‘Final Fantasy XVI’ Producer Recommends You Enjoy the Upcoming Release With a Very Specific Voice Cast
Naoki Yoshida recommends everyone, including Japan, play Final Fantasy XVI with the English voice acting.
Final Fantasy XVI is the next title in the long-running Final Fantasy series. Player will control Clive Rosfield, who is on a quest for revenge after an attack on his kingdom cost him everything he held dear. The game is set to be more action-packed and gritty than any Final Fantasy game before now. The combat has been worked on by Devil May Cry developers and the story is hoping to be every bit as compelling and praise worthy as recent titles like God of War and The Last of Us.
The game went gold back in March with promises to use the full intense power of the PS5 to make for an unforgettable experience. The team has worked incredibly hard and it seems one of them has just a small suggestion.
Don’t watch the hands. Watch the mouth
Square Enix recently did a Pre-Launch Live Stream to discuss the upcoming release and try to answer any question players may have about the game. The team has been working on tweaking a few things they are able to after getting feedback from the demo released on the PlayStation Store for the main release. Since the game has already gone gold, it is mostly performance issues people experienced while playing it. Noisy Pixel reports that during the live stream that the producer, Naoki Yoshida, recommended the game be played in English for the best experience.
via Noisy Pixel
The reason behind asking gamers, specifically Japanese players, to do this is that the lip-syncing for the game was designed around motion capture of the English voice actors. Changing the lip-synching to match the Japanese audio just isn’t feasible in the time they have at the moment. AI tools was considered except it didn’t work right enough for them to be satisfied with the results. Noisy Pixel translated Yoshida as stating:
“Now, moving on…ah, yes. English voices! Do try playing with English voices on a second playthrough, perhaps. I have a feeling that you can really appreciate the realism conveyed by the English voices.”
via Noisy Pixel
The Importance of Lip-Syncing
Final Fantasy XVI isn’t the only game to release without Japanese lip syncing on launch. Ghost of Tsushima famously didn’t add it to the game until the PS4 game was released on PS5 with it. You might be wondering why does it matter? Well, lip syncing is incredibly important to gamers, specifically gamers in the West. We tend to look at people’s faces and mouths when someone talks. So when they do not match, there is something that just doesn’t sit right and takes you out of the moment.
The best way to see how important this is for us is in anime dubbing. Japan doesn’t have the same issue with lip syncing when you watch a show in Japanese. You will notice many times that the lip motions don’t have to match what they are saying a lot of the time. English dubbing goes out of its way to make dialogue match a characters lip movement as best as they can. This used to be a big problem since they used to make some really bad choices to do it.
The game’s demo was very well received and having tried it out, the game is absolutely gorgeous. It is one of the most impressive looking games on either of the new consoles and the story is absolutely far darker with characters having their own agendas with betrayals, romance, and more in the story. The game also is not shy about being uncensored with one moment of a character just saying the f-bomb over and over again within the first 10 mins while running from debris. The game is out soon and hopefully it will be everything the team hopes it is for everyone.
Final Fantasy XVI is set to release on PS5 on June 22nd
“Come to me, Ifrit!” – Clive, FFXVI
