Jump to content

Are there any (good) English-voiced VNs?


Pedeadstrian

Recommended Posts

After finishing two VNs and on my third and fourth (999, enjoying it so far and Fate/Stay, haven't read enough to tell). Unfortunately, I don't read or speak Japanese (although that Japanese Rosetta Stone has been staring at me for a long time), and that's why I love this site. However, all of VNs I've seen so far are Japanese-voiced, if at all. I always listen to the voice acting to get a sense of the emotion in their voice, but I would really love the ability to hear what they're saying and comprehend it, since sometimes translations lose jokes/meanings/whatnot.

I've googled english-voiced VNs, and without spending forever searching, I only found Clannad. From what I read it's all touchy-feely, romantic, and "with loving friends/family, you do anything!" which is unappealing to me. I may be spoiled from my first two VNs being Ever17 and Remember11, though...

Anywhoo. Are there any VNs with English voice acting out there? And by English I mean English and not Engrish.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

persona 4?

i actually dunt know any eng-voiced VNs....

I've actually played Persona 3 and 4, but they're more akin to heavily story-based RPGs than Visual Novels.

Yeah, I can imagine there not being many. I have friends who don't speak/read Japanese but absolutely refuse to watch EngDub Anime, and from what I've read that's a common sentiment. I guess I'm just the weird one who actually prefers to read and hear English.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From what I read it's all touchy-feely, romantic, and "with loving friends/family, you do anything!" which is unappealing to me.

This statement makes me sad...

To answer your question, no I don't know any VNs with English voice acting. I'm rather new to the VN scene myself, but I can't imagine there'd be many English voiced VNs at all, let alone good ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also don't know any English voiced VNs. There might be a OELVN but I don't think Jap VNs will have it since text translation already takes a lot of time.

I think I remember seeing a youtube video where someone was recruiting people to do an English fandub of Ever17. I don't know how far it went, though. And yeah, VNs are a niche market already, an English one might be a waste of time and money (or maybe not, who knows?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This statement makes me sad...

To answer your question, no I don't know any VNs with English voice acting. I'm rather new to the VN scene myself, but I can't imagine there'd be many English voiced VNs at all, let alone good ones.

Which part is more upsetting, the touchy-feely, romantic, or "friendship is magic?"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I remember seeing a youtube video where someone was recruiting people to do an English fandub of Ever17. I don't know how far it went, though. And yeah, VNs are a niche market already, an English one might be a waste of time and money (or maybe not, who knows?)

Not to mention most people prefer the Jap voice anyway so having an English one is a lose-lose situation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finding an English voice-acted/dubbed visual novel won't be easy. This genre is hardly known outside of Japan. Companies don't want to translate and publish v-novels because they are not 'worth' of it (western customers aren't used to such entertainment / no money, no games). Even if you found such novel, it wouldn't be sure if it's 'good' as you meant in the thread's title.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Virtue's Last Reward has full English VA in the north american version, says WIkipedia: "The game contains full voice acting (English and Japanese in the North American version and only Japanese in the Japanese and European versions).

Thanks, I'll be sure to check it out! Edit: Darnit, I was excited until I saw it's for the 3DS. I don't have my 3DS yet, and I still haven't finished its indirect prequel 999 yet.

Finding an English voice-acted/dubbed visual novel won't be easy. This genre is hardly known outside of Japan. Companies don't want to translate and publish v-novels because they are not 'worth' of it (western customers aren't used to such entertainment / no money, no games). Even if you found such novel, it wouldn't be sure if it's 'good' as you meant in the thread's title.

Yeah, I know. Most things I like companies seem to think they're not worth making/translating. And by good, I didn't necessarily mean a masterpiece. I just finished the VN Jisei from Sakevisual, and it only lasted 1-2 hours, but it was still pretty interesting, especially knowing that it's not from a big company.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, if you consider Ar Tonelico series as VN (and VNDB lists them as such), they have english VA. However, fans created patches to revert VA back to japanese, since playing with english VA is too painful.

