ArcSys Voice Acting [This thread has rules now]

[ImmaYuukiTerumi]

So, no dub huh?

 

 

Good thing the JPN Cast is still good.

[GF9Returns]

So Arc System Works has really cheapened out huh? I'll still get the game, but I'll be much less enthusiastic about it for sure! All I know is that there's definitely gonna be a riot here.

I'm not gonna be surprised if CF flops in the US, cuz the fans there felt fucked over without vaseline.

[JRH]

There is still a chance that the English voices will be back for the Extend version since Arcs will be discussing it even after the game is released in the west.

[GF9Returns]

8 minutes ago, JRH said:

There is still a chance that the English voices will be back for the Extend version since Arcs will be discussing it even after the game is released in the west.

They really said that? If so, then that's relieving. Still, I thought that they weren't gonna do a Extend version for CF.

[JRH]

Just now, GF9Returns said:

They really said that? If so, then that's relieving. Still, I thought that they weren't gonna do a Extend version for CF.

They may decide to make the English voices DLC or put them in the Extend version cause even though they said won't do one, it looks inevitable since this is the same thing that happened in BBCP.

[Ogiga99]

45 minutes ago, BlazGearRegalia said:

Just why is my question...

Well as I'm sure you all know, I'm fucking pissed about this. But despite my blinding rage I want to at least try and look at this from a logical perspective. The way I see it there are three possible reasons for this decision being made.

1. Budget. It is no secret that the story of BlazBlue gets bigger and more involved with each passing game. Central Fiction is the climax of everything that has come and that means even more story. We have story mode, which is going to be a 30-40 hour visual novel that is 95% voice acting and, perhaps more importantly, we have arcade mode which has been split into three acts. Now in previous games, arcade mode was a very small part of the game. In vanilla CP there were 26 arcade stories (counting Kokonoe's shortly after launch release). In comparison, CF has has at least 98 of them and that's assuming Es and Mai only have one story each and not factoring in the other two potential DLC characters. Considering one arcade mode averages at about 9-10 minutes of cutscenes, that adds an additional 15 hours of voice acting to the game. Even many 80+ hour RPG's don't have that much voiced dialogue. Now let's add the fact that this game has a massive cast to split the dialogue. Between all the playable characters and non-playable ones who have shown up in arcade mode, there 28 are voice actors (accounting for the many cases of someone voicing multiple characters, 29 if Raquel doesn't share Rachel's VA since I can't tell) that have significant amounts of dialogue. With that amount of dialogue and the need to do multiple takes of every line, the cost of paying the actors and even renting studio space would be dramatically higher than any of the previous games. It could have been decided that the cost of doing the entire dub was not worth it, which is still BS because the Japanese version did it and voice actors honestly don't get paid that much.
2. Time. In addition to the cost, the time it takes to dub the game is increased. Those 28+ actors have to record the 45-55 hours of dialogue and factoring in retakes, scheduling conflicts, extra sessions, and then going through all of that to pick the takes that will be used and actually program them in, the amount of time needed to dub the game increases exponentially and all of this can only happen after the similarly long process of translating all of that text to begin with. CP was much smaller and it took 5 months even without library mode. Even if the localization efficiency has been improved since then, it is possible someone decided that the long wait was a bigger issue (personally I'd choose the wait over this situation). It also seems like there was some kind of internal issue that might have led to this. I still find it very peculiar that they originally announced a winter release before suddenly moving it up to fall. Perhaps they intended to do the dub but some stupid executive decision to move up the release left them with too little time. The fact that the tweet says "isn't promising at this point" instead of simply saying "there is no dub" also suggests that the decision was not that clear cut. By the way, the fact that the tweet doesn't say 100% no is really cruel because it forces me to hold onto that tiny bit of hope that will probably just lead to further despair.
3. The worst possible reason, because they can get away with it. It is very easy to see Xrd -Revelator- as a "test run" of whether or not their fighting games will sell without a dub, despite BlazBlue having a much longer history with its dub that means a lot more people care about it. Since, as far as I can tell, the sales didn't suffer too much, it is possible that they have chosen not to dub because of laziness/greed with the knowledge that we will buy the game anyway. If this is the case, the most disturbing thing is that they're right. While there are definitely people who will not buy the game because of it, I know that no matter how much I hate this choice, I will have to get the game for the story. This is the grand climax of Ragna's story. I can't just give up on a story I'm this invested in or wait and dodge spoilers for a year in the vain hope that an Extend version will be dubbed. If I was just a fighting game fan I would import the game instead of buying the English release to get to the play the game while not contributing to the sales of the game I take issue with, but that is impossible for a story-first fan. The best I can do to voice my displeasure is that I've decided not to buy the Special Edition like I usually do (if there even is one) but I am hooked and can't just not play the game. I would prefer to believe that Arcsys/Aksys is not a completely cold-blooded, exploitive company that doesn't care about it's fans so I hope this isn't the reason but it is still a possibility and that is infuriating.

