For the record, my ideas about voiceacting include the ability to turn it off. I want voiceacting done like Mega Man X6 (and I'm sure plenty of other games have done it). It's essentially text boxes exactly like Zelda, but characters have voices speaking and reading those same boxes. The talking doesn't continue until you hit next like a text box usually is. Turning it off would be incredibly easy. It's basically totally possible to have the best of both styles and at this point I don't see an excuse for avoiding it.
I guess it could work if the voice-actors were good enough, but seeing what Nintendo did with Metroid Other M, I'd say no.
I wouldn't take the risk.
Other M also was not Nintendo, just as CD-i wasn't. That was Team Ninja. Either way, the thing with Other M wasn't that the voiceACTING wasn't bad. It was writing and the voices themselves. Very different issue. The voices, particularly that of Samus, was pretty bad. Aside from that, the writing was terrible, and would have been an issue even if it wasn't voice-acted (although I will admit voice-acting intensifies writing problems).
A lot of franchises from around the same time have adopted the idea and quite well. Even Mario had it at some point.
As for my own opinion, I think they should get Retro's casting people to work on that. Metroid Prime 3 had everybody but Samus talking, and I think Zelda could use some of that. And it was GOOD voice acting, too.
Not only that, SinkingBadges, but tons of modern video games have quality voiceacting. Even if you exclude video games entire, there are tons of well-voiceacted cartoons, anime, and cgi movies that have excellent voiceacting, not to mention the general quality acting you see in live-action films and series. There's just no shortage of talent or success stories. The extreme concern for it being done badly is unrealistic.
Retro did do a really good job, and I'd definitely say Prime 3 is exactly what we'd be going for with the Zelda series here.
Hmm. Let's see here. First of all, the idea of voice acting in a Zelda series does alienate a few people including me. Even when I watch something as dubbed anime, it weirds me out. It's like I need to be reading something instead. (Not to mention dubbed anime is gross). When I am reading something the character is supposed to be saying, it leaves me room to interpret their voice how I want it to sound. I think that is what nintendo intended it to be like anyways. I found Midna's form of gibberish language nice, because it made her sound foreign which she was. It suited her, but I'm not sure if it would suit Hylians or Gorons.
I am not completely apposed to it, I would just rather not have it. If they came up with some amazing voice acting, I think we would have little to complain about. The general fear of voice acting in Zelda I think is that tons can go wrong with it. It would take a lot to get a perfect fitting voice, and even then, there would still be a person who thought it sounded weird. Link talking I wouldn't like. He is generally supposed to be a vessel for the player, and giving him a voice would upset the whole thing. Leaving people to imagine the voices themselves means everyone hears the voice in their head that they want.
Feeling weird personally is understandable, and really, that comes with any change made to any established series, regardless of whether the change is good or bad. I'm just saying even if the idea feels strange it doesn't have to be a bad thing.
As for tons that can go wrong with it, sure, of course that's true. But the fact is, as I mentioned above, voiceacting and even general acting are done well so incredibly often, even in the video game industry, that I don't see the basis for alarm anymore. It just doesn't seem that rational to me. And every example of Nintendo doing voiceacting poorly wasn't a Nintendo game at all. CD-i is Phillips, and Other M is Team Ninja. The only one left is Mario Sunshine, which is more debatable. I think that had fairly decent voiceacting for what it was. I mean, come on, it's Mario. What else would you expect? Even if you find it bad, that's just a case of it not fitting Mario. Mario doesn't have dialogue. Zelda has a lot of dialogue, and not only that, but each game that comes out is expecting more and more emotional performance from the characters. If you just watch some of the high-quality, good sound versions of the Skyward Sword clips, you hear characters like Ghirahim making a ton of vocal sound effects to convey emotion, and this time around it doesn't even seem like those sound effects are the same ones repeated, but totally unique ones for each sound he actually makes.
Couple that with the lip moving thing AGAIN and even more gestures and expressiveness, and avoiding voiceacting is becoming more and more ridiculous. The way I see it, Nintendo needs to either follow through and go all the way, or take a step back and see what they can do with their quirky text + sound method. Perhaps, you know, MORE dialogue and in-depth lore, somewhat like an RPG? If they're going to keep going the route they have, they should stop holding back.
