Lip synch -
April 10, 2001 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot.
As nightmarishly lethal, memetically programmed death-machines went, these were the nicest you could ever hope to meet.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
This topic brought something out in people - I haven't seen this much bashing of various opinions (and their associated owners) since the last presidential debate. But it's all good material for the mill, so I'm gonna print it - just don't take any of it too seriously, if you're one of the parties under discussion.
I also got a fair amount of email on that Xenogears Tower of Babel question, most of it in disagreement with each the rest. I would have tested it out myself, but I'm running short on time tonight, so what you see is what you get. Most people did agree that there were scripted battles in at least part of the tower, and that none of it was actually midair so much as too quick or two slow starting up. My mistake, I guess.
Onward.
| Soul sucking translators |
| Intrepid DA,
I hope you were asking for a heaping helping of insane raving mail, cause that's what you're gonna get from a VA question. :)
I myself am somewhat in the middle of the road. While I generally agree with hardcore purist types when they say that 99.44% of Japanese voice-overs will inherently be better, I also think English voice overs can be done properly in games. (a la Metal Gear, Soul Reaver, etc.) Let me try to explain myself:
Nine times out of ten, when translating a Japanese game, especially RPGs, the translation sucks the soul out of much of what the game originally had to say. You lose many nuances that are specific to the Japanese language. On the flipside, there are words in Japanese that can mean almost anything in English, meaning you often get poor word choices. This is just one example. It's unfortunate because it could easily be fixed by having slightly larger (say... 2 or 3 people) groups working on the translation. Uhhh... preferably people who are fluent in both languages and can better handle these kinds of situations.
The same goes with voice acting. First, a voice actor/actress is only as good as his/her script. Some of the wretched lines from Grandia, Valkyrie Profile, etc. were more the lines than the acting itself. Second, as I believe you pointed out in the 4/9 column, you get what you pay for. Metal Gear had a professional voice director to gather up quality voice talent, where as I'm sure VP or Grandia probably dragged in the night janitor and paid him overtime for VA duty. Third, and most importantly, often times translation teams and VA teams have nothing (or frighteningly little) to do with the original team that worked on the game. Language barrier is the main problem there. Metal Gear is the exception yet again. Control freak Kojima had his hands in every pot... and God bless him. However, often times you lose the original intent: the emotion, the personalization of a character. Now I'm just mindlessly blabbering.
In summary, English voice talent will get better as long as production values go up and more contact is kept with the original design and voice team (Or at least LISTEN to the original voice talent). Disagree with and disembowel my argument if you like... that's what discussion is all about.
Griffin
P.S. Japanese seiyuu still rule regardless.
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What am I supposed to disagree with here? I never said that the solid majority of English dubbing wasn't cringeworthy, just that it wasn't impossible to have good (or excellent) voice acting in a video game.
So in lieu of an argument, allow me to speculate a bit - there seems to be a fair bit of agreement that whatever else may be said about recent Square games, their translations range from the satisfactory to the superb. If one of your arguments is that a good translation is needed for a good voice acting job, then perhaps we don't have as much to worry about from FFX as we thought.
| I'm amusing, if you didn't know already |
| Yo.
As far as the voice acting discussion goes, I'd have to see that for the most part, I agree with the letter from "Justin" yesterday. In your response to him, you pointed out the growing trend towards better presentation. Yes, its true that that more and more, you see the dubbing done better, but its not always the case. For example, RE:Code Veronica, which came out just last year, has crap voice acting (I guess its a series tradition). Sure, things may be getting better, like in MGS, but there is always bad apples, like Xenogears, Resident Evil Games, or Onimusha's English track, to name a few.
I also found amusing how you used an example from Starcraft, an American produced game, to argue in favor of dubbing, considering it was never dubbed in the first place!
I think you might have missed part of the point. You say, "I reject the idea that English voice acting is bad, period." I don't think that's what the point was. English voice acting is fine in Disney Movies and stuff, most cartoons, etc. It's just the dubbing over in the games that is so sub-par. The main reason for this is the cash involved. When Disney makes a movie, they have millions of dollars in the vault to spend on hiring voice talent who are going to voice a whole movie. With games, they are hiring people who are going to say 10 sentences in a couple of minute-long FMV scenes. Now, which studio, Disney or the game maker, is more likely to forward the cash on hiring quality talent?
Also, the point raised in the letter about the director's involvement is pretty interesting. Yeah, maybe in MGS, the director got involved in the localization, but this is definitely the exception, not the rule. Don't try to tell me that the 2 seconds out-of-sync Xenogears, or 1960's Batman style RE acting is the original director's vision.
Regardless of what you think about the points above, the fact stands that there should be an option to select the language, like in Onimusha. Now that we are making games on DVDs, I really hope that companies can go the extra mile, and have that option. Almost all Anime and Asian movie DVDs nowadays have the language select option (or you can buy it either way if its on VHS), so why shouldn't games?
