licence board ruined it for me as it took all the personality out of characters batter styles.

Also of late there has just been a general lack of personality in general. There has been a load of blandness in the characters for me.

 

[Brad Shepard]

Its not dead, ff 10 was great, 12 sucked, and 13 rocks.

have you ever played any FF previous to FFX?
If you honestly have, then there is no way you can say that it has a better story quality and character depth. FFX and above just look prettier compared to their predecessors, but their quality as FF has gone down the drain.

ive played all the Final Fantasy games except for 3 (Real 3, not U.S. 3) and im not saying they where better, im just saying they arn't bad. 8 and 9 are the best to me, followed by 1, then 6, 7 and so on.

Have you ever

Its not dead, ff 10 was great, 12 sucked, and 13 rocks.

have you ever played any FF previous to FFX?
If you honestly have, then there is no way you can say that it has a better story quality and character depth. FFX and above just look prettier compared to their predecessors, but their quality as FF has gone down the drain.

I bet that is nostalgia talking

It might be, its just im sick of hearing people say that the newest final fantasies suck, they dont, except for 12.

Its not dead, ff 10 was great, 12 sucked, and 13 rocks.

Why, praytell did Final Fantasy XII suck? You're entitled to your opinion, but just saying it sucked isn't good enough. What are your specific reasons for hating it? It's one of the better games in the series in my opinion, especially with the innovative and new ATB gauge battle system. The gambits were a genius idea.
So... I ask you, why did "it suck"?

i hated the story for not making that much sense, and i dident like the battle system all that much either, it was OK at best, the only real fun i had with it was Hell Wyrm and the other hidden bosses.

Have you ever

Its not dead, ff 10 was great, 12 sucked, and 13 rocks.

have you ever played any FF previous to FFX?
If you honestly have, then there is no way you can say that it has a better story quality and character depth. FFX and above just look prettier compared to their predecessors, but their quality as FF has gone down the drain.

I bet that is nostalgia talking

No, the older games are better in both characterization and story. The music is an arguable case if you've heard orchestrated soundtracks for both and graphics are definitely better on the newer games. They've mostly just been rehashing 6's plot since it came out. The older games, 6 mostly, have stood the test of time to some degree.

Thanks for getting what i was saying, and 8 and 9 had some great music, I will never forget Eyes On Me, or Your Not Alone!, those are some of my favorite songs in gaming history.

 

[TheRealGoochman]

I love FFXIII I'll take voice acting over having to squint me eyes to read the screen anyday

 

[rosac]

I have to admit, Vanille and Fang's Australian accents really make me cringe while playing FF XIII, and I am Australian. Fang's is by far worse though since it's an American actress trying to do an Aussie accent and failing at it miserably. I would however be interesting in playing FF VII again with full voice acting.

and did you notice sentinel fang's Kath and kim impersonation where she goes "look at me"? up until then I thought they were supposed to be kiwi's

hows about this

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyDOQgMvYCY&feature=related

Spoiler

yeah, i cringed big time.

rosac

 

[Joshroom]

I don't know. Yes, most of the voice acting in 10 was appalling; especially Tidus's and Yuna's (two main characters, aint to great). But despite the fact that it wasn't the best of the Final Fantasy's I really liked the voices in 12. Fran, Balthier and Ashe all had really interesting voices; and I loved how the vieras voices sounded.

Vaans was still irritating though. Man, that guy really needed to shut the hell up.