Breath of the Wild Voice Acting

[Dio]

Basically Nintendo would have to have voice actors to do the entire game in Japanese then Chinese/English/French/German for a start. And possibly more. Text localisations are much easier then voice ones. I think the difficulty/cost of this is what held Nintendo back in the bast from voice acting. But with this being possibly the biggest budget Zelda game ever, it's very possible Nintendo might go down this path.

Every other game has languages that are localised, it's not that difficult at all. Nintendo are an incredibly rich company with 40billion in the bank I believe.

 

[Dancing redead]

The voice acting could just be in cut scenes and at other key points, that would make the required budget for VA much lower. It worked in Fire Emblem: Awakening.

 

[CraptainFalcon]

The voice acting could just be in cut scenes and at other key points, that would make the required budget for VA much lower. It worked in Fire Emblem: Awakening.

YES JUST LIKE THAT! Have voice-acting in the, let's say, CGI cutscenes and during the in-game cutscenes, but when you're playing the game and talking to people, it could just be grunts and stuff. Like Fire Emblem and Sonic Unleashed.

 

[Count SymphoniC]

Okay so how exactly are they supposed to handle using Link's name with voice acting? Part of the fun is being able to put down whatever name you want and having it more personalized with that name being used throughout the game.

Hylian could work... but it would HAVE to be used sparingly, and carefully.

 

[CraptainFalcon]

Okay so how exactly are they supposed to handle using Link's name with voice acting? Part of the fun is being able to put down whatever name you want and having it more personalized with that name being used throughout the game.

Hylian could work... but it would HAVE to be used sparingly, and carefully.

Who cares really? Only true drones care about putting down another name to be used throughout the game. People like me don't give a sh*t about that. I'd rather just hear Link throughout the whole game. After all, we know he's Link so it wouldn't make sense if we call him something else.

 

[Salem]

Who cares really? Only true drones care about putting down another name to be used throughout the game. People like me don't give a sh*t about that. I'd rather just hear Link throughout the whole game. After all, we know he's Link so it wouldn't make sense if we call him something else.

I care about giving him another name.

 

[Vaati101]

I find it more enjoyable to imagine what the characters sound like instead of actually hearing them speak in front of me. voice acting in Zelda is a nice idea I guess, but is it needed for Zelda Wii U to succeed? Not really. People want voice acting in Zelda Wii U because...why not?

Well if you are one of those people who care about immersion, voice acting would subtract from that, plus you wouldn't be able to call Link whatever you want anymore because it's difficult to have both voice acting and name customization. There are probably some games that no one has ever heard of before that has done that, but it becomes redundant if you call yourself something and be called by something else by voice acted NPCs.

Believe it or not, People care about changing Link's name and so does Nintendo it seems since this feature appears in almost every single Zelda game. If Nintendo didn't care about name customization we would of had voice acting ages ago. Personally Zelda is fine without voice acting, It would be nice I guess to make cutscenes more effective, but subtitles and mouth movements works just as well and as I said before, imagining what they sound like makes it more enjoyable.

 

[Count SymphoniC]

Personally, I prefer to just call him Link myself. But my point is that Nintendo has everyone to consider, and not everyone calls him Link. To me though, voice acting would make it feel more cinematic, and add to the emotion. It would also take away from that "charm", it's there, but it's difficult to explain.

 

[Therapist Bill]

I'd both love and hate it, while I love the little text boxes (bubbles) that have become sort of a signature for the Zelda franchise. I have to say jsut technically it's so ineffecient and primitive way of telling a story and or dialogue. The emotion and feel of the characters kind of blows away.. It's a hard question, either way the series looses something.

 

[Dio]

This is one of those instances in which I believe the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies. The reason why simply being that a lack of voice acting is taking nothing away from the series (the complaints about it only arise from people experiencing it in other franchises and wanting it in this one. Where it not for that motivation alone, I have no doubt that people wouldn't be bringing up the 'issue') and yet it's implementation could very well damage it.

The fact is voice acting IS in other franchises. We do not live in a world where we are blissfully ignorant of voice acting in games. We are all of us fully aware of the existence of voice acting in other franchises and there is no doubt in my mind that if voice acting were in Zelda it would be a more superior product. Text boxes are an ''ineffecient and primitive way of telling a story and or dialogue.''(yourasswillhurt) Every time I play TP or SS, even WWHD I am very aware that there is no voice acting and I feel that it is something they should have done long ago. Its not something that seems natural in cutscenes anymore and it does detract from the experience.

but do they really have the budget or the motivation to make it work?

They have the budget. Nintendo is sitting on 40 billion dollars.
If and when they decide to do it, they will have the motivation. They are going to want to make the experience as great as possible

 

[Doc]

I think that way it works now is efficient and much better than if they included voice acting. Voice acting works for other games because they have realistic characters visually and personality wise. But in a franchise like Zelda, the world is filled with unique and ridiculous characters. So far, I believe that the simple sounds they make every so often is ample enough for the moment. It gives the characters' moods, and using text boxes allows a lesser need for a transition from these moods. Many characters throughout the series have had major mood swings, and trying to get a logical change through vocals is difficult, if not impossible.

Alongside this, sometimes players need to hear a character repeat what they say. Can you imagine how obnoxious this would become, to hear the same sound bit over and over again? With the text box system, one can simply skip over words until they clarify what the character explained. If voice acting doesn't prohibit the skipping of dialogue, it will certainly sound awkward if the player quickly skips through text boxes in order to finish the conversation, as the character would begin each text box as it appears.

Creating voice acting for cutscenes is another idea that would most likely fail. If these characters are only heard during these moments, the use of text boxes during the rest of the game would only feel emphasized and feel awkward.

 

[CraptainFalcon]

Creating voice acting for cutscenes is another idea that would most likely fail. If these characters are only heard during these moments, the use of text boxes during the rest of the game would only feel emphasized and feel awkward.

How the **** does this even make any sense?

 

[DarkestLink]

As inferior as it is, I have to admit Nintendo would be better off with voice acting...mainly because the target audience for their games can't read or can't read well.

 

[JuicieJ]

As inferior as it is, I have to admit Nintendo would be better off with voice acting...mainly because the target audience for their games can't read or can't read well.

Um... what?

Creating voice acting for cutscenes is another idea that would most likely fail. If these characters are only heard during these moments, the use of text boxes during the rest of the game would only feel emphasized and feel awkward.

Plenty of other games have had voice acting only in the cutscenes, including the (somewhat) recent Fire Emblem: Awakening, and it worked just fine.

 

[Mangachick14]

As inferior as it is, I have to admit Nintendo would be better off with voice acting...mainly because the target audience for their games can't read or can't read well.

Zelda's probably more popular with people who are long-time fans of the series than it is with five-year-olds who can't yet read... Just sayin