R. Vinall
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Reread what I wrote yesterday - I used Starcraft and Soul Reaver both as examples, and they're both games that were US developed. I also wasn't arguing in favor of dubs so much as I was arguing that good English voice acting is possible... and if US originated games can be properly acted, why not dubs?
You might also reread Justin's letter while you're at it - he clearly stated that English dubs were less aesthetically acceptable than the original Japanese, because it corrupted the original intent of the director. I'm saying that, given that English voice work is capable of being quite good, then there's no reason that should be the case. Voice acting is ultimately about imparting meaning, and dubbed voices can clearly convey more information than plain text subtitles can. The original director doesn't even have to be involved (and it wouldn't do much good if he doesn't speak English himself). Given that's the case, it doesn't seem reasonable to argue that dubs of games are doomed to be worse than any other kind of voice work.
| Unnamed Japanese person lays the smack down |
| I love people like Justin (the boy who wrote in to your column), because they show me that not all Americans are foreign-hating idiots. You see, Justin is a foreign-loving idiot. These weird American anime fans decide that anything and everything that is in Japanese will always be better than its American counterpart. No matter how bad the Japanese voices are, anime fans will say it's better than the English voices. The sad thing about this is that these people don't even know Japanese, so they honestly have no right to say what is good and what is bad. As for myself, I am Japanese and I understand the Japanese dialogue, and let me say that much of the time the English voices are just as good as the Japanese. A non-native speaker won't be able to tell when a Japanese voice actor is bad, because they aren't familiar with the language. Do you understand what I mean by this?
As for Justin saying that the English voices betray Hideo's intentions, he is dead wrong. Hideo Kojima said himself that he-get this-he prefers the American voices to the Japanese ones! He thinks the characters were suited better by the American voice actors. So, tell Justin not to act like American video game companies are spawns of Satan for "defacing" games by giving characters an English tongue. In some cases American voice actors are better (like MGS).
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Thanks for that extremely condescending remark, sir. I agree with most of what you say, although I suspect more than a few of those "foreign-loving idiots" have some clue of what's being said. And even without knowing a language, you can still pick up a lot from tonal cues - that's part of the main argument for subtitles in the first place.
I'd like to advance a theory here for a moment: the type of game or anime has bearing on if subs or dubs are preferable. Let's take two popular anime series for example: Neon Genesis Evangelon and Cowboy Bebop. Bebop is loaded with all kinds of American in-jokes, and more importantly, has fairly active, direct characters. Because of that, I personally tend to prefer the dub, since the Japanese voices seem a bit too restrained for some of the circumstances. In comparison, Eva's a drama about characters who are either hiding their emotions or are going completely berserk, so that Japanese restraint plays much better because it better shows the contrast between the two states.
Ok, that theory probably makes no sense, but I like it.
| Apples and artichokes |
| Mr. Jones,
I think that this entire VA debate is due to the ties that games have to Anime. I don't care too much for Anime, only watching the major ones that are "mainstream" (Kiki, Mononoke...) so to me this entire debate about dub vs. sub is a little silly. If we didn't have the tie between anime and games, I don't think it would even be an issue. If we had bad voice acting in games we wouldn't demand that "It should be subbed!" we'd demand better voice acting.
I play games to "be part of the adventure" . I want to be at that Opera House, I want chase that villan, I want to feel a part of it all, and I don't think listening to some voice in another language for 40 hours is going to help immerse me into the game any. Fact is a vast majority of people who play games aren't into Anime and see little to no correlation between Anime and videogames, and for them to have a game completely subbed from its original form would be more annoying than anything else. Would it be nice if we had the choice? Why not, I'm sure the anime fans would enjoy it, but for people like myself that would like the Videogames/Anime relation lessen if not cease to exist, I don't think it'd be too used.
Mr. Cruz
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Absolutely true, and it's important to keep our eye on that final goal - relatively few people here are arguing that they think subtitles are the best absolute way to demonstrate a game, just that current subbing efforts are way below acceptable limits. Few of us have any kind of way to influence games one way or another, but I'd rather hope for better English voice acting than more authentic translations... although the option for both is nice.
| Voice acting: Just say No! |
| Voice acting, I must say, is definitely not something I want in my
games, and here are a few of my several reasons why:
First, as was pointed out yesterday, localization often sucks because
the developers aren't willing to shell out big bucks for actual talent.
Just look at the difference between the Japanese and English versions of
SotN, for example. And Star Ocean 2 - Chisato was a great character who
many people detested because of the dubbing on one commonly used move of
hers, often referred to among my friends as "the donkey kick". And even
in games that do have relatively good voice acting, there's the
occasional character whose voice just doesn't sound quite right. Take
Jade Cocoon - the majority of the voice acting, I thought, was very
appropriate... and then you get to the bird-man, who reminded me eerily
of Phil Hartman. Very distracting.
