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Worst Vocal Direction in the series



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DizneyXBirds95

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I definitely listened to a bunch of deadpan lines and weird inflections/small pauses.

"Yes, those are my THOUGHTS[...] exactly."
"No matter where we are, our HEARTS[...] will bring us together again."


Overall she was just way too quiet and emotionless, also considering Aerith was originally a pretty lively and cheerful girl.
Now it has become a flip of the coin on who was the worst voice for Aerith: Mena or Mandy.

Obviously Mena given that most fans detested her voice but I do see where your coming from.
 

DarkosOverlord

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Now it has become a flip of the coin on who was the worst voice for Aerith: Mena or Mandy.

Obviously Mena given that most fans detested her voice but I do see where your coming from.

Oh, I wouldn't say that.
I don't really like Mandy's Aerith, but she's a far cry better than Mena's.
 

DizneyXBirds95

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Of course we had the infamous Richard Epcar being directed to outham Billy Zane in KH2. Once they gave him some breathing room, he got to shine and make the role his own, though.
At least Epcar got better as Ansem in later installments of the KH series.


Also in my unpopular opinion and no hard feelings to ANYONE who likes the actor and his work but am I the only one who feels that Shuichi Ikeda was Totally miscast as Marluxia? No offense to him but he sounded way too old for the role and it would feel unnatural if he were to voice his original form (Lauriam) if Union X were to be remade in Unreal Engine 4. Just hearing a 70+ year old man in a teenager or young adult or whatever Lauriam's real age is would feel awkward. So personally I prefer Marluxia’s English voice actor, Keith Ferguson over Marluxia's Japanese voice actor
 

shady543

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Aqua's english va is always one that bothered me. It's still just too emotionless. Ven, Roxas and Axel's voices are probably the only ones that I prefer in English over the Japanese va. Jesse and Quinton are just unbeatable in their role lol.

I agree with the people who say that they're annoyed by Haley's performance of Vanitas in KH3 because I too have no clue what happened there. His acting was perfect in BBS to the point I preferred his English va over his Japanese one. But in KH3 his voice seemed fine in Monsters Inc but as the game went on, his voice started sounding more and more goblin like.... It was just horrible in his final lines. He felt more like just a joke character with that voice and its rather frustrating to see all that potential go down the drain but eh.

One of my biggest issues is Aqua's voice acting throughout the entire series. She's probably my favorite character, but her voice sounds so tragic all the time. I don't even know how to describe it, and I feel like it would come as no surprise to me if one of the characters asked her: "why do you talk like that?"

Honestly, after playing Nier: Automata 4 times, I'm whole heartedly convinced the game has one of the best voice acting I've ever heard even though it was on a budget. Whatever Square did there should be carried over to Kingdom Hearts. It was one of those rare times where the English VA was almost on par with the japanese.

Voice adds a lot of depth to a character, and delivering flat lines just isn't going to cut it. The sound direction for most characters in this franchise seems to be too focused on conveying gentleness and kindness. And don't get me started on the dialogue.

In contrast, you listen to the villains and they sound full of life and personality. Larxene, Malificent, Xigbar, the MoM, even Pete.

Got to agree that whatever they do in Nier should be brought over because it really works. Even the original Nier had a stellar voice cast. And I honestly think that English 9s is better than the Japanese version except for like, a few moments.
 

alexis.anagram

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Oh this 1000%. Listening to to that weird, over-the-top voice was sooo grating, and I couldn't take even a single scene with the character seriously at all (especially when he turned into a gremlin upon his death, making that whole sequence even MORE cringey and hard to understand since the tone of the voice gives me zero insight into what more the character might potentially be thinking as he spouts the vaguest shit I've ever heard coming from his mouth). I'm still genuinely baffled why the voice directors/the VA himself would want to change up his direction when his voice acting for Vanitas in BBS was so praised and on point. I saw a few people trying to hand wave it by saying "oh Vanitas always sounded like that", but... He really didn't. At all. During BBS, his voice came off as cold, angry, and closed off, with a tinge of arrogance and disdain in his voice. Perfect for what we know about the character, and even made the intention/subtext of certain lines more layered and clear. Adding a subtle amount of nuance and complexity to the character that had ample potential to be explored and expanded on in his future appearences if he had any (since he seemingly merged back with Ventus at the end of BBS, which should've been the completion of Ventus' arc in that game, but eh, who cares about pay off I guess), but like so many other things, KH3 completely ignored all that potential anyway. In the end, he came off as this confusing, silly, stereotypical baddie that just likes causing trouble. That kind of delivery for the character only validates what all of Vanitas' haters who refuse to acknowledge the nuance he demonstrated from BBS, or any of the potential that might come from it, and it's dissapointing as hell. Poor Vanitas man. If there's ONE antagonist that genuinely deserved a better ending in KH3, it was this guy.
I think the idea with Vanitas is that they were attempting to convey his rejection of "humanness" and the resulting kind of existential degradation that afflicts him but because KH3 can't commit to any of its thematic precepts this doesn't go anywhere and that's why it feels confusing and trope-ish. It's not just Vanitas; though he may be marked by an especially distracting vocal performance to highlight just how out of place he is, pretty much all of the villains are reduced to their most basic, boring and even contradictory elements in order to jerryrig the narrative to accommodate them on the most superficial level while preempting the next title's revelations. None of them are positioned to impact KH3's story except maybe Xemnas, otherwise they're virtually all preoccupied with future story threads and so it's not surprising when they actually say shit like, "I was just along for the ride," or, "I pretty much gave up and stopped caring." As did we all, Xehanort's Heartless.

And poor Ventus too. I officially have no idea what his arc in BBS was even supposed to be about anymore.
Yeah, it's kind of astounding how little work this game does on following through with Ven's development or any of the qualities BBS established in terms of his characterization. He exists in this game solely to be woken up and then forced face-first into future gacha nonsense with nothing retained in between from the previous game in which he appeared. Not his relationship with Eraqus, or the friendships he developed with Disney world denizens during his travels (some of whom were supposed to be important recurring characters but, oops, nevermind), or you know the fact that he was once Master Xehanort's apprentice. Like holy smokes that kind of seems like a big deal given that this is the closing chapter in the saga that centers this character's former teacher, like I wonder if maybe Namine could help Ven regain his memories of that time (especially considering the fact that he was sleeping in the same castle where she was held hostage immediately after coming into existence and it would seem like a fairly obvious and organic link to iron out) and maybe there's something in there that would help give them an edge on the main antagonist of the story, thus connecting actual pieces of the narrative together in order to construct a real story with decipherable moving parts instead of just throwing a bunch of contrivances at the script and calling it a climax.
 
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