philcollins Posted December 7, 2011 Posted December 7, 2011 people who want voice acting are missing a big point. the voices in the game now(which are amazing) are done by japanese. if the whole game was voice acted, the japanese version would be great! and i wouldn just end up listening to that, with subtitles. it would basicly be similar to how it is now. the english versions voice acting would be subpar, cringeworthy, and embaressing. its a fact clear as day.
Cube Posted December 7, 2011 Posted December 7, 2011 the english versions voice acting would be subpar, cringeworthy, and embaressing. its a fact clear as day. Only if they put zero effort into it.
Agent Gibbs Posted December 7, 2011 Posted December 7, 2011 Only if they put zero effort into it. Which most companies do.... but this is nintendo and a zelda game so i think they'd put effort in, or i hope the localisation team would
Magnus Posted December 7, 2011 Posted December 7, 2011 I didn't have much faith in Nintendo regarding voice acting after Super Mario Sunshine, but they did a great job with Xenoblade Chronicles. They should just have Nintendo UK dub the game. Ganondorf would have a Cockney accent, so you could tell he's evil.
Mokong Posted December 7, 2011 Posted December 7, 2011 I didn't have much faith in Nintendo regarding voice acting after Super Mario Sunshine, but they did a great job with Xenoblade Chronicles. They should just have Nintendo UK dub the game. Ganondorf would have a Cockney accent, so you could tell he's evil. Indeed I was thinking of Xenoblade aswell and that had a great english voice cast, based on that I'd be very confident in NoE getting a good voice cast for a Zelda game.... the problem however would be is if Nintendo Japan gave NoA the job of getting an english language voice cast. In which case the recent success of Xenoblade would likely not be repeated. As the only reason NoE got to find the voice cast is cause NoA didn't want to bother with Xenoblade.
Agent Gibbs Posted December 8, 2011 Posted December 8, 2011 Indeed I was thinking of Xenoblade aswell and that had a great english voice cast, based on that I'd be very confident in NoE getting a good voice cast for a Zelda game.... the problem however would be is if Nintendo Japan gave NoA the job of getting an english language voice cast. In which case the recent success of Xenoblade would likely not be repeated. As the only reason NoE got to find the voice cast is cause NoA didn't want to bother with Xenoblade. i hate that you are probably right there, American dubs are usually terrible
philcollins Posted December 10, 2011 Posted December 10, 2011 Only if they put zero effort into it. i dont really think the point is the amount of effort put in. its just cultural differences. japanese treat voice acting as an art form, and alot of things about zelda, such as the humour, are really japanese anyway. so much charm is going to be lost. and replaced with very vanilla -but easier than reading text?- voice acting. maybe im just being picky for noticing the finer details of what makes a zelda game good? but i know that i would not be able to play through a western voice acted version of zelda.
Burny Posted December 10, 2011 Posted December 10, 2011 (edited) i dont really think the point is the amount of effort put in. its just cultural differences. japanese treat voice acting as an art form, and alot of things about zelda, such as the humour, are really japanese anyway. so much charm is going to be lost. and replaced with very vanilla -but easier than reading text?- voice acting. Claiming that western voice acting would automatically be inferior is delusional, I think. I don't know about the Japanese treating voice acting any more artistically than say, Pixar, Dreamworks and Disney treats it in their movies. There's plenty of examples where absurd figures are voice acted just perfectly in western movies. I know one thing though: If Nintendo is going to literally animate lips again without having understandable voice acting, I'm going to be disappointed. And making up some "Hylian" language is not an option, as it only makes things more complicated. It really is all about effort (money + time) involved and actual acting. Hire an unmotivated, underpaid, sub-par cast of amateurs and the voice acting will be bad. Put in the effort to find a cast of actors that represents the characters well, hire them, have them act the characters and you have good voice acting. Take the Xenoblade cast, I wouldn't even want to listen to the game in Japanese. Which, if you listen to it as someone not able to understand Japanese, isn't all that artistic in the first place. You can hardly fault a Japanese voice cast for not being motivated, but even if you don't understand what they're saying, but you can make out that their "motivation" far too often results in a lot of high-pitched yelling. Edited December 10, 2011 by Burny
philcollins Posted December 10, 2011 Posted December 10, 2011 Claiming that western voice acting would automatically be inferior is delusional, again, missing the point. if zelda was created by an american team everything would fit just fine with the western voice acting. but it isnt, and there isnt a chance in hell a western voice actor is going to be able to voice a character like tingle and do a cringe worthy job of it. voice acting aint on the cards for zelda, and it shouldnt be.
