Voice Acting Discussion
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CryptCreeperX
Rotting Corpse of Wonder
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- That weird person in the corner staring at you... @_@
Gimme Steven Burton as Cloud and George Newbern as Sephiroth back and I'm good. 
I love their voices. In fact, Newbern restored my faith for English-speaking Sephiroth. What with that Lance Bass disaster back in Kingdom Hearts.
But with regards to the first comment of the thread: I agree on the Remnants. They really dropped the bar. At some points in AC, Loz sounded like he was BURPING than crying. I mean, for crying out loud, he bears the face of Sephiroth-senpai. SEPHIROTH, dammit.
Sephiroth does not burp! If he does, you won't live long enough to tell the tale.
Some other English voice actors I hope they change for the remake: Hojo. Gawddamn, I couldn't listen to him speak in Dirge of Cerberus. His off-pitched, irritating cat-like dying sounds made me cringe each time he talked. "We're scientists! We know what we're doing." Ugh. No. Just NO, Hojo.
I love their voices. In fact, Newbern restored my faith for English-speaking Sephiroth. What with that Lance Bass disaster back in Kingdom Hearts. But with regards to the first comment of the thread: I agree on the Remnants. They really dropped the bar. At some points in AC, Loz sounded like he was BURPING than crying. I mean, for crying out loud, he bears the face of Sephiroth-senpai. SEPHIROTH, dammit.
Sephiroth does not burp! If he does, you won't live long enough to tell the tale. Some other English voice actors I hope they change for the remake: Hojo. Gawddamn, I couldn't listen to him speak in Dirge of Cerberus. His off-pitched, irritating cat-like dying sounds made me cringe each time he talked. "We're scientists! We know what we're doing." Ugh. No. Just NO, Hojo.
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- Tets
Nothing to do with the voice actor but with the direction. Paul Eiding himself said he didn't like the voice they made him do for Hojo.
CryptCreeperX
Rotting Corpse of Wonder
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- That weird person in the corner staring at you... @_@
This tells me that the Remnants voice actors must've suffered the same thing since their voices were terrible. Is Square intentionally trying to sabotage English Voice actors by giving them crappy directions? In some ways, I still feel voice actors should be held accountable for what they do to with their own voices. They are the professionals, hired because they know how to act with their voices. Unless their art director is James Cameron (a reknowned perfectionist), I imagine a VA has that power to provide feedback (much like any other actor in the industry). Heck, as a graphic artist who gets commissioned to do work for people, I deal with clients who come up with some rather dumb ideas all the time. They're hiring me for my experience so, as the artist, I have that right to provide my own two cents and see what's best for the project.
Obviously, the people directing Eiding didn't know what was best for Hojo's character since the results were horrific. And while we can point the finger at the directors for the bad way of handling it, in the end, Eiding is the one stuck with the bill. That's kinda why artists (whether in visual or in audio) have to stick up to their craft. No one wants excuses for a bad job. :C
A voice actor having input is pretty rare. A big part of what was unique about the Uncharted series is how much input the actors have to the characters and the story.
Slipstreamer
Rookie Adventurer
Cloud should sound really confident before he has his mental breakdown. Ideally he should sound like Brendan from the Detective Heart of America movie (29minutes). Or the Cillit Bang guy.
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Random Nobody
local roach
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- Lith
Actually, the actor who voiced Kadaj, Steve Staley, admitted that the role has been one of his favorites to voice. So logically I'm going to conclude that he didn't think his voice acting was that terrible. Kadaj is basically a young, immature version of Sephiroth, and I thought Staley's voice fit him perfectly.
I agree that the English production studios should be more stringent with the performances of the VAs, or at least the types of voices for the characters. To be honest, I haven't really had any major complaints about the English side of it so far. Of course, there have been moment where characters have been introduced and it made me go 'WTF', but I got over it.
Square Enix NA has made some bad decisions over how some characters voices should sound compared to the Japanese, but I don't think that they just don't care entirely. It's just another studio's interpretation of the same character. Some people like it, some people don't.
That's pretty interesting.
I think Kadaj's voice is fine. Yazoo and Loz were more the issues. And both were pretty prolific voice actors, so I'm pretty sure it was the direction.
