Subs vs Dubs: Gaming Edition

[Gloves | 11,824]

For as long as I can remember I've been a huge fan of anime. I've watched with subtitles, and I've watched dubbed, and a lot of the time context is key, but I tend to prefer subs as the Japanese voice talent tends to be stronger overall. 

Video games for me, modern ones at the least, are often about immersing myself in a world. For me this aligns with the voiceovers in anime - it FEELS right to see characters speaking in what would be their native tongue. Ghost of Tsushima has some excellent immersion options which I applaud it for, and right now I'm playing through Plague Tale: Innocence with French voices. Happily I can understand a fair bit of French as a Canadian so that's been really nice. 

I'm curious if others here on VGS do the same, rather than having every game full of English speaking Japanese Samurai and the like? I especially love when a game has its own language, like Shadow of the Colossus. Any other noteworthy games for you which feature other languages well? 

[Brickman | 4,012]

I'm definitely in the camp of subs over dubs for anything I watch or play. A lot of the time the dub loses a lot of the feeling or are just absolutely terrible. A lot of anime has pretty bad English dubs unless you're watching something big name.

I play all my JRPG's in Japanese with English subs if that's an option.

Although I must admit that Spanish do a pretty good job of dubs, especially with English cartoons.

[Gloves | 11,824]

One of the first times I had the option of one or the other was Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children on DVD. I watched it in English as it was the default and one scene in particular I was like "that voice did not match that scene at all...". Rewatched later in Japanese and was blown away by the difference in emotion conveyed. It's not a great movie or anything but as a Final Fantasy fan it was something of a turning point for me with regard to sub vs dub. It was just so clear in that moment that one was just so far superior to the other and as English speakers we'd been getting kinda ripped off a lot of the time. 

The scene I'm referring to if you wanna whip out your own DVD copy to check in the one in the Forest with Kadaj doing his little speech to the kids. Night and day between the two languages. (going off memory on this) 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,574]

I'm doing Sekiro right now and using the default Japanese for obvious reasons.

[sp1nz | 615]

There may be some dubs that are superior to subs but it's exceedingly rare and I prefer to do subs with original audio for my first time with any media.

[Tanooki | 4,950]

I tend to turn subtitles on any 3D game really over the years.  I found enough of these overdone sound effects and hollywood budget style effects did drown out more than enough games when I felt the story was important enough to listen and made it too hard.  Either too hard because of that or because I just couldn't turn up the audio loud enough to not get bitched at about it leaving gaps.  It's easier just to let the text flow while they speak so the finer points native or foreign are not lost.

As far as anime goes, dubs first, I want to watch the animation, not glance around at it between reading sentences, some that may come at a rapid fire pace due to the flow of the events at any given moment.  Or in some cases the japanese voice sounds like a screeching chicken choking on feed like Goku in DBZ...ugh.

[MagusSmurf | 577]

Typically I’m a dub guy for either video games or anime. I’m generally gonna need a real stellar Japanese performance or an a mediocre or worse English dub to not go with the dub. If that’s not an option though, subbed is generally fine with me.

I will echo @Tanooki on DBZ Japanese Goku being particularly bad and unfitting. I can see how this happened - seems like the actress probably would have worked fine for most of Dragon Ball-era Goku and they didn’t want to replace her when she’d been involved for years just because the story warranted it - but it was a mistake. And then she started voicing Gohan shortly after adult Goku shows up anyways, and as it turned out later, Goten as well, so it’s not like she’d have been booted out of the franchise after years of work.

[G-type | 2,517]

6 hours ago, Gloves said:

For as long as I can remember I've been a huge fan of anime. I've watched with subtitles, and I've watched dubbed

ALL animation is dubbed. It's just a matter of which language. Whether the Japanese voice talent is superior to Western voice talent I'd say would probably have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. I don't think you can make an argument that Japanese voice actors are intrinsically more talented.

[G-type | 2,517]

Where things tend to get wonky is when Japanese scripts are translated to English as direct translations. Japanese tends to have a lot of phrases that technically can be translated to English but we just don't go around shouting things like "DO YOUR BEST! OKAY??? HAHAHAHAHA"

[guillavoie | 1,210]

Though I can understand various reasons to go for dubs and respect them, the ultimate correct answer is subs.