Burny Posted December 10, 2011 Posted December 10, 2011 again, missing the point. if zelda was created by an american team everything would fit just fine with the western voice acting. but it isnt, and there isnt a chance in hell a western voice actor is going to be able to voice a character like tingle and do a cringe worthy job of it. Are you actually believing that yourself? Yeah, it's a grown man in green tights with an elf fetish and a talent for cartography. There is no way a Western voice actor could ever represent a character like that. This is complete rubbish. Zelda isn't in any way so specifically Japanese, that a Western voice cast couldn't represent it adequately. More importantly, it is beginning to become painfully obvious how the game is torn between trying to be cinematic and being held back by the tradition of having no proper voice acting, that originates from long since overcome technical limitations. There isn't a single cut-scene in Skyward Sword, that wouldn't feel more appropriate, if the characters spoke. After all, they already move their lips. Thankfully, Aonuma doesn't just stubbornly insist that voice acting "isn't int the cards", but thinks at least about ways of integrating it.
Zell Posted December 11, 2011 Posted December 11, 2011 Just completed it. I'll post my full opinions later, but for now I'll say that it's about on par with Twilight Princess but not as good as the others.
Shorty Posted December 12, 2011 Posted December 12, 2011 Loved the game to bits all the way through. Wish I'd duplicated my save before the final boss though. I said "no" to erasing all my progress for hero mode, duplicated my save and now I'll do the boss again once I've 100%'d my original save
S.C.G Posted December 12, 2011 Posted December 12, 2011 Loved the game to bits all the way through. Wish I'd duplicated my save before the final boss though. I said "no" to erasing all my progress for hero mode, duplicated my save and now I'll do the boss again once I've 100%'d my original save I did exactly the same... Hero Mode does intrigue me so but I don't feel like tackling it just yet, plus side-quests to clear etc plus I blatantly want to play the final boss battle again.
Shorty Posted December 12, 2011 Posted December 12, 2011 The boss battle is definitely going to be really easy the second time through, now I know to just dodge the first lightning attack before I launch my own. I was expecting a big Ganon-style fight after it tbh but it was still very cool. I was well impressed that Ghirahim turned out to be Fi's evil equivalent, I didn't figure that out until the last minute Must admit to being a bit disappointed we didn't see more of the world in the past. Wind Waker had that amazing moment where you could see Hyrule in the distance.
Burny Posted December 12, 2011 Posted December 12, 2011 Must admit to being a bit disappointed we didn't see more of the world in the past. Wind Waker had that amazing moment where you could see Hyrule in the distance. And that rather disappointing moment for me, when I realized that I couldn't go anywhere in it, after I had just spend a whole game on underwhelmingly small islands. It's what I loved about Skyward Swords world. I don't mind the disconnected areas. The sky is just a differently textured Hyrule Field as far as I'm concerned. But the actual areas need to be somehow interesting and I loved the intertwined main areas in Skyward Sword.
Zell Posted December 13, 2011 Posted December 13, 2011 I just read this article and to be honest I'm a bit disappointed. My opinions of motion controls are at best mixed and having just completed Skyward Sword, I remain unconvinced that this is the best control method for my beloved Zelda series. I did enjoy the sword fighting and for the most part it felt accurate and responsive. The big exception is the "thrust" or "stab" attack, which has this horrible half-second delay after you do the movement. Every time I had to thrust, I would be taken completely out the immersion because the motion fails to register half the time. Slashing was no problem but thrusting did not work well at all. This infuriated me because I knew that I wouldn't be having this problem if I was playing with the Gamecube controller. Which brings me on to my next point: despite what a lot of people are saying, the sword fighting in this game could have been controlled on a traditional joypad. Defeating enemies in this game involves using horizontal slash, vertical slash, thrust and the spin attack, i.e. moves that you could do in all previous 3D Zeldas. Skyward Sword however, unlike the previous Zeldas, actually forces you to use the different slashes to defeat the enemies. So the actual core sword combat has been improved upon, but not because of the motion controls, more to do with how the enemies block your attacks. Whether or not you consider motion controls to be a more immersive experience is up to you I guess, but to me waving a 6 inch long Wii remote is nothing like swinging a real sword. There were a few moments where I thought “this wouldn't be nearly as awesome without the motion controls†like the 4th boss, but there wasn't enough there to convince me that motion controls were better than sticks and buttons. I didn't care much for the other motion controls. Why can't I just use the analogue stick to swim and fly? Why can't I just use a button to use the shield? It's moments where motion controls are used where normal controls are perfectly adequate that really bug me off. An example of this is the rollercoaster mini game. The analogue stick would have been fine but no, they had to use motion controls. Really bad, unresponive motion controls I may add. Pointing to aim is generally fine, but it would have worked much better if they used IR and not the motion plus. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the motion controls were detrimental to the overall experience but, with a couple of exceptions, I don't think they added much either. If Skyward Sword had normal controls, my opinion of it would probably be exactly the same. Motion controls aren't for everyone, so I really hope the next Zelda game will give people the option of using normal controls. Personally, I can't see Nintendo not using the new Wii U controller for one of their flagship franchises.
