A korean fan remastering Shenmue I locations.

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Re: A korean fan remastering Shenmue I locations.

Postby Glorious_Basterd » Wed Aug 27, 2014 5:52 pm

I believe that in order for a HD remake to be successful, they are going to have to re-do the voice acting. The voice acting is so bad (most of the time) that it takes you out of the experience. The voice acting is very important in a game like this, because it is trying to immerse you into its world.
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Re: A korean fan remastering Shenmue I locations.

Postby Master Kyodai » Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:31 am

Actually the voice acting in the Japanese Version is really good. Some stuff is also hard to translate and sounds a bit dumb in English. For example Ryo's "So desu ka?" is translated as "Is that so?" in English which is nominally the correct translation, but sounds a bit weird in English. There are some other aspects of the voice acting which are really great in japanese, for example Ine-San who really talks like a polite old woman, but in the English language there simply is no difference between a male and a female person speaking while in Japanese - traditionally - there are loads of words and idioms that are used by female speakers that would not be used by a male speaker. Loads of stuff like this got lost in the translation. If you speak proper Japanese you will agree that the Japanese language voice acting is much better than the "dull" English translation. Some stuff like Setsu Abe's "Ryo-Kun" being translated as "Baby Ryo" is at least kinda funny in English, but also far from being extremely precise - "kun" does not really equal to "baby", it is rather used for (male) youngsters in Japanese, a baby would rather be "chan". In the Japanese House of Representatives the house president calls the representatives "-kun" - so you guess that "baby" is maybe not a perfect translation.

Another problem is that the Japanese voice actors are often treated like "Super stars", just take the Ryo and Ren voice actors, there was a video series of them, they gave loads of autographs and the guy who voiced Ryo has his own cafe in Akihabara and even today is often asked for autographs and such. In other countries it is rather rare that anyone could name a voice actor from a computer game. Corey Marshal is sure an exception to the rule, but even for Shenmue pretty much the only one... That also means that the voice acting job is taken with a different approach outside of Japan and rather regarded "Not so important"...

There are loads of other problems that occur when translating Japanese to English, so imho it is not just "bad" voice actors but a rather difficult to translate text that thus is also very difficult for voice actors. I'd claim that if the translators and the voice actors had a much better understanding of the Japanese culture and language then the result would be much better.

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Re: A korean fan remastering Shenmue I locations.

Postby OL » Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:45 pm

Glorious_Basterd wrote: I believe that in order for a HD remake to be successful, they are going to have to re-do the voice acting. The voice acting is so bad (most of the time) that it takes you out of the experience. The voice acting is very important in a game like this, because it is trying to immerse you into its world.


It'd be a very bad idea to redo the English VO. It would accomplish little other than to alienate old fans who actually like the original voice acting. Likewise for those that simply want the re-release to clearly represent the time that it was originally released in (and the "bad" english voice acting would be an important component for that).
I mean, the thing about how it needs to be good to immerse you in the game's world sounds reasonable, sure... but then the same could have been said about the Silent Hill games as well, right? But they tried to change it all for the HD release, and all it did was incite fan backlash. I still haven't even bothered with it myself, for that very reason.
And in Shenmue's case, it doesn't help that the series is already seen as a financial sinkhole. Newly-recorded VO would mean extra money being thrown into it. Not a good idea.

A better idea would be to simply include both of the original voice tracks, English and Japanese. If immersion is your main concern, then Japanese should be the go-to language anyway.

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Re: A korean fan remastering Shenmue I locations.

Postby Nahovil » Tue Sep 02, 2014 12:25 pm

OL wrote:A better idea would be to simply include both of the original voice tracks, English and Japanese. If immersion is your main concern, then Japanese should be the go-to language anyway.[/color]



Indeed. The one disappointing thing I can think of, regarding Shenmue, would be the dubbing. Having subtitles on the screen is a small compromise when being faced with the adulteration of an original piece. I remember putting on Shenmue II for the first time and being enthralled by this new language, like a new game feature.
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