Second, even when the voice acting is good... well, this might be
peculiar to me, I suppose, because I read very fast. While playing Jade
Cocoon, I'd finish reading the text in perhaps one and a half seconds,
while the voice acting of the same exact words went on for ten seconds,
because a voice actor generally has to speak slowly and clearly to be
understood. Why would I bother sitting and listening to someone say the
same thing I'd already finished reading, when I'm anxious to see what
happens next? And so I usually cut them off in mid-sentence, which I
felt was quite rude.
Third, it's unnecessary. Partially because of the second reason, and
partially because anyone with an imagination can fill in character
voices. I shudder to think what voice acting would have done to a game
like Vagrant Story; the characters were so vivid in my mind that when I
play now, I actually have a distinct voice for them all in my head - and
Sydney's is rather unique. If there had been voice acting in VS, and
they'd given Sydney a deep or harsh voice (or, heaven forbid, pulled a
Richter Belmont), I'm sure I wouldn't have been as enchanted by him. I
*like* using my imagination to fill in the gaps - it's usually much more
to my taste than what localizers end up deciding on.
And then there's the dismay that the announcement of voice acting in FFX
caused in the online amateur voice acting community, which is rather
fond of doing FF-based radio plays. Those of us with unique voices
probably would never get parts again if we had to match existing voice
actors rather than find our own voices suitable for the role... but
then, that's only for fun, and it's a hobby that I doubt many GIA
readers share, so it's probably not any concern of theirs. Still, it's a
gripe a few of us have, even if it's a rather petty one.
- Andrea Hartmann, who is praying that if FFX must be dubbed, Brian
Drummond will somehow be involved
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Not much to say here, except wouldn't Japanese voices interfere with your own made up voices just as much as a bad English dub? Personally I'm not much for voices when reading - even the actual sounds of the words tend to get passed over so that I'm just swallowing the meaning of the dialog whole. But especially in the PSX era, games have become a different experience from reading, so voices are starting to become more and more acceptable.
| "...triumph of emergent narrative over embedded narrative"? What the hell...? |
| After so much debate on "games as art" in this column, Salon (a premier liberal online magazine) has just answered at least a few of our questions with what is currently it's top story: a review of Black and White as "art."
http://www.salon.com/tech/review/2001/04/10/black_and_white/index.html
I'll let a few quotes from the review stand for themselves... "It may be hard to believe that the future of 21st century art is represented by a giant bipedal tiger who farts, break dances and flings livestock around when he's bored. But it requires only a few hours of play in the lands of Black & White, the new PC game from Lionhead Studios and lead designer Peter Molyneux, to know that this is exactly the case."
"You watch a movie, take in an art showing, and whether you come away affected or not, the work remains the same. By constrast, this is a game that learns to understand you as you play it, and alters itself accordingly, to become a reflection of who you really are."
"In all this, Black & White realizes a design ideal established by the late lamented Looking Glass Studios: the triumph of emergent narrative over embedded narrative. Embedded narrative is the preconceived story created by the developers: scripted dialogue, stand-alone cut scenes and so on. (And in Black & White, this involves the player's ongoing struggle to defeat a dark master god known as Nemesis -- a compelling story, but not necessarily its strongest feature.) Emergent narrative, by contrast, are the stories that evolve organically through the gameplay itself. They're the stories that the players create for themselves. And if the game design is robust enough, they are unique to each one."
"For too long, mainstream coverage of games has been cordoned off into the technology section, blurbed alongside spreadsheet software, or worse, the subject of clue-impaired exposés about their putative negative influence on children. When will we stop treating computer and video games like mere geek trifles, and acknowledge them as the emerging art form they really are? Like the Thief games from Doug Church and Looking Glass Studios, or Deus Ex from Warren Spector and Ion Storm Austin, or even the Sims from Maxis and Will Wright, Black & White is an affront to this ignorant dismissal, and a challenge. With Molyneux's game, the mainstream press is now obligated to explain why it hasn't given these designers their due as artists, so late into the development of digital culture."
I'm not precisely sure what to make of this, but it seems that at least one well-established non-game-related magazine now considers games to be capable of being art. I certainly don't agree with the idea that gaming's main potential lies in "emergent narrative" (though that is one of the things that sets it apart from other meduims), and certainly several of the other listed games don't take that view either. Whatever the case, it seems that the idea of games as "art" isn't completely ignored outside of gaming circles anymore. The article seems even less reservered about the idea than we are.-Davon
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It's a very interesting review, and I strongly suggest you go and read the whole thing (and take a look at Black and White, if you haven't already.) Still, I'll stick with the same contention I've been making for the past year - something gets lost when you go with an emergent narrative. Events have less importance when you know that you can just go back to a previous save file and change them, and I'd rather keep inevitability (and not just the cheesey "no matter what you do the bomb still goes off" kind either) than go anywhere and do anything. I can do that in my real life, I don't need to have that ability in a game as well.
| If the vowels are there, the order isn't important |
| Chris,
It's Aiur, man. Aiur. Come on.
