{"id":53983,"date":"2022-03-11T06:00:15","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=53983"},"modified":"2022-03-06T13:20:17","modified_gmt":"2022-03-06T18:20:17","slug":"ff12-sightseeing-tour-part-9-vocal-performances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=53983","title":{"rendered":"FF12 Sightseeing Tour Part 9: Vocal Performances"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week The Rocketeer takes us through the weird cul-de-sac that is the Eruyt Village<\/a>. Rocky suggested that it’s two parts Ewok village and one part Lothlorian. To me it feels more like a mashup of Lothlorian and the\u00a0 Playboy Mansion. Like the Playboy Mansion, the person in charge is an ancient creep that doesn’t want to talk to you if you’re not a supernaturally gorgeous underwear model.<\/p>\n

This place is a mixed bag. I like that we have a little side-story about Fran. On the other hand, it sort of comes out of nowhere. And once it’s over she goes back to being a dull exposition dispenser with no agency. It’s a bit like the scene between Vaan and Ashe we talked about last week. Our characters don’t seem to have any arcs, or personal goals. Then out of nowhere we’ll get a little self-contained vignette to pique our interest. And then the moment ends and the characters go back to being static and stoic. In an ideal world, these moments would be spread out over the course of the game so that we can gradually get to know these people and cheer for them, and their arcs would unfold in tandem with the main plot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once again, it feels like this writer knows how to tell a story. The ideas are there. These little moments show they know how to make characters that aren’t Basch interesting and likable. They know how to write a dialog scene. All of the big problems seem to be structural.<\/p>\n

While the party travels to Henne Mines and back, let’s talk about the…<\/p>\n

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Voice Acting<\/h3>\n

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\nAs I said earlier, I played the Steam version of this game. Sorry, the “Zodiac Age” version. Whatever. One of the interesting things about that version is that it gives you the option of switching over to the original Japanese vocal performances. I initially did this out of curiosity, but then decided to stick with it because I think it was a huge improvement.<\/p>\n

I hasten to add that I don’t speak a word of Japanese, and I’m not making some weeboo style argument that “you haven’t truly experienced Final Fantasy XII until you’ve heard it in the original Klingon” or whatever. I just think that the English dub has a couple of annoying performances and the Japanese version doesn’t. (Okay, one<\/b> annoying performance. But it’s like… really<\/b> annoying.)<\/p>\n

I mean, I could be wrong. It’s hard to really parse a performance if you don’t know the language or its unique cultural cues. I’m just going by tone of voice. Your mileage may vary.<\/p>\n

Balthier<\/h3>\n

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\nFor me the most striking change is with Balthier. In English, the actor plays him as a loveable rogue and an unflappable gentleman. All of his lines are delivered with a smirk, like he’s some sort of James Bond \/ Ace Rimmer<\/a> type. <\/p>\n

In Japanese, not so much. Instead he sounds like a cynical shifty-eyed yakuza type. This arguably feels more appropriate to how he’s written?<\/p>\n

Fran<\/h3>\n

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\nIn English, the actors playing non-human characters all make some sort of effort to hint at their non-human nature. In particular, Fran, Migelo, and Ba’gamnan all employ tons of vocal fry<\/a>. The Japanese performers don’t do this, so the non-humes end up sounding more or less like everyone else. I think it looks kinda weird when hulking lizard-people Migelo and Ba’gamnan speak with normal human voices, so these characters fare better in the English version.<\/p>\n

Ashe<\/h3>\n

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\nThe two different versions of Ashe are very similar. Japanese Ashe, like the English version, is an emotionally brittle dunce. She adopts a deer-in-the-headlights posture in response to exposition, with a few surprised little gasping sounds added in here and there to show she’s not catatonic, she’s just boring and indecisive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vaan<\/h3>\n

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\nVaan is the main reason to switch to Japanese vocals. Japanese Vaan comes across like a borderline insolent teenager, with a bit of a surly \/ detached affectation thrown in. This feels a little truer to how the character was probably written.\u00a0It’s interesting because it makes Vaan more interesting by making him less likable. English Vaan sounds like a bored child. <\/p>\n

I wanted to smack J-Vaan and tell him, “Hey. Straighten up. You’re guarding the princess now. Take this seriously.” For contrast, E-Vaan comes off as almost aggressively<\/em> boring. <\/p>\n

Bosch and Vossler<\/h3>\n

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\nA dour, gravel-voiced mope in any language. Both of them. Which suits this game just fine. If I’m not having fun, then neither should the characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Penelo<\/h3>\n

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\nWhen giving Vann a hard time about being a sewer thief, English Penelo sounds like she’s just shy and looking for attention. In Japanese, she sounds much more disapproving.\u00a0<\/p>\n

English Vaan feels a little dense because he doesn’t seem to notice this chick is into him. J-Vaan rightly shoves this pouty scold back into the friendzone, because when you’re starving on the street, the last thing you need is a partner that takes half the loot you risked your life to steal, while also complaining about how you acquired it. (Yes, she actually does this, the first time we meet her.)<\/p>\n

Cid<\/h3>\n

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\nThis character hasn’t done much yet in the story. We only saw him far a few seconds at the end of Part 4<\/a>. We have a few entries to go before he enters the story for real.<\/p>\n

In any case, this is the great downfall of the Japanese version. While performances are generally better in the original, I can’t say the same for Cid. His English actor sells the hell out of his mad scientist schtick. He’s the only person in the game that seems to be having a good time, and the Japanese version is much more straightforward. (Or its idiosyncrasies are lost on a foreigner like me.)<\/p>\n

If you play through the game yourself, give the Japanese vocals a try and see how you like it. Just make sure to switch back to English before Cid shows up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week The Rocketeer takes us through the weird cul-de-sac that is the Eruyt Village. Rocky suggested that it’s two parts Ewok village and one part Lothlorian. To me it feels more like a mashup of Lothlorian and the\u00a0 Playboy Mansion. Like the Playboy Mansion, the person in charge is an ancient creep that doesn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[612],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retrospectives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53983"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53991,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53983\/revisions\/53991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}