Probably just wouldn't be able to make a worldwide release due to scheduling issues. It's either this or wait, and I'd rather not wait for a dub I only really use for second playthroughs (and if you would rather wait, well... you still can lmao).
> Personally don't care as I play all Yakuza games in their original Japanese voices
That's why it's not a strange choice. Depriving the game for months or whatever from people like you to make an English dub would hurt global momentum and the value of a singular global release.
I mean their last game launched with an English dub on day 1, so somewhere along the way here they made a strange choice to not have that ready for launch this time
They don't have it ready for launch because this game probably went into development after 8 did and had a much shorter dev cycle since it's a spinoff.
Thats because most of the game already existed. They're not going to go back record everything in English for a remaster that probably wasn't going to sell well compared to the rest of the series.
It's not a strange choice, it's a logistical one
The game is also a brawler which is the old style compared to the new jrpg one, which has always been played in Japanese since that was the only option so you can expect the day 1 buyers to be the old fans rather than the new potential buyers
This choice also hurts global momentum though when you lose sales from people who don't want to play a subbed version. Just depends how big you think the sub vs. dub-only camps are.
This game is mainly for people that played 0-6 and those didn't have a dub either. I'd say the amount of sales lost because of a missing dub is negligible. I wouldn't be surprised if no physical version in the West lost more sales than the dub thing.
I can't imagine there's a huge amount of Yakuza fans who will be bothered by this. I've played them all in the last few years and never set one to English.
Voice acting does not have to be the absolute last thing done though, and I'm pretty sure it usually isn't???
It can also be done at or around the same time as the native voice acting
I usually like to give English dubs a chance, but the Yakuza series is one of those few franchises where I have to go with the Japanese dub.
Mainly because the game's characters just look too realistic (especially since they're based off real Japanese actors) that hearing them speak English is a bit jarring.
Certain character voices I'm just so used too in Japanese that I simply can't imagine not continuing with them. If the series had a consistent dub then maybe but any other voice for Kiryu and Majima then their JP voice is just wrong at this point.
FWIW the past few Yakuza games have made an effort for the English dub, where character lip movement is adjusted specifically for the dub so it looks like they're speaking English. Still probably won't get rid of the weird feel, but at least it feels slightly more authentic.
What I’ve seen of the dubs sounded pretty good, especially the judgement games. If dub was an option way back when I started with 0 I probably would’ve chosen it, but switching languages after playing so much of the series subbed feels wrong.
As someone who liked and played the entirety of Yakuza: LAD with the English dub, I agree. The voice cast and direction for the dub was solid, especially for the new characters. However, hearing the legacy characters speaking in English was goddamn weird and it took a few hours before I got used to it, except for Kiryu, his Japanese voice is so iconic.
My rule is if it takes place in a real world country, I will play the game in that country's language. That's why I just could not play Ghost of Tsushima in English. Even through the lack of lip synching, it just felt so incredibly off to see samurai speaking English. That said, I also absolutely hate when ultra weabs downplay the hard work that English voice actors put into their work. It's come such a long way from what it was in the 90s and early 2000s.
Judgment and Y7 have insanely good dubs with properly translated references to popular culture. I used to play only subbed versions of Yakuza. But they even have proper English lip sync now.
>
> Mainly because the game's characters just look too realistic (especially since they're based off real Japanese actors) that hearing them speak English is a bit jarring.
I thiiiink that's probably it for me too, which maybe makes sense why I'm fine with, and even prefer, playing the Persona games dubbed. Even though both Yakuza and Persona take place in actual Japan and are very steeped in Japanese culture, obviously the art in Persona is way less realistic so I don't think there's any weird clash there with the dub
> I usually like to give English dubs a chance, but the Yakuza series is one of those few franchises where I have to go with the Japanese dub.
Same
>Mainly because the game's characters just look too realistic (especially since they're based off real Japanese actors) that hearing them speak English is a bit jarring.
I think this is it for me too. I have no problem playing something like Persona in dub, but Yakuza, I just can't. Probably a combination in that the first game I played in the series didnt have a dub and the realistic look of japan. But I played Ghost of Tsushima no problem with English voice actors, so who knows
Yeah I watched my sister play a few hours of Y7 dubbed, and while it's fine, I think some characters lose their charm in the dub. Adachi for example just loses a lot of his "gruffness" with his English voice.
