" @zombie2011 said:

" I don't know why people want the original Japanese voice overs. It always seems to be a point reviewers mention when ever games have it but why do people want it? "

Because I understand some Japanese, and I'd rather not listen to lower quality English voice actors (same as listening to a movie with subtitles).  This problem is worsened by stuff like the SAG, who charge way too much for quality voice acting. "

" Dubs are always bad."

The English voices will be fine. Whats the big deal with Japanese voice over anyway?. Unless you can understand Japanese fully, I cant see why you would want to read subtitles.

Simply: Yes. It is bullshit.
 
What I can't stand is that when you watch this interview, they seemed actually surprised by the news that western gamers might want the Japanese audio.  As if this piece of common knowledge is somehow new. I saw this same tonality when I read interviews leading up to the release of Star Ocean 4, and with Square's current track record, this disappointment and the almost hilarious contradictory P.R. is nothing new. (We a'int cutting anything outta the game because we went multi-platform! errrr....except this....)
 
It should be pointed out that they state the interview that the English voices will be re-animated and re-lip-synced. 
Comparing a scene from Final Fantasy X, to this game, is like comparing a game made almost a decade ago to one coming out this year.....oh, wait. 
Final Fantasy X had the issue of having to dub the voice over Japanese mouth animations. Speeding up certain lines to match the same timing of it's natives counterparts. It was obvious, distracting, and will not be making an appearance in this game.
 
I'm surprised they've made this fairly practical decision. This considerably helps the English voice actors who are now more free in their performances. It will be more natural. I really do look forward to hearing the English voice track. Everything I've heard so far hasn't been bad at all.
 
This does not make them exempt from their excuse of cutting out the Japanese vocal track.
 
The logic behind their excuse of not adding it is that it would delay the game more. Try a swallow that for a second. Something that isalready done, would require more testing to add in to an already finished product. Now, I am not naive when it comes to game development. I understand games are technical nightmares, that heavy testing is required for every new feature added.
 
This is Square. This is not some small time company. Either their new engine is too complicated, or they have crappy management.
 
Seeing how long this game has been delayed already, I'm betting on the latter. 
It's bullshit. Square needs to stop acting ten years in the past and realize it's 2009. Having multiple languages is not a luxury on a fucking bluRay. It is embarrassing not to have this feature.

I could understand your trepidation if this were an Atlus or a NIS or an Ignition, but this is Square-motherfucking-Enix we're talking about, not to mention their breadwinning franchise here in America.  You'd have to be crazy to think they'd spare a single expense on this game.

There's a Shaft lookalike running around with a chocobo living in his afro.  I'd be more worried about the level of character dumbassity you can expect from the game than the lack of an extra language track which you can't even understand properly.
 
There are about 4 people in the entire world who care about this and they'll all still buy the game anyway.

"  

  @Bucketdeth said:

" A little bit of a let down, but I can count on Square to get good voice acting, I have never had a problem with any voices of the FF series as far as I can recall. "

Did you play FFX? Remember... THIS!? Skip to about 1:50 for the really bad part. "

" I'm a computer science major who's been seriously studying japanese for 4 years and I'm really annoyed by the extensive poor choices by Square. American voice acting is a waste of money because there's so few good voice actors and the good ones get recycled over and over. I prefer Japanese voice acting because it usually sounds better as well as conveys the story better.    Square is pandering to the lowest common denominator which is something a lot of game companies have been doing lately.     I own a Xbox 360 and I was considering buying a PS3, but now I have another reason not to.  So who benefits by having an American version without Japanese voices? It's not Sony for sure. I don't understand why they can't just release the Xbox 360 version with an Xbox Live update for Japanese voices if they can't fit it on the discs?  Ubisoft did it for Naruto: Rise of a Ninja for 360, so why can't Square?Square-enix needs to be more open to its customers' preferences.  Email them and let them know what a blunder they're making, start a petition, tell them we want Japanese voice acting because American voice actors suck. No you can't trust them to have good voice acting. "

Seeing how you most of you people don't actually speak Japanese, just put the volume of the voices to mute and put on English subtitles because that's is what you're really doing.
 
How about Japanese voice tracks as DLC. Everyone wins.

Seeing how you most of you people don't actually speak Japanese, just put the volume of the voices to mute and put on English subtitles because that's is what you're really doing.

" @Lights_Up_The_Shaft said:

Seeing how you most of you people don't actually speak Japanese, just put the volume of the voices to mute and put on English subtitles because that's is what you're really doing.

The people that understand none of the language can still hear the tone of the voices.  That in particular is one of the most important aspects of voice acting in the first place.  You can sense emotion without understanding words. "

" @Diamond said:

" @Lights_Up_The_Shaft said:

Seeing how you most of you people don't actually speak Japanese, just put the volume of the voices to mute and put on English subtitles because that's is what you're really doing.

The people that understand none of the language can still hear the tone of the voices.  That in particular is one of the most important aspects of voice acting in the first place.  You can sense emotion without understanding words. "

this 100% THIS. Emotion is crucial in VAs. A lot of times this is what the english version is missing and it makes everything sound terrible and flat. "

" @PufferFiz said:

" @Diamond said:

" @Lights_Up_The_Shaft said:

Seeing how you most of you people don't actually speak Japanese, just put the volume of the voices to mute and put on English subtitles because that's is what you're really doing.

The people that understand none of the language can still hear the tone of the voices.  That in particular is one of the most important aspects of voice acting in the first place.  You can sense emotion without understanding words. "

this 100% THIS. Emotion is crucial in VAs. A lot of times this is what the english version is missing and it makes everything sound terrible and flat. "

The same thing could be said for Japanese voice acting.  Most of the time infact, Japanese voice actors are far, far worse.  Not being able to understand it doesn't instantly make it better, nor does every character being played by a 10 year old screechy school girl.  The whole Japanese purist thing really bugs me.  If you want to play the game in Japanese, buy the Japanese version. As long as Square hire decent voice actors, there shouldn't be a problem.  If they're bad, blame them for that. "

The same thing could be said for Japanese voice acting.  Most of the time infact, Japanese voice actors are far, far worse.  Not being able to understand it doesn't instantly make it better, nor does every character being played by a 10 year old screechy school girl.  The whole Japanese purist thing really bugs me.  If you want to play the game in Japanese, buy the Japanese version. As long as Square hire decent voice actors, there shouldn't be a problem.  If they're bad, blame them for that. "

thank god you didn't fall for ps3centrals baseless speculation of the game being cut, and such because of 360 in terms of gameplay and such.
 
As for that i bring up one point no past ff has had a Japanese language track.