Board 8 > Do you know any game where only a few of the main characters have VO?

(+) Yeah! (+)

As in voice over (voice acting). And if so, is it jarring?

It's related to my work stuff. I'm very interested to see if it can work or if it's very distracting.

there's probably at least a few out there where there are major male characters but only lead heroines get VAs

conversely, ace attorney technically

Yeah, my first thought was Ace Attorney.

Seems to be a common thing in VNs and JRPGs

I've always thought it was jarring when every character except the main character speaks, like in Persona 5 (which is especially weird because Joker has a voice actor, he just only yells persona names)

Virtue's Last Reward... wait

Yeah, Ace Attorney and some JRPGs do have it now that I think about it.

But my specific case is like this: the main story's dialogues are voiced only for the two main characters (and also the main villain, but we don't see him until later).

For example (not real dialogue)
MC A: I think we're lost.
MC B: We're not lost. C knows her way around. She's from here.
Supporting Character C: I wouldn't say that. I just lives here for a few years. And that was decades ago.
MC B: Come on, you gotta remember something.
MC A: Don't pester her. We wouldn't be lost if you hadn't thrown the map out!
MC B: I thought it was just one of your stupid doodles!
Supporting Character C: Oh! That church does look familiar...

In this case, A and B are voiced but C isn't.

Maybe BotW and York

Fire Emblem Awakening

Raka_Putra posted...

For example (not real dialogue)
MC A: I think we're lost.
MC B: We're not lost. C knows her way around. She's from here.
Supporting Character C: I wouldn't say that. I just lives here for a few years. And that was decades ago.
MC B: Come on, you gotta remember something.
MC A: Don't pester her. We wouldn't be lost if you hadn't thrown the map out!
MC B: I thought it was just one of your stupid doodles!
Supporting Character C: Oh! That church does look familiar...

In this case, A and B are voiced but C isn't.

In this specific case, I think it'd be jarring if it's fully voiced for just the main characters but not for the NPCs.

That said, there's actually a game I play, BanG Dream! Girls Band Party, that does just this. Where all the main characters are completely voiced but most of the side characters are unvoiced. Here's an example of it. I timestamped a scene where that's played out.

https://youtu.be/9yai3f3WXWs?t=191

Oof yeah, that is pretty jarring. Thanks for that specific video example.

This probably isn't what you're thinking of, but I'm sure a ton of PS1 and PS2 JRPGs have battle voices for the party, but nothing else, not even the party outside of battle.

Johnbobb posted...

I've always thought it was jarring when every character except the main character speaks

Link
He come to town
Come to SAVE the Princess Zelda

Xtlm posted...

Link
He come to town
Come to SAVE the Princess Zelda

Gordon Freeman
Chell
I like when it's explained as something like "refusing to dignify all this bullshit happening"

I felt like it was implicit that the question was asking about games in which people have text boxes but only text boxes associated with important characters are voiced

I read that as "BO" for a second and had to do a lot of thinking.

Arcanum.
Very solid old style western rpg where only a few key party members have voice actors. There's 30 party members overall, only a few and some other npcs have voices.

Trails into Reverie (and some of the other Trails games) have conversations where only one or two characters are voiced, or only a few lines in the middle are voiced. It's kinda weird, but not too big a deal.

I should also say, I think people will be a lot more forgiving for an indie game.

So while it may seem strange at first, I do think most people will acclimatize to it down the line.

WhiteLens posted...

I should also say, I think people will be a lot more forgiving for an indie game.

So while it may seem strange at first, I do think most people will acclimatize to it down the line.

That is a good point. Thanks.

Sort of a cousin-esque situation to this, when they started making Tales of Legendia, their ambition was to make every bit of dialogue voice acted, even things that wouldn't normally be voiced in a Tales game. Can't remember if they ran out of development time or disc space but either way they couldn't complete this goal and so in the third act the game abruptly shifts from 100% voice acted to 0% voice acted.