[Brickman | 4,012]

3 hours ago, G-type said:

Where things tend to get wonky is when Japanese scripts are translated to English as direct translations. Japanese tends to have a lot of phrases that technically can be translated to English but we just don't go around shouting things like "DO YOUR BEST! OKAY??? HAHAHAHAHA"

Well they also don't do that in Japanese either. If you went around talking in Anime Japanese you'd come off pretty rude or crazy. It's like if people started talking like the TMNT in English or something haha.

But you're right, there's a lot of Japanese that is hard to accurately translate because they use a lot of words and phrases that imply things without ever really saying it. Then you have levels of politeness that can be hard to translate at times. A bad sub can ruin an anime pretty quickly unfortunately so it can definitely go both ways with subs vs dubs.

[Sumez | 2,989]

I don't really see any argument for using localized voices unless those really are of so outstanding quality that they deserve praise of their own.

That's of course really rare, but in the case of both Dragon Quest 8 and 11, this was absolutely the case. Of course you were left with little choice in those games, since when they came out in English, a Japanese dub didn't even exist yet, so the English voices are actually the originals. It works very well in those games in spite of the distinct Japanese look of them.

Yakuza Like a Dragon is another game that I've seen repeatedly praised for its English dub. But I have played every other Yakuza game in Japanese (which was also the only choice in those), and the setting and story of these games are so insanely ingrained in Japanese culture it's hard for me to imagine anything else. And even though I don't understand the words, I can easily tell that the voice acting in those games is really, really good. If the players weren't speaking Japanese, I would feel a much bigger disconnect between what was being said and the culture illustrated by it.

That said, what plays the biggest role for me, is the original design of each individual game. If the game was made in Japan by Japanese people (or in France by French people) it makes more sense to me to experience the game with the voices they designed the game for. As such I also played Ghost of Tsushima in English - the dialogue was very clearly written by Americans, filled with distinctly English language ways of interacting. It's hard for me to imagine those characters not speaking English, even though the game takes place in Japan.

 

Oh, since we are on that subject, one thing that really annoys me, is games with English voices where subtitles are disabled by default, forcing you to always go in and enable them.
Why the hell would you ever not want to have subtitles? Especially in games where characters speak during the action and it's pretty much impossible to catch what's being said in the background. Especially in many modern 3D games, characters will often be so far from the camera, or just drowned out by other sounds, that it's straight up impossible to hear them. I just played through both The Last of Us games, and in both of them, there were dozens of conversations by enemies that I would never have been able to hear at all without subtitles, and those games disable them by default. Puzzling.

[Brickman | 4,012]

59 minutes ago, Sumez said:

That said, what plays the biggest role for me, is the original design of each individual game. If the game was made in Japan by Japanese people (or in France by French people) it makes more sense to me to experience the game with the voices they designed the game for.

I could be wrong but I think that’s what Gloves was getting at too. I agree, I feel it is better to experience the medium with the original voices it was designed for.

It’s the same with movies. I always watch foreign movies with subtitles because most of the times the dubs don’t do justice.

 

[T-Pac | 7,584]

I feel like subtitles are the "proper" way to consume foreign media...BUT...

... I'm a slow reader, and enjoying the visuals takes precedence for me. So I usually opt for the lesser of two evils and go for dubs.

(Although I can't really speak to "subs vs dubs" as far as video games go, since I don't play modern stuff. In classic games, you have to read on-screen text for dialogue, and voice samples are often a rarity.)

-CasualCart

[twiztor | 855]

17 minutes ago, CasualCart said:

I feel like subtitles are the "proper" way to consume foreign media...BUT...

... I'm a slow reader, and enjoying the visuals takes precedence for me. So I usually opt for the lesser of two evils and go for dubs.

(Although I can't really speak to "subs vs dubs" as far as video games go, since I don't play modern stuff. In classic games, you have to read on-screen text for dialogue, and voice samples are often a rarity.)

-CasualCart

same. 

with the exception being 70s Kung-Fu flicks. those dubs are just SOOO bad i can't stand them. 

[Lynda Monica | 350]

When it comes to foreign shows and movies, I would always rather watch it with subtitles. If it's a french movie, I want to watch it in french. If it's an anime, I usually want to watch it in Japanese.