Burny Posted December 13, 2011 Posted December 13, 2011 (edited) This infuriated me because I knew that I wouldn't be having this problem if I was playing with the Gamecube controller. Naturally, because you wouldn't have to thrust at all. You would get away with hammering "B" at the right time in every single encounter, like we did since 1998. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the motion controls were detrimental to the overall experience but, with a couple of exceptions, I don't think they added much either. If Skyward Sword had normal controls, my opinion of it would probably be exactly the same. That just goes to show how little thought you put into it. I agree that most things done with motion controls could be just translated to a traditional control setup and it would only be for the worse where aiming the bow or slingshot is concerned. And bug catching wouldn't be nearly as entertaining. Most things, that aren't related to sword fighting, that is. Nearly every fight has some additional layer of complexity though, that just wouldn't be there with Zelda's traditional control setup. Anything that requires precision in timing and direction would have to be redesigned in a way, where it would only require precision in timing, like in previous Zeldas. Asking for a standard-controller option essentially means asking for designing almost all enemies twice. So that's not going to happen once they settle on one control option. I'd really have welcomed more different types of enemies though... Edited December 13, 2011 by Burny
Cube Posted December 13, 2011 Posted December 13, 2011 The General Gevious Stalfos is a great example of a battle that would just be lame without motion controls.
Serebii Posted December 13, 2011 Posted December 13, 2011 I still notice that those who have issues with controls tend to be those who go for waggle rather than 1:1 motion. It's the same with my friends
Shorty Posted December 13, 2011 Posted December 13, 2011 (edited) The General Gevious Stalfos is a great example of a battle that would just be lame without motion controls.Well yeah, but without motion controls they wouldn't have designed it that way :p My thoughts are simply that the motion controls would have been amazing if they did what they were meant to 100% of the time. So often I would clearly do a diagonal swing but get a horizontal one, or I would move my arm to the left to start a "backhand" swing and end up doing a slash before I'd even started. The jab/thrust attack was very 50/50, and meant I lost a lot of hearts against the Beamos enemies. In other words, the hardware limited the experience (the same as it did with the visuals). Edited December 13, 2011 by Shorty
Cube Posted December 13, 2011 Posted December 13, 2011 I still notice that those who have issues with controls tend to be those who go for waggle rather than 1:1 motion. It's the same with my friends People go for 1:1 motion? I just flick the remote in one of the (relatively few compared to 1:1) directions the game recognises for sword swings.
Serebii Posted December 13, 2011 Posted December 13, 2011 I keep seeing people stating issues with the thrust. In all of my play, I only had that issue twice. All the Beamos were beaten easily, as was the scorpion and everything else. I don't know why I had no issues and others had some
Burny Posted December 13, 2011 Posted December 13, 2011 (edited) I don't know why I had no issues and others had some You might just have learned the controls faster than others. I've had issues with a couple of motions, until I took the time to see how they work. After that, they became second nature. It seems some people would rather spend the time they need to figure out how something works with writing paragraphs upon paragraphs, complaining that it doesn't work for them. My thoughts are simply that the motion controls would have been amazing if they did what they were meant to 100% of the time. They do*. You aren't doing them correctly. :p What you describe is just what I've had trouble with at the start, but I wasn't doing it correctly. When the game did a vertical strike, that I meant to be a horizontal one, I had somehow put an angle in my movement. Repositioning the sword to one side in order to swing from there isn't necessary at all. Doing small swipes from a centered position is all you need. Given that a fast motion to reposition the Wiimote is essentially a swipe, the game will naturally translate it as such. When I meant to thrust and the game did something else, I hadn't thrust properly, but instead moved into another direction at the same time. Or unconsciously thrust the Nunchuck forward as well. *As long as Motion+ doesn't lose calibration, which doesn't happen, unless the game is prevented from automatically recalibrating. Meaning something interferes with the IR-sensor or the sensor bar is blocked. Edited December 13, 2011 by Burny
Cube Posted December 13, 2011 Posted December 13, 2011 Well yeah, but without motion controls they wouldn't have designed it that way :p That's my point. It's probably my favourite Zelda miniboss.
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