To me none of these are a good excuse for fucking over the fans like this. Since we are likely to get a release date tomorrow based on the "Crazy BlazBlue Central Fiction News," we'll have to see whether my base fear of appeasing the pure fighting game crowd is true or not and that can only make things worse. Now it is possible that a miracle will occur and a dub will come. If I'm grasping for straws we could see the line "at this point" as meaning "not at the game's launch" which could mean adding it in later. If they announce that for free DLC and give a release date in the near future (possibly one more like the CP gap) I will take it and spoiler dodge until the dub's release. If the same happens with paid DLC I will begrudgingly accept it. If the dub is added later, but we aren't informed in a reasonable time frame or it only happens in an Extend I will still be very pissed because my first time experiencing the story will have been soured so getting the good version won't be as interesting as seeing it for the first time (it would be like if when I went to the Force Awakens in theaters Han Solo was played by a Harrison Ford look-a-like and I had to wait for the DVD/Blu-Ray release for him to be added in). Of course all of this is baseless conjecture but I wanted to try and keep myself from sitting here being absolutely livid about the announcement.

[Zaiaku]

I personally wouldn't mind if the release was delayed just for the sake of the English dub being added in. They can have as much time as they need, so long as we get what we should be getting for this game. But certainly not everyone, or rather many people would be of a like opinion.

Also, I don't think there would be an Extend version, because it was stated that CF is meant to last for a long time. If BBCFEX is inevitable as everyone says, then I think we wouldn't be getting that for years to come.

[werewolfgold]

ASW already has a problem with people choosing not to buy their games because the updated version will come out eventually. I really don't think it's something they should continue doing, at least not without a DLC add-on option.

Hell, for all we know, the dip in sales due to people being turned off by the multiple releases led to an English dub not being as viable an option.

[Hero19]

I'm more interested in getting a real response on why the dub is getting removed then it isn't going to happen reply, since I already expected they were going to removed it from all the obvious signs. Their is a reason why it's gone which I know I can easily speculate about, but that doesn't give me insight on the thought process on why it's gone. The main issue here is who is in head of these decisions and what factors is making them do so. If it's straight up to just be cheap when they have the ability to do a dub then they can go screw themselves.

[MaximusMurkimus]

I know it sounds melodramatic, but I refuse to buy the game until we get some progress with the dubs. 

I'm not gonna sit through 40 hours of nonsensical Japanese because some derp in an office somewhere thought I was weeb enough to do it for full price. XBlaze was the exception since it probably wouldn't have gotten localized period, but I would be content with renting it in small bursts to secure the DLC and to practice.

Persona 5 will probably hold me over anyway, if this really is meant to last a long time then I'm in no rush.  

[Ogiga99]

13 minutes ago, MaximusMurkimus said:

I know it sounds melodramatic, but I refuse to buy the game until we get some progress with the dubs. 

