That version of Symphony actually had the voices redone. The PSP got a remake of Rondo of Blood and Symphony, complete with new voice overs, was included as a bonus.
Maybe this is a hot take, but I would not call that an Oscar worthy performance. He has a nice voice, but the flow of speech is kinda awkward and unnatural. It's not so bad that it's cringey and uncomfortable to listen to like many of the other examples but it isn't peak performance either
That’s on the editor, not the VA. The voice actors make mistakes all the time, that’s why there’s different takes. And usually you’re supposed to edit those out. But this is Oblivion we’re talking about.
The WHATAMIFIGHTINGFOOOOOORRR!!!??? scene still gets me over 20 years later. I think that game literally had Japanese people doing the voice acting though...in English. Listen to the Mega Man 8 cutscenes and well...damn.
Mega Man 8 had unintentional dialogue flubs in its animated scenes, and they were left in. Both had American ex-patriates in the cast, except for the voice of Roll (in Mega Man 8) and Iris (in Mega Man X4), who was Australian.
The Oblivion dialogue is so disjointed because they gave the voice actors their lines in alphabetical order, so they didn't really know the context of anything they were saying.
That’s what I thought too. Slippys voice fit the character, and most lines were decently made. I personally wouldn’t classify Slippys voice acting as bad.
A lot of early 90’s games had bad voice acting due to the actors getting little to no context of the scene or character. They were basically just given the script and told to read the lines.
Nah, that's not the entire truth. That's only a half-truth. In most situations, the voice actors should have been intelligent enough to assume the sort of emotion they should be going for based on the script they're reading. For example, it's obvious if their character is in a dangerous, life-threatening situation based on the script. If their character is shocked, surprised, sad, angry, etc it should be pretty obvious based on the script they are reading. So yeah, it IS the fault of the voice actor too. The reason for horrible 90s voice acting is due to the fact that video games weren't a mainstream industry like they are now. Voice actors for games didn't get any sort of respect or recognition. They got very little pay. And many in the entertainment industry viewed working on video games to be 'beneath them'. Doing voice work in video games was seen as the work of failed, washed up actors and actresses who can't get work anywhere else. It was VERY DIFFERENT from how video game voice actors are treated nowadays. So, back in the 90s, video game voice actors simply had no incentive to work hard or be passionate. It was a quick and easy pay check to them. They didn't give a shit about the game or giving a good performance. The opposite from modern video game voice actors.
I still love the oblivion one where you can hear the voice actress say:"wait let me do that again", my main issue with bad voice acting if the voice just doesnt sound like the person youre seeing 😂
Yeah, that's jarring. There's been times when playing games when a black NPC character had a voice actor that was clearly white; and the other way around, a nerdy white character but the voice actor sounds like a big black dude lol
My dad likes watching foreign netflix movies with english dub i find it completely unbearable its melodramatic line reading and no attempt to sound ethnic they cant even get ethnic english speakers to at least add realism to the accent.
Shenmue's dub was produced entirely in Japan with whoever was available. The Monkey Ball announcer said it was "all hands on deck" for all English language voiceover personnel he knew.
Sometimes really really bad writing and direction can destroy a good voice actor. There exist amazing voice actors that are given lines or direction in a scenario that are just terrible.
I think there are like 3 or 4 entries on this list that used the same English voice actors living in Japan in the 90s. I think Konami and Sega regularly used some of the same people (who weren't always credited because they were almost treated like movie extras at the time).
I remember coming across an interview with one of the voice actors from the original Resident Evil. Pablo (the original voice of Wesker) said there wasn't a director on set to guide the VAs on how the characters were supposed to sound. And the VAs were only given summaries of their respective characters' personalities and traits.
I feel like the voice acting wasn't the problem sometimes, rather it was the clunky animations games had back then. The characters would barely even move while the actors were doing the most exaggerated voices ever.
I'd have to disagree about the voice acting in the Saints Row reboot supposedly being bad. It's not the voice actors, it's the writing. The VAs did a fine job.
@@noodlepotrealI think you're missing the point here. The game was bad, and maybe the dialogue wasn't good, but it was mostly the writing than the VA's. Trust me, I know some of the Voice actors of this game that played other roles, and they're pretty good. Of course if you don't understand what I'm saying or still disagree, then I'll leave it you, nothing more.
I had this video on for background noise and physically had to stop what I was doing when you said Jared “weird for the sake of weird” Leto was the best Joker like Heath Ledger never existed. That was a very hot take.
A lot of Halo creators have been trying to expand, but I really appreciate the direction you took. A lot of them thought to pursue other specific shooters but I prefer more arcade-like games rather than competitive games. You guys took to expand your direction to multiple games rather than go a different direction like specifically Call of Duty and I enjoy and appreciate them a ton.
