sand4fish wrote: Whenever I play the game, there's a strong Japanese drama vibe going on with Shenmue's story. It is very pronounced specially in the first game with the scenes between Ryo and Nozomi. In the English version the atmosphere between them seems so miserable, as if both were very depressed. So quality aside from the cast again, something definitely is lost in translation here because I don't get the same feeling playing the Japanese version. On another note, Shenmue 2's english dub would make more sense than the Japanese one as Hong Kong people are more likely to speak in English than Japanese. But when I compared both versions on occasional times, the English cast seems too goofy aside from the main characters. Japanese dub are just known to do better job with games, at that time anyway. If you were to ask me now if I'd prefer the MGS 5 English cast or the Japanese one, I would pick the English one.
Okay, realism is a nonissue to pick apart here. If you are so much of a stickler that one of your complaints is that the people would be more likely to speak English than Japanese, then you probably should just not play Shenmue II past the Dou Niu fight, because realism lies out the window once you get to know Shenhua and step inside that cave.
I never have an issue with people liking one over the other, it is simply the fact that a lot of people cannot seem to intelligently defend their opinion outside of just being a Japanophile, does that make sense? They jump on the bandwagon and all they can say is "ITS TURRBLE LOL". I articulated this point a few posts back, but feel compelled to bring it back up again.
I openly admit there are some not so good voices in the NPCs, but as you said, the main characters are fine.
The feeling you get with the atmosphere I got when playing the English one. I have never played the Japanese version admittedly, but since hardly anybody here is fluent in the language, how do we know we are not romanticizing the voices in the original? There may be just the same amount of goofiness, if not more. I seem to remember Kiyuu saying that one of the main characters' voices left something to be desired, if I recall correctly.
Himuro wrote: Not only that, but Shenmue 1 dub is fantastic by virtue of its hilarity. Komine and the sailors delivery particularly. YOU LYING?!?! DON'T FORGET TO SAY GOODBYE! WAYYYYYYYY UNCOOL (Ryo sounds like such a geek here hahahaha). Game is the funniest unintentionally hilarious game of all time for me. It adds to the martial arts movie cheese and makes it feel authentic to the experience, being a big fan of wuxia film.
Now compare to Shenmue II. Shenmue II dub really doesn't have hilarious VO like the original game. Outside of maybe Xiuying's voice I'd even just say it's flat out terrible. It doesn't have the same weight or emotion of the original dub, but it doesn't have the charm and comedy of the first games dub either. It's just there, and it fucking sucks.
Komine is the baker, correct? My disc one is not working again (I am cursed), so my memory is fuzzy, but I do agree that the first and last lines you mentioned do sound cheesy. The middle one though, I never had any issue with. I also never had any issue with most of the English voices in either Shenmue I or Shenmue II, and I thoroughly disagree that is just a riot of laughter every time you pop in the game. You'd have to be one pompous and arrogant native speaker to claim that. To compare most of Shenmue's voice acting to something like The Wand Of Gamelon is a bit of a stretch to me, but to each his own, I guess.
I loved the main character's voices in both games. Terry, Lan Di, Chai, Yuan, Xiuying, Ryo, Iwao, Fuku-san, Ren, Guizhang, Zhu...sometimes Dou Niu.