Was the english voice acting necessary ?

mjqjazzbar said:
That’s why I don’t envy Ys Net, but I personally think two fully dubbed language tracks is a bad use of a limited budget, especially when they’re making concessions like completely cutting out throws or entire chapters of the game. It made more sense when they had an unlimited budget.
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Even when they had unlimited, they shouldn't have done that.

Maybe this spending budget on unnecessary product placements and english dub isone of the main reasons that Shenmue was a dead franchise for 14 years.
 
It's certainly a sign of an out of control budget, but doubt it affected the game itself' much in 1999. It's much more of a burden on a small project.
 
I unironically prefer the English voice acting. I actually think that it's mostly well done, and Corey Marshall will always be the one true Ryo Hazuki in my eyes.

Having said that, of course I would rather the game exist with no English dub than not exist at all. I would buy and play a new Shenmue game no matter what, but I would be extremely disappointed if there was no dub. So, this is a difficult situation for me to comment on. Would the improvements made to the game from the money saved be worth it to me? I don't know. The English voice acting and Corey Marshall as the voice of Ryo is part of what I enjoy about the games.

If the budget for Shenmue IV is so tight that Ys Net needs to omit the English dub to do the game justice, then I would rather they go all the way and forgo full voice acting altogether. They would save the most amount of money that way and I personally couldn't care less about the Japanese voice acting anyway. They could either just have the cutscenes voice acted or have literally no voice acting at all.

Another option would be to only have voice acting during the cutscenes, but still record in both languages. In fact, I think I would be okay with this approach. The gameplay would have subtitles only, but I would still be able to hear Corey Marshall's voice during the most pivotal story moments. For each language, they would only need to hire enough actors to play the characters that appear in cutscenes and there would be a remarkably smaller amount of dialogue to record. This would be the best compromise in my opinion.
 
mjqjazzbar said:
I can’t think of a single publication that had anything positive to say about the English dub. I know that’s a shitty standard to go by, but think about the damage it does to the series’ perception and think about the kind of resources that are spent on it...
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I like the English dub but can definitely live with it being cut if they don't keep the same actors that should be there (Eric Kelso and Paul Lucas). If they kept them along with Corey and Lisle, I'd be fine.

And there won't ever be good things to say about the English dub. Almost every dullard who "works" in "video game journalism" barely has two brain cells to rub together. Hate is currency. It gets clicks. An extremely uninformed comment that someone can meme or laugh at and forget later with their goldfish brain is much more valuable than having original thoughts and publishing said thoughts as an actual opinion. You could hire the best actors/writers/whoever in the history of the universe and the dub would still be mocked and laughed at because it's easy to do. Just like the endless hilarious jokes about sailors and forklifts.

It's extremely tiring. I am so sick of hearing these comments about the dubs, especially the first two games. Get over yourselves, you Shakespearean snobs. 90% of the voices are acceptable at least. Yes, there is cheese, but it's the minority. Ugh. [/rant]
 
I really don't understand all the hate for the English dub.
Yes, it's weird in every possible way, but I don't believe that the voice acting should be blamed.
The writing is weird, the characters are weird, the whole game is weird and we love it for it!
I am sure of one thing: a lot of people prefer the Japanese version, and claim that it's much better, just because they don't understand Japanese and so have no way of knowing if it sounds natural or not. How can one assess the quality of voice acting without understanding a single word being spoken?
Of course the Japanese version will always be better as it is the original version, but I will always prefer the English dub because I can more easily connect with the characters and understand their emotions. Reading subtitles is never the same thing.
There are many other things where they can save money, I don't think this is the most appropriate thing to cut. For example, who needs a city the size of Niaowu that ends up having the same things over and over again? Cut that but leave the English dub! 😝
 
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Slightly off-topic here, but having played the first Shenmue in Japanese with subs for the first time only recently, your forklift colleagues at the harbour sound so much less enthused about the daily warm-up race than they do with the English dub. It really put a downer on the day.

For my third playthrough of Shenmue 3, I plan to go back to the English dub and try to see if my experience of it was coloured by my eagerness and expectations regarding the game itself. In Japanese on the second playthrough, the game felt more natural, the actions seemed to fit with the dialogue better, but maybe it was because I knew what was coming next?

Bring on the DLC!
 
Bule said:
Slightly off-topic here, but having played the first Shenmue in Japanese with subs for the first time only recently, your forklift colleagues at the harbour sound so much less enthused about the daily warm-up race than they do with the English dub. It really put a downer on the day.
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I always felt that they were tired in the English version. never heard the japan version of it.
 
Did I just read 500k estimated for the english dub ?
Holy shit. That's not money well spent. I'm sorry to say that because I know a lot of people have fond memories of the english dub and like it and I respect that... But yeah; there were other priorities, especially since it introduced script issues in the localisation.
 
