Why Was SEGA CD Voice Acting So Bad?

[wingzrow]

I just started playing Keio flying Squadron and man, thank god I was using the headphones.

Is there a reason so many games with voice acting were so god awful in the 90s?

[InsaneDavid]

Play something like Popful Mail and see it was the exact opposite.

[NerdXCrewWill]

The Sega CD has had some of the best voice acting of all time! See Popful Mail, Adventures of Willy Beamish, Snatcher, Cobra, etc. I always though the PSX had some of the worse voice acting ever because of the low budgets of many games. Really, it all came down to the budgets. Video gaming companies often did not feel like hiring quality voice actors was an important part of producing (especially for localization) of a game. Nowadays it's kind of expected.

[Tupin]

I chalk it up to a mixture of a new medium and low budgets. People would be impressed that there was any voice at all that they didn't care about how horribly it was acted. This is also how FMV games lived so long.

[Shulamana]

I think it just comes down to it being generally harder (and more expensive) to get good voice talent compared to good graphical artists/programmers. You generally have to go outside the development house to get voice actors, unless you're huge like Bethesda, or are willing to make a truly horrible localization like Chaos Wars.

[The Shawn]

This could of all been solved if they only had ONE voice actor... Bruce Campbell.

[InsaneDavid]

This could of all been solved if they only had ONE voice actor... Bruce Campbell.

Mike Reynolds.

[treismac]

This could of all been solved if they only had ONE voice actor... Bruce Campbell.

Bobcat Goldthwait.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

It's probably because the target demographic for most games were children, and children will love your game even if its bad (see: shovelware games on DS and Wii)

Add to it that game developers at the time didn't have the budgetary means to scout of voice talent, so they often resorted to local talent and/or their own staff for voice work.

It should also be noted that this in no way only affected English games - Check otu the MegaCD Lunar: The Silver Star. The English voice work is pretty weak, but its nothing compared to the Japanese "effort".

Also don't think bad voice acting is a phenomenon exclusive to the Sega CD - check out Ys Books 1 & 2 on TuroGraphfx16 CD, Resident Evil on Playstation and Saturn, and even many PS2 games have hilariously bad voice acting such as two of my favorites, Robot Alchemic Drive and Castle of Shikigami 2.

Games these days have voice acting budgets that exceed entire game budgets back in the day.

But all this said, there ARE some games for these older systems that have good voice acting!

[Haoie]

Come on, Resident Evil 1? And there's got to be worse than that out there.

[InsaneDavid]

I'm sorry, the console that gave us this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP9yYgzRo5Q

...can't be called on bad voice work.

[mobiusclimber]

Yeah, I was going to say... it's not a surprise that one of the first consoles to feature games with voice acting would have games with BAD voice acting. It's a surprise when we still get games with horrible voice acting *cough*SakuraWars*cough* or how awful the voice acting could be several generations of systems later (play some Tales of Destiny 2 on the PS1, for instance).

[xelement5x]

I'm sorry, the console that gave us this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP9yYgzRo5Q

...can't be called on bad voice work.

The only thing you need now is the Mega-LD release for phenomenal video too!


Anyway, I think there are plenty of horrible voice acted games for the Sega CD, but there are also some real gems. Popful Mail was mentioned which I think they did an amazing job on. I'm actually more forgiving for bad voice acting on the Sega CD since the format was in it's infancy there, where as by they time they reached the Playstation/Saturn there was really no excuse for it.

[Wraith Storm]

Also don't think bad voice acting is a phenomenon exclusive to the Sega CD - check out Ys Books 1 & 2 on TuroGraphfx16 CD

Dude! Are you really suggesting that Ys I & II had bad voice acting? I guess it is opinion afterall, but Ys was known for having some of the best voice acting of its time. They went all out and hired a full team of great voice actors for that game.

Alan Oppenheimer - Voice of Darm also voiced characters for He-Man, Transformers, The Big O, God of War II, etc.
Michael Bell - Voice of Dark Fact also voiced characters for G.I. Joe, Transformers, Pirates of Dark Water, Legacy of Kain etc.
Jim Cummings - Voice of Dalles also voiced characters for Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Mass Effect 2, etc.
Thomas Hayden Church - Voice of Goban Toba. Hasn't done a lot of voice acting but has been in some cult movies.
Debbi Derryberry - Voice of Feena also voiced characters for Toy Story 2, Tenchi Muyo, Life with Louie, No More Heroes, God of War III, etc.

Again, the quality of the voice acting is certainly ones opinion, but this is the first time i've ever heard it called out as being bad. To each their own I suppose.

[Dirkfunk]

Dude! Are you really suggesting that Ys I & II had bad voice acting?

I thought I and II had great voice acting for the time. . . Ys III (if I remember correctly) had terrible voice work.

[Press_Start]

I'm sorry, the console that gave us this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP9yYgzRo5Q

...can't be called on bad voice work.

I can do one better. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiLLN5U9w2U (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiLLN5U9w2U)

[Genesaturn]

It only makes sense that since the Sega CD was one of the first non-PC platforms to really utilize voice acting it would be rough. Big budget games back then didn't exist like they do now. But...regardless....I haven't ever stopped playing a game due to bad VA. If anything it adds an unintentional dimension of humor :P

[E Nice]

I just started playing Keio flying Squadron and man, thank god I was using the headphones.

Is there a reason so many games with voice acting were so god awful in the 90s?

