E3: Shen Mue impressions

[05.16.00] » Taking bad voice acting to a totally different level.

   For the second E3 in a row, Sega showed the upcoming Yu Suzuki epic Shenmue through a variety of mini-games and short demo sequences, but this time, with character voices dubbed into English. While many of the various demos did not have voices in them (after all, who needs voices when you're playing old Sega arcade games or racing forklifts), the demos that did feature speach showed why the game should have been subtitled instead of dubbed.

   The single voice that players will be hearing the most, the voice of the main character, Ryou, is quite possibly the worst voice in the history of video games. The soft-spoken high school student has been given the voice of a Hollywood star, and it hurts. All of the natural tones that were present in the Japanese version of the game have been replaced dialogue that definitely sounds like it is being acted in a sound studio. This bad acting is only made worse by the fact that the actual text flowed easily and naturally enough. Even the mere voice of Ryou was chosen badly: the voice actor sounds twice the age of the character.

   Shenmue's voice acting, in addition to Sega's determination to promote the game through forklift races, puts a huge damper on the previous excitement that the title had garnered. With luck, some of the hideous voices will be replaced before the game's November 14 release date, although this seems unlikely, given the large amount of dialogue in the game. Until then, fans will just have to take solace in the fact that at least one character, Tom, has a voice true to the Japanese version. Unfortunately, the other hundreds of characters are another fact altogther...