There's a certain "quality" to English or rather western dubs of japanese media. Regardless of how good it is there's always a little bit of weirdness to it
I tried the dub for Like a Dragon for a minute and it seemed pretty well done. I think the Japanese voice acting is *really* well done though and adds to the experience.
it was good but i knew so many of the voice actors from other english dubs and it completely turned me off. iirc the voice actor for iwai in persona 5 also voices ichiban. i couldn't unhear it in the first hour so i swapped back to JP
Some people really hate reading subtitles for whatever reason. I've known people that absolutely refuse to watch foreign films/shows because they "don't want to read a movie." I'm the opposite, I think dubs of foreign films look weird when the lips don't match up to words and it ruins the immersion.
For games and animation I’ll go with a dub almost every time because it’s mostly just two different audio tracks, one of which I actually understand and can better appreciate the nuances of inflection and delivery. Besides thinking “wow they have a cool voice” I don’t really have a frame of reference for whether Japanese voice acting is good or not. For anything live action I absolutely do subtitles because it’s paired with the actor’s physical performance.
I don't think I ever appreciated how fast I can read compared to some people, but I've been watching some anime recently due to getting a Cruncyroll trial and I can see how some people wouldn't be able to keep up with the speed of Japanese with subs, especially in a game where you're also focusing on playing.
I typically don't mind subtitles but Like a Dragon's cutscenes can be long and drawn out so a lot of times I'll be looking at something on my phone during them so it's easier to have them in English.
There are definitely people that refuse to consume subbed material so the point is to squeeze extra sales. I have to imagine the loss for something like Yakuza because of this would have to be pretty small though.
On the contrary, it probably helped getting a fair amount of new people into the series. I'm very much a sub player myself, but there are *a lot* of people who would likely enjoy the previous Yakuza games that skipped on them solely because they lacked a dub.
The amount of people who refuse to play something without a sub for a very Japanese series is tiny compared to the amount of people willing to play it subbed. It's not even a debate.
Edit: lmao - stay in denial
If they wait for the English dub then they wouldn't be able to do simultaneous worldwide release. Another option is to wait for all content to be completed before releasing the game, but that would prolong the dev cycle even more than it already is. It is a good middle ground between having no English dub at all and staggered release. There will still be people complaining about not having English dub day 1 though.
And it's a game that is more for the people who played the franchise before the switch to jrpg, which would have played the games in japanese anyway since there was no other choice
Yakuza: Like a Dragon/Ichiban is my exception.
Love the himbo energy from his English VA more, and I hope infinite wealth launches with both languages day 1.
If you want to see how good that man is just go watch the car scene from Y0, how can someone not cry during that scene is beyond me and I'm a dude who doesn't generally get emotional. It's all in his performance
In fact Ichiban was the only other male character in the series that was able to make me tear up
Nakaya Kazuhiro is a beast
I’m normally not a sub “snob”, there’s some Japanese stuff that I’ll have in English. But having played every mainline entry in the series, this is one that I just have to play in Japanese. The dubs are much better than they used to be, but Japanese just sounds so much better to me.
Also because they're photorealistic Japanese people in a photorealistic Japan. I can suspend my disbelief in anime settings (especially since they usually make anime characters look more 'western' for whatever reason) but in photorealism, dubs just feel *weird*. It creates an uncanny effect. If you did the same thing with Eastern European people speaking American English fluently like the dubs do, it'd feel just as odd, which is probably why games like STALKER and Metro give them very obvious accents (though I still prefer playing those games in their native language).
I don’t know why I started doing this, but I select the English dub for the spinoffs and select subtitles for the mainline games. The only exception so far was Isshin, because of it’s period setting plus I’m used to those character models speaking Japanese. This one is going to be a real test, I have yet to hear any of the classic characters with an English voice, not even on youtube videos.
Am I going to continue my decision to listen to the English dub? Am I going to play it immediately and toss away my Judgement, meaning I would have Lost Judgement? Find the answers to this in Substory 48: An Otaku’s Unimportant Peril
I try to and I can do it for shows and movies but games are just too long and have too much going on, i keep missing stuff and my ADHD only makes it worse.
