FFXIII may be Eng only on 360;PS3 to have Eng & Japanese

[GRColin]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=214802

It seems the limited space on the DVD format used by 360 could restrict Final Fantasy XIII fans' dialogue options when the game finally arrives in the west.

If you're hardcore into your anime and JRPGs, you might fancy playing FFXIII in its original Japanese dialogue, but you're only likely to get that option in the PS3 version, says producer Yoshinori Kitase.

"Obviously, when we talk about XIII it's for PS3 and Xbox - with PS3 being on Blu-ray there would be enough memory, but on Xbox probably not," he admitted.

"At the moment we're thinking of releasing the voice in English only. Are there many people who would like to play with Japanese voices?" he told IGN.

Really this does not bother me one bit as I played FFX in English and the voice acting has generally been pretty good with the FF titles.

It hasn't even been confirmed as happening yet.

*Waits for PS3 fanboys to come in and talk about how blu ray rocks, even though this changes very little.*

 

[Affen]

Re: FFXIII may be Eng only on 360;PS3 to have Eng & Japa

Does'nt bother at all. Always played them with eng. audio.

blu ray rocks

It's alright that you think so, but it would be good if you would leave all the console war thing out from this topic.

 

[De-Ting]

Meh. The only thing this is good for is getting to listen to anime nuts getting pissed that they'll have to watch all the cutscenes in japanese online, since they spent all their money on more Bleach figurines instead of getting a PS3.

Also, BLU-RAY ROQX!

 

[Bretimus_v2]

Although it is cool if you want that flavor added to the game, I will never use it. Valkyria Chronicles had Japanese audio and I played one or two vids just to laugh at the difference in voice actors for different parts.

Really though...who cares?

 

[Rakon]

I don't play games in Japanese because I don't speak it. To me, that doesn't make any sense. Sure, there can be subtitles, but frankly to me there's just no point in having Japanese audio if you can't speak it (which I'm assuming the majority of us can't)

 

[Boringman54]

I don't really care. I don't really want to listen to voices in a different language that I can't understand.

 

[MattAY]

Normally it would bother me. But the English voice acting in Final Fantasy games is usually pretty good. The only other time I've accepted English dubbed versions is in Ghibli films.

 

[ZankerH]

I don't play games in Japanese because I don't speak it. To me, that doesn't make any sense. Sure, there can be subtitles, but frankly to me there's just no point in having Japanese audio if you can't speak it (which I'm assuming the majority of us can't)

A lot of us Europeans watched English movies with subtitles before we understood a word of the language, so we're kinda used to this. It has a lot to do with the quality of the dub, but omitting Japanese audio altogether does seem kinda extreme. I played Valkyria Chronicles with the Japanese audio, the dub is good, but it just sounds cheesy.

 

[EliaSoZ]

The VOs in FF games has been good? Did you guys REALLY play FFX? That ish was horrible. Everytime Tidus spoke I cringed, and Yuna was pretty bad.

12 was definitely a step up, but still.

It's not about understanding the language. If you watch a lot of anime (or foreign film as I do). You'd understand that you don't have to KNOW the other language, but there's something about the voices having the right emotions, at the right time, sounding in character, and even lip-syncing, that elevates the quality of the original voice overs above the dubbed versions most of the time.

 

[GRColin]

It's not about understanding the language. If you watch a lot of anime (or foreign film as I do). You'd understand that you don't have to KNOW the other language, but there's something about the voices having the right emotions, at the right time, sounding in character, and even lip-syncing, that elevates the quality of the original voice overs above the dubbed versions most of the time.

I watch foreign films and I prefer the original audio track. For a video game it just doesn't bother me that much, if at all.

 

[EliaSoZ]

Well, I can't see why. I'm one of the people that really values a story in my video games and hence the quality of the voices is really important for me.

Granted if I didn't care as much about the story then I could see your point.

 

[GRColin]

Well, I can't see why. I'm one of the people that really values a story in my video games and hence the quality of the voices is really important for me.

Granted if I didn't care as much about the story then I could see your point.