I'm not gonna sit through 40 hours of nonsensical Japanese because some derp in an office somewhere thought I was weeb enough to do it for full price. XBlaze was the exception since it probably wouldn't have gotten localized period, but I would be content with renting it in small bursts to secure the DLC and to practice.

Persona 5 will probably hold me over anyway, if this really is meant to last a long time then I'm in no rush.  

I don't think it's melodramatic to consider a lack of a dub as a deal-breaker. A dub is a major part of the experience that is present throughout the entire game, it's not like you're saying you refuse to by it because of something stupid like Mai getting in before Jubei. In fact, I respect that you can say that this is a reason to not buy the game. I can't do that because I am way too invested in the story (in terms of story it is my favorite video game series ever) so even if I hate this I am unable to say no.

[NeoStrayCat]

2 hours ago, Hero19 said:

I'm more interested in getting a real response on why the dub is getting removed then it isn't going to happen reply, since I already expected they were going to removed it from all the obvious signs.

Except for one thing, you can't remove something that isn't there or made, in short, CF's dub doesn't exist cause it didn't actually happen or was worked on. Same pretense when people though the "sound test" from some later ASW games were "removed" in galleries, when actually, they didn't add them in because of people recording the tracks that haven't had a proper OST yet, and used external means, though they did add back music to listen in recent titles (but not like a legit sound test), but that's a totally different story.

Anyways, with this news on BB:CF's dub situation, well, it was bound to happen, and as I've said when I had Revelator, I don't mind it if its this way, I know it kinda sucks for the majority to listen to English everything, but some things don't work the way they do. Sheesh, Atlus USA is sometimes the opposite with most of its titles being dub only (except P4A/U), so I get the point too, but that's an entirely different matter.

[Luminos564]

49 minutes ago, NeoStrayCat said:

Sheesh, Atlus USA is sometimes the opposite with most of its titles being dub only (except P4A/U), so I get the point too, but that's an entirely different matter.

Except with Atlus you usually know not to expect dual audio in their games, unless they're only publishing it and/or another company is involved in the development process. I can count on my hand the amount of Atlus games I've played that had dual audio as a feature. But BlazBlue is different, it was dual audio from the start for the localization. From the humble beginnings of Calamity Trigger to Chronophantasma Extend, we've always had it. Now all of a sudden Arc System Works decides "Ehhh, nope. No English cast for you"? Especially for a game that signifies an end to a 7 year-spanning tale for one major character?

A theoretical Extend version being dual audio might not even work either. Remember, when they do these updated versions, they usually add in even more story content or more characters. Because full-price for a simple balance patch would not only be insane, but nobody would buy it so they need to add in reasons for it to justify the price asked. In addition, as Ogiga pointed out: we have a substantial amount of voiced content. If they could not be arsed to include the dub now, why would they bother with an updated release that would no doubt have even more voiced content? It becomes a situation where an Extend version (which they potentially make for far less) would suddenly cost them just as much as if they were releasing a whole new installment (although this is more of a guess since I obviously do not have access to their budget information).

Ultimately it becomes a situation where it plain sucks to not have your preferred audio option available. I switched to perma-English around the time Platinum became a thing because good Lord can I not stand the ear-piercing harpy shrieking she (Luna) does in Japanese. This isn't a point against her Japanese voice actress, Aoi Yuuki, whom I am perfectly willing to listen to elsewhere but I just cannot stand it in BlazBlue. But at the end of the day, now I am at a cross-roads. Do I get the game anyway since I legitimately want to see the conclusion with my own eyes or hold my wallet for a potential Extend edition that has my preferred audio and even more content a year down the line?

[Steve-Fiction]

I don't even know what the best course of action would be in order to increase the chances of a future dub.

Should one refuse to buy the game to show the significance of this feature?

Should one buy the game to show that the demand is high and that it's worth it to invest in this feature?