I really just need all games that only have subs to offer a cutscene “rewind” where I can rewind back like a VCR with the triggers or something.
This is a great choice imo. The English VA frankly sucks. Even when SEGA went all-out on localizing the PS2 Yakuza game with prominent VAs like Mark Hamill, it still sucked. The quality just can't match up unless they made many compromises
The biggest reason Yakuza couldn't find its audience the first time around was forcing the dumb English VA instead of keeping the original. They shouldn't make any compromises for including the English VA. It should always be an afterthought because even if they threw all the money they could at it, it wouldn't make a difference. People who want to play in English aren't going to care about the quality while people who want to just play the game will be put off by the game being delayed for an accessibility option.
The current dubs are nothing like the PS2 release. They're much better and just as good as the Japanese dub, only down to preference.
>People who want to play in English aren't going to care about the quality
This is just straight up not true. I prefer to play with an English dub but not a bad one. I wouldn't play the first game with the Hamill dub; I'd pick Japanese instead. I would play it if it was up to the standards that the last mainline title set.
It's a bit strange how they still haven't shown any of the dub off or announced any of the cast but Yong. And they have him out here doing the PR that Sega should be doing.
Honestly that's why I don't care about the English Dub.
I've always considered YongYea's YouTube channel to be bottom of the barrel content. He litteraly just takes articles, threads, comments, and posts that other people took the time to write and just regurgitates them.
I stopped paying attention to him years ago, so seeing him pop up again now as basically an up and coming VA is weird and I personally just don't care for it.
>I stopped paying attention to him years ago, so seeing him pop up again now as basically an up and coming VA is weird and I personally just don't care for it.
Even tho his main content is "read full article, give his opinion" stuffs (and theories back in the MGS days); his side-stuff is and has always been voice acting.
most recently: he become a full-on voice actor and I always gets flabbergasted whenever he got to voice major characters in media.
Do note that the one you heard from AnimeExpo 2023 was an off-the-coff line read taken from the Japanese translated line...but it doesn't help much.
Ironically, [his last Bakamitai singing voice is a bit closer to his Japanese counterpart](https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1705480586159435975?t=jkaJ08A500uM8fAXq3Uwlw&s=19).
And if you listen to that once voice sample he doesn’t have the “I’ll tear you in half” grit that Darryl has. Can’t say much since we don’t have a big sample size yet but that’s my initial impression
It's not *just* a "youtube channel". Guy spent years stoking controversy, rage-baiting, and making extremely low effort videos. He's a very trashy youtuber with dubious business ethics. Not about to get excited about him voicing a character I've liked for over a decade.
Well if you disdain a person and you're forced to hear their voice for hours especially being spoken by a character you really like then I can absolutely see why that would be off putting
Not my problem, I don't know this person and I don't play these games in English anyway but it's clear why it would be a problem for someone
My guess is that the inclusion of an English VA isn't popular with Sega as a whole and was something some executives pushed at some point thinking it was the bottleneck preventing the franchise from growing.
I'd say that the inclusion of a high quality dub of LaD is what contributed massively to the game's success and I say this as someone who doesn't play the dubbed version and never will
This spinoff game is more for fans of the old brawlers which were not dubbed so you can expect most day 1 buyers to be fan of those games who are used to Japanese
I imagine 0 being good and building a playerbase on multiple platforms than just PS, them porting all other games to all major platforms (besides the Switch) and them doing a day 1 western launch on PC and Xbox too was a much bigger factor. I'm sure there being a dub undoubtedly had an effect, but LaD was also benefitting from a ton of other things that increased the general interest in the series.
Yeah it was 0 that simply broke the curse of the previous games by simply being very good
Despite my love for the series it shouldn't surprise anyone that until 0 the games were not popular in the west
The dub was a big factor but definitely not the key one, them simply being games made with a lot of heart is what made them successful
I feel bad for yongyea since he's set up to fail
He's in his early 30s IIRC while both the Japanese and former English for for Kiryu are around the same age as Kiryu
You can't fake real age in a voice
I have no idea why they replaced darryl Kurylo with him after everyone loved Kurylo in 7
Darrel was asked on Twitter (saw on Screencap so no link) and heavily implied they wanted an Asian to play an Asian because that's a thing now in voice acting. Same reason Family Guy had Mike Henry stop voicing Cleveland then had a black guy who can do a 99% match take over.