The voice acting for the NBA game sounds EXACTLY like when my teachers in school called on a random person to read a passage from the book out loud. That's the voice of someone that doesn't know the content and is only focused on saying the words. There's no tonal variation, no emotion, no regard for the natural flow of speech, just words being read one after the other. This is why you can't just pluck someone off the street, hand them a script, and expect them to be able to perform well without coaching and a lot of practice. Voice acting is about so much more than just saying the words you see. I'm not a voice actor but I can get a good idea of what a line was intended to sound like from the context of a game and within a scene, and it's incredibly jarring when the voice actor completely misses the mark. I feel like a lot of voice acting flops would be helped by having more communication between the script writers and the performers. Nobody knows how a line was intended to sound better than the people that wrote the line in the first place, and I feel like there should be a lot more of writers stepping in and saying hey man, that's not quite what I was intending for this scene, can we try it again? Some of these people need some tough love. We need a Gordon Ramsay for the voice acting world to step in and tell people what they're doing wrong and how to fix it so awful voice acting doesn't take away from otherwise great games
What about Legend of Dragoon’s voice acting? Despite it being a good game in terms of gameplay, story, graphics, soundtrack and characters, the voice acting is some of the worst I’ve experienced in this game. When Rose said, “Oh it cannot be!” When she found out that her ex fiancee was alive as well as Dart discovering that his dad was alive, I started laughing because of how bad that line delivery was.
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is a great game but it has some pretty bad voice acting in it, which is interesting because that wasn’t the case in the first game. It’s almost like they had budget cuts so programmers became voice actors too.
You really missed the best audio clip from House of the Dead 2. It happens right after you leave the church in the first level. Victim: "Nooo, Ahhh..... I Don't Want To Die." P1: My God.
11:06 as a head of the shenmue communities i can confirm our cult following is still real strong decades later! Thank you for talking about Shenmue! Awesome video as always!
House of the Dead 2, with the "How could anyone do this?" 2 times, in the first couple of minutes, really set the tone, for how bad the voice acting was going to be
they've definitely gotten better with video game voice acting. I got in the running for the PlayStation exclusive Kena Bridge of Spirits as the instructor she runs into that teaches her how to use her powers in the game. I made it to the final round of picks, but I was beat out by someone who had WAY more experience than me lol. Probably for the best, but I do get to say I was in the running lmao!
Plot twist: they just told everyone who auditioned they were "runner ups" I mean... did they actually set up a bracket and have you all compete in person, over the course of multiple rounds? It's possible(and would disprove the first sentence here), but holy shit that sounds like an unnecessary waste of time when they could just have each audition try a few times and pick the one they want.
How do you accuse Kingdom Hearts of bad voice acting among the side characters, use a scene from 358/2 with only the main characters and stellar emotional performance, a fine enough scene from 2 where kid characters act like kids, yet don't bring up Aerith from 2? Like Kingdom Hearts has some very bad voice acting in it, but you somehow only chose good moments?
I couldn't believe how bad Aerith was in that game. Mandy Moore did perfectly fine in KH1, but then they decided to get the same actress from Advent Children for some reason. I have heard unpaid amateurs that could do a performance miles better than that trash.
@@noodlepotreal Even if SOTN has “bad” voice acting, the original performances are charmingly bad. The ones Rocket Sloth showed are the updated ones which aren’t the worst but lack the charm of the original in my opinion I just don’t like how he framed them as the original voices when they’re not
The saddest part of Slippy in Starfox 64 is that the compression algorithms used to store the voice files played the actress DIRTY. If you listen to the uncompressed voice linea from the Nintendo Leak, she did an amazing job. In fact they all did.
D4 was so fucking good, i will never forgive Swery for deciding to abandon another chapter to then make that pile of shit Deadly Premonition 2, also has one of the best theme songs ive ever heard in a game, its so fucking good
@@coreycasciano3255 Oh yeah, I won't deny I did enjoy some of Deadly Premonition 2 but it was still a major disappointment in my eyes and I would have much rather he had finished D4. And yes, the D4 theme is one of my favorites, it's very good!
Ring terror realms on the deamcast. There's a cutscene at the start where a concerned neighbour rushes over to the scene of an accident that is glorious. Then pretty much anything from Blue Stinger.
My god, Trevor has gotta be the most unappealing character in all of fiction! Not because of any of the antisocial stuff. If nothing else that's the good part but all the nonstop whining. The incessant defensiveness. He both behaves like he doesn't care what people think and talks about nothing else. For someone intended to be so tough he's so fucking weak and fragile. When you long for the momentary relief of him r*ping and murdering you know you've created a broken character. And he's the best of the three! Gta5 will undoubtedly be remembered as the worst entry.
6:17 That's where the "YOU MUST DIE!" meme came from... Naw, the KH voicing acting was fine in each game that had it. Yes there were some cringe voice moments, but they were quickly overshadowed if the player enjoys them. 30:47 lmao! My good chap, how could you not add the terrible voice acting for Megaman when you showed Megaman 4 and the terrible voice acting for Zero and Axel for Megaman 7?
Bro, you can't insult "Jill Sandwich" like that! It's a perfect line beloved by RE fans old and new. Even to the point it kept getting referenced in future RE games.
