Voice Acting Quality Comparison on a Concrete Example

[Bester]

I had a bit of a disagreement on a certain subject. So before we can compare voice acting quality in FNV and Disco Elysium, we must establish some ground rules.

To this end I propose that we watch N'Zoth and Azshara's dialogue in different languages, repeating the same thing. (pls abstract yourself from this being a blizzturd game)
Voice actors are different, the phrase is the same. We'll be rating how they act it out and their voice itself.

English baseline version:

- Serve me.
- You? You are nothing.
- Nothing? (laughter) *I AM A GOD*. *BEFORE YOU WALKED THIS REALM, I RULED.*
- Ahhhh. Magnificent.
Rate: 8/10

Russian: https://youtu.be/tSu_XwLDXqA?t=58
Sounds like some random amateurs voiced an anime in their basement and released it on Rutracker illegally.
Rate: 2/10

German: https://youtu.be/tSu_XwLDXqA?t=111
Male actor ok, female sounds more like a cartoony goody-two-shoes character. Boring performance overall.
Rate: 5/10

Spanish: https://youtu.be/tSu_XwLDXqA?t=164
Actress sounds like an old hag (supposed to be young hot elf queen).
Guy sounds like a normal person with low effort filters on top.
Rate: 1/10

Italian: https://youtu.be/tSu_XwLDXqA?t=271
The laughter is natural and spontaneous, very nice addition by the actor. "Magnifico" very sensually pronounced. Well done.
Rate: 7/10

Korean: https://youtu.be/tSu_XwLDXqA?t=323
Weeaboo, can't rate.

Portuguese: https://youtu.be/tSu_XwLDXqA?t=377
Actress sounds like an MMA post-fight interview of an androgynous Brazilian fighter.
Rate: 4/10

French: https://youtu.be/tSu_XwLDXqA?t=427
Wow. Notice how the male actor tastes every word, then elongates its last syllable. Very nice artistic find for this character.
Rate: 9/10

Taiwanese: https://youtu.be/tSu_XwLDXqA?t=482
Some Chinese. Can't rate.

Chinese: https://youtu.be/tSu_XwLDXqA?t=536
Actress sounds like a Chinese peasant, the plosives are deafening. Terrible performance.
Rate: 1/10


That being said, scroll up and vote.

Now if you agree with these ratings, then we have established the ground rules to judge voice acting quality. We agree on what is good and bad. We can then post examples from DE and FNV and objectively see which game has VA that sounds like ass (FNV).

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Trashos]

Damn, this requires concentration. You 'll hear from me on Friday, probably. I listened to the first few ones, and we mostly agree. The one exception is the Russian male actor, who sounds fine to me. I am a bit sleepy right now though, so let me listen to them carefully some other time.

Spoiler

Regarding the Dead Money disagreement, keep in mind that the voices you hear over the ending slide are the voices of the characters in the dlc. One of them, for example, is the voice of a dumb Mutant. They all come loaded with everything that went on before the ending slide, which is quite a lot.

Just so you know, you are not going to win the Dead Money argument. It is like trying to argue that western writing is unimaginative, and then bringing up as an example... Planescape Torment. It is just the wrong example.

 

[ItsChon]

There were a couple of standouts but none of them were particularly bad. I liked the Russian one, the male's voice for N'zoth was the most primal and angry. Perhaps it's worse if you speak Russian.

 

[gurugeorge]

How can one judge if one doesn't know the languages - the inflections, the nuances? None of them sound genuinely amateur to me.

Also, some of your critiques seem to be about immutable characteristics of the actors - if an actor is old when the character's supposed to be young, that's not bad acting but bad casting (or the best they could get at the time or whatever).

 

[laclongquan]

English and Russian sounds fine. The rest I dont agree that strongly with your ratings.

The Korean is actually best in the weaboo group, with Taiwan worst.

 

[Bester]

if an actor is old when the character's supposed to be young, that's not bad acting but bad casting

1- Yeah so? It's bad VA.
2- They usually can do 3-4 voices at the minimum, not one like us normal people.

How can one judge if one doesn't know the languages - the inflections, the nuances?

The only ones I can't understand the inflections from are asian ones. I speak languages from all other groups.

 

[Tigranes]

Being a French speaker doesn't make you a great judge of German VA, though. Sure, really dumb shit will stand out, but for example, someone could mispronounce a word horribly, or put the emphasis on the wrong word, but you wouldn't always know. There's also weird local differences around how bombastic, subdued, etc. people prefer their VA/acting to be.

I'm not sure what the point is of such an imprecise test on an already highly subjective subject. I don't think your initial scores mean much for anything.

 

[deama]

Alright so here's my take on the blizz one, 10/10 being the pinnacle of voice acting, 5/10 being average. I'll focus on the octopus guy though:
English - 8/10 - it's not bad. I like how the voice actor sounds like a schemer in the beginning, and then when he unveils himself, he changes his voice to that of how a mighty being would sound. Though minus points for him sounding young, I would have preferred an old guy.

German - 8/10 - This one has a bit of a different angle I think, the God guy in the beginning sounds a bit more mighty than in the english one, which could act as a forshadow for the unveil, but anyway, beginning sound slightly worse. After the unveil, I prefer the German one more because he sounds more beastly/creature-ry, in the english one he sounds more generic mighty. Again, minus points cause he sounds too young.

I can't quite give an opinion on the rest, because I believe that you can't judge the voice acting of a language you don't have any knowledge of all too well.

 

[Ivan]

this thread:

 

[deama]

I think we should make a thread that just judges english voice acting, why make one with multiple languages? Are we gonna judge Spanish NV to Italian Disco disco?

 

[sser]

Only watched English. Two things.

1) Love those drums.

2) How the fuck do you emit vocal fry on saying "no."

 

[Darth Canoli]

As far as i'm concerned, they're all good, even the Spanish and the Taiwanese one are quite alright, i'd rate the Russian one below 5/10 and didn't listen the Korean, Chinese and Portuguese versions.

As for why you rated the spanish one so low, i'm guessing you're not quite used to hear spanish people speak, would anyone from spain/south america care to to comment ?

 

[Beastro]

this thread:

But the board wouldn't be the same without this weird obsessiveness~