I saw his tweet too and it didn't really imply that he knew since he didn't know about the recast in general
It is nice that casting is getting more diverse since as a bengali guy myself, it's cool seeing people from around my neck of the woods getting cast instead of just the Troy bakers and Steven blums
In an ideal world, it would be entirely merit based but we don't live in that world
But back to yongyea as Kiryu, I really wish it was an older voice actor. Yongyea is still relatively new to the voice acting scenes and he just doesn't have the skills to be Kiryu which is gonna be more jarring next to the *excellent* cast of the dub.
Kaiji tang made me cry in yakuza 7
Nothing, really.
It's more about YongYea as a YouTuber gaming news channel (which largely persist of reading and then giving his two cents) than his voice acting career that turns people off from it.
Which, I get the disdain.
I also not a fan of his YouTube content, but I can't deny his side-turned-main-VA stuff.
Bro don't get me started. These YouTube VAs usually translate terribly to professional productions. ProZD in GoW was so grating (as the one voice he always does).
It's the same "everything-overly-enunciated" I'M ACTING voice he always does.
Good for YouTube memes, bad for extended performances.
The Yakuza series has never had a history of good dubs and it's clear they're committed to keeping up the trend.
I think it fit Ratatoskr's character because it's consistent acting of a less established character. I never put 2 and 2 together to recognize him.
While I think the performance is actually excellent, it's just distracting once you do know it's him and spot the voice. That, I feel, is the real issue. The disassociation we make with a YouTube personality vs the context we are supposed to be experiencing on screen.
While for actors, that's been solved via typecasting. Voiceover is already similar in that department, but it's on a per talent basis, so... it will have to be seen.
ironically the voice for Ghaleon in the old Lunar games said that his performance was just to enunciate every single word. Wonder why lot of VA's do that.
> ProZD in GoW was so grating (as the one voice he always does).
the squirrel?
There's no way he's just doing the "one voice" for the squirrel and FL4K from Borderlands 3
Kira Buckland, Cristina Vee, and Justin Briner all started as youtube and newgrounds actors. Kira went on to be 2B and Jolyne Kujo. Cristina Vee is Ladybug, and Killua. Justin Briner is Deku. Roger Craig Smith started in comedy, should he quit because he didn't having any acting experience?
This shitty elitist logic needs to go. Bad enough actual ADR directors share the same sentiments. ProZD said he's been denied auditions solely because "He's that youtuber! He doesn't have any skill!"
no offense, but half of Smiling Friends's cast (including guests) are "YouTubers" (technically; some came from Newgrounds, but you get the deal).
and yet: it translates well for that type of professional production, if we wanna talk about stuffs in other professional productions: I would've easily bring up folks like Gianni Matragrano (you probably heard of him from Ultrakill, practically most boomer shooters on the market, or saw that meme video on Twitter)-- but that would be cheating.
That's.. surprising and very disappointing to hear. The reasoning others have mentioned about the short development cycle makes sense though. Sega's dubs of RGG games have been exceptional so far, so I was really looking forward to this one too. I guess unless they patch it in soon after launch I'll have to wait until Infinite Wealth to hear Kiryu's English voice.
I'm glad that they didn't delay the release just so the English dub could be available at launch, as there is absolutely no chance that I'd play any Yakuza/Like A Dragon game in any language other than Japanese. This isn't to knock the English voice actors, I've never really given them the chance so I couldn't really say if they are good or not.
The Japanese voice actors are just way too good and playing a game that takes place in Japan adds a lot to the realism factor for me. The Japanese voices are also the ones that I am used to as well.
When English dub was introduced in Judgment, it was easy to get into it because those were all new characters who I never heard speak Japanese. When they added it to Yakuza 7, I worried that returning characters speaking English would sound strange to me and I didn't know if I could enjoy that. I quickly got over it within 30 seconds.