Cheesy or over-the-top voice acting can be great fun, and I think I may have a higher tolerance than many for "bad" voice-acting if it works within the medium. There are even a couple in this video where I went, "Ah, I don't have a problem with this." But man, does it infuriate me when the actor doesn't even try. When they're not acting by any stretch of the imagination, just reciting the lines off the page like a first-grader learning to read. I hadn't seen or heard of NBA 2k15 before this video, but jeez... I think that pisses me off not only because some of the players-turned-actors clearly didn't have enough respect for their fans to make even the most minimal of efforts, but at least on a surface level it supports false, vile stereotypes about athletes and intellectual or artistic ability. And I cannot and will not believe anyone who hasn't received a lobotomy is incapable of giving a better performance than some of those guys did. I guess for me it boils down to "if a job is worth doing, it's worth doing right." And that holds true whether you're an amateur or a trained professional at that job. Thank goodness at least a couple of them seemed to believe in that maxim enough to sound reasonably natural.
So the version they showed of SOTN was not the original version. Now SOTN is one of my favorite games ever...but oh god the voice acting. Also fun fact, the original PS1 release voice actor for Richter Belmont is the same as Chris Redfield for PS1.
After playing The Devil In Me, the redhead and black guy are supposed to sound American, when they sound Dutch or Swedish. The lesbian characters sound fine, but the love birds sound so odd and it’s distracting.
One thing that many early games with voice acting samples didn't understand is the importance of foley. Without it, voice acting sounds really bad and cringey. There's also at least one modern game that completely lacks foley in its cutscenes. It's considered one of the worst games ever made.
Sonic adventure was a clear example of voice actors having no context to what was happening. If you compare Ryan Drummond with sonic adventure and sonic heroes it’s obvious he got context in sonic heroes
I like the topic but it would be better if the video had a bit more structure, e.g. having the first half dedicated to the best of voice acting and the second half to the worst. Also looking at the games in chronological order would help to show how voice acting evolved and make it feel less chaotic and all over the place. I appreciate the effort that went into this video though and just think that improving on these points would really help take it to the next level.
I believe a special mention should be thrown out towards every game published by Phoenix Games. Especially Dalmatians 3. Hoo boy that voice acting reeks of ass.
Most of the Voice Acting in Persona 3 is great, but there are some characters that just don’t sound natural, I thought maybe it would be in the list but it’s not terribly bad, just not great
This has to be the best video on this topic yet. It's long enough, covers plenty of examples both popular and deep cuts, and ofc goes right ahead with NBA2k15 with is imo the pinnacle of bad videogame voice acting altogether.
Wrong. It's more along the lines of bad direction, as opposed to writing. Take Sonic Adventure for example, the direction is whack, but the things they're saying and the context therein makes perfect sense despite that.
The SOTN clips are from a redub Konami did for the PSP, this version being the one in Requiem for PS4. It's not bad at all, you're thinking of the original dub from the PS1 version (not that the PSP performances are fantastic or anything).
Horizon Zero Dawn had a weird thing going on where about half of the cutscenes had at least one line that made me go "So that's the take you went with?"
Heavy Rain was the first game to actually have your choices matter as well, with many different endings. Ethan, Madison, and Scott have the best acting in them, if not some stilted lines due to gameplay. But the Oragamy, instead of Origami and my personal issue Idear instead of Idea, meaning most of the bad voice acting is just actors from the uk not having a great grasp on how to say certain words is why there are bad moments (I assume Sean being bad, since he’s not just speaking a new accent, but is a kid doing it). And Resident Evil’s is due to translation, the time, and lack of context. The Japanese subtitles in their version has much more context last in the original tracks. But it was one of the first, so people should give it a bit of a pass. I know the game ObsCure (2): The Aftermath has some crappy voice acting, minus Amy’s and Mei’s voice actresses, where as the original ObsCure just didn’t have tons of voice dialogue for them to make a big impact, but was saved by veteran actors in some early roles.
For the heavy rain, you mean in the style we have in western cinematic story games, right? Cuz different choices lead to different endings has been a thing in all types of RPGs and visual novels whole thing since the 90s o3o The OG text based adventure story games were also basically that too, their whole thing is making choices and seeing what happens o3o
@@sakuraorihime3374 Yeah, I should have said in games that are like this, because I did forget RPGs do that. More in the movie like games, like Until Dawn, Heavy Rain, those types of games (pick your own adventure games like TaleTell games too). Horror games like Resident Evil 3, ObsCure, and most notably, Silent Hill had done them too, prior to Heavy Rain. I just forgot. Most people say Until Dawn started the multiple endings in these movie like games, dissing Life Is Strange and Walking Dead games, but Heavy Rain had multiple endings before any of those games came out.
It always annoyed me but I just accepted and figured that I was never supposed to like Tails as much as sonic. I was also like 8 so I didn't really care. Slippy though. I hate that frog
It's fine, but just "fine". Best voice in Sonic Adventure goes to Knuckles hands down, immediately followed by Eggman and Gamma (yes, the robot sounds more life-like than the others lmao) Tails and Big are the worst, but Tails has the worst delivery of the two.
It's been 21 years since I first played Kingdom Hearts and I don't think I have ever heard one of the cutscenes from the games and thought that anyone had bad voice acting in it. Maybe it's just me but idk about that example.
Funny thing about Chaos Wars. None of the people providing voices were professionals in any sense of the word. They were all comprised of staff, as well as friends and family of said staff. The game was published by 0-3 Entertainment and it was released in 2006, with it being their last game before shutting down. And considering when it released (The Great Recession), it's likely the decision to use friends, family, and staff was because the studio had no money to hire professionals. And if you want to see BAD in that game? Look at Tonaty's cutscene.
