Lusipurr.com – Presenting the Sundry Opinions of Lusipurr and Friends

Happy Sausages-With-Maple-Syrup Day, Lusipurrites.

I had intended to write a review of Aion or Legend of Dragoon, purely to spite Lusipurr. Then I remembered that he knows where I live, so I decided to write this rubbish instead. If you enjoy Aion or LoD, though, please feel free to spam the comments with your thoughts on those games!

Today we will discuss voice acting. Love it or hate it, it has become infinitely more prevalent in the past few years. It began as a novelty, the occasional battle shout, cues to “finish him!” and the like. If you were really lucky you might have a brief cut scene or still shot with a brief voice over. Now it is considered perfectly common to have a fully voice acted game, with hours of spoken dialogue.

Personally I enjoy the extreme use of voice acting. If, for example, I could only read the words: “Snake? SNAAAAAAKE!” … it just would not have the same effect, and a meme would not have been born. Sure, it can spoil the immersion factor when the acting is terrible (I am looking at you, Vanille. You too, Yuna), but to me it is worth the risk. The overall enjoyment and enhanced immersion I receive from good or even decent voice acting outweighs the irritation and distraction of poorly done or poorly casted acting. I will gladly play through a game like Grandia and perhaps turn the sound down a tad, if it means that games like Disgaea and Metal Gear continue to be made. Even Final Fantasy XIII falls into the group of games that are better for having been made in the era of fully narrated games, despite Vanille.

I imagine that most of you do agree, but if not, feel free to let me know that I am a raving lunatic. Cheers. Back to work I go.