Zelda Wii Might Come Sooner Than We Thought

[Sgt. Pepper]

I wouldn't even mind if the characters spoke Japanese as long as they are good voice actors and portray some emotion. I can imagine Ganondorf's voice as the Japanese Solid Snake's voice and it seems pretty awesome. Zelda has to have voice acting, there's no excuse. The NPC's I don't really care too much about though. As long as the major characters have voice acting I'm fine.

[Gojira]

I don't see why a game would need voice acting, unless you're too lazy to read or just don't like reading. Lots of voice acting in games is horrible. Like FFX. Anyone who's played that remembers the horrible laughing scene.

[hupla]

I don't see why a game would need voice acting, unless you're too lazy to read or just don't like reading. Lots of voice acting in games is horrible. Like FFX. Anyone who's played that remembers the horrible laughing scene.

Or you want to have a good feal for the characters personality.

[Witless]

I don't see why a game would need voice acting, unless you're too lazy to read or just don't like reading.

It doesn't have to have VOs throughout the whole game. Just the important cutscenes and cinematics.

Yes, it definitely should have cinematics next time.

[Gojira]

Or you want to have a good feal for the characters personality.

I like to imagine what their voices would sound like. I don't want voice acting to ruin it. And it would also be bad if Link talked. He's just not supposed to.

[DestinedHero]

It doesn't have to have VOs throughout the whole game. Just the important cutscenes and cinematics.

Yes, it definitely should have cinematics next time.

Seriously, when did this VO BS happen?

Voices aren't significant enough to make cutscene x1000 better, like most people try to make it seem. A bad cutscene is a bad cutscene, a good cutscene is a good cutscene... all that matters is that you understand what is happening.

Then there's people who would like hearing VOs in Japanese... well if you're going to be listening to a language you don't understand (unless you can, which most of us can't) then why not just use Hylian?

Nintendo has put a few Hylian VOs in TWW and TP, so the next Zelda game will probably have full Hylian- Voice Acting.

[Wiired]

Link should always remain silent, in my opinion. It makes you feel like you're Link, and that makes the game a lot more enjoyable. Voice overs might work in certain circumstances, but on my second playthrough I usually name myself Rob.. and I'd hate to hear people calling me Link instead. That would drive me insane.

Voice acting also wouldn't work when talking to characters like the Deku Tree, Zelda, or some Sage in a future game. It would sound awkward.. which would be bad.

Speaking of awkward voice acting, it better be damn near perfect if they DO put it in a game. Megaman X 4 was ruined because it's voice acting sucked =(

On a different note, I think they could make mp3 music work in areas with enemies, just have one dark version of the song and one normal version playing at the same time, and when an enemy comes around the normal sound shuts off and the dark sound comes on for a second.

[Hyruleansoldier]

I'm all for mp3 / orchestrated music.  But against voice acting.  I actually like all the giggles, snorts & gibberish of all the characters since OOT and 'perfected' in MM, TWW & TP.  Lot more fun than making it actual human voices.  Zelda doesn't need to be THAT realistic, ever.  They should NEVER make characters like the Deku Tree, the Zora's, the Gorons, the Deku Scrubs talk... That just wouldn't play.  And imagine... Talon talking, Ganondorf talking, Zelda talking,...  Neh.  If you want to bring Zelda to the new age, you go for the music, not for the real voices.

[Witless]

Seriously, when did this VO BS happen?

Since we entered the year 2000.

You guys are too ignorant to understand. Voice-overs are a must these days, as is good ( orchestrated ) music.

You refuse to be open-minded about the possibility to make The Legend of Zelda even more fantastic than it is now. We've landed in the year 2007 as of right now. The day of High Definition gaming, Motion-sensor and Online Multiplayer on consoles is where we live in.

You simply can not exclude something as big as voice acting and a ear-breaking soundtrack in games these days without looking outdated and inferior. And to be frank, Nintendo does not have the luxury to be outdated.

Just look at the big games that have VOs.

