User blog:Ouroburos.TheNewSaurian/So how about that voice acting in Nintendo games, people?

Ohai, everybody! This is your almighty deity ({scoffs} again), Ouroburos, with another new blog. What am I talking about, here? A played part in a Nintendo title that is debatably the LEAST talked about topic. You heard me right; it's the voice acting!

How is it?
To put it in a normal way, most Nintendo titles in the past were seen without a good amount of voice acting. Then again, this "past" I'm speaking about refers to the NES/SNES days. I'm not too sure, for instance, whether Star Fox for the Super Nintendo or Super Mario 64 were the first two installments in Nintendo history to have full-fledged voice acting or not (will somebody help me out and do a bit of research? Because if not, I'll see for myself).

Now as I've said before, voice acting is one of the topics about Nintendo that are the least expected to discuss about. When it IS brought up, some folks will go, "Nintendo and voice acting? {facepalm} Not a great combo, if you ask me", and others will probably say, "Nintendo games should have more voice acting!"

If you would like to see Nintendo when it comes to voice acting, then this is an obvious statement: whenever it's a franchise such as Mario Bros. (with the exception of Super Mario Sunshine, the CD-I titles, the education games; even throw in the horrible TV shows) or The Legend of Zelda (exceptions include CD-I and badly-written TV adaptations), be prepared to hear very little of voice acting aside from battle cries, grunts, yells, and/or short phrases. However, with titles such as Star Fox 64 (and the subsequent releases) and Kid Icarus: Uprising, you'll hear a bit more voice acting than you once thought, before. I never got any of that, to be honest.

Who does the company hire? And how are the efforts?
Nintendo tends to hire not a lot of VAs, and most of them (with the exception of Charles Martinet and Lani Minella) aren't all that well-known. They even hire original Japanese voice actors as well (ex. Takashi Nagasako, Ikue Otani, Kazumi Totaka, Asako Kozuki, Masahiro Sakurai; the mastermind behind HAL Laboratory). From what I've heard, Kid Icarus: Uprising could be the very first game in Nintendo's timeline to hire such supported VAs like Johnny Yong Bosch (best known for his roles as Lelouch Lamperouge, Ichigo Kurosaki, Renton Thurston, Nero, and Vash the Stampede), Tara Strong (who pretty much has a LARGE amount of roles I wouldn't list at this time; one being Twilight Sparkle from My Little Po {SSSSH!!!!} Don't wake the bronies, will you?), and even Gregg Berger (I don't know much about him, everybody).

Here's the next step: effort. How does Nintendo handle it? When it comes to games like Star Fox 64, this company shows that you CAN use underground VA talent nicely... which was a massive problem whenever titles such as Star Fox 64 came out, because at the time, there were other video games that had just terrible performances in my opinion (Resident Evil, Megaman 8, Megaman X4, Shining Force III, etc.). There are also those installments like F-Zero GX for the Nintendo Gamecube that utilize a good amount of this, but the performances themselves are kinda bad... NOT laughably bad, mind you. So all and all, when it comes to voice acting, Nintendo is either a hit or miss in this department.

Some games I don't mind

 * Most Mario titles with the exception of Super Mario Sunshine.
 * The Legend of Zelda (like the case with Mario Bros., there isn't much to offer, but I will say that a future installment in the series could have voice-overs for the NPCs, but still not Link, Zelda/Sheik, and Ganondorf).
 * Star Fox 64 (the quality of the voices are amazing... and I am very glad most VAs returned in the 3DS port. Too bad the recording had to be redone, or so I'm told)
 * Kid Icarus: Uprising (I saw one of the E3 2011 trailers back in the Summer and the quality of these VAs looks promising enough. Just hope it isn't screwed over in the final version)
 * Super Smash Bros. (I'm thankful Nintendo and/or HAL didn't put voice acting in Brawl's Subspace Emissary when it comes down to the cutscenes; for me, that would kill the mood... somewhat. As for the other games, I didn't have a problem with it)

Some games I mind

 * F-Zero GX (the overall performances from the voice actors were meh at best)
 * Star Fox Adventures (the only title in the series which I think has passable to bad performances... although more mediocre if anything. Star Fox: Assault did a better job in this area)
 * Super Mario Sunshine (Perhaps other than Mario, only because he still makes short phrases and grunts in-game, everybody else should just stick to doing the exact same. I saw one cutscene of this on YouTube, and my reaction was "OMG")

What are your thoughts?
So now it concludes with this: what do you think about Nintendo's voice acting repertoire? Is it good, bad, decent, or are you just not answering right away? There's no right or wrong, here! ;)

This is Ouroburos.TheNewSaurian, and I'll be seein' ya guys later! Peace.

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