Final Fantasy XIII's English voiceovers are complete

The US dubs for FF I've heard haven't been all that bad (Yuna in FFX had some really weird issues of pausing in her speech though.. like she was doing a Walken impersonation) in comparison to most of the anime dubs I've heard, but I'd still much prefer the Japanese audio. I just feel that the Japanese VAs sound less stiff and awkward (I'm sure that part of that is due to not understanding the language, but if it raises my enjoyment I'm not fussed why).

Plus Western VAs, in general, just seem to have a real problem when it comes to voicing female characters which are meant to be cute or energetic.

Shadow Hearts: Covenant...now.

Sacred 2 has some unique ones if you like the Diablo-style genre.

Pokemon Blue

Excellent, games just made my list save for the Pokemon (played it when it first came out). But I meant crazy characters as in (I didn't want to use this example) FF7. Something like Red XIV & Cait Sith.
Maybe I should breakdown & download FF7.

*Xiii

Hell yeah Square, let us play as a badass moogle again. I never really had much use for Cait Sith in FF VII. Mog in FF VI, however, was the shit. Especially later in the game after you leveled him up and got him good equipment.

360 version has to be released at the same time the PS3 version is in the US. I blame Microsoft and the silly contract they got Square Enix to sign.

They said English voice overs were complete, not that the entire game has been translated.

@snowblind

But Square stated a while back that both the English voice overs and the text translation were happening concurrently with development of the Japanese release. So if the voice overs are done, then surely simply text translation can't be that far behind.

X and XII were the only FF games I played, so I can't compare them to the previous FF games, but I really enjoyed both the Sphere Grid and the License Board.

I still don't understand how some people can play X and XII -without- using the Sphere Grid and the License Board :/

The Sphere grid and licence bord sucked, but for different reasons though. The Sphere grid was slightly better but it seemed like it just would have been better to let it just give you abilities as you leveled up. The Licence boad took away jobs which is somewhat bad but also made you level up all the chararcters idevidualy unlike materia in FF7 and Junctioning in FF8.

I hope when they say its different they mean its unique and different from those two espicially

Personally I have always hated the job system. It doesn't make me feel like i'm constantly getting stronger. And it sucks have to fight X amount of battles just for one skill.

"but also made you level up all the chararcters idevidualy unlike materia in FF7 and Junctioning in FF8."

Every FF game requires you to level up the characters individually. But if we are strictly talking about skills, XII gave ability points to your whole party and even xp (if you had the item for it).

Nope, it's already confirmed that there will be no Japanese audio on US ver of the game, both for the PS3 and 360.

Most all voice acting is terrible. When it's in Japanese, you can't tell as much and you can read the writing as it's supposed to be with semi-emotive Japanese background chatter.

I don't know, I just think given the choice I'd rather devote myself to watching what's going on rather than trying to watch a cut-scene, and read at the same time. I know there's a huge appeal out there for a lot of people, but I just never understood it.

I don't know, but I respect other languages/cultures and the origin of the material. Doesn't matter which one is "better." I don't like Japanese anime dubbed in English, same reason why I don't like watching US shows dubbed in Japanese or any other languages. This is 2009, why can't US gamers face the fact that there are more languages/cultures other than English?

In any case, FF games take too long to play anyway. I'll just wait for somebody to compile the scenes and videos on DVD/youtube. :P

I feel the same way as Pika. To use a restaurant comparison, people usually prefer food that is made by people who are actually from that country. The likelihood of "authenticity" is higher, or so the assumption goes. Not always true, of course, but it's true enough times, apparently, that people continue to think it. So even though we can't really tell if the Japanese voice actors are doing a good job, there's some assumption that they are, simply by being from the home nation of the software. (Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if most people around the world assumed that the English actors of Call of Duty and World of Warcraft were "the best." I'd also imagine some people in Mexico probably have similar discussions about whether or not gamers should seek English voice options or stick to the Spanish dubs.)

On a somewhat related note... the idea of authenticity is possibly why so many Japanese gamers don't like non-Japanese made games. Perhaps to them, the good game is made in Japan. Certainly everyone I knew in the 80s believed "Japan" was synonymous with video games, thanks to Nintendo and SEGA being such big major household video game names. (And in 2009, no one ever seems to associate Atari with video gaming as much as they do with Nintendo, except for particularly older gamers.)

Similarly, not too many whites listen to rock, metal, etc music made by non-whites, and not too many blacks listen to rap or hip-hop made by non-blacks. And you won't see many Country music fans listening to country music made by Nigerians, no matter how good it might be.

No, no Japanese audio for you. Squenix never release their games in the US with Japanese audio anyway (except for the PC ver of Last Remnant).

No, no Japanese audio for the US PS3 version. Stop hoping for it. Squenix already said from the get go, the US PS3 and 360 version will be the same. Just because blu-ray has the capacity has nothing to do with it.

pika, you keep saying that. can you provide a link to back it up? not saying you are lying, just would like to hear the news direct from the source, as it it were.

@scratch: Go to the-magicbox.com
The English voice is lip-synced, so no dual-audio.
Besides, since when Squenix release their games in the US with Japanese audio? (other than PC ver of Last Remnant)

But when have they had the room to work with as provided by Blu-ray? They may well not put in any other languages, but I wouldn't discount the possibility completely. The game is months away from release and there's quite a few people asking for it, so they could easily change their minds ad put it in.

@Vidikron: Did you check the-magicbox.com? Squenix already said no dual-audio. Blu-ray capacity has nothing to do with it. There are many games without dual audio, despite blu-ray's capacity (eg. Dynasty Warrior Gundam 2). All console based Squenix games never have Japanese audio anyway.

But, again, the game isn't finished. They could change their mind... that's all I'm saying.

BOO!