Is it because most big console games of the time were made by Japanese studios who only had access to like z-tier Canadian anime dub actors or the first three gaijins that walked past their offices?

Fallout 2 had fucking :warf-wtf: in it, not to mention numerous other examples of sci fi and horror convention regulars you'd see pop up in PC games of the era

  • FourteenEyes [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Someone recently posted a video about the voice acting for the original RE that pointed out something about the industry back then. Games like RE were made by Japanese developers who didn't speak much English. There's several layers of communication and translation between the original writers, the translators, the English script editors, and the voice crew. The actors wouldn't get a script that put everything into context; they'd typically get a big spreadsheet full of lines to record, and they'd go down the list one at a time, using different takes and emphasis just to cover all the bases and make the publisher happy.

    The Japanese director gets the English voice lines back, hears "STOP it, don't OPEN that DOOR" and goes "ooh I like the cadence of this one" and uses it for the final game.

    It was an international game of Telephone, using 1990s technology. These recordings were delivered by mail. It was a unique product of the time and available technology.

    • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
      ·
      2 years ago

      IIRC one of the classic "bad voice acting" games had its voice cast picked by physical resemblance to the ingame models, maybe it was Shenmue?

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      It wasn't just a thing in the 90s, it kept happening in Japanese titles for a while afterwards, like in Deadly Premonition. The game is heavily inspired by Twin Peaks, and EVERYONE in it maddeningly keeps pronouncing the first name of the story's Laura Palmer equivalent, Anna Graham, as "Ah-nah". It's not the only bit of weirdly stilted acting in that game but the same odd pronounciation is so consistent it must have been some bizarre insistence on part of the devs.