Is voice acting in games really necessary...

Is voice acting in games really necessary? Some people say that it can be quite costy to get some good voice actors on board, while humming + text, or just text can get shit done for much less.

I generally don't play games that have voice acting. Still haven't played Xenoblade because of it.

Is there a way to turn off voices in that game?

okami did it best. would sound ridiculous with english voices. Japanese would be passable i suppose but I like how the unique garble they went with.

is the HD ps3 version worth it? I already own the wii version.

stop being autistic maybe

no

Depends on what the game is going for, it works in Okami's favor because of the unique style but imagine a military shooter where everything was conveyed via hums.

PS3 version is fucking beautiful, totally worth it if you plan on revisiting it.

I'm one who doesn't really care a whole lot about voice acting. I think it's just a standard nowadays.

Voice acting can enhance a game, and really elevate characters if they are memorable, but at the same time it can be a huge limiting factor in RPGs, or anything that would normally be text/dialogue heavy.

Voice acting is a must in puzzle games. See Puyo Puyo for example.

Whatever happened to #PerformanceMatters ?

It's not necessary, but it helps. Alternatively, it can worse the game. Or have an irrelevant presence. Really, it depends a lot on the game, context and the quality of the voiceacting.

Planescape Torment was particularly good at this. There are not many voice clips, but the few there are made the characters much more interesting.

>tfw we could have had skyrim/oblivion with humming+lots of text
>tfw we got 3 voice actors and 2 lines per character
voice acting was a mistake

>game has pretty good voice acting during cutscenes
>but there are like seven cutscenes and 99% of the story is presented via text
Why even bother

Mighty No. 9 makes a good case against voice acting. Especially for small budget games, since devs are already on a shoestring budget, voice acting can go just fine.

I prefer games without voice acting when I can name party members. With voice acting, it either deprives me of the option to name them, or avoid saying the name altogether making naming pointless anyway.

That sounds like a Viagra marketing campaign.

Sadly, casual is sometimes synonym of retard.

It's a waste of time and money most of the time. The only game where I really liked VA was Kid Icarus: Uprising, because pretty much all the story was told by the characters talking while you play and the cutscenes were few and very short because of that.

I think a little bit is fine but if there's a lot, like in MGS2, it makes me want to skip through. Silent protags are fine too.

One thing I've noticed when I play RPGs is the characters, in my head, sound like me. Even female characters sound like me holding my nose and speaking with a high pitch. I guess I'm not very imaginative so a little bit of voice acting probably would help here.

>Even female characters sound like me holding my nose and speaking with a high pitch.

Fur Fighter did it right by making everyone talk in gibberish while there is a subtitle for anyone to read.

get the Japanese to hire competent English voices and maybe I'll change my mind

>talking shit about Xenoblade's dub

Whoa, I agree with you for most dubs, but Xenoblade has a fantastic fucking dub.

Voice acting really pulls down most rpgs i think, It's much more fun and immersive if you can imagine the voices for yourself.
Okami for example gave an IDEA of what they would sound like with their noises, Like they managed to make Yamata no Orochi sound terrifying without proper speech.
It's fine for anything FPS or Action oriented, It's easier to absorb info that's being thrown at you if you hear it rather than take the time to read it during combat.