Usually fans explicitly demand to NOT translate voices — just check Agarest comments on steam greenlight — so most translator companies except very big ones like NIS do not even try.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Graduation (aka Sotsugyou 2 ~Neo Generation~) has English text and some voiced dialogue... but even for a product made in the late 90s, the voice acting is not good. The game has a positive review on Animetric, but even that review admits the English voices are not the game's strength.

Thousand Arms is a console RPG with romance game elements. It has dubbed dialogue for key scenes and date scenes. While it has some of my old favorite voice actors, neither the gameplay nor the voice actings are currently easy to recommend.

The Sakura Wars franchise is about half visual novel, half strategy RPG. A moderate amount of the dialogue is voiced. The fifth game in the series has an official English version on Playstation2 (one disc sub-only, one disc dub-only) and Nintendo Wii (dub-only). I liked some of the voices, but I can't really recommend the English spoken dialogue, since the lip sync is usually off.

Shira Oka was written in English, has some voiced dialogue, and the cast includes a couple of well-known VAs. I haven't played it in quite some time, so I'll just say "dunno" for now.

Sakevisual's three-part mystery series (starting with Jisei) has full English voices. It helps that the stories are relatively short.

Creating voiced dialogue takes time, effort, and usually a lot of money. Only a few indie or freeware game creators can commit enough resources to include it. And when it comes to game localization, only the companies that believe they can sell more than a few thousand copies will create dubbed dialogue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^ Just because the english VA you've heard has sucked doesn't mean all VA will suck

You are correct, I did find my limit was about 14 attempts. I am not strong enough to try the 15th.

I have to wonder if being a native English speaker it bugs me more?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are correct, I did find my limit was about 14 attempts. I am not strong enough to try the 15th.

I have to wonder if being a native English speaker it bugs me more?

I'm a native English speaker, and the only Japanese I know is from tv, video games, and Visual Novels. I like the English VAs because that's what I understand, and that's what I'm used to. Sure, some anime dubs have some bad voice acting (Persona 4 the Animation ruined some of the English voices from the game. I'm looking at you, Chie.) Then there are VAs like Shin Chan, Bobobo, Fullmetal Alchemist/Brotherhood, FLCL... (pretty much the only anime I've watched all the way through) that I think have great voice-acting.

It all comes down to personal opinion. I'm not a fan of lolicon, and I can't imagine why anyone other than a pedophile would like to see pantyshots or worse of a 10 year old girl, but hey, that's just my opinion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm a native English speaker, and the only Japanese I know is from tv, video games, and Visual Novels. I like the English VAs because that's what I understand, and that's what I'm used to. Sure, some anime dubs have some bad voice acting (Persona 4 the Animation ruined some of the English voices from the game. I'm looking at you, Chie.) Then there are VAs like Shin Chan, Bobobo, Fullmetal Alchemist/Brotherhood, FLCL... (pretty much the only anime I've watched all the way through) that I think have great voice-acting.

It all comes down to personal opinion. I'm not a fan of lolicon, and I can't imagine why anyone other than a pedophile would like to see pantyshots or worse of a 10 year old girl, but hey, that's just my opinion.

Well_that_escalated_quickly.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe part of it is that VA you don't quite understand sometimes sounds better for whatever reason. It's not necessarily that the japanese VA is any better than english (though to be honest... it probably is), but that that exotic factor or w/e makes you consider it better.

Also en dub homura > jap homura

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe part of it is that VA you don't quite understand sometimes sounds better for whatever reason. It's not necessarily that the japanese VA is any better than english (though to be honest... it probably is), but that that exotic factor or w/e makes you consider it better.

Also en dub homura > jap homura

I was mostly only referring to any dubbed games, I am more than willing to accept with the right funding you can get some decent actors in. Studio Ghibli stuff is decent. The fact is though, for most games/VN the companies do not invest that amount of money, so you get wooden or over acting from actors not able to produce emotions as they read off lines with no context of the scene.

As for the being exotic, I've spent a lot of time watching things from around the world, relying on subtitles for a lot, and bad acting is bad acting, no matter the language.

I'm by no means saying my ideas on this are bulletproof, but the ratio is off, way off.

I hope you manage to find a decent voiced one, maybe you can let me know, I'd love for once to have something done well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...