25 Minutes of Uncompressed Star Fox 64 Voice Acting

[RH | 4,895]

The big news this weekend was that Nintendo had another big release of data dumped on the internets.  One of the more interesting finds for me is the video below.  It's all of the voice acting from Star Fox 64, but it's uncompressed.  Many others have pointed it out, but I agree.  The acting sounds MUCH better when it's uncompressed.  In fact, I really didn't like Slippy as a kid.  Slippy was just to whiny.  However, after hearing him (cough... her) uncompressed, it's not as bad.  I know they had to compress these files because of the limitations of the cartridge hardware, but man the game could have been even better if they could have just bumped up the audio quality a little.

I've not downloaded the dumped files yet, but I hope some people find uncompressed audio files.

[AverageOliver98 | 716]

 

[RH | 4,895]

4 minutes ago, AverageOliver98 said:

 

Haha, oops. Sorry and thanks for posting that.

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

I can’t wait to get home just to find “I can’t let you do that, Star Fox” in glorious hi fidelity.

[Gloves | 11,761]

This is so uncanny valley.

[RH | 4,895]

10 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

I can’t wait to get home just to find “I can’t let you do that, Star Fox” in glorious hi fidelity.

Seriously, even "Slippy's Hit!" doesn't  sound that bad.  Also, now we can all upgrade our "Do a barrel role!" references too!  Oh, the possibilities.

Unrelated, I think the one release we'd all like to see on these Nintendo hack dumps is what in the world is actually written on the monument in SM64, out in Boo's Garden?! It's probably nonsense, but to have it confirmed would be kind of awesome.

[DefaultGen | 5,398]

Pretty smooth flying fox

[Gloves | 11,761]

4 minutes ago, RH said:

Seriously, even "Slippy's Hit!" doesn't  sound that bad.  Also, now we can all upgrade our "Do a barrel role!" references too!  Oh, the possibilities.

Unrelated, I think the one release we'd all like to see on these Nintendo hack dumps is what in the world is actually written on the monument in SM64, out in Boo's Garden?! It's probably nonsense, but to have it confirmed would be kind of awesome.

You've never seen this, I take it?

[RH | 4,895]

14 minutes ago, Gloves said:

You've never seen this, I take it?

Actually, I believe I have but since the source is from NOA (rather than Nintendo of Japan), it might not be 100% accurate.  Maybe he made it up because he couldn't find an answer.  I mean, when you have nothing, it is good enough.

Also, from the same serious of leaks, people have found early-build assets for a Luigi head and, of course, resourceful homebrewers have patched the head into the SM64 PC build that came out a while ago.

So... maybe at one point this was suppose to be a tip that Luigi would be discoverable but since he was pulled from the final build, we got this as an explanation.

[Gloves | 11,761]

10 minutes ago, RH said:

Actually, I believe I have but since the source is from NOA (rather than Nintendo of Japan), it might not be 100% accurate.  Maybe he made it up because he couldn't find an answer.  I mean, when you have nothing, it is good enough.

Also, from the same serious of leaks, people have found early-build assets for a Luigi head and, of course, resourceful homebrewers have patched the head into the SM64 PC build that came out a while ago.

So... maybe at one point this was suppose to be a tip that Luigi would be discoverable but since he was pulled from the final build, we got this as an explanation.

Often the simplest answer is the correct one. You're jumping through a lot of hoops to explain away "programmers did it for lols". 

[Tulpa | 3,488]

10 hours ago, RH said:

I know they had to compress these files because of the limitations of the cartridge hardware, but man the game could have been even better if they could have just bumped up the audio quality a little.

 

Makes you wonder what it could have been like if NIntendo went with CD storage that generation.

[OptOut | 8,881]

4 hours ago, Tulpa said:

Makes you wonder what it could have been like if NIntendo went with CD storage that generation.

So I'd have to worry about scratches and disc rot on hundreds of my favourite games?! 

I thank my lucky stars every single day that Nintendo stuck with carts for the N64, you can pry my curvey topped plastic squares out of my cold dead hands!

[Tanooki | 4,930]

10 hours ago, Gloves said:

Often the simplest answer is the correct one. You're jumping through a lot of hoops to explain away "programmers did it for lols". 

Sheng Long would approve of this, guaranteed.

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

I found the line I was looking for. Something must have got lost in translation because it just didn’t feel right without the compression.

Id love to see a conceptual remake in HD with the original voice acting to see if it feels better.

Its like...empty? I can’t imagine TMNT arcade without that “TURTLE POWER” sounding compressed, and now that I hear this game in HD it’s just wrong.

[RH | 4,895]

3 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

I found the line I was looking for. Something must have got lost in translation because it just didn’t feel right without the compression.

Id love to see a conceptual remake in HD with the original voice acting to see if it feels better.

Its like...empty? I can’t imagine TMNT arcade without that “TURTLE POWER” sounding compressed, and now that I hear this game in HD it’s just wrong.

I think part of what mostly worked in the games favor is when you get the compression sound, it also makes it sound like the audio is being spoken over a mic into some form of radio communications.  This would make sense when you have four pilots flying and talking to each other.  You kind of expect it to sound like a walkie talkie.

To me, that's the only thing that feels "wrong".   You could still add a bit of post-processing to the in-gameplay audio, but I think it could still sound a lot more appealing if it wasn't compressed.