Grand Theft Auto
Prince Of Persia
Jax and Daxter
Kameo
Gears Of War
Final Fantasy
Resident Evil
Halo
Half-Life
Kingdom Hearts
Splinter Cell
Metal Gear Solid
The Elder Scrolls
Lost Planet
And countless of other games

Imagine those games without VOs? Would the ambiance those games have be as awesome as they are now? Not really.

Imagine those beautiful CGI cinematics Final Fantasy has, with text bubbles. Awesome? I think not.

Resident Evil with text bubbles. Scary? I think not.

Kingdom hearts and it's awesome cutscenes and CGI cinematics. Awesome? I think not.

Splinter Cell with text bubbles?

I can continue this all day long. Many of those games have stepped from the old text bubble feature to semi- to full voice acting. And guess what? It turned out well.

Link himself does not neccesarily have to speak, but it'd be awesome to have Link finally say something. But atleast give the rest of the NPCs voice acting.

Trust me on this, it will blow EVERYONE away.

[Hyruleansoldier]

Well, maybe.

If they do it GOOD, many changes could turn out great.

[Rew]

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion myself that voice acting is probably something that the Zelda franchise is going to need to do at some point in the future; they're not able to keep putting it off forever. But I also agree with the concerns people have raised. If voice acting is going to be done in Zelda at all, it has to be done well. If it can't be done well, then I'd rather stick with the text boxes.

Link himself does not neccesarily have to speak, but it'd be awesome to have Link finally say something. But atleast give the rest of the NPCs voice acting.

I think it'd be cool if they did a sort of "Silent Bob" thing for Link. In a future game, he's completely silent as he always is--but then out of nowhere, in one particularly critical or climactic scene, he says something profound. (Or he verbally pwns Ganondorf or something.) That would blow people away!

[DestinedHero]

I can continue this all day long. Many of those games have stepped from the old text bubble feature to semi- to full voice acting. And guess what? It turned out well.

Link himself does not neccesarily have to speak, but it'd be awesome to have Link finally say something. But atleast give the rest of the NPCs voice acting.

Trust me on this, it will blow EVERYONE away.

Trust me on this, people will just read the text and bash the A button for the character says anything.

Voice overs aren't anything special, it's just a little luxurary that can be done without. Video games are played to have fun with, not to play an interactive movie.

As for cinematics... if Link jumps off the top a castle and lands on his feet without taking any damage, I expect to do that in gameplay.

[Saesang3]

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[Hyruleansoldier]

In my opinion, even if voice over will happen in future zelda, Link will never ever ever ever ever.... will have voice over. Why? because link is playable character. By means Link is us who control over and see what he sees and act as what he does. The whole point of freedom to move around and do what the player want the Link to do is to let player to be Link.

If there was voice over for Link, that means he is no longer in our control. He has now emotions with it's own personality. Eventhough there are some moments in the game where we could see very small Link's side of views and hardly ever noticing that he is sad or over joy, it's just......not right to Link to have his own personality other than his heroic figure-image to the players.

I guess we just have to want and see what happens huh?

I can agree with that.  No voice-acting for Link.  Maaaybe for other characters.  But it's a very tricky thing.  You can't just do 'a few', it's kindof 'Everything or Nothing'.  And if they do go for 'everything', that means it'll have to be real real good. And what about game characters like Deku Tree, Jabun, and animals of any kind?  Don't forget that Zelda is a 'fantasy' game, and that not everything can (or should) be voiced.  So that's why I say: WHEN they do it, I hope they do it GOOD, and that they don't have to spoil the gameplay because of it.

[Dr. L]

As I said in the other thread, if voice-acting is included, Ganondorf needs to eat some chicken soup and some sprite to get rid of that ghastly cold of his, I noticed in TP....

[DestinedHero]

I'm pretty sure Nintendo will (if they haven't already) develop a speakable version of Hylian.

Making it an actual language just how they've worked on it as a written language. And they'll use that Hylian they develop for voice overs in the future Zelda games.

I highly doubt English/Japanese VOs will ever happen in the series...