"God bless you, and god bless the United States of America." That's pretty funny, Ive only heard people/presidents say "God bless you, and god bless America."
My fav bad voice acting was in the 6th Harry Potter game where belatrix laughs like a gremlin on meth and runs into the tall grass and hermione stops harry from chasing her and he says "she KiLled SEriOuS" as if he stepped in dog shit as he said it. XD
19:42 don't worry, we got used to that like 20 years ago. Also it's funny how you mentioned Megaman 8 and X4 but forgot about X7. I thought it would be your first pick, since X7 was so well received.
Those were by Frontier Enterprises, which also did films and TV series. Its last game was Operation Winback, or Winback: Covert Operations (in North America).
![The Worst Voice Acting In Video Games [Bumbles McFumbles]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/F7uodKFMyFQ/mqdefault.jpg)
The best part is that 2K probably paid a fortune to schedule in so many NBA players and the end result arguably should've been scrapped entirely.
Basketball players are all stupid. They really talk like that and probably couldn't read a script
If not scrapped, at least competently directed. The result that was produced is an embarrassment to the NBA players and an insult to the audience.
I hear nothing wrong with Slippy's VA performance.
"Castlevania has bad voice acting"
*proceeds to show an Oscar worthy performance that actually sounds insane*
People act like it's bad but it's actually really good.
That version of Symphony actually had the voices redone. The PSP got a remake of Rondo of Blood and Symphony, complete with new voice overs, was included as a bonus.
Maybe this is a hot take, but I would not call that an Oscar worthy performance. He has a nice voice, but the flow of speech is kinda awkward and unnatural. It's not so bad that it's cringey and uncomfortable to listen to like many of the other examples but it isn't peak performance either
Oscar worthy is a huge exaggeration but it sounded clearly better than the rest of this video
Castlevania sucks ass 💀
You forgot Oblivion's "Wait a minute. Let me try that again".
That’s on the editor, not the VA. The voice actors make mistakes all the time, that’s why there’s different takes. And usually you’re supposed to edit those out. But this is Oblivion we’re talking about.
When good voice actors sound weird its usually the directors fault
Exactly.
The WHATAMIFIGHTINGFOOOOOORRR!!!??? scene still gets me over 20 years later. I think that game literally had Japanese people doing the voice acting though...in English. Listen to the Mega Man 8 cutscenes and well...damn.
Mega Man 8 had unintentional dialogue flubs in its animated scenes, and they were left in. Both had American ex-patriates in the cast, except for the voice of Roll (in Mega Man 8) and Iris (in Mega Man X4), who was Australian.
The Oblivion dialogue is so disjointed because they gave the voice actors their lines in alphabetical order, so they didn't really know the context of anything they were saying.
Slippy definitely isn’t bad voice acting. I think it totally fits the character and the somewhat childish/annoying voice is intentional
Slippy is 100% perfect
That’s what I thought too. Slippys voice fit the character, and most lines were decently made. I personally wouldn’t classify Slippys voice acting as bad.
It matches his flying and battling innefective and needy. But ive always got my boy slips back i need my enemy shields analyzed!
A lot of early 90’s games had bad voice acting due to the actors getting little to no context of the scene or character. They were basically just given the script and told to read the lines.
Even more just used random staff members to perform the voices instead of paying extra people.
Unfortunately, this still does happen from time to time.
Say that to policenauts and MegaMan battle network on DS
Nah, that's not the entire truth. That's only a half-truth. In most situations, the voice actors should have been intelligent enough to assume the sort of emotion they should be going for based on the script they're reading. For example, it's obvious if their character is in a dangerous, life-threatening situation based on the script. If their character is shocked, surprised, sad, angry, etc it should be pretty obvious based on the script they are reading. So yeah, it IS the fault of the voice actor too.
The reason for horrible 90s voice acting is due to the fact that video games weren't a mainstream industry like they are now. Voice actors for games didn't get any sort of respect or recognition. They got very little pay. And many in the entertainment industry viewed working on video games to be 'beneath them'. Doing voice work in video games was seen as the work of failed, washed up actors and actresses who can't get work anywhere else. It was VERY DIFFERENT from how video game voice actors are treated nowadays. So, back in the 90s, video game voice actors simply had no incentive to work hard or be passionate. It was a quick and easy pay check to them. They didn't give a shit about the game or giving a good performance. The opposite from modern video game voice actors.
Yakuza 1 for the PS2 had a bad translation that affected the acting but had great actors like Mark Hamill on board.
@@BandicootGames32XMichael Rosenbaum was pretty decent as Nishiki too.
I still love the oblivion one where you can hear the voice actress say:"wait let me do that again", my main issue with bad voice acting if the voice just doesnt sound like the person youre seeing 😂
Yeah, that's jarring. There's been times when playing games when a black NPC character had a voice actor that was clearly white; and the other way around, a nerdy white character but the voice actor sounds like a big black dude lol
My dad likes watching foreign netflix movies with english dub i find it completely unbearable its melodramatic line reading and no attempt to sound ethnic they cant even get ethnic english speakers to at least add realism to the accent.