GhostTrick said:
Did I just read 500k estimated for the english dub ?
Holy shit. That's not money well spent. I'm sorry to say that because I know a lot of people have fond memories of the english dub and like it and I respect that... But yeah; there were other priorities, especially since it introduced script issues in the localisation.
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Yeah, this was a guess that popped up in discussion in another thread. If I have time I'll try and link to it. We don't know for sure but it's a ball-park figure IMO.

500k is a tonne of money that could have gone elsewhere, as much as I respect the English VO's.
 
spud1897 said:
Yeah, this was a guess that popped up in discussion in another thread. If I have time I'll try and link to it. We don't know for sure but it's a ball-park figure IMO.

500k is a tonne of money that could have gone elsewhere, as much as I respect the English VO's.
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I mean then again, I can understand people loving it... But yeah, that basically ties-in with my main criticism of Shenmue III: Too ambitious. It tried to check all the boxes but in the end it doesn't master any.
As much as I respect other people's tastes... The game needed those possible 500k elsewhere. That's a lot of money that could've been put into better animations.
 
GhostTrick said:
I mean then again, I can understand people loving it... But yeah, that basically ties-in with my main criticism of Shenmue III: Too ambitious. It tried to check all the boxes but in the end it doesn't master any.
As much as I respect other people's tastes... The game needed those possible 500k elsewhere. That's a lot of money that could've been put into better animations.
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Or more writers/programmers, better mocap hardware, etc...
 
I’m definitely not trying to say liking the English VA is bad or anything. I’m just saying it’s one of the obvious areas where they could possibly cut a massive amount of money, if they really spent half a million, and still make a great game by refocusing on some weaker areas.

Shenmue 3 is my first Japanese-only Shenmue. I started out in English but I was just starting to question whether or not Shenmue is meant to be so campy and decided to try it out in Japanese. I haven’t even considered switching back.
 
I'd like to know where the $500k number came from before I lend it too much credence. That said, whether it's $500k or $100k, it's still a lot of money for a game that could've benefited from resources in other areas.

If you consider that Yakuza went from strength to strength without an English dub, and that the dub brings so much negative attention to the series, it seems like now could be the time to cut it loose.

It's true, a small amount of people unironically enjoy the dub, and quite a lot of people enjoy it in a "so bad it's good" kinda way...but I'm not convinced that's a good thing for the franchise as a whole. I personally don't want Shenmue to be known for being "so bad it's good", I want it to actually be good.

Either do it better, which would require better writing/localisation and more dialogue responses -- costing even more money -- or chop it, is my opinion. I love Corey. He's a great dude and will forever be Ryo, but he deserves to be in a game with a good localisation.

One scary possibility is them cutting the Japanese VO in favour of English 😬 We all know how fond Yu was of the English dub back in the day, with US Shenmue and everything. Hopefully reading...well, almost any of the western reviews will make him think twice before doing that.
 
I doubt they will sacrifice the English dub. Its cheesiness has become iconic to Shenmue at this point, a franchise that typically appeals more to the West than Japan.

Also, binning the English dub would lose people like Corey, someone who has so much passion and enthusiasm for this series that he's happy to give free marketing for Shenmue on his social media 24/7 and who actively participates with the fandom to promote the franchise at various Shenmue themed events.
 
I really think they could find another role for him if they went that way. Anyway, not sure they can grow the audience for this series four games in, so maybe my thoughts about the dub are misguided. I’d just love them to focus on gameplay over fan service.
 
A lot of people won't play (or watch) anything that's subtitled. In the grand scheme of things this game could've had the greatest voice acting of all time but people would still hang on to the 'I See's and This is..' and that's because that sort of dialog and Shenmue are woven into each other in the public mindset at this point.

Personally, I would be very sad if they dropped the dub for Part 4 after playing through the previous 3 with the dub.

I think Corey and Brianna did a good job in Shenmue III, after all, they are only as good as the dialog is written. A better translation would be more beneficial than axing the dub.
 
The dub isn't the only thing that gets mocked. The animations, mundane aspects, glacial pacing, QTEs, awkward dialogue (e.g. sailors), quirky mini-games (e.g. turtle racing) etc. Getting rid of the English dub won't suddenly make the series more respected. Shenmue 1 & 2 HD including the Japanese dub didn't suddenly raise people's appreciation, people still think Shenmue is hot garbage.

Shenmue has found a niche with those who find the English dub charming. Visit Shenmue 500k (one of the largest fan followings) and you'll notice a plethora of memes and sailor jokes. Even Koch Media themselves tweeted "I see" this week. Get rid of the English dub and you lose all that appeal.

I think YS Net should just celebrate the English dub with those who get a kick out of it instead of worrying about changing its identity for critics who couldn't give a shit about this series regardless.
 
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