I think Kadaj's voice is fine. Yazoo and Loz were more the issues. And both were pretty prolific voice actors, so I'm pretty sure it was the direction.
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- Flare
Oh God. I think I'm going to cry when he says this.
Tashasaurous
Tash for Short
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- Sailor Moon, Mini Moon, Hotaru, Cardcaptor Sakura, Meilin, Xion, Kairi, Aqua, Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie, Elena, Misty, May, Dawn, Casey, Fiona, Ellie
Barret's actor is the same. I don't see them hiring Billingslea for the trailer and then not using him for the game proper.
Tashasaurous
Tash for Short
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- Sailor Moon, Mini Moon, Hotaru, Cardcaptor Sakura, Meilin, Xion, Kairi, Aqua, Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie, Elena, Misty, May, Dawn, Casey, Fiona, Ellie
It was probably from his earlier recording works from AC movie and DOC game. Sora sounded like his KH1 self in one of the trailers of KH3 that came out this year, and.
Plus, times change unexpectly.
Theozilla
Kaiju Member
Virtually none of lines that Barret spoke in the trailer can be found in AC/C or DoC, if Steve Burton was hired to record new lines for the trailer (which he confirmed on his Twitter) it wouldn't make any sense that Beau Billingslea would have been as well.
And Beau Billingslea is a fine dub voice actor, he has a good resume of well-received voice roles.
Tashasaurous
Tash for Short
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- Sailor Moon, Mini Moon, Hotaru, Cardcaptor Sakura, Meilin, Xion, Kairi, Aqua, Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie, Elena, Misty, May, Dawn, Casey, Fiona, Ellie
I'm not saying that Beau Billingslea is a bad actor, and I liked him as Barret, but what I'm trying to say is that he might not return due to either being busy with another project in his voice acting career.
I'm glad Steve Burton is(or might at this stage) returning to his role as Cloud. I've heard a lot of actors enjoyed voicing certain characters, which though for some reason some of them are cut off the job because of company changing or forced voice changing, or them being unable to continue their favorite roles.
For example, Veronica Taylor, the voice actress of Cosmos in Dissidia Final Fantasy games(except for the new arcade one since Cosmos isn't in it), she was originally the voice of Ash Ketchum from the Pokemon anime up until the end of season 8 and she revealed she loved voicing Ash(and his mother Delia and May). It must've been so hard on her when she found out she was out of the job of voicing Ash who was replaced by Serah Sarcomony(or whatever her name is) since season 9 and is still going.
And Terri Hawkes who voiced Sailor Moon in most part of season 1 up until the end of the second season, where she left due to pregnacy. She also voiced Sailor Moon in all three SM films, and she liked doing Sailor Moon too.
Let's not forget Quinton Flynn, the voice of Reno(and Axel/Lea in KH). I hope, due to his love for voicing Reno, will return for the remake.
But you never know. Something might happen.
I always thought Rufus should have an English accent (specifically the cunty sounding kind).
Theozilla
Kaiju Member
Sure, there's always a possibility that unknown circumstances could cause Barret's voice actor to be recast, it just seems strange that you seem to be specifically anxious about Beau Billingslea since there really isn't any evidence pointing to a recast (at least no more so than Steven Burton).
Tashasaurous
Tash for Short
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- Sailor Moon, Mini Moon, Hotaru, Cardcaptor Sakura, Meilin, Xion, Kairi, Aqua, Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie, Elena, Misty, May, Dawn, Casey, Fiona, Ellie
Well, after 9 years of not voicing a certain character and might not be able to return for whatever reason, how can one not recast certain roles for certain characters? Last time was Dirge of Cerberus and again, that was around a decade ago.
Besides, with Steve Burton, last time he voiced Cloud was the re-recording for KH Coded for KH 2.5 HD ReMIX and that was only a year or two ago, so I have high hopes that he'll return as Cloud again. But then again, I could be wrong on that point.
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- hitoshura
didn't he say on twitter that he was back as cloud?
Theozilla
Kaiju Member
A time gap still doesn't guarantee a recast from SE though (e.g. Aerith's been recast multiple times with titles relatively close to each other in terms of release). And Barret's lines in the trailer were definitely new (and not reused stock lines) and Beau Billingslea's voice. Until there's explicit evidence supporting Billingslea being recast, there's not really reason to be fearful that he won't continue his role.