Shemues terrible voice acting is part of its charm, the game will always have a deep place in my heart and childhood
I don't think they were that bad. The main cast is pretty good They definitely got better in the second one. Except for joy...
Man oblivion's voice acting was spot on, the games behavior was just clunky and unnatural a few times. Real actors and great line delivery.
Bugs, bugs everywhere, wonderful tasty bugs. No time for you, speak to Ravel. He doesn't like the bugs, not even with mead.
😂
Shenmue's dub was produced entirely in Japan with whoever was available. The Monkey Ball announcer said it was "all hands on deck" for all English language voiceover personnel he knew.
Yeah, they literally got any Japanese person who could speak English. I think they even went for people who looked like the characters in game
Incredible how iconic it turned out. I'm not a big gamer but I'll always remember Shenmue. Particularly for the voice acting 😂
Japanese voices are so much better in shenmue
You should've included Spiderman 2..
Doc Ock: "I'm taking this old lady."
Spiderman: "no."
The voice acting on those games is hilarious. Toby Maguire sounds like he is just so fully done with it in every line 😂
@@-Teague- he sounds like poe reacting to the fact that somehow palpatine returned
@@virtualbison6928 LOL
Sometimes really really bad writing and direction can destroy a good voice actor. There exist amazing voice actors that are given lines or direction in a scenario that are just terrible.
I think there are like 3 or 4 entries on this list that used the same English voice actors living in Japan in the 90s. I think Konami and Sega regularly used some of the same people (who weren't always credited because they were almost treated like movie extras at the time).
I remember coming across an interview with one of the voice actors from the original Resident Evil. Pablo (the original voice of Wesker) said there wasn't a director on set to guide the VAs on how the characters were supposed to sound. And the VAs were only given summaries of their respective characters' personalities and traits.
I feel like the voice acting wasn't the problem sometimes, rather it was the clunky animations games had back then. The characters would barely even move while the actors were doing the most exaggerated voices ever.
Or the opposite, lol. In resident evil the characters would do like 10 poses between every voice line
I'd have to disagree about the voice acting in the Saints Row reboot supposedly being bad. It's not the voice actors, it's the writing. The VAs did a fine job.
True
Both sucked. I dont get why people dont just admit that their favourite games have bad voice acting
@@noodlepotrealI think you're missing the point here. The game was bad, and maybe the dialogue wasn't good, but it was mostly the writing than the VA's. Trust me, I know some of the Voice actors of this game that played other roles, and they're pretty good. Of course if you don't understand what I'm saying or still disagree, then I'll leave it you, nothing more.
Right is always the writing
I had this video on for background noise and physically had to stop what I was doing when you said Jared “weird for the sake of weird” Leto was the best Joker like Heath Ledger never existed. That was a very hot take.
Only true Shenmue fans will understand the perfection of Ryo's voice.
I see...
Honestly, out of every bad voice acting he listed in his video, I still think the NBA 2K15 is the worst one overall
A lot of Halo creators have been trying to expand, but I really appreciate the direction you took. A lot of them thought to pursue other specific shooters but I prefer more arcade-like games rather than competitive games. You guys took to expand your direction to multiple games rather than go a different direction like specifically Call of Duty and I enjoy and appreciate them a ton.
Slippy sounds like how someone with that name ought to.
You keep on lovin' Slippy, bud. Stay strong.
Megan Fox in Mortal Kombat is a hate crime against my ears.
2:15 No excuse. Metal Gear Solid was also in the 90's and also by Japan and that voice acting was IMPECCABLE
Exactly what I was thinking! By Konami as well!
The voice acting for the NBA game sounds EXACTLY like when my teachers in school called on a random person to read a passage from the book out loud. That's the voice of someone that doesn't know the content and is only focused on saying the words. There's no tonal variation, no emotion, no regard for the natural flow of speech, just words being read one after the other. This is why you can't just pluck someone off the street, hand them a script, and expect them to be able to perform well without coaching and a lot of practice. Voice acting is about so much more than just saying the words you see.
I'm not a voice actor but I can get a good idea of what a line was intended to sound like from the context of a game and within a scene, and it's incredibly jarring when the voice actor completely misses the mark. I feel like a lot of voice acting flops would be helped by having more communication between the script writers and the performers. Nobody knows how a line was intended to sound better than the people that wrote the line in the first place, and I feel like there should be a lot more of writers stepping in and saying hey man, that's not quite what I was intending for this scene, can we try it again? Some of these people need some tough love. We need a Gordon Ramsay for the voice acting world to step in and tell people what they're doing wrong and how to fix it so awful voice acting doesn't take away from otherwise great games
Bad writing =/= bad voice acting. At least half the examples here are just bad writing or bad pacing, rather than actual bad voice acting.
What about Legend of Dragoon’s voice acting? Despite it being a good game in terms of gameplay, story, graphics, soundtrack and characters, the voice acting is some of the worst I’ve experienced in this game. When Rose said, “Oh it cannot be!” When she found out that her ex fiancee was alive as well as Dart discovering that his dad was alive, I started laughing because of how bad that line delivery was.
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is a great game but it has some pretty bad voice acting in it, which is interesting because that wasn’t the case in the first game. It’s almost like they had budget cuts so programmers became voice actors too.
