Voice acting yes or no.

[FakeNate0]

Do you think they can get voice acting in legends 2? If they do, they should recruit voice actors from the anime. It's subjective, but it'll make you feel like your playing an episode from a legends style anime. Some people don't want anime voice overs of they're dub quality however. Would you think legends 2 would benefit if they added voice acting or is forever muted text boxes the way they should stay.

 

[giradialkia]

Eh.
I love Pokemon games. Always have, always will. But it's no secret that they tend to be quite a few steps behind other games with regards to certain features or capabilities. Even then, there's always a strange Game Freak caveat that holds stuff back. For example(s):
- Sword and Shield were the first 3D mainline-home-console games, released in 2019, and you couldn't rotate the camera outside of the Wild Area.
- Scarlet and Violet were the first "proper" open-world Pokemon games, and aside from story areas there are no buildings that you can enter.

I just think voice acting in the games will come with similar caveats. I'd bet money that they wouldn't use their existing anime voice actors, because.. Nintendo/Game Freak.

If Legends Z-A is anything like Legends Arceus, we can expect a great story with some strong characters. If they added voice acting like they have in Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, for cutscenes only, I think that'd be more than fine.

Do I think they will? Not for another 5-10 years. It's Game Freak lol.
(It's also worth noting, they'd probably have to have voice acting for all the different languages, so.. that's another reason I don't see them bothering).

 

[Alpawca]

I'm of the opinion that Pokémon don't really need voice acting to be fun. In all the older games it was cool to either imagine the characters' voices yourself, or hear how others read out their dialogue in video playthroughs. I suppose it would be the next step in the game's development, but I'd rather they focus their efforts on making the game enjoyable and high-quality in general, voice acting is a very optional thing, I feel.

 

[FakeNate0]

This may go to another thread. Also another fact is they held back on the interact able NPCs. They went overboard on background NPCs that just sit there, walk, and eat in scarlet violet cities. They need to create interesting dialogue to make NPCs engaging rather than feel like stock images and objects. Sure black and white were the first examples, Castelia citys busy streets, but sometimes a random NPC stops in their tracks to get some dialogue out of. Kalos lumiose city is another example of this, but they're just floating texts boxes for random eavesdropping. Sun and moons NPCs at least acknowledge you're a trial goer or say alola to you. Sword and shield had a good mix of floating text boxes. But scarlet and violet just have mute NPCs that just fill up a spot in a restaurants, café areas, benches, and in front of buildins? Even kalos and alola had cafés and malasada shops with NPCs to chat with. Maybe they're holding back on this because, 1 creativity has run dry for new sentences for otherwise unimportant characters. 2 they want to add realism by not bothering strangers if they don't want to be bothered, this doesn't make sense as you battle strangers or is it really to curb the logic of not to talk to strangers. 3 they only want you talking to important NPCs to stay on track with the 3 major goals of the game. This is confusing as in older gens 1-4, all NPCs could be talked to minus the ghosts from old chateau in eterna Forest, to get snippets about the game, items, or silly joke messages left by the developers. Even some from gens 5-8. 1 things for sure if they stick with text boxes only in legends 2, they shouldn't fill the world with blank NPCs that have nothing to say.

 

[catchneko]

I feel like it's unlikely that we'll get full voice acting in a mainline Pokémon game. Voice acting takes time like anything else and considering most mainline games are only in development for about 1-2 years, Game Freak probably doesn't see it as something worth including.
Especially with the games getting bigger in scale while seemingly retaining the exact same release schedule as before. Scarlet/Violet gutted the cities and NPCs to just be a few buildings you can't enter, a bunch of people you can't talk to, and maybe some shops that are basically the same exact shops you could find anywhere else, in order to fit the open world.

Voice acting to me is something that doesn't bother me too much with the absence of, I'd rather have more actual content over voice acting anyway. Still, I wish that we could have both. It would be nice.

 

[looneyman1]

There should have been voice acting since gen 6, 7 at the very least. Same with the pokemon themselves, especially since a handful of pokemon use actual animal vocalizations as seen with ponyta/rapidash.

 

[catchneko]

To be honest I kind of like the game cries for some of the Pokémon. Replacing them with animal sounds would just feel kind of off.

 

[CoolKid575]

I think there should be voice acting, it would greatly increase immersion, and c'mon, it's 2024. Any respectable AAA game has voice acting these days; I don't think they'll actually put it in though. The games usually don't have enough time in the oven for bells and whistles like that to be added.

 

[Zeostar]

I feel like there are other concerns that need to be prioritized over voice acting.

...That said. Mario Sunshine had voice acting in 2002. After being in development for under two years. There's no reason a franchise as big as Pokemon can't do it in a small amount.

 

[NipahRika]

During major cutscenes or just even the opening would be a good start IMO. Like the professor stuff I mean.

 

[_confused_piplup_]

I don't think we will. I would like that, though for the way GF handles things, it could end up in bad voice acting. I prefer no voice acting to poor one.

 

[Hiroshi Sotomura]

Bring a character on screen with their beaming face and mouthflapping lots of text? I'm gonna want a voice with that. They even went through the trouble of giving Iono a canon voice for Scarlet and Violet and stopped short of actually putting it in the game.

Why wouldn't they spend time voicing at least some lines? It's not like they don't have the budget for good talent…

 

[Venia Silente]

Considering this is GF and Nintendon't who do this, I'll pass.

Even with the best case scenario, because Pokémon is not really a game that does plot and because VA is expensive to get right, it'd end up like this:

(Which, frankly, has its own charm. I'm not complaining about that style being a thing here)

I'll be real, more than VA for the human characters what I'd consider would make the game more worthy to pirate would be if there was VA but for the Pokémon. Like, give me the option for a SFX pack, that replaces the mechanical / MIDI-like cries of the Pokémon with actual voice actors iminating noises. Like, dunno, Attensborough going "bulba bulba saur!". That'd just be nuts. It's a nice development reference, too, kinda like how the games have the programmers' room in them (in Celadon for example)

Or just a "actual animal sounds" SFX pack. That works, too.

 

[professor plum]

absolutely. it's 2024 lmao. it was so cringy watching certain scenes in recent games (PIERS!!!!!!!!!!!) without any sort of voice acting.

 

[NipahRika]

absolutely. it's 2024 lmao. it was so cringy watching certain scenes in recent games (PIERS!!!!!!!!!!!) without any sort of voice acting.

Agree. Was so awful.. uugh

 

[Weasel D. Garp]

I agree with @Venia Silente - I'd much rather have voices for the Pokémon than the people. For one thing they have a lot more interesting things to say. I remember in one of the generations they changed Pikachu's cry to actually saying, 'Pikachu' rather than the noise he's had from the beginning. I noticed they've changed it back in Scarlet and Violet. I miss it.

I remember playing the older games, and it would give text for a Pokémon's cry which sounds like it does in the anime, but when you actually hear their cry in the game it sounds nothing like that.

 

[ReKoil]

I don't expect it to happen and given we're talking about GF am also not sure I want it.
Piers' 'singing' was awkward as heck yea, and voice acting would've been nice, but... no voice acting might actually be better than bad voice acting tbh.