Voice Acting in a RPG Maker game. Your Thoughts?

[Ragnos 122]

Do you think Voice acting in a RPG maker game (which displays text, and uses facesets) would be a good addition? Or would it just take away from the game?

 

Currently in a recent project we are voice acting certain scenes, and not everything. Since doing all dialogue would be kind of a hassle.

[Chadzter01 183]

Voice acting definitely gives more depth to a game when used properly. It brings out the characters emotions,Traits and many more. Therefore tightening the bond between the player and characters of the game. I agree to you. Doing only specific voice acting to a certain scene especially cutscenes

is better than doing voice acting for the whole game. (But if your game is very story driven, Then i suppose you can make voice acting for the whole game, It's

just a matter of preference and ideas though.) It's good to see some voice acting over a good character bust, Rather than just text with voices.

Atleast with bust character art, You can see the character while imagining how that character moves/talks. Many JRPG uses this technique.

 

My suggestion is.

Maybe putting an option in which the player can decide whether he/she wants the cutscene to play with voices or none

like other jrpg and rpg games would be cool. But this is just my suggestion. Feel free to ignore this.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Chadzter01

[amerk 1,122]

I have not seen it done well in the few RM games it's been used in. I think there's a sort of disconnect when the game is voice acted, but the visuals are in pixelated boxy 2d environments. If the visuals were more natural, perhaps, but the other side of the coin is good voice acting, which I have yet to see.

 

Another problem is that a more movie like cinematic rpg is going to sound more natural than a standard 2d SNES styled rpg, mainly because the shift in writing is different, at least from my own personal experiences of the games I've played (with and without voice acting).

 

I cringe with some of the AAA voice acting material on big budget games, and for lower budget games - especially indie types - it just comes across as a gimmick. Not to mention that sometimes the voice acting is slow, and I've read through the text and click to the next box faster than what's being read, so the voice acting winds up being choppy. So either I'm forced to listen through it all in it's slow cringe-worthy dialect, or forced to click through it all and have it sound broken and disoriented.

 

It's also one of the reasons I still prefer classic rpg's over the newer ones, because I love to read novels (which rpg's are a sort hybrid of game and novel for me) and I can read at my own pace.

 

If there is an option to toggle it, I'm all for it, so people who do like it can hear and others don't have to.

[Ragnos 122]

 

 

If there is an option to toggle it, I'm all for it, so people who do like it can hear and others don't have to.

Do you know of any plugins that I can create an option for it? 

If not I suppose I can do it by event programming, but adding: 

if control_switch [10] is true
then
play_SE_VA_Damn it!
else
nothing...

Will be sort of tiring, but I'll do it if there is no other way. 

 

Thank you both for your input. I completely understand your point  amerk, and I know what you mean. I have also been working with my voice actors a lot to try an make the voices just right for the scene. Though of course nothing is perfect.

[+ JuJu 73]

For my game, I do have voice actors, but I spent a very, very long time making sure they were the ones that I wanted, and wouldn't take away from the game any. Like 

Chadzter01 said, having it for the cut scenes, but not the entire game, makes things so much easier. Not to mention, you have to manually put in EVERY line, so it's time-consuming at that. I also understand what amerk is saying about some of the va in games. It's always worse when they don't match your view of the character Still, I think that personally, it's a nice way to add more life to your game.

[amerk 1,122]

Not sure if what script there have been, I thought there were games in the past with the option. There's probably some sort of script with a flag, but you'd have to inquire about it to see if one is readily available. Of course, the event option with switches could potentially work as well, even if it may require more work, and if given the option to toggle on and off at will would give the player the ability to switch off the voice when they are in an environment where voices would be a distraction, but can turn them back on again when in a more relaxed or private setting.

 

Edit: Note, I don't have anything against them entirely, just not my personal preference. But it's also not a game-breaker for me if Voice is included.

[Ragnos 122]

I'll look for a plugin  that can add options to the menu. In doing so the player can switch voices on and off at will.

[Kmany 5]

No voice acting is better than bad voice acting.

If you can get talented voice actors, then go for it, but otherwise it is best not to do it imo.

[Shiggy 630]

One issue I have with voice acting is when there are small but yet unnatural blanks between two lines of dialog. Even when the lines are well acted,it can get me out of the  game. Also I'm the kind of person that oftens skips cutscenes (I like redoing some parts to optimize stuff ) so I don't like unskippable cutscenes and usually voice-acted cutscenes are unskippable and they feel like they are lasting forever.

 

So overall , I don't like voiceacting ,it can be a nice plus if it's well done but if you have limited resources ,it should be the last of your concerns

[Ragnos 122]

Okay. How about this. Complete the game, (Might take a long time, but it will be released in episodes.) then afterwards focus on voice acting?