I know I won't be able to enjoy the game even half as much as I would otherwise. I'm already missing David Vincent and DC Douglas. It's also sad for all the ones that didn't even get their chance to shine during gameplay (Hibiki's, Nine's, Izanami's, Mai's voice actors).

[Hero19]

3 hours ago, NeoStrayCat said:

Except for one thing, you can't remove something that isn't there or made, in short, CF's dub doesn't exist cause it didn't actually happen or was worked on. Same pretense when people though the "sound test" from some later ASW games were "removed" in galleries, when actually, they didn't add them in because of people recording the tracks that haven't had a proper OST yet, and used external means, though they did add back music to listen in recent titles (but not like a legit sound test), but that's a totally different story.

Anyways, with this news on BB:CF's dub situation, well, it was bound to happen, and as I've said when I had Revelator, I don't mind it if its this way, I know it kinda sucks for the majority to listen to English everything, but some things don't work the way they do. Sheesh, Atlus USA is sometimes the opposite with most of its titles being dub only (except P4A/U), so I get the point too, but that's an entirely different matter.

Yet there has to be factors on why the English dub wasn't considered for this release when it was in all the previous games that they are not telling us . To say nothing about why that decision was made despite having the dub for over 7 years is strange. Since that means having the dub all this time to drop it at the last minute is just a waste of money and time for them do so and for fans to get invested in the dub. As a fan of both the JP and ENG voices I can't agree with this outcome ,even if I can play with the JP voices if it's not even given a proper resolution on why it happen this way. I rather them straight up tell me it was for budget issues then this bull-crap which leads to me having speculate on why it was not considered. I still will stick to my judgment on buying it used until further details come out.

[MaximusMurkimus]

1 hour ago, Steve-Fiction said:

I don't even know what the best course of action would be in order to increase the chances of a future dub.

Should one refuse to buy the game to show the significance of this feature?

Should one buy the game to show that the demand is high and that it's worth it to invest in this feature?

I know I won't be able to enjoy the game even half as much as I would otherwise. I'm already missing David Vincent and DC Douglas. It's also sad for all the ones that didn't even get their chance to shine during gameplay (Hibiki's, Nine's, Izanami's, Mai's voice actors).

Buy it used. Rent it. Wait for a sale. Anything that denies the publisher profit. 

This is Aksys' bed and they need to sleep in it.  

[Steve-Fiction]

12 minutes ago, MaximusMurkimus said:

Buy it used. Rent it. Wait for a sale. Anything that denies the publisher profit. 

This is Aksys' bed and they need to sleep in it.  

My problem is: don't they need that profit to invest in a dub for DLC/an Extend edition?

Despite that, I don't think it's the publisher's fault, as they are not the ones localizing (in this case).

[MaximusMurkimus]

That would only work if the issue is really financial, and there's plenty of reason to believe that as well as the idea that they just didn't want to do it because they assumed we'd just buy it anyway. 

And Aksys hires the localization team (Strangely Compelling) that creates the dub as part of the localization process, so ASW's responsibility long ended by that point. 

 

[Hero19]

1 minute ago, MaximusMurkimus said:

That would only work if the issue is really financial, and there's plenty of reason to believe that as well as the idea that they just didn't want to do it because they assumed we'd just buy it anyway. 

And Aksys hires the localization team (Strangely Compelling) that creates the dub as part of the localization process, so ASW's responsibility long ended by that point. 

 

Arc System Works should be the one responsible for hiring Strangely Compelling though not Aksys. Sales on going to have to dropped in order to convinced  Arc System Works that this decision isn't sound. If we were given a decent explanation about why the dub wasn't considered this time I would buy the game new. But, to leave people still speculating on why it wasn't considered ain't good enough for me to waste money to get this game new.

[MaximusMurkimus]

It's a shitty situation because it's a lose/lose situation for the dub lovers no matter what happens. 

Game sells terrible: We made a good decision not dubbing that game after all, let's keep it up. 

Game sells good: Ha, told you those suckers would buy it anyway! 