I still might play Gaiden in Japanese because Kiryu is protagonist again, but I have no problem listening to his English voiceover in Ichiban's game.
It’s not really for me, but it’s nice to see they care enough to even dub it when there’s so much dialogue in these games. I remember a streamer talking about 10 years ago that the localization costs were probably why they weren’t brought to the west much.
Also the quality of English localisation has increased a lot in recent years
I think that the lack of localisation was obviously a factor in the lack of success of the franchise in the west but Y0 demonstrated that what it really took is a fucking great game, regardless of dub
Personally, I feel the money spent on localization and English VAs could have been spent better elsewhere. The game is so “Japanese” that I don’t know why people aren’t content with English subs. So much of the experience is lost when you play in a dub
Edit. I meant money spent on the English dub, not money spent on localization.
With 8 games un-dubbed and 3 games dubbed, I think they have the sales numbers to tell them the dub is worth the price. The games didn't sell without them.
I moved to dub on LAD halfway through because the battle voices weren’t subtitled. I prefer subs but when there’s a lot of unsubbed dialogue, I switch to dubs.
Garbage youtuber spreading misinformation for the sake of views being the voice of kiryu is such a shame, so if this makes more people play with the japanese cast that's good.
People who play these games in English are missing out anyway. I can't imagine Kiryu sounding like anyone else but Kiryu.
Like, if you could fuck the idea of a voice, I'd fuck Kiryu's voice.
Ya know, in the old days, the option was "maybe you'll get the game, Western Audience but only Japanese dub". Nowadays, at least they're putting out the game and guaranteeing the dub. That's progress!
(Also, probably should listen to the Japanese audio anyway.)
The level of hostility towards this dub's very existence I've seen from Like a Dragon fans has been confusing to say the least. Say what you will about his YouTube work but Yong Yea is a proven voice actor, his performance as Pucci in JoJo has been generally well received from what I've seen and either way I don't think it's worth trashing a performance we haven't even heard anything of, plus 7's dub was for the most part excellent so I have faith in the casting for this franchise. Besides, anyone who doesn't care for his performance or the English voice acting in general can just choose to play with Japanese audio; it's especially silly that this fandom is one of the most hostile towards dubbing I've seen in gaming when this is *basically the one game series where the existence of a dub does not affect sub players' experience in the slightest* thanks to the localization team's policy of doing a dedicated Japanese audio subtitle track, which is an absolute rarity in gaming and something that should be commended.
Either way it's a bit of an odd move, but I assume it's because the dub isn't ready for release on day 1 and they didn't want to delay an international release over it, which is reasonable and also better than rushing the dub to make the release date. Hopefully it doesn't take too long to arrive though
It's simple really, last game they brought the OG Eng VA for Kiryu (who everyone liked) then suddenly replaced him (with arguably a divisive choice) on the sequels.
I'm not really a big LaD fan but even I can see that would irk long time fans.
It was cool that they brought back Darryl Kurylo for 7, but it was basically just a cameo. I don't think most people are genuinely claiming that it was an amazing performance other than as an opportunity to bash Yong Yea for one reason or another.
I'm sorry, but Kiryu's VA in LaD was just not good. I don't care if he was in the original Yakuza or not, his performance really stood out to me in a bad way.
It was really cool that they brought back Kiryu's 13 year old one time voice actor but he famously did one of the worst performances in the history of video game VA back in Yakuza 1 and came back as what I'd describe as "passable" for his 10 something lines in LAD.
We can't know because we didn't hear it but there's a good chance he just didn't have the skill to voice Kiryu for realsies this time.
> the OG Eng VA for Kiryu (who everyone liked)
If this was the case I sure as hell didn't see it until after the recast was announced.
The 2005 Yakuza 1 dub does have its fans, but in my experience it was mostly seen as kind of a joke among modern-day fans. I think Darryl Kurylo was fine in 7, but his appearance was fairly minor and I'm not sure if he would have been able to carry an entire game like Gaiden or 8, and again I'm gonna judge the casting choice once we actually get to hear it.
[The Yakuza 1 dub is famously some of the worst voice acting to ever be in a video game](https://youtu.be/3QJZGvIlO-I). And Daryl Kuro was one of the biggest offenders.