You really missed the best audio clip from House of the Dead 2. It happens right after you leave the church in the first level. Victim: "Nooo, Ahhh..... I Don't Want To Die." P1: My God.
"DON'T КILL ME!"
Some of the best and memorable voice acting was in Legacy of Kain series. Especially Soul Reaver.
I agree. I suppose it helped that they had veteran voice actors like Tony Jay and Michael Bell.
Yesss!! It was the first game that had voiceovers, where the acting drew me into the games story lines!
Sloppy was my favorite too. Autocorrect changed that from Slippy and I’m keeping it.
Hunt down the freeman had "The aliens are coming" from Pyrocynical
Best voice acted line in all gaming history
I know next to nothing about Megaman, but that Megaman 8 performance is such a classic. I quote the "thats a good kwestion" occasionally
11:06 as a head of the shenmue communities i can confirm our cult following is still real strong decades later! Thank you for talking about Shenmue! Awesome video as always!
I always thought the voice acting worked in shenmue it sounds like an old dubbed kung-fu movie.
Been a fan of shenmue since it came out, I hope they give it a proper conclusion.
House of the Dead 2, with the "How could anyone do this?" 2 times, in the first couple of minutes, really set the tone, for how bad the voice acting was going to be
"What's wrong with this city?"
@@s.bakyhnh1756 "How Could anyone do this?"
they've definitely gotten better with video game voice acting. I got in the running for the PlayStation exclusive Kena Bridge of Spirits as the instructor she runs into that teaches her how to use her powers in the game. I made it to the final round of picks, but I was beat out by someone who had WAY more experience than me lol. Probably for the best, but I do get to say I was in the running lmao!
Plot twist: they just told everyone who auditioned they were "runner ups"
I mean... did they actually set up a bracket and have you all compete in person, over the course of multiple rounds?
It's possible(and would disprove the first sentence here), but holy shit that sounds like an unnecessary waste of time when they could just have each audition try a few times and pick the one they want.
@@nignamedmutt7270Why did you feel the need to analyze this comment so deeply? They included so little detail but you extrapolated so much from it...
Shenmue with good voice acting would make the game worse.
Exactly 👌
Put some respect on Slippy's name he was awesome.
Edit: I see you're a man of culture, my mistake.
How do you accuse Kingdom Hearts of bad voice acting among the side characters, use a scene from 358/2 with only the main characters and stellar emotional performance, a fine enough scene from 2 where kid characters act like kids, yet don't bring up Aerith from 2? Like Kingdom Hearts has some very bad voice acting in it, but you somehow only chose good moments?
I couldn't believe how bad Aerith was in that game. Mandy Moore did perfectly fine in KH1, but then they decided to get the same actress from Advent Children for some reason. I have heard unpaid amateurs that could do a performance miles better than that trash.
>Castlevania has bad voice acting
>Shows the PSP remaster voices and passes them off as the original games’ voices
Castlevania does have bad voice acting though, why cant people admit that good games have bad voice acting?
@@noodlepotreal Even if SOTN has “bad” voice acting, the original performances are charmingly bad. The ones Rocket Sloth showed are the updated ones which aren’t the worst but lack the charm of the original in my opinion
I just don’t like how he framed them as the original voices when they’re not
The saddest part of Slippy in Starfox 64 is that the compression algorithms used to store the voice files played the actress DIRTY. If you listen to the uncompressed voice linea from the Nintendo Leak, she did an amazing job. In fact they all did.
good video but slippy is not annoying! yeah his voice acting is a bit weird in sf64 but the VA they gave him in sf assault is really good!
No excuse to not include Animal Soccer World. So many other UA-cam videos have ranked it the worst. I was literally waiting to hear your take on it!
I'd say they actually have an excuse, what with Dingo Pictures being pretty low budget and all. Now, AAA studios TRULY have no excuses.
this was the first time I've seen a clip of the saint's row reboot where the player character wasn't an inhuman monstrosity or Shrek or something.
I’d take more Slippy VO over the voice acting of NBA 2K15
D4 only having one chapter is a crime. I wish Swery couldve finished it.
Also, you need to check out the original PS2 release of Castle Shikigami 2. Bad VA Hall of Fame material there.
D4 was so fucking good, i will never forgive Swery for deciding to abandon another chapter to then make that pile of shit Deadly Premonition 2, also has one of the best theme songs ive ever heard in a game, its so fucking good
@@coreycasciano3255 Oh yeah, I won't deny I did enjoy some of Deadly Premonition 2 but it was still a major disappointment in my eyes and I would have much rather he had finished D4. And yes, the D4 theme is one of my favorites, it's very good!
"Sometimes my vision goes black. And I can't see anything. Help me." 😆
Ring terror realms on the deamcast. There's a cutscene at the start where a concerned neighbour rushes over to the scene of an accident that is glorious. Then pretty much anything from Blue Stinger.
The NBA voice acting sounds drunk.
My god, Trevor has gotta be the most unappealing character in all of fiction! Not because of any of the antisocial stuff. If nothing else that's the good part but all the nonstop whining. The incessant defensiveness. He both behaves like he doesn't care what people think and talks about nothing else. For someone intended to be so tough he's so fucking weak and fragile. When you long for the momentary relief of him r*ping and murdering you know you've created a broken character. And he's the best of the three! Gta5 will undoubtedly be remembered as the worst entry.