An explanation would be twisting the knife further, since it really just boils down to "we want the game out ASAP to build up EVO HYPE and couldn't be arsed to do it" or "we didn't want to spend too much money and therefore couldn't be arsed to do it". Either way I don't want to hear it. 

Now if they want to crowdfund the dub, I'm all for it, but I don't see them being concerned once the game is already out. 

[Hero19]

1 hour ago, MaximusMurkimus said:

It's a shitty situation because it's a lose/lose situation for the dub lovers no matter what happens. 

Game sells terrible: We made a good decision not dubbing that game after all, let's keep it up. 

Game sells good: Ha, told you those suckers would buy it anyway! 

An explanation would be twisting the knife further, since it really just boils down to "we want the game out ASAP to build up EVO HYPE and couldn't be arsed to do it" or "we didn't want to spend too much money and therefore couldn't be arsed to do it". Either way I don't want to hear it. 

Now if they want to crowdfund the dub, I'm all for it, but I don't see them being concerned once the game is already out. 

 

I'd rather get an explanation then a non-answer like this regardless if I would be happy or mad about the explanation. At least Aksys said something about the matter so my goodwill towards them has been restored despite the non-answer they gave us. Arc System Works should of had been the ones to said something about this though since the decisions rests in their hands then Aksys, but still chooses to say nothing. I'm done with Arc System Works though so whatever games I like that come from them I'm getting used for now on.

[Finuve]

I've already ordered an import copy. Normally I import and buy localized as well to play through the story. WIthout the dub the localized version is worthless so I won't be buying it.

And without the dub I doubt I am willing to put nearly as much time into the game altogether, so hurray...My favorite fighting game series finale goes out with a whimper

[Chaoschao222]

I'm fine with this. BB has a nice dub, but I can't say I want the voices over the game itself. I can't justify denying ASW or Aksys profit when the game is still good.

If the localization itself ends up being sub-par, that's a different story, but the dub is certainly not at the top of my priorities here. I won't lose out on hundreds of hours of fun I will personally get from the game due to ~40 hours of plot where I'd be like 'huh, wish they were saying what I was reading.'

[Finuve]

im not going to give them money for downgrading for the final version when they are still asking full price.
 I'll still play...some, but the thought of spending hours in netplay and training mode without cristina vee's voiceover my super low tier noel isnt very appealing. Without the voice acting this is a full priced game with just three modes anyway, versus, training and netplay

[Hero19]

1 hour ago, Chaoschao222 said:

I'm fine with this. BB has a nice dub, but I can't say I want the voices over the game itself. I can't justify denying ASW or Aksys profit when the game is still good.

If the localization itself ends up being sub-par, that's a different story, but the dub is certainly not at the top of my priorities here. I won't lose out on hundreds of hours of fun I will personally get from the game due to ~40 hours of plot where I'd be like 'huh, wish they were saying what I was reading.'

My issue is more on Arc System Works way of dealing with things then Aksys. Regardless, of what I feel towards Aksys I can not stand Arc System Works always having to have others do the talking for them or us having to find out ourselves when they do bull-crap decisions like this without any explanation on why they do these decisions and think fans are suppose to take it. I'm sick of the speculations and making excuses for them when they know damn well why they are doing these decisions yet won't say a thing about it. As long as they don't improve that communication problem they are having they deserve no profit from me.  It's taking advantage of fans loyalty of what they feel towards the product to get profit even if we know what they are doing is not necessary the right way to go about it especially when you are emotionally invested in a series for so long.

I understand those who don't care about the dub wouldn't care about this matter. But, for me I can't be happy with this decision without some solid explanation behind this. Even them saying it's too much for their budget to afford the english VA's to do recording for it would be enough to convince me to buy the game New since I'm already used to playing games with only JP voices.  But, they choose to say nothing and have Aksys gives us a non-answer about the matter without us knowing what is keeping them from doing the dub.