I rather liiked the voice acting in Keio Flying Squadron. Rami was perfect for the brash ditz she was. The grandmother was a steroetypical voice for the role. Ok, Dr.Pon sounded a bit unusal but then again this is a super intelligent racoon with an IQ over 300. What should he sound like? Yeah a good deal sounded like they were reading the script one the first try but at least it was voiced with some passion, unlike Trouble Witches.

The whole game was like Parodius and I took the voice acting right along with it. The voices were campy, the music was great, the story was out there, the enemies were goofy, it all fit.

[tomaitheous]

Dude! Are you really suggesting that Ys I & II had bad voice acting? I guess it is opinion afterall, but Ys was known for having some of the best voice acting of its time. They went all out and hired a full team of great voice actors for that game.

Alan Oppenheimer - Voice of Darm also voiced characters for He-Man, Transformers, The Big O, God of War II, etc.
Michael Bell - Voice of Dark Fact also voiced characters for G.I. Joe, Transformers, Pirates of Dark Water, Legacy of Kain etc.
Jim Cummings - Voice of Dalles also voiced characters for Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Mass Effect 2, etc.
Thomas Hayden Church - Voice of Goban Toba. Hasn't done a lot of voice acting but has been in some cult movies.
Debbi Derryberry - Voice of Feena also voiced characters for Toy Story 2, Tenchi Muyo, Life with Louie, No More Heroes, God of War III, etc.

Again, the quality of the voice acting is certainly ones opinion, but this is the first time i've ever heard it called out as being bad. To each their own I suppose.

I'm sure it was just a mistake the poster's part and meant to say Ys III. I mean, how could one mention Ys I & II as bad voice acting and no mention of Ys III. Clearly a mistake ;)

But yeah, I think every one of the voice actors except one from Ys I&II went on to do lots of other voice acting over the years.

[Aussie2B]

I would argue that the vast majority of voice acting in games (Japanese games that have been dubbed, to be specific) is bad. Even games that supposedly had a lot of effect put into their dubbing and have fans that claim the voice acting is good still usually make me cringe with their terrible acting and ridiculous voices, like in Lunar on PS1. The problem is that dubbing in games is still approached like they're doing a B-grade Saturday morning cartoon. I think it's pretty telling that the Metal Gear Solid series is basically the only Japanese game series where people outside of English-speaking countries actually want to listen to the English dub and give it prominence over the other languages since those games are basically the ONLY Japanese games with a truly excellent English track. Atlus is getting pretty close, though. When they actually put the budget into it, they do good work. The recent Persona games were largely pretty solid.

The Sega CD is unique, though, in that the native English acting is so cheesy and bad that it beats out any dubbing on the system in awfulness. But that's just acting period, not specifically voice acting.

[LiquidPolicenaut]

Yeah, there may have been some games with bad voice acting but not ALL of them, just like with games from the PS1/Saturn era and even up to now. I happen to think the voice acting in Snatcher and Lunar: Eternal Blue were pretty damn good and even cheesy ones (like Rise of the Dragon) somehow seem to fit the game. I agree with earlier statements that it was one of the first system to use voice acting (like the Turbo/PC-E) so the budget and/or "seriousness" of voice acting in "games" wasn't there yet. Still, I love it and, as others have stated, opinions voice acting vary greatly from person to person...

[BlastProcessing402]

Check otu the MegaCD Lunar: The Silver Star. The English voice work is pretty weak,



You say MegaCD instead of SegaCD, so I'm hoping there's some European version of Lunar with a different localization, because the one released by Working Designs in America was among the best voice acting efforts of the time. Maybe not as good as today's level, but a definite step up from "grab the guy down the hall in the office and have him read the lines" type of "acting" most other games had been using.

[wingzrow]

Robot Alchemic Drive

To be fair that was a game about giant robots and parodies all 80s robot shows so I think they dubbed is "poorly" on purpose. If not then that's a completely lucky coincidence because the bad voice acting actually works in the game's favor because of the subject matter.

[djshok]

Voice acting wasn't big business back in the 90s. A lot of the third party developers that had smaller budgets would've used what essentially amounted to low paid amateur voice actors. Some were good, others weren't.

[xelement5x]

To be fair that was a game about giant robots and parodies all 80s robot shows so I think they dubbed is "poorly" on purpose. If not then that's a completely lucky coincidence because the bad voice acting actually works in the game's favor because of the subject matter.

Good lord, I actually found RAD this weekend for like $6 and was amazed at how bad the voicework was. I can only hope that it was poorly dubbed on purpose and everyone used fake names in the credits because the only thing I can imagine being worse than this would be listening to Keanu Reeves read Shakespeare.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

Already mentioned, but there was probably a lack of budget dollars and the developers probably didn't take that aspect of the game seriously at the time. The worst I've ever heard was on Christmas Nights into Dreams for the Saturn. I suspect the voiceover was done in a Japanese studio as opposed to an American one (which may be another reason).

Here's the intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSRkHluVnsA

[Eponasoft]

I think that just about everything that was localized by Working Designs had great voice acting. I can only think of one specific exception; Sega CD Vay. Whoever voiced Kinsey needed to be ... *censored* ... with a ... *censored* ... for that total lack of talent. Blake Dorsey, Dean Williams, and Keith Lack were excellent voice actors who could handle a wide range of character styles... it's no wonder they were signed on to so many productions.