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[DDayton]

Something that seems rather odd in Tales of Symphonia is that the voice acting seems... sporadic. While I wasn't expecting all the in game text to be voice acted, it did seem strange for the first three seals to have fully voiced "conclusions" ... but for there to be no voice at all for the wind seal segment.

Is there any particular rhyme or reason to Namco's choice of voiced segments? I'm assuming all the segments were voiced in Japan (I thought I heard that even the skits were voiced), so why didn't Namco bother to finish the job for the English version?

 

[belgurdo]

Either laziness (Namco probably thought this game would only sell 50000 like the last two, so they didn't care) or lack of budget

 

[Bebpo]

(I thought I heard that even the skits were voiced), so why didn't Namco bother to finish the job for the English version?

Yeah all the skits were voiced in the Japanese version. But all that voice acting costs a bit of money and Namco didn't think the US sales would warrent spending that money.

Basically it's the same crappy treatment that Namco US has given to every Tales of... game in the US. Maybe the sales of ToS will convince them to put a little more effort in next time

 

[Mejilan]

At least they didn't butcher the content this time around.

I'll take sporadic VA over deleted scenes.

 

[belgurdo]

At least they didn't butcher the content this time around.

I'll take sporadic VA over deleted scenes.

Me too.

How they handled Eternia pissed me off to no end

 

[SantaC]

I think it's a perfect mix between voice acting and text only. I mean the voice acting isn't great, but it's not bad either. Kratos voice is great. Lloyd is ok. Colette kinda meh. Genis ok. Raine ok. I haven't got any more chars yet so i cant comment.

 

[Culex]

I would have gladly waited another month or two if the skits were voiced in the US version

 

[Mejilan]

Oh hell no. As it is, I read each line of text in about 1/5th the time it takes them to voice it. As it is, the skits can't be fast forwarded, ala normal conversations (voiced or otherwise), it'd drive me insane.

 

[swoon]

it's really awkward during the skits, though.

 

[StrikerObi]

http://www.planetgamecube.com/specials.cfm?action=profile&id=507

Planet GameCube interviews the head of localization on ToS, and has answers to the questions you ask.

PGC: Why aren’t the skits voiced in the English version?

Higo: This was simply due to time. We had to hit a certain street date, and we just didn't have the time to record the skit parts of the game.

 

[Jonnyboy117]

The Japanese version had the same problem; only about half the cut-scenes were voiced. The English version actually voices some scenes that weren't voiced in the original. But the severe trade-off is lack of voiced skits.

 

[NotMSRP]

PGC: Why aren’t the skits voiced in the English version?

Higo: This was simply due to us wanting to be on a shoestring budget. We blundered on previous localizations and sells were low as a result. We just didn't give a damn about this game as compared to Tekken.

fixed

 

[Mejilan]

Meh, they did a much better job on this localization than on the last two Tales of games.

In fact, they did better than "merely acceptable" this time.

 

[NotMSRP]

There's no denying that there were budget cuts. They did better but still not all out.

 

[Mejilan]

Tell ya what. I'll take this budget cut over FFX's "all out" efforts, k?

:-D

I'd equally skip through either anyway.

 

[Eric-GCA]

I beat the game, and I loved it all the way through. I think Kratos' voice acting got better as the game went on as well. I would of course have liked it if they had added voiced to the skits, but as long as they didn't cut anything, then thats whats best.