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.

[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.