Anyway, I've been thinking about the great amount of antipathy that most
people (typically the Otaku crowd, go figure) have toward voice acting
in video games. I think that I can sum up my whole argument in just a
few words, and I defy anyone to contradict me. It goes like this:
Good voice acting = good
Bad voice acting = bad
I think it's kinda ridiculous. Condemning a game for having voice acting
is like condemning a game because it has a story. Or because it has
graphics. Or music. So good voice acting won't make a bad game good,
even though it will soften the blow; and bad voice acting won't make a
good game bad, though it will tarnish the luster.
In fact, I've seen comments very much like these mentioned several times
before, you know, along the lines of "Bad plot alone doesn't make a game
bad," with words such as "graphics" and "music" entered in place of
"plot". So why do people get so upset when one dares to insert "voice
acting" as well? From whence does this spite flow?
Yesterday Justin commented that it was "somehow defacing the work as a
whole" to replace Japanese voice acting in MGS with English voice
acting. Could someone please explain how? By that logic, isn't it
equally sacreligious to translate the game at all, replacing the
pristine purity of the Japanese text with our shoddy English hack-work?
(Yeah, that's some sarcasm.) I suppose we should all learn to speak
fluent Japanese so we can appreciate games without resorting to our
debased English language.
Being American, I figure it's natural for me to be a little miffed when
people try to elevate Japan over us like the good ol' Shoguns back in
the Edo period. Remember the Edo period? Ah, memories.
-Matt Blackie
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Sarcastic and succinct. Good job, dude.
| Applied Jingoism |
| I tend to piss off a lot of "hardcore" games, because while I eat, sleep, and
live games, I really don't like listening to Japanese. I played Onimusha in
Japanese for about five seconds before I switched it back to English. Sure,
the voices are goofy and B-movie quality, but at least I can *understand*
them.
You see, I'm a native English speaker, born and bred. I like my language.
When I engage in entertainment - meaning, an activity during which I am
supposed to be *entertained* - I don't want to have to sluff through some
language I don't understand, and be distracted from the great visuals by the
necessity of reading subtitles. It's just not fun.
And if we're not playing games for fun, then what for?
-Eightball |
Again, it depends on what's happening. I want subtitles in a Kurosawa film, because I'm thinking very hard about what's going on on the screen, and the Japanese acting is part of that. There are also cases where, as good as the dub is, it still doesn't convey as much information as the subtitles do. Princess Mononoke's a good example of this. But many people seem to agree that games aren't quite up to those levels yet, and given that's the case, I'd just as soon get a decent English dub and be entertained, as you say.
| The Importance of Hearing Subtle |
| Most people who read this column seem to agree that videogames are an artform, but I think it's important to remember that games are first and foremost a medium of entertainment. Subbing is to many people (myself included) superior to a bad dub job, but good dubbing offers many advantages to Japanese voices - advantages which may increase a game's entertainment value.
Imagine if Soul Reaver was developed in Japan and then released here subbed. Would it really have been as enjoyable? The english voice-acting contains many subtle nuances that we as English speakers can understand and enjoy. Sarcasm, contempt, anger and jealousy are all perfectly acted and understood in Soul Reaver.
But in Japanese, any sort of subtle voicings are lost - at least to we who do not understand the language. To be honest, the only way I can tell that a subbed anime character is angry is that his voice gets louder (well, the only way that I can tell aurally). Sarcasm and other more subtle voicings are (at least to me) completely missed.
One last thing - too much attention is probably being given to the voice actors and not to the dialogue writers. Sometimes the actors are just plain bad, but oft times the lines they're having to say are so pathetic that we are lucky they sound as good as they do.
~Israfel~
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This is as good as any reason to close on - voices contain more meaning than pure words do, and while subtitles plus the original voices are better than a bad dub, they're still not as good as well translated words in the language of the audience. The prologue to Soul Reaver just wouldn't be the same with subtitles - you wouldn't hear the arch spin Raziel puts on his description of Kain's world, and Tony Jay's bone rattling declaration that Raziel was worthy wouldn't have quite so much power. And that's a bad thing.
Closing Comments:
Both Salon's review and the actual Black and White game are interesting topics, so let's hear your spins on them. You can talk about the difficulty of playing something like B&W with a Dual Shock, but I'm more interested in what happens when that kind of adaptive AI gets applied to console RPGs. Any ideas? Let me know.
-Chris Jones, close captioned
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