Persona 4 Golden, a rant
So having finally acquired access to a small list of (really good) Vita games with my VitaTV, the top of that list being Persona 4: Golden. Which I also recently acquired
I had played through about 40+ hours of the PS2 Persona 4 game, and was absolutely in love with it. I was really sad when our PS2 started having power issues and would cut out in the middle of games. Making further attempts at progress pretty pointless when sometimes you'd be forced to go through an hour or so of events without a chance to save, only to have the power cut out a good portion into it. Sucks having to repeat large areas of content. And I'll forever miss that game (Though I heard a rumor that it's getting its own PSN release early next year, so...)
Anyway, Golden supposedly has tons of extra content. New anime scenes, new areas, new events, new social links, new characters, added costumes, a new ending, etc.
One of the changes however, are a couple of "new" voice actors (relatively. From my perspective anyway. Though in both instances I guess these new voice actors have actually done more work on the series, performing in both the anime, and the fighting game of Persona 4. Only the original Persona 4 had different actors)
One voice actor damn near nailed an identical style. If I hadn't been told it was different, I'd have presumed it was the same voice actor who was just barely unable to recapture their previous performance. But close enough for it to not matter
...the other voice actor however, is a complete departure from their PS2 depiction
Chie Satonaka
The group's tomboy and cheerleader
Most people tend to like the new voice actress. But for me, it's ear-splittingly bad and annoying. It almost ruins the game for me. I kind of have to struggle through all of her scenes. Hearing Teepo's voice from Tales of Xillia in a game set closer to reality is really jarring. And I think that's part of the problem. It's a voice. I get the impression that aside from the animal mascot character in the game (Teddie), everyone else is voice acting a character. But Chie's voice actress is actually doing a "voice" rather than a "character". That is to say, she's purposely manipulating her own voice, instead of just manipulating her inflections as an actor
Like Tom Cruis trying to sound like Popeye. Its just so unrealistic in comparison to the original Chie. Sure she had a more mellow and deeper voice, but it was a real voice. Something a real person would have. She was calmer, friendlier, her inflections were realistic, her pitch was in real human decibels
This new Chie misses all her proper inflections, and makes herself sound like a beach bimbo. She's hyper and high pitched and so far off from a real relatable person it's just become a charicature. She's not a real character. She's a stereotypical anime trope of the generic and over-used hyper-active annoying anime side-character. And I hear I'm in the minority and people actually like it, because "it's closer to the original Japanese character". But I listened to the Japanese dub. That Chie just sounded happy. Not nauseating. It puts a whole different spin on her character, and ruins that character in the process
Something I loved about this game was that the characters were characters, and not so much the typical anime and JRPG tropes you always see. I mean sure, they probably still fit some archetypes, but not the typical over used and annoying ones. They were realistic and relatable
I'm told that after a certain major event involving her best friend that her voice gets more tolerable, that maybe the director finally took note and came in and had her tone it down a couple notches, and I'm super looking forward to when that happens
But I'm still just extremely sad and miss my old Chie. I was actually in the process of romancing her in my original playthrough
In this game, with her whiny high pitched shrieking... I wouldn't dream of it
I just had to rant before going to bed. I hear all the extras in this game make it far more than worth it. And with the prospect of her character getting less annoying soon, it'll be even more worth it. But I'll still miss you, OG Chie~<3
Rant over
Anyone ever have any similar experiences, or are able to relate to this one? I know there are other instances out there where voice actors or character portrayals or changes in ports/remakes have ruined some things. Its a sad state of affairs
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Originally Posted by Mirage
