If voice acting was part of Hyrule Warriors, I would welcome that change because as according to
Aonuma, Hyrule Warriors is part of his plan to change the Zelda formula. That said, I don't mind that Nintendo decided that there will not be any voice acting in Hyrule Warriors and for good reasons too. From a personally perspective, lack of voice acting allows it retain the Zelda charm and feel as it's always been since the original Zelda. Many might also say that it wouldn't feel right, especially for an iconic franchise as Zelda and I can understand why they would feel that way, not to mention the Philips CD-I Zelda games were quite terrible and were going to be canon Zelda games at one point in time if the voice acting that we heard in those three games was what they could offer at the time, then I don't want to see any full voice acting anytime soon. That said, we never had the ability to experience at least a decent Zelda that had good voice acting and maybe Nintendo just doesn't want to ruin Zelda with voice acting because it could potentially cripple the fandom.
The best argument I've ever heard for no voices in Zelda games is that it "wouldn't feel right", and it's "part of Zelda's charm". Both are incredibly weak to me in light of the fact that we've never had voice acting, thus we'll never know if those two assumptions, because that's what they are - personal assumptions, are true or not.
While it is true that several arguments against voice acting in a Zelda is because it "wouldn't feel right' or is "part of the Zelda charm" may not be the strongest, but you may or may not no this but voice acting should be carefully selected to not upset the fans. By all means, I welcome the idea of voice acting for a future Zelda game, but I believe Nintendo doesn't want to do this from a business perspective in terms that it ruin a character's image that fans have of that character. Allow me to use an example to better point this out. Attack on Titan, by now the majority of the world knows what Attack on Titan is and many originally watched the anime in Japanese. Everyone enjoyed the voices of Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and the rest of Attack on Titan core characters because of how well it was implemented and really showed off the emotions of the characters based on the current situation they are facing. Earlier this year, we got clips and now that the English dub for Attack on Titan is airing, the fans that enjoyed the voices of Eren, Armin, and especially Mikasa are upset that the English voices don't fit the character. Personally I believe the English cast is perfect for Attack on Titan, you just give it a shot like you do with any show or television series before you actually enjoy it. It really is eye-opening that fans of Mikasa just down right say that her new voice ruins her image and doesn't fit what her character is suppose to be. The same could be said about Armin, Eren, and practically the rest of the cast simply because fans here the first clips of the respective character and immediately judge the voice without watching a few English episodes first. Granted, there are going to be people who watched Attack on Titan in English first and of course they don't mind because they wanted to see it first in English than Japanese and that is perfectly ok with that.
With Zelda however, everyone knows how Link sounds like no matter whether you live in Japan, Europe, Australia, North America, etc. If Nintendo is going to make full voice acting, then the cast has to be so perfect that no one will get upset, but that's highly unlikely that will happen because there are really some fans who get so butthurt it isn't funny. "OMG HIS VOICE IS JUST A PITCH HIGHER THAN I EXPECTED AND THUS IT RUINS LINK'S CHARACTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NINTENDO YOU RUINED ZELDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And those are the same fans who wanted full voice acting in the first place. I'm not targeting anyone here but that's pretty much how I see when some gets way out of hand when it comes to these kind of situations. I think even Nintendo even knows this and thus is probably the main reason why we won't see full voice acting for a long time because they know that no matter what they try, there's always going to be fans who will react negatively to Nintendo's choice in voice acting for whatever reasons not to mention hinders the meaning of Link in general. In fact it's because he is a silent protagonist is not because the player is simply playing as Link, but because Link allow fans to immerse themselves into the franchise and brings a connection, a
link, between the virtual world and reality. I believe that's why fans enjoy the Zelda franchise without voice acting because we all get to experience the game and at the same time create a multitude of interpretations behind Link, Zelda, Ganondorf/main villain, the lore, and everything in between what makes the Zelda franchise unique. So while I'm certain fans are disappointed with no voice acting, I don't think they should be that disappointed considering that even though it is a spin-off game it must still feel like part of the Zelda universe.
I don't care about tradition or whatever, silent protagonists work in voice acted games (Half Life) and I want it! Is one thing I wish all games would stop. I can forgive smaller handheld titles, sure, but not big console games.
