Poll: Characters having dialog boxes but speak gibberish (Twilight Princess' Midna and Splatoon)

[Aerosteam]

Here's hoping some people know what I'm talking about, but I'll give examples anyway. First is Midna from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Probably the best character the series has (in my opinion), she has dialog boxes like all the other characters but what's different about her is that she's the only one has noises come out of her mouth when she opens it on a regular basis.

But, instead of talking in English or whatever, she talks in complete gibberish. Not even in some foreign language or backwards, but genuine gibberish. (The voice actress probably spoke Japanese and then somebody randomised the order of syllables to come out.)

Spoiler: Here's the cutscene of her introduction

Then there's everyone from Splatoon. They all kinda sound like a character talking underwater in a cartoon. And there's a distinction between them all too, like older characters having deeper voices than younger ones, y'know, like normal. If you've played the game, it's most memorable in its OST.

Spoiler: Yes, even the singers speak in gibberish

I think Animal Crossing has this as well? Never played it so I'm not sure. I'm probably missing other games. Now to the question I want to ask.

How do you feel about this approach to voice acting? What if a new game comes out and has characters that talk like this? Or more specially if the game does not have aspects that the examples have.

The examples I gave aren't humans, neither are dialog heavy like an RPG and both games don't take place in the real world. How do these effect the approach? What if it's a human talking? Or if the game takes place on Earth? Or it's a long game and has emphases on story?

For me personally I really like it and I don't see it often (it's only in Nintendo games!). No idea what it would be like if used in a story-driven game, it could lessen the impact in serious situations. Perhaps it only works if a human isn't talking or the game doesn't take place in the real world, it could definitely give the player a good sense of unfamiliarity in what's around them.[hr][small]This thread was made after I saw this post.[/small]

 

[MysticSlayer]

Considering this is the first time I've thought about it, I don't care much.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It would depend on the setting.

Games like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus benefit from gibberish language, because it helps in making the setting feel more foreign and mysterious. Gravity Rush is another one. I don't know if it's complete gibberish, but it sounds like a weird combination of Japanese and French, or Frenchanese.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

I don't know and I don't care. I mean, I already play some games in Japanese voice with sub... is want I want to say.

However.
Voice acting does matter. Even in foreign languages, emotion can still be experienced through. And gibberish hinders this severely. Nuance of the language is lost entirely, and my telecommunication class taught me that those are important part of understanding the message.

I am almost convinced that it is because directors screwed up though. We have good examples of such things done well... like Skyrim(Thu'um), and others(vocals of Madoka Magica).
But since usage of such increases chance of possible f***ups, I don't like it.

 

[Fractral]

Monster Hunter does this, and I've always thought it was done quite well. Each main character has distinct gibberish voices which match their personalities well. I actually can't think of a game where I didn't like it.

I think I prefer this approach to the way it's done in, say Fire Emblem where only certain lines are voice acted while others are silent or worse there is a piece of voice acting but it has absolutely nothing to do with the dialogue. The gibberish approach at least has consistency, whereas Chrom's text saying 'Oh no!' but the voice actor screaming 'Gods!' does not.

 

[freaper]

I hate it in Star Wars: the Old Republic. Motherfucking aliens don't even say the proper nouns, they substitute that shit with more gibberish, even if it's the name of a member of their own species, plus, if the dialogue is three lines long, the actors will speak for only a lines-worth. At that point I'd prefer it if they didn't speak.

 

[Rednog]

I flat out hate it.
It was excusable back in the day, but now it just feels lazy. I mean seriously look at the Midna shes saying a few quick syllables and yet several sentences show up in the text box. If you're going to do voice acting, do it proper, or just don't even bother. I know there's going to be some people who are like oh but what about those strange and mysterious creatures it adds to there character to speak like that. Then how the fuck is the character understanding their gibberish? You can convey just as much foreignness with proper voice acting and voice modification.