I honestly am used to video game dialogue being cheesy and almost b movie quality. I grew up with no dialogue in games and then saw such craptacular voice acting as that found in the first Rwesident Evil. (Which I'm sure you did as well.) I guess when FFX came out I didn't see it as bad based on what a lot of other games had in the way of voice acting. It has improved drastically over the past few years however so I can't say for certain if this one turns out to have cheesy voice acting if I'll forgive it or end up wishing we had a Japanese audio track.

Bottom line - If it's a great dub and doesn't take away from the story with awful acting then I don't care either way. Unless the game is set in Japan, I don't see why it matters what language they speak so long as the voice acting is actually *good*.

 

[Diabolus]

I don't care atl all. Unless a Japanese person is voicing Nightmare or Akuma, I don't give a damn who does it. Sure, they can scream and grunt with the best, but does it really add anything to the story? No, because reading subtitles loses just as much in the translation as spoken English. It's pointless.

 

[white-noise]

FF10 was ok on the voice acting. Tidus sounded too whiney but they did a good job. The voice acting in FF12 was superb. They were able to perfect it.

so i don't care either way, squareenix seems to be on top of their game with voice acting imo.

 

[UrbanMasque]

Think of how much better FFVII advent children is in Japanese versus English.
And now try to remind yourself how important a soundtrack is to ANY FF.

Of course this is a big deal

 

[Diabolus]

Think of how much better FFVII advent children is in Japanese versus English.
And now try to remind yourself how important a soundtrack is to ANY FF.

Of course this is a big deal

Yes, it SOUNDS better. But my point was, unless you are fluent in Japanese, you are still losing things in the translation. Also, there have been games recently that have proven that a decent English voice track is possible. Bioshock, for one.

 

[EliaSoZ]

What the hell do you mean "losing things in translation"?

Like what, exactly? Also, Bioshock is an American game, so it wasn't dubbed, English was the original language so in cases such as that it's more likely for it to sound good. There are many non-Japenese games with good English VOs.

 

[GRColin]

What the hell do you mean "losing things in translation"?

I think he means some words/sentences don't come out exact in the translation. For example, "Ong Bak: Thai Warrior" had many, many sentences that were different in the subtitled version as opposed to the dubbed version. Not that you watch Ong Bak for the dialogue anyways.

It really does not matter. You won't be losing any of the story elements. I don't see why it should matter if the voice acting is well done and the lips match up well. I mean, this isn't Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Seven Samurai here.

 

[schimmel]

What the hell do you mean "losing things in translation"?

I think he means some words/sentences don't come out exact in the translation. For example, "Ong Bak: Thai Warrior" had many, many sentences that were different in the subtitled version as opposed to the dubbed version. Not that you watch Ong Bak for the dialogue anyways.

It really does not matter. You won't be losing any of the story elements. I don't see why it should matter if the voice acting is well done and the lips match up well. I mean, this isn't Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Seven Samurai here.

Agreed. When foreign films have subtitles the subtitles tend to be the literal translation of what they're saying as opposed to what they would say had they been speaking English. Don't believe me? Watch Stephen Chow's comedy masterpiece "Kung Fu Hustle" in Chinese, then again in English. I honestly find it to be funnier in English because the dialogue sounds more natural than what the subtitles imply.

I don't care either way, but I own both consoles so since it was intended for PS3 and the 360 version is more than likely a port, I'm getting the PS3 version. Will I watch/play it in Japanese? Hell no! I don't speak Japanese.

 

[EliaSoZ]

I seriously don't see any loss in translation, unless the subtitles were extremely "Americanized" the way old anime and movies and generally b-movie level dubs are done.

For something of this caliber that's unlikely.

I don't speak Japanese either schimmel, nor do I speak French, Chinese, Thai, German, Spanish (mostly), Italian, Persian, and so on. But I still prefer to watch those movies in their original language. I guess if you're not really used to subtitles, some people don't dig them much it seems.

In my opinion, when things are DUBBED it's MORE likely for stuff to be lost in translation. Original intentions, meanings, subtle feelings, so on.

"I don't have time to read shit on the screen". Lazy Americans being lazy I say.

To each their own.