[Rezanta 373]

Fire Emblem, Kingdom Hearts, and The Nightmare Before Christmas work with animations and character busts. Even movie-based cutscenes work really well. But standard cutscenes shouldn't really need voices. That's my feeling on this kind of topic, at least.

[Ragnos 122]

Fire Emblem, Kingdom Hearts, and The Nightmare Before Christmas work with animations and character busts. Even movie-based cutscenes work really well. But standard cutscenes shouldn't really need voices. That's my feeling on this kind of topic, at least.

I was kinda thinking of that myself. I need to look for a good Digital Artist then.

[ashm 12]

I like voice act only as battle SE.

Other than that, is a no.

[Purple Phantom 453]

I like voice acting in games, as it adds to the games and characters, but... As much as it adds, it can also take away from it... For instance...

 

Chris' blood

This miserable little pile of secrets

We can't forget the Jill Sandwich!

 

If the voice acting is good, then great! Put it in! If it's anything even close to those, dude, don't. Just don't.

[Ragnos 122]

I like voice acting in games, as it adds to the games and characters, but... As much as it adds, it can also take away from it... For instance...

 

Chris' blood

This miserable little pile of secrets

We can't forget the Jill Sandwich!

 

If the voice acting is good, then great! Put it in! If it's anything even close to those, dude, don't. Just don't.

 

Thanks. I'll make sure we will voice act till we get it right! 

 

Are you going to start on your "Me" game soon? Or have you already started? 

[Purple Phantom 453]

I'm the the story and character development process. I'd do mapping, but RPG Maker won't open. :/

 

And no problem! Anything to help out.

[Ragnos 122]

I'm the the story and character development process. I'd do mapping, but RPG Maker won't open. :/

 

And no problem! Anything to help out.

Steam problem? 

Usually when I have problems opening RPG maker it's usually steam... being steam.

[Purple Phantom 453]

Probably a Steam problem. Is there a way to fix it or do I just have to wait it out?

[Chadzter01 183]

If the voice acting is good, then great! Put it in! If it's anything even close to those, dude, don't. Just don't.

^ I agree to this! If you don't have good voice actors and the quality of the voice acting doesn't

match your game/gamestyle. I think your game will turn into a mess. So if the result of the acting is not

good. Then just don't put any voice acting in your game just like everyone said.

[Kmany 5]

Voice acting, like it is done in Baldursgate is pretty cool..

Sometimes, it can be a whole text that is voice acted, like when the narrator reads the new chapter of the game..

 

Most of the time however, only a couple of words are voice acted..

 

Like "Heya, it is me Imoen" which is both spoken and mentioned in the text.. and then the text continues.. but the voice acting does not.

It can give a voice an accent and also some personality to the character, but without having to voice act the whole text.

[Ragnos 122]

Probably a Steam problem. Is there a way to fix it or do I just have to wait it out?

Usually I restart my computer, then open steam directly. 

[Chadzter01 183]

Voice acting, like it is done in Baldursgate is pretty cool..

Sometimes, it can be a whole text that is voice acted, like when the narrator reads the new chapter of the game..

 

Most of the time however, only a couple of words are voice acted..

 

Like "Heya, it is me Imoen" which is both spoken and mentioned in the text.. and then the text continues.. but the voice acting does not.

It can give a voice an accent and also some personality to the character, but without having to voice act the whole text.

Yeah! I recall Persona 4 uses this kind of technique.(Some of the scenes.) 

A genius and balanced way to put voice acting and text dialogue in a game.

[Kayzee 4,032]

There are a few big problems with voice acting, or at least full scene voice acting:

 

• General difficulty of getting voices. Not only is it a problem of getting actors, but also of casting, direction, recording, editing... It's just not the type pf thing most projects can do very well.
• Lack of dynamism. You can do a hell of a lot more with text a hell of easier then you can with voices. Thinking of letting characters be named? Not in voice acting. Want to have some variables inserted into the text? That's pretty much impossible for voice acting too. Text can be edited, changed, spliced, copied and pasted, and stitched together much easier then voice can.
• It costs too many resources. Not only for the cost of the voices themselves, but also the time it takes to record or rerecord everything, the extra space the game will take up as a result, the time and effort needed to insert the vices into the game, and so on.
• Most people probably don't care. Yeah it's true. Unless you happen to have a cast with voices like a heavenly choir of angels, most people are not going to really care that much. People will imagine their own voices anyway, and some won't even care about the story in the first place. Voices may be a nice edition to some, but they aren't going to snub your game if you don't have it most likely.