VN with English CV

[Hayashi]

Do those event exist? It would be cringe as well tbh.

[littleshogun]

If you will cringe when you knew it and already getting the blessing of understanding the holy Japanese voice, why you even ask about it in the first place if you didn't want to play those? To answer your question, yes there is and just look at this VNDB link (The first page wad mostly OELVN) although the tag was non Japanese voice acting though.

PS - I kind of understand that English CV will make someone who already used to hearing Japanese voice cringe here by the way.

[Fred the Barber]

Lately, a number of Kickstarters have happened for decent-looking independent VNs, many of which have been funded well enough to afford English voice actors. Of these, I recall being cautiously optimistic about Bloody Chronicles and Caramel Mokaccino, though I don't think either will be out for quite a while. From the VNDB link that littleshogun provided, I seem to recall Lucid9 being fairly well-received.

[Dergonu]

Tbh, what makes me cringe is Japanese voices in OELVNs... (Unless it's actually a Japanese TL, of course.)

[Soulless Watcher]

I don't think there are any VN with english dubs. The closest thing I can think of is the persona series, the zero escape series, and that Sonico thing Jast released. I don't really think any of those can be really considered visual novels though.

[Shota_Victory]

10 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

 I seem to recall Lucid9 being fairly well-received.

Lucid9 was released without voice acting. As I understand it, it's going to be voice acted after the full release. While I can say for a fact that Lucid9 is one of the best EVNs I've ever played, only time will tell if the voice acting is good. (And to be honest, I don't have very high hopes for anything of quality.)

[Tyr]

Nobody has mentioned yet the first Western release of a Japanese visual novel with an English Dub; Casual Romance Club? They even Americanized all names, so normies don't get a culture shock!

[XReaper]

On 11.10.2016 at 4:12 PM, Dergonu said:

Tbh, what makes me cringe is Japanese voices in OELVNs... (Unless it's actually a Japanese TL, of course.)

pretty much this. gives me always the fucking creeps upon seeing it happen, same as their borderline dishonest and laughable excuses why them having decided on going for such atrocities. just be honest and admit it´s because them titles are more likely being purchased that way when pandering to weaboos/creating pseudo-clones of their jp-pendants, instead of setting themselves truly apart from the masses. same goes for oelvn´s which have jp op´s, like what the heck? and always those pseudo-bleh attempts to justify it with remarks a la "it´s because the voices do fit the characters better" , "the voices do fit the narrative better" & "they hightlight the setting as a whole" - honestly just die and fucking go bankrupt. for those, who even avoid taking the most small gambles in terms of individual creativity/originality, is no fucking place in an industry that has been founded on said virtues, at least that´s what i want to keep believing in.

edit: to me these jp-tropes- & memes-heavy attempts, same as with jp-voice acting where there shouldnt be any, are proof of its creators not holding their own works in high regards, btw. a lack of respect coming to them, or otherwise they would be more confident and try making these sell no matter what, without including the aforementioned literary shenanigans/going the semi-safe-route of distribution.

edit2: & regarding the topic, i dont see any wrong with english voice-acting there, regardless of a work being written by whomever nationalty-wise. personally i believe it depends on a titles primary target-market, like in bloody-chronicles case this would be the west, so why not sticking with eng-voices there? - contrary to popular believe there ARE INDEED some good voice actors around, not only cheap and borderline amateur-ish bums.

[Narcosis]

1 hour ago, XReaper said:

Regarding the topic, i dont see any wrong with english voice-acting there, regardless of a work being written by whomever nationalty-wise. personally i believe it depends on a titles primary target-market, like in bloody-chronicles case this would be the west, so why not sticking with eng-voices there? - contrary to popular believe there ARE INDEED some good voice actors around, not only cheap and borderline amateur-ish bums.

Reminds me of Rune Soldier's english dub, which was actually better than the japanese VA. Not much, but english voices did a far better job at creating an appropriate atmosphere, especially when setting was distinctly western fantasy based.

In this case we're talking about professional english voice actors, tho. Doesn't mean there aren't any good indie voice actors or even amateurs, who'd do a far better job than majority of professionals; it's just difficult to spot them because the market is actually preety huge.