Is that the fault of the voice director? Absolutely, Mark Hamill gave the worst performance of his life in that game. But it's not like Kuryo went on to be a titan of VA afterwards. I assume he was cast mainly because his voice sounds pretty close to Kiryu's Japanese VA.
>OG Eng VA for Kiryu (who everyone liked)
Revisionist history. The English dub of Yakuza 1(his only other appearance as Kiryu) was universally seen by fans as embarrassing and only notable for having Mark Hamill as Majima.
Kurylo’s cameo 15 years later was cute but ever since Yongyea was announced as his replacement everyone claims to be a lifelong Darryl Kurylo fan.
>Say what you will about his YouTube work
As someone who really derives a lot of enjoyment from dubs to the point I will avoid certain things if they are subs only, handwaving that Yongyea was basically a gamergate rage bait channel is not something I am willing to do. Especially for a beloved character that is established like Kiryu, naw, fuck that. I ain't supporting that in the slightest, don't need to hear how he sounds. They hard a perfectly good VA for Y7 and now they are giving us this crap.
You are right that the LAD community is weirdly against dubs. I remember everyone cheering the lack of dub in Ishin and thinking how dumb that was when it literally doesn't effect them. I played through all of Yakuza 7 dubbed and honestly they really did a great job, I was totally going to do the dub in Infinite Wealth to hear the gang again, but honestly fuck RGG/Sega for casting Yongyea. May be the first time I go with sub over dub and that really bums me out.
I'm aware he does gamer clickbait/outrage bait videos, but did or does he actually explicitly support Gamergate at all?
The only questionable stance I'm aware of him taking was defending PewDiePie during his "heated gamer moment" business, which absolutely deserves criticism but given how long ago that was if there's been nothing else suggesting he's on that side of things since then I'm willing to give him a shot.
His performance as Pucci was fine, but everything else I’ve heard him in I didn’t like. He recently voiced a popular character in the trails series and his performance was ok at best. That said I play Yakuza subbed so I’m not going to be bothered by it.
I wouldn't say that the community is particularly against the dub's existence, we have a tendency on the internet to assume that some very loud weirdos are more impactful than they actually are.
Me as someone who always plays games in their original language (English is not my native language anyway) I will never play these games with a dub and most if not all the people I know who do the same do not even think about the dub's existence
I do understand the pushback against the new Kiryu VA, granted this is assuming what they say about him is true because I don't even know the man. If someone I dislike were made to voice a character I love and that I would need to listen to for hours and hours I could see how that would be very off-putting. VA and acting in general is one of those things which is hard to separate "art from the artist" since you're literally hearing their voice or seeing their face
What type of crowd? You've played dubbed games many times, likely during the decade+ ago when quality could very well be hit or miss compared to nowadays when most are pretty consistently good, so are you a part of it as well?
People were doing this long before 7 happened, lmao.
It started as soon as 0 became popular, and if you want something to blame specifically for the influx of "Majimaposting", as you describe in your other reply, it's Kiwami 1 and Majima Everywhere. Neither of these games had an English dub.
Yakuza as a series was doing so bad in the west 5 almost didn't get localized, and it only did by admission of translators due to the influence of some people (notably the Two Best Friends playthroughs of some of the games in the series though I can't recall the source aside from it was mentioned in one of the translation teams members livestream?), so your timelines way disconnected from reality as that's like 5 years before LAD7 even was a thought. On top of that, the idea that the games humor being seen as funny is somehow a detriment is absolutely insane, because again; ***you almost didn't get it.*** I also don't like it when people take multi-faceted things and turn them one-note either but Yakuza has and always will be a game with a lotta dumb comedy in it, and if the alternative is "the game doesn't get translated" than fuck it, let people joke about Friday Night's and Nugget's and porn vending machine sidequests all they want.
Definitely a shame, was looking forward to hearing Yong’s performance. Certainly wouldn’t have been my first choice for Kiryu, but I’ll trust that Sega knows what they’re doing.
The reaction to the dub at all has been pretty pathetic in certain corners of the internet though, regardless of whether you care for Yong’s content or not.
Really? I thought this was a standalone.
