Final Fantasy XIII: English Voiceover and Leona Lewis

"Did I miss something?! 
Final Fantasy has had a vocal pop song since Final Fantasy VIII, that was over a decade ago. Let alone the last trailer had a Japanese pop song. My mind can barely comprehend why people might be upset. Is it because of the quality of the song? You do realize that the original Japanese pop song wasn't anything to write home about, by Japanese pop song standards. Were not talking about the next "Eye's on Me" here. 
 
They bought the rights to have a Leona Lewis song. They also took the time torerender prerendered video of the characters talking in English. They want to appeal to the larger western audience. If this upsets you, I can understand that to a point (I have mixed feelings about it. I think it's still beyond stupid they don't have dual language anywhere), but you have to also understand the smart business and effort that has clearly gone into this release.  
 
So no, I feel no different with the inclusion of this song than any other pop song that has been attached to a Final Fantasy game. If you feel uncomfortable(???REALLY??? It's just a theme song. There is other music in the game.) listening to this while watching it, I can only assume you are still an immature J.R. High School student. Grow up. "

What a jarring trailer..... im sold though! Really enjoyed that song too, roll on March!

" Holy shit the VAs for NA/EU is bad.  What the fuck is up with the love song?!    So glad I got the JP version and won't have to listen to this...wow.  O_O "

Lip synching's good... but what they're saying is complete gibberish. Ridiculous nonsense.

Ugh, this shit is so sappy! Make a good Final Fantasy for once Square!
 
P.S. Weaboos shut up.

Damn dude since watching persona 4 it seems like the girl that voices Rise is in everything. It throws me off every time I hear it.

GOD WAYYYY TO EMO . but just in hair cuts .. i miss ff7

yes final fantasy XIII should be the next endurance run game; i thought the song at first was iffy until i saw it mixed in with cutscenes.

" Did I miss something?! 
Final Fantasy has had a vocal pop song since Final Fantasy VIII, that was over a decade ago.   

Awesome, awesome to the max.

Hmmm, the characters in this game appear to cater to the fruity teenage anime/manga consumer. Dreary conversation and touching each other up is clearly the order of the day with this game.

this game looks shitting great, it's easily the best looking game so far, and the people who are crying over the song... it's just a song, get over it?

English language lip syncing looks really nice this time around. I wasn't put off much by the pop song, it actually blended in well enough later in the trailer. I would definitely prefer the old style FF with completely turn based gameplay but I guess this real time approach works out fine since they continued to use it after experimenting with FFXII (and maybe even with XI). I was actually quite impressed by the trailer so I'll go pre-order the 360 version later this week.
 
I've owned only Nintendo consoles so far and now Xbox360 so these newer looking Final Fantasies are something I haven't used to. I've actually played only VIII and couple SNES games. This is actually the first RPG I've been really interested in since I got my 360 couple years back.

The music will have little to do with the quality of the game.
 
Its just like the whole Dragon Age: Origins trailer hate when the rock/metal music bashes in. Did that make the game suffer? Hell no. A less known example also includes the AC2 trailer with Justice.

I don't even know who Leona Lewis is, but she sounds like an FF character so I'm going to just go with it. 
 
The trailer wasn't bad, then again I'm not a fan of Final Fantasy. At least they've got drama, and what Highschool girl doesn't like drama? Well, I guess if they had Highschools in Rwanda... but they don't.

" @vidiot said:

"Did I miss something?! 
Final Fantasy has had a vocal pop song since Final Fantasy VIII, that was over a decade ago. Let alone the last trailer had a Japanese pop song. My mind can barely comprehend why people might be upset. Is it because of the quality of the song? You do realize that the original Japanese pop song wasn't anything to write home about, by Japanese pop song standards. Were not talking about the next "Eye's on Me" here. 
 
They bought the rights to have a Leona Lewis song. They also took the time torerender prerendered video of the characters talking in English. They want to appeal to the larger western audience. If this upsets you, I can understand that to a point (I have mixed feelings about it. I think it's still beyond stupid they don't have dual language anywhere), but you have to also understand the smart business and effort that has clearly gone into this release.  
 