Playing Two Worlds after looking into it being called the “Oblivion Killer” definitely gave a shock. I knew it didn’t kill Oblivion, but still 😭
I have a theory that playing Oblivion for too long can make you go crazy, especially if you get tired and just kind of zone out somewhere in the city.
6:17 That's where the "YOU MUST DIE!" meme came from...
Naw, the KH voicing acting was fine in each game that had it. Yes there were some cringe voice moments, but they were quickly overshadowed if the player enjoys them.
30:47 lmao!
My good chap, how could you not add the terrible voice acting for Megaman when you showed Megaman 4 and the terrible voice acting for Zero and Axel for Megaman 7?
Tails just straight up, sounds like chowder
Bro, you can't insult "Jill Sandwich" like that! It's a perfect line beloved by RE fans old and new. Even to the point it kept getting referenced in future RE games.
It's really powerful, especially against living things!
If you want some bad acting I would recommend looking at fan dubs, because it’s either good or awful.
Slippy is an icon
true that
oblivion is the gift that keep on giving.
Hey! That duck noise at 7:50 is the same one DonutOperator uses to censor out the sound of arms being fired!
Gaps between dialogue lines can also make the delivery seem worse than it is.
Cheesy or over-the-top voice acting can be great fun, and I think I may have a higher tolerance than many for "bad" voice-acting if it works within the medium. There are even a couple in this video where I went, "Ah, I don't have a problem with this."
But man, does it infuriate me when the actor doesn't even try. When they're not acting by any stretch of the imagination, just reciting the lines off the page like a first-grader learning to read. I hadn't seen or heard of NBA 2k15 before this video, but jeez... I think that pisses me off not only because some of the players-turned-actors clearly didn't have enough respect for their fans to make even the most minimal of efforts, but at least on a surface level it supports false, vile stereotypes about athletes and intellectual or artistic ability. And I cannot and will not believe anyone who hasn't received a lobotomy is incapable of giving a better performance than some of those guys did.
I guess for me it boils down to "if a job is worth doing, it's worth doing right." And that holds true whether you're an amateur or a trained professional at that job. Thank goodness at least a couple of them seemed to believe in that maxim enough to sound reasonably natural.
ROBOT ALCHEMIC DRIVE!
I PLAYED THE DEMO OF THAT GAME SO MANY TIMES! I'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR IT FOR SO LONG THANK YOU FOR FINDING IT!
So the version they showed of SOTN was not the original version. Now SOTN is one of my favorite games ever...but oh god the voice acting. Also fun fact, the original PS1 release voice actor for Richter Belmont is the same as Chris Redfield for PS1.
i keep forgetting RE1 had 2 casts for the characters. i was thinking Scott McCulloch was his live action actor for a second there.
Chaos Wars (PS2) makes 2K sound like it was done by professional thespians.
I read the title as most voice acting in video games lol
Shenmue 1 2 and 3 are a great game franchise and are fun to play but yeah the voice acting was kinda bad
Its part of the games charm, will always have a special place in my heart
@@coreycasciano3255 same my dad played it in middle and high school and then passed it down to me
After playing The Devil In Me, the redhead and black guy are supposed to sound American, when they sound Dutch or Swedish. The lesbian characters sound fine, but the love birds sound so odd and it’s distracting.
I reported your comment due to racism and sexism.
@@voltairearouet1374 I highly doubt that…you need to know what your talking a bit first…I see nothing racist nor sexist in what I said.
One thing that many early games with voice acting samples didn't understand is the importance of foley. Without it, voice acting sounds really bad and cringey.
There's also at least one modern game that completely lacks foley in its cutscenes. It's considered one of the worst games ever made.
Sonic adventure was a clear example of voice actors having no context to what was happening. If you compare Ryan Drummond with sonic adventure and sonic heroes it’s obvious he got context in sonic heroes
Brisco from Michigan: Report From Hell.
That is all.
YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH ABOUT ZELDA CDi, THAT VO WAS PEAK
i thought RAD was a fever dream i had as a kid. i have been searching for years to find and replay it THANK YOU!
I like the topic but it would be better if the video had a bit more structure, e.g. having the first half dedicated to the best of voice acting and the second half to the worst. Also looking at the games in chronological order would help to show how voice acting evolved and make it feel less chaotic and all over the place. I appreciate the effort that went into this video though and just think that improving on these points would really help take it to the next level.
I believe a special mention should be thrown out towards every game published by Phoenix Games. Especially Dalmatians 3. Hoo boy that voice acting reeks of ass.
You mean every Dingo Pictures movie?
@@juliannocartagena2007 Well, yeah. I guess.
Most of the Voice Acting in Persona 3 is great, but there are some characters that just don’t sound natural, I thought maybe it would be in the list but it’s not terribly bad, just not great
This has to be the best video on this topic yet. It's long enough, covers plenty of examples both popular and deep cuts, and ofc goes right ahead with NBA2k15 with is imo the pinnacle of bad videogame voice acting altogether.
That NBA one is like that scene from Rocky 2 where he tries to do the advert.