Video games are special though, as the voice acting has only recently become good. I will always prefer playing a game in English, as terrible video game voice acting is nostalgic and endearing to me. What I particularly love is when bad actors are still able to sell a moment and trigger an emotional response. It somehow makes those moments even more heartwarming. Bad acting has the strange potential to feel more human than professional acting, due to "unnatural" speech patterns making it into the final cut.

I don't want video games to become Hollywood movies, as I hate modern Hollywood movies. Video games have always been extremely stupid, and I want them to stay cute and endearing forever. So with games, the dub is the only way to go.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Lynda Monica

[Gloves | 11,824]

5 hours ago, Brickman said:

I could be wrong but I think that’s what Gloves was getting at too. I agree, I feel it is better to experience the medium with the original voices it was designed for.

It’s the same with movies. I always watch foreign movies with subtitles because most of the times the dubs don’t do justice.

 

Yeah I'm not really saying one is always better than the other, more just sparking the conversation on preferences. I'd love for every game to provide both the option to choose, and a single "Immersive" option which is like the Director's Cut, or the "intended" way to play per the original devs.

Playing Plague Tale for instance I went with French as they're in France and it's set in a time where they'd for sure be speaking French. That said, it's less immersive when the very English Inquisition folks are also speaking French amongst themselves. I loved in The Godfather when there was a big section of the movie entirely spoken in Italian. They switched to Italian because of the context, and I love that. Would love to see more of that in games.

Star Trek mostly does a good job of this as well, I think. For example, when Klingons say Qapla' - this could be translated using the universal translator, why not, but it's much more impactful when it's not translated.

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

If both are available I go with dubs. But I’m totally fine with subs if that’s the only option. I’m just too lazy to read if I don’t have to

[Sumez | 2,989]

5 hours ago, BortLicensePlate said:

I’m just too lazy to read if I don’t have to

That's funny considering if I'm not in the mood to actively pay attention, reading is absolutely the much lazier road.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

14 hours ago, Sumez said:

That's funny considering if I'm not in the mood to actively pay attention, reading is absolutely the much lazier road.

Weird... exact opposite for me even being a poor listener. If I'm tired or feeling lazy, dubs still feels like significantly lower effort. 

[RH | 4,964]

I'm a painfully slow reader.  I'll take a poor dub over a quality sub any day.  Otherwise, all I'm doing is staring at text and not really watching the film.

I hate this but this has been an issue my whole life and I actually read quite a lot.  Regardless, I often have to read stuff 2-3x times to fully comprehend it.  If I hear it though, there's a moderate chance I'll remember 10-25% of it (depending on how engaged I am with the content) for many, many decades if not the rest of my life.

Edited October 5, 2022 by RH

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

16 hours ago, RH said:

I'm a painfully slow reader.  I'll take a poor dub over a quality sub any day.  Otherwise, all I'm doing is staring at text and not really watching the film.

I hate this but this has been an issue my whole life and I actually read quite a lot.  Regardless, I often have to read stuff 2-3x times to fully comprehend it.  If I hear it though, there's a moderate chance I'll remember 10-25% of it (depending on how engaged I am with the content) for many, many decades if not the rest of my life.

I think this is my issue too. I read VERY slowly

[Tanooki | 4,950]

I'm the opposite kind of, short term I can retain the info but longer term no, yet I can speed read stuff quite quickly and largely retain it.  Even if I slow up the retention doesn't change, kind of a curse.  But despite all that with anime (or games I guess) I loathe subs largely because I want to truly enjoy the animated visuals, not take my time reading (or speed reading the chattier stuff) around watching as it sucks me out of being into it.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

On 10/3/2022 at 7:09 PM, BortLicensePlate said:

If both are available I go with dubs. But I’m totally fine with subs if that’s the only option. I’m just too lazy to read if I don’t have to

Same here. That and I always think I'm going to miss something if I'm busy reading instead of watching what's going on.

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

Frig I totally missed that this was about video games, not anime!

I really like how in Resident Evil 4 the villagers speak Spanish, makes sense since it takes place in Spain.

While there are no subs nor dubs for the villagers, its kinda fun listening to what they say