So no, I feel no different with the inclusion of this song than any other pop song that has been attached to a Final Fantasy game. If you feel uncomfortable(???REALLY??? It's just a theme song. There is other music in the game.) listening to this while watching it, I can only assume you are still an immature J.R. High School student. Grow up. "

And your abundant use of caps, bold style, and question marks makes you the most grown up person I've ever encountered on the internet. Seriously, people can have different tastes. Why do you feel this need to come down on people who do not share your conception of what is going on here? That said, I do agree that the Japanese theme isn't all that great either, however, at least the Japanese song was specifically commissioned for this game while the English song was just some track on an album that was already out. Also, I thought the inclusion of the Japanese theme (translated or not) in the previous games gave it something extra; a quirk if you will.  EDIT: I forgot to add that I'm not against the inclusion of this song, but I prefer to have the original song included. "

If your referring to the ending song... well i have no idea why you are because it actually had great music in it... the voice was just ok granted but the music was everything... how it fit with the game... was just awesome... i mean maybe you've forgotten... listen...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmDt-EbFslo "

giantbomb must be playing a joke on us with that song. looks sweet though

Voice acting doesn't look great, apart from Snow.

" @vidiot said:

"Did I miss something?! 
Final Fantasy has had a vocal pop song since Final Fantasy VIII, that was over a decade ago. Let alone the last trailer had a Japanese pop song. My mind can barely comprehend why people might be upset. Is it because of the quality of the song? You do realize that the original Japanese pop song wasn't anything to write home about, by Japanese pop song standards. Were not talking about the next "Eye's on Me" here. 
 
They bought the rights to have a Leona Lewis song. They also took the time torerender prerendered video of the characters talking in English. They want to appeal to the larger western audience. If this upsets you, I can understand that to a point (I have mixed feelings about it. I think it's still beyond stupid they don't have dual language anywhere), but you have to also understand the smart business and effort that has clearly gone into this release.  
 
So no, I feel no different with the inclusion of this song than any other pop song that has been attached to a Final Fantasy game. If you feel uncomfortable(???REALLY??? It's just a theme song. There is other music in the game.) listening to this while watching it, I can only assume you are still an immature J.R. High School student. Grow up. "

And your abundant use of caps, bold style, and question marks makes you the most grown up person I've ever encountered on the internet. Seriously, people can have different tastes. Why do you feel this need to come down on people who do not share your conception of what is going on here?  "

Dub's not bad.

Spare me. That's not my point at all. My overuse of punctuation in this situation illustrates my frustration. 
 
It's when your different taste overrides logic. I'm reading people freaking out of the inclusion of a pop song as if though this concept is brand new. Disregarding the franchise's history.
I'm reading people throwing in a quick complaint of not purchasing this product based upon the song in question, no context just a juvenile "Wah, the song is faggy and I hate it and why did they change it?!" 
To be fair, for the internet this is nothing new but I'll be dammed if such conclusions, based upon that set of logic, will go by unscathed.
 
This is GiantBomb, not some GameTrailer forum, and I deeply appreciate the fact you have a level head on your shoulders. In fact, our personal tastes are not very different:
 
I've been a very (I cannot stress that enough) vocal critic of Square's inability to stick a second audio track on a Blu-Ray. The interview with Kitase on GameTrailers infuriated me. Having a dual language option is not a "luxury" on a Blu-Ray disk: It's an embarrassment not to have it. I too wouldn't mind a second language track, complete with the original tune.  The lack of both, while understandably annoying, is not changing my overall perception of this project. It's a pop-song within a 50+ hour epic. A change of one piece of mediocre commissioned or not, to another piece of mediocre music does not crush my purchase. Nor should it for you. We will all live. "

I don't think I can support this.

Enjoying FFXIII a lot (been playing the import) but I think the Japanese voices are a lot better than the US ones.  But they are still satisfactory, and shouldn't ruin the game.  The game has probably some of the best gameplay of any FF yet, and a pretty decent story too.  Not sure if it rates as high as VIII or X in my book, but it's just a lot of fun to play. 
 
