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

[Scarim Coral]

I just assume it was just to save time and money. I mean imagine the cos of hiring voice actors/ actress (this included ALL the available languages needed for the game) and the time to record them.

Either way, I don't really care since I'm not the type who throw a hissy fit if the character voices doesn't sound right.

 

[Michael Dunkerton]

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.

It could be worse. They could say all the "proper nouns" in English even if they are actually English words, like in Star Fox Adventures... (Grobble grobble grobble GENERAL SCALES grobble grobble grobble DINOSAUR PLANET)...so what, the planet is actually pronounced Dinosaur Planet in their language, and its just a coincidence that it is what we call in English a planet full of dinosaurs?

 

[Hero of Lime]

I love it in Splatoon, the Callie and Marie gibberish is cute, and I hate to imagine them actually speaking in English or other real languages. I like it animal crossing too, again for the cute factor, and since it's so fitting.

For Midna, I'm okay with it, but it's kinda odd that she even does that when no other character speaks that much in TP. Fi in Skyward Sword did that too. So basically, I'm cool with it, but it never seemed necessary for Midna's as a character to be so vocal. And fun fact, Midna's voice clips are actually made up of garbled up English, the VA was still Japanese though. I did not know that for the longest time, and it blew my mind.

 

[Silvanus]

I thought it really helped characterisation in Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie, by giving them fitting noises that reflected their dispositions and such. Grunty makes foul noises because she's a foul individual. Cap'n Blubber sounds drunk, because he probably is. That kind of thing.

 

[HybridChangeling]

It seems to be mainly a stylistic choice and therefore works in certain conditions. You can use the noises to isolate the world of the game from the player and make it feel truly otherworldly or disconnected from the norm. (KoTOR's Alien languages were awesome for their time.) The use of certain grunts or pitches to be an extra layer to character personification is also a great way to utilize this. (Think Undertale's (Sorry) use of tones and beeps to give characters charm and give us a rough estimate of their speaking tone.)

Like every style choice I like it, but it doesn't need to be everywhere. When you look at things like this they should be in the game to compliment it and not just to be there.

 

[Headsprouter]

I really liked Undertale's way. A single sound bite can be quite charming. I found my brain tricking me into thinking the sounds were connected to the amount of syllables in the words.

Although some are better than others for giving me an idea of what a character might sound like.

I prefer it to complete gibberish, but Banjo-Kazooie gets a pass in my book because it's variation on the same sound.