Some of these arent really bad Voice acting, just weird writing
Just admit your favourite games have bad acting, most of us are able to admit that
@noodlepotreal Just admit that not everything people say is Cringe, except for you
@@Cthulhu1991 ? Butthurt over hearing the truth? Silly goose
Wrong.
It's more along the lines of bad direction, as opposed to writing.
Take Sonic Adventure for example, the direction is whack, but the things they're saying and the context therein makes perfect sense despite that.
Heavy Rain's voice acting MADE ME LAUGH so hard
The SOTN clips are from a redub Konami did for the PSP, this version being the one in Requiem for PS4. It's not bad at all, you're thinking of the original dub from the PS1 version (not that the PSP performances are fantastic or anything).
Horizon Zero Dawn had a weird thing going on where about half of the cutscenes had at least one line that made me go "So that's the take you went with?"
Heavy Rain was the first game to actually have your choices matter as well, with many different endings. Ethan, Madison, and Scott have the best acting in them, if not some stilted lines due to gameplay. But the Oragamy, instead of Origami and my personal issue Idear instead of Idea, meaning most of the bad voice acting is just actors from the uk not having a great grasp on how to say certain words is why there are bad moments (I assume Sean being bad, since he’s not just speaking a new accent, but is a kid doing it).
And Resident Evil’s is due to translation, the time, and lack of context. The Japanese subtitles in their version has much more context last in the original tracks. But it was one of the first, so people should give it a bit of a pass.
I know the game ObsCure (2): The Aftermath has some crappy voice acting, minus Amy’s and Mei’s voice actresses, where as the original ObsCure just didn’t have tons of voice dialogue for them to make a big impact, but was saved by veteran actors in some early roles.
For the heavy rain, you mean in the style we have in western cinematic story games, right?
Cuz different choices lead to different endings has been a thing in all types of RPGs and visual novels whole thing since the 90s o3o
The OG text based adventure story games were also basically that too, their whole thing is making choices and seeing what happens o3o
@@sakuraorihime3374 Yeah, I should have said in games that are like this, because I did forget RPGs do that. More in the movie like games, like Until Dawn, Heavy Rain, those types of games (pick your own adventure games like TaleTell games too).
Horror games like Resident Evil 3, ObsCure, and most notably, Silent Hill had done them too, prior to Heavy Rain. I just forgot.
Most people say Until Dawn started the multiple endings in these movie like games, dissing Life Is Strange and Walking Dead games, but Heavy Rain had multiple endings before any of those games came out.
Hot take, but I personally think Tails' voice in Sonic Adventure is fine.
Juat admit your favourite game has bad voice actors man... the rest of us do
@@noodlepotreal I admire your courage to assume I even like that game in the first place.
@@Patolagos that was very "i think im the main character" of you
It always annoyed me but I just accepted and figured that I was never supposed to like Tails as much as sonic. I was also like 8 so I didn't really care.
Slippy though. I hate that frog
It's fine, but just "fine".
Best voice in Sonic Adventure goes to Knuckles hands down, immediately followed by Eggman and Gamma
(yes, the robot sounds more life-like than the others lmao) Tails and Big are the worst, but Tails has the worst delivery of the two.
It's been 21 years since I first played Kingdom Hearts and I don't think I have ever heard one of the cutscenes from the games and thought that anyone had bad voice acting in it. Maybe it's just me but idk about that example.
Bushido Blade 2, I remember having pretty bad voice acting.
Oblivion's dialogue might not have aged too well but it will never not be hilarious
Best voice acting is probably 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim, Valkyria Chronicles 4,Valeryrie profile,Xenoblade series,fire emblem series,Ape Escape series,Advance wars re-boot camp.
“I’m me he says” iconic just iconic
Funny thing about Chaos Wars. None of the people providing voices were professionals in any sense of the word. They were all comprised of staff, as well as friends and family of said staff. The game was published by 0-3 Entertainment and it was released in 2006, with it being their last game before shutting down. And considering when it released (The Great Recession), it's likely the decision to use friends, family, and staff was because the studio had no money to hire professionals. And if you want to see BAD in that game? Look at Tonaty's cutscene.
black ops 3 campaign was the first thing that came to my head
"God bless you, and god bless the United States of America."
That's pretty funny, Ive only heard people/presidents say "God bless you, and god bless America."
My fav bad voice acting was in the 6th Harry Potter game where belatrix laughs like a gremlin on meth and runs into the tall grass and hermione stops harry from chasing her and he says "she KiLled SEriOuS" as if he stepped in dog shit as he said it. XD
19:42 don't worry, we got used to that like 20 years ago.
Also it's funny how you mentioned Megaman 8 and X4 but forgot about X7. I thought it would be your first pick, since X7 was so well received.
House of the Dead 2!!!!! So glad it isn’t forgotten. My god the acting is priceless.
I remember my first time playing Oblivion. It was in a hot garage, and I overheated, lmao.
Ugh... But it's not too late! Sudou is still in that castle, he still has to do the dragon ritual, we haven't lost yet!
TurboGafx CD has a treasure trove of bad voice acting talent with Last Alert and Final Zone II being about the cream of the crap
Those were by Frontier Enterprises, which also did films and TV series. Its last game was Operation Winback, or Winback: Covert Operations (in North America).