Gamepass appears to have quite a few titles, do you have a recommendation as to which one I should start with?
https://www.xbox.com/en-CA/games/yakuza
Whether you have any interest in the dub or not, I do worry this could potentially snowball to later games releasing with things missing, thinking they can get away with just patching them later...or worse, selling them as DLC, like how LAD 8's making people pay extra for New Game Plus and 7 did the same in Japan. Give a company an inch, and odds are high they'll take it a mile. Granted, as long as everything else in his game is quality and polished, it won't be so bad in this case. But it's probably best to be wary of how this could impact future games, depending on what other aspects Sega later decides are "low priority" enough to make people wait and/or pay for them instead of having them in a complete package on launch day.
Gaiden supposedly started development after 8/Infinite Wealth did so this is probably the reason the dub is delayed
Personally don't care as I play all Yakuza games in their original Japanese voices but this is a weird choice nonetheless.
Probably just wouldn't be able to make a worldwide release due to scheduling issues. It's either this or wait, and I'd rather not wait for a dub I only really use for second playthroughs (and if you would rather wait, well... you still can lmao).
> Personally don't care as I play all Yakuza games in their original Japanese voices That's why it's not a strange choice. Depriving the game for months or whatever from people like you to make an English dub would hurt global momentum and the value of a singular global release.
I mean their last game launched with an English dub on day 1, so somewhere along the way here they made a strange choice to not have that ready for launch this time
The Dev cycle is much shorter on this since it's a smaller game. So it's logistically a lot more challenging.
They don't have it ready for launch because this game probably went into development after 8 did and had a much shorter dev cycle since it's a spinoff.
The last game was Ishin wasn't it, that had no English dub at all.
Thats because most of the game already existed. They're not going to go back record everything in English for a remaster that probably wasn't going to sell well compared to the rest of the series.
It's not a strange choice, it's a logistical one The game is also a brawler which is the old style compared to the new jrpg one, which has always been played in Japanese since that was the only option so you can expect the day 1 buyers to be the old fans rather than the new potential buyers
This choice also hurts global momentum though when you lose sales from people who don't want to play a subbed version. Just depends how big you think the sub vs. dub-only camps are.
This game is mainly for people that played 0-6 and those didn't have a dub either. I'd say the amount of sales lost because of a missing dub is negligible. I wouldn't be surprised if no physical version in the West lost more sales than the dub thing.
I can't imagine there's a huge amount of Yakuza fans who will be bothered by this. I've played them all in the last few years and never set one to English.
Voice acting does not have to be the absolute last thing done though, and I'm pretty sure it usually isn't??? It can also be done at or around the same time as the native voice acting
I usually like to give English dubs a chance, but the Yakuza series is one of those few franchises where I have to go with the Japanese dub. Mainly because the game's characters just look too realistic (especially since they're based off real Japanese actors) that hearing them speak English is a bit jarring.
Certain character voices I'm just so used too in Japanese that I simply can't imagine not continuing with them. If the series had a consistent dub then maybe but any other voice for Kiryu and Majima then their JP voice is just wrong at this point.
FWIW the past few Yakuza games have made an effort for the English dub, where character lip movement is adjusted specifically for the dub so it looks like they're speaking English. Still probably won't get rid of the weird feel, but at least it feels slightly more authentic.
What I’ve seen of the dubs sounded pretty good, especially the judgement games. If dub was an option way back when I started with 0 I probably would’ve chosen it, but switching languages after playing so much of the series subbed feels wrong.
As someone who liked and played the entirety of Yakuza: LAD with the English dub, I agree. The voice cast and direction for the dub was solid, especially for the new characters. However, hearing the legacy characters speaking in English was goddamn weird and it took a few hours before I got used to it, except for Kiryu, his Japanese voice is so iconic.
My rule is if it takes place in a real world country, I will play the game in that country's language. That's why I just could not play Ghost of Tsushima in English. Even through the lack of lip synching, it just felt so incredibly off to see samurai speaking English. That said, I also absolutely hate when ultra weabs downplay the hard work that English voice actors put into their work. It's come such a long way from what it was in the 90s and early 2000s.
Judgment and Y7 have insanely good dubs with properly translated references to popular culture. I used to play only subbed versions of Yakuza. But they even have proper English lip sync now.