 

[Spider RedNight]

As someone who thinks voice acting is really really important, I don't mind the gibberish in more cartoony games like Okami or Animal Crossing - I think I don't mind it from Midna because she's the only character that does this so it marks her as "different" and "special" - and then sometimes it makes sense when you're trying to tell a visual story like with Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons so they don't include any actual dialogue because they want the point to be conveyed visually.

But no, if it's a game trying to be more serious in tone, then leave the cartoony gibberish out of it - as was previously mentioned, the nuance and tone is undermined if you can't get those things from the voice acting. Even games that make up their own language still have the tone because it's being said with the emotion instead of some garbled sound effects all mashed together (most of the time anyway, I still have my doubts about Star Fox Adventures).

Though I'm not gonna lie, I picked out the perfect voice cast for if Okami ever DID have actual voice actors for whatever reason so it's fun to pretend that those voice actors are saying the lines that only come out as someone spends two minutes sighing out sound effects in conversation. And one thing I liked about Animal Crossing was that you could choose to mute the characters so you could spend more time enjoying the atmosphere and music - *I* thought the Animalese was cute but I can see how it'd get annoying.

 

[Dragonbums]

Mostly indifferent. Though the noises they make play a big role.
As much as I liked Okami some of the dialogue was annoying to go through due to grating character noises.

 

[Erttheking]

If it works. Undertale is a good example of it working, as the noises the characters make just become a part of who they are.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

I was going to talk about how it must give you a lot of room to add really long and in depth dialog chains, but do any of the games that use it do that?

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

Undertale is a good example of it working, as the noises the characters make just become a part of who they are.

I would exclude Undertale, as it is example of Text RPG games. To understand what makes it good, I must bring up the best examples...

Spoiler

You'd be dead where you stand

As well as

Spoiler

Alphys, when asked with that question

... Which brings up unique flavor in text-based RPG where it mimics speech itself. It would still been a great game even if all "voice sound thing" is exactly same for all characters.
Again, it is speaking with nuances and tone that conveys the real message, even in text.

 

[FPLOON]

I feel like it should be a standard to all video games that even think about using voice acting in the first place... even the more serious shit where diction is fucking key regardless...

Other than that, I'm kinda tired of hearing all these movie-esque voice acting while trying to play a video game... But, I digress...

 

[chadachada123]

Unless you have phenomenal acting, it would be better to use gibberish.

The best of all, though, is the way Wind Waker and other LoZ games did it, by having a small vocalization to give you an idea of what the character sounds like, while having the text plus your imagination fill in the rest.

It's a lot easier to write a decent script than it is to both write a decent script and have decent actors to read them AND match all of the words and motions to the script.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Bring it on! It can be really funny in lighthearted games and I especially enjoy how it's done in the Mario & Luigi series. It might be inappropriate in a more serious game of course...ya know what no: I probably would have liked The Last Of Us a little bit if they used silly voice-blurbles instead of their overly serious, non-engaging drama. David Cage games would be more enjoyable with gibberish talk too considering the gibberish plots he likes to use.

 

[darkcalling]

Characters speaking gibberish that aren't supposed to be established languages is one of the single worst things a game can do in my opinion. I'd much rather they just use the text boxes and shut up.

The only exceptions to this are things like KoToR where you're dealing with an established universe and the aliens are speaking they're own established languages.

This was a big part of why I never finished Okami. And why I will now never buy Splatoon. Probably wouldn't anyway seeing as I haven't bought a Nintendo console since the N64 but still.

 

[Souplex]

I think the unofficial term for it is "Animalese" since that's what it was called in Animal Crossing.
I welcome it, it's always cute sounding, and often it's a program based on what's actually written so you get a sense of what's being said from hearing it.

 

[DementedSheep]

The only game I can think of that I played and had this predominantly (rather than just having a few NPCs speak like that if they aren't speaking English) was Okami. I found it annoying in that game and would have preferred just text. However I think this was mostly down to them just picking annoying sounds to have as the gibberish. I'd would probably be fine playing a game with gibberish as long as they put some effort into making it sound like it might be words and it doesn't repeat the same thing too often.