[XReaper]

26 minutes ago, Narcosis said:

In this case we're talking about professional english voice actors, tho. Doesn't mean there aren't any good indie voice actors or even amateurs, who'd do a far better job than majority of professionals; it's just difficult to spot them because the market is actually preety huge.

grandia II´s english voice acting was also pretty great, if not better fitting its cast than the original. & yo, of course i mean professional actors there, though them being available for hire does in the end mean shit if the devs/a studio decide(s) on saving some bucks and them going for crappy amateurs instead (nothing against amateurs if they´re good). seen it way to often happen.

[Mistearea]

The most I can think of is this.  But then again, the voices are so heavily accented that's it's really hard to tell what they're saying without the text half the time.

[EcchiOujisama]

20 hours ago, Tyrosyn said:

Nobody has mentioned yet the first Western release of a Japanese visual novel with an English Dub; Casual Romance Club? They even Americanized all names, so normies don't get a culture shock!

I too was surprised I got that far down the thread without anyone bringing it up. Of course, once you actually play it for 5 minutes you realize the idea of dubbing a VN into English is a terrible idea, even with Japanese voice talent. It was an intriguing idea on paper, just didn't work in real life.

I'm still shocked so many people are brave/masochistic enough to put time into non-Japanese VNs. Ninja High School is the historical high point for westerners trying to do Japanese entertainment, and it's not exactly a high bar. If I ever made a VN, no one would know I'm not Japanese. Even if I had to write it in English and translate to Japanese, I'd hire Japanese artists, a Japanese composer, Japanese seiyuu and sell it on Japanese websites. Then, perhaps I would "magically" pull an English version out of my ass and offer that up a month or two later.

I'm sure I don't even want to know what awful amateur hour crap was pulled to record Japanese voices for an English VN. Can they even afford a few decent seiyuu on their budget? In all seriousness, Japanese seiyuu charge quite a premium for their time, to say nothing of the cost of doing professional recording. No OELVN I've ever heard of has that kind of budget. Even Monmusu Quest, a runaway success as far as indies go in Japan, can barely cut the check needed to get a little "hora, hooooooooooora." Western developers have already shown they can't compete on quality, so they need to be different, not amp up the wannabe factor. Which is why I fully expect the upcoming Sakura Sucks to feature the staff brutally butchering the Japanese language. It's not a bug, it's a feature!

[XReaper]

On 12.10.2016 at 11:54 PM, EcchiOujisama said:

...In all seriousness, Japanese seiyuu charge quite a premium for their time, to say nothing of the cost of doing professional recording. No OELVN I've ever heard of has that kind of budget...

there are quite some who openly talked about them wanting japanese va´s for their titles, partly as stretchgoals, or which are already in the making like shining song starnova for example, though i still believe these titles possibly consisting of (top) japanese seiyuus is a step in the most wrong direction. thing is an oelvn stays an oelvn, regardless of all the surrounding whatsnot, primarily aimed at western customers (and not the jp market instead), so why no sticking with good and competent english ones? & nah a setting being set in japan, or talks about it becoming more authentic that way doesnt justify jp-voiceover at all. such decisions make me cringe like hell, because they could have poured the xtra-money, gained from deciding on english voices, into further improving the title/reading experience as a whole. and even in case the costs were to stay the same, better support a growing home-market than (semi-)abandoning it alltogether upon coming across an opportunity to do so.

pretty much feels like mockery to me, like you know, when they, who are lucky enough of getting supported by major publishers, the ones that keep on publicly encouraging other creators about them try believing in their own strengths/doing their own thing/making evn´s great are at the same time going after the exact opposite, means choosing the most risk-free ways of developement/creation for themselves, be it a more subtile hiding of jp-tropes/memes (compared to the majority, or not), includition of jp-voices, jp-op´s, masquerading a title as if it´s of japanese origin, or what´s even worse partly deciding on exchanging their writers for japanese ones - basically saying a stealth-abandoning of the community which gave birth to them.