Really enjoy the soundtrack too, even if Uematsu isn't composing it.

Voice acting still sounds great, can't wait to play through this. Especially looking forward to Fang, Vanille and Snow's voices. 
 
 Also as has been said a dumb pop song has been in all the past main series Final Fantasy games since 8 and they all have been somewhat annoying, the Japanese one is just as airy and some pop and R&B mix so get over it.

They need Samul Jackson for the black guy

Wow there are a lot numbers flying around in combat. 

If this doesn't get u all kinds of hype, u either have no pulse, do not like JRPG's, or are stupid. Possibly all 3....I got my computer chair pregnant after watching this..............

That is absolutely gorgeous. I have never played a FF game in my life but will for sure try this one, just because it looks so pretty.

 Jesus H. Christ, some of these comments are crazy.
 
 I'm not much of a Leona Lewis fan, but the song isn't terrible. It's pretty much the English equivalent of whatever song they're using for the Japanese version. =/ And I don't care what anyone says, Fang's Australian accent is awesome. I mean, what was the localization team supposed to do if Fang speaks in this Indian Japanese dialect or whatever it is another user was complaining about? I suppose she could have had an Indian accent, but people still would have had conniptions over it.  At least they're acknowledging the differences between the characters' modes of speech.
 
Ah, whatever. I'm pretty pumped for the game. The voice-acting isn't too bad, the story seems to be nice and cheesy and over-the-top dramatic, and the fighting looks as fun as ever.

the song was a bit weak. same with the VO.  but Sazh's voice was awesome.
 
kickass trailer overall though.

If I didn't play FF12, will I understand anything?

hmm, Lightning, Snow, vanilla, Fang and Zera really sucks, also wtf. is that song???
 
Zazzu and Hope works ok, i hated the jp version of Hope and this on is far better.
 
All the "villains" sounds awesome, CIDs voice is is also kinda neat

" If I didn't play FF12, will I understand anything? "

I like it!

Probably been said already, but ---
 
Serah = Rise
Snow = Kanji
 
They're dipping into the Persona VA well

Man, I was hoping for more action from Kanji, I mean, Snow.
 
I like that dude who is hanging out with the new Cid.  He looks pretty cool.  He looks like an anime version of Faramir from Lord of the Rings.
 
The male characters in this seem better than most Nomura-era FFs.  The teenage girls are still crap.  I think I enjoyed the black dude's "You this is gonna be sugar and rainbows?!" the most.  The villains in this seem alright, you have the Meganekko Dominatrix, crazy Hawkhair guy, Evil Pope, and then probably Cid and his pal for the first half of the game.

I was bracing myself for the cheesiness and the supposedly bad VO after reading the comments, grimaced a bit when the song hit, but...It honestly wasn't that bad.  Quite passable and a very potential buy.

Can the Japanese elitist shut the fuck up please?  The voice acting in this trailer is well preformed and well synced.  The song sounds fine, and I don't really care that one J pop song is going to be replaced.  This isn't some no name they pulled off the street to do the song, they actually put thought and effort into it.  Go play an imported copy and stop complaining that you can't hear your video game in its original glorious nippon.  This isn't like the Shining Force 3, we've come way too damn far to have people bitch about THIS voicework.  And if you don't know what I'm talking about then just listen to the horror: 
http://shiningforceacting.ytmnd.com/

" If I didn't play FF12, will I understand anything? "

All I can hear is that japanese guy from that other promo video saying "Reona Rewis"

Goddamn I want to play this game.

Uh, Fang sounds nothing like she did in the Japanese Trailers.  She has a very mature Indian Japanese accent that's unique to the country.

HOLY SHIT!!!! that was awesome. Im really loving how much it seems they put into not only the Voice Overs, but ACTUALLY SYNCING THE VOICES WITH THE MOUTHS. Already had this pre-ordered, and cant wait till march.

Man I can't stop watching this...  Well at least the last 60 seconds. 
 
GOD DAMN!  The visual feast for my eyes is worth the price of admission for this game.  And I didn't even notice Kanji = Snow until I read it in the comments!  Holy God that's going to bother me during the game. 

Not the song i would have picked