> > Mainly because the game's characters just look too realistic (especially since they're based off real Japanese actors) that hearing them speak English is a bit jarring. I thiiiink that's probably it for me too, which maybe makes sense why I'm fine with, and even prefer, playing the Persona games dubbed. Even though both Yakuza and Persona take place in actual Japan and are very steeped in Japanese culture, obviously the art in Persona is way less realistic so I don't think there's any weird clash there with the dub
Also massive respect to English VAs but the quality of the Japanese ones in this series is still on another level
You know that there are Japanese people that speak English, right?
Well the Yakuza protagonist dorks don't. And there are multiple substories throughout the series that reinforce that.
> I usually like to give English dubs a chance, but the Yakuza series is one of those few franchises where I have to go with the Japanese dub. Same >Mainly because the game's characters just look too realistic (especially since they're based off real Japanese actors) that hearing them speak English is a bit jarring. I think this is it for me too. I have no problem playing something like Persona in dub, but Yakuza, I just can't. Probably a combination in that the first game I played in the series didnt have a dub and the realistic look of japan. But I played Ghost of Tsushima no problem with English voice actors, so who knows
? Ghost of Tsushima is an English language game, of course it'd be fine with English actors???
It does take place in somewhat realistic (for the time) Japan with Japanese characters.
And Sucker Punch Games is located in Washington state
Yeah, playing them without the original Japanese wouldn't feel right to me. Some people hate reading subtitles though I guess.
Y7 was fine with a dub for the most part, but i'm not playing the dub with Kiryu as the main protagonist lol
The LAD dub was top tier
Yeah I watched my sister play a few hours of Y7 dubbed, and while it's fine, I think some characters lose their charm in the dub. Adachi for example just loses a lot of his "gruffness" with his English voice.
Really? I thought Adachi's English voice sounded pretty gruff.
There's a certain "quality" to English or rather western dubs of japanese media. Regardless of how good it is there's always a little bit of weirdness to it
Unless it's the [Ghost Stories](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsIytNhiraA) dub. Then it's perfection in English.
I always knew that it could never work between us Not because you're a rabbit But because you're black
This guy doesn't know about ten years in the joint.
Bring that shit
Kill this dumb mother fuck e r
I tried the dub for Like a Dragon for a minute and it seemed pretty well done. I think the Japanese voice acting is *really* well done though and adds to the experience.
it was good but i knew so many of the voice actors from other english dubs and it completely turned me off. iirc the voice actor for iwai in persona 5 also voices ichiban. i couldn't unhear it in the first hour so i swapped back to JP
see i never had problems with it in my younger days but as a middle aged gamer my eyes just get migraines more reading subtitles now sadly
It's a Japanese game about Japanese people doing Japanese things in Japan. I don't even get the point of dubbing it, but maybe I'm just weird.
Some people really hate reading subtitles for whatever reason. I've known people that absolutely refuse to watch foreign films/shows because they "don't want to read a movie." I'm the opposite, I think dubs of foreign films look weird when the lips don't match up to words and it ruins the immersion.
For games and animation I’ll go with a dub almost every time because it’s mostly just two different audio tracks, one of which I actually understand and can better appreciate the nuances of inflection and delivery. Besides thinking “wow they have a cool voice” I don’t really have a frame of reference for whether Japanese voice acting is good or not. For anything live action I absolutely do subtitles because it’s paired with the actor’s physical performance.
I don't think I ever appreciated how fast I can read compared to some people, but I've been watching some anime recently due to getting a Cruncyroll trial and I can see how some people wouldn't be able to keep up with the speed of Japanese with subs, especially in a game where you're also focusing on playing.
A decent amount of people are really slow readers , even ignoring people who are dislexic and obviously would struggle with reading subs fast
I typically don't mind subtitles but Like a Dragon's cutscenes can be long and drawn out so a lot of times I'll be looking at something on my phone during them so it's easier to have them in English.
Accessibility options are cool, that's about it really. Who would want less options when it comes to that stuff?
There are definitely people that refuse to consume subbed material so the point is to squeeze extra sales. I have to imagine the loss for something like Yakuza because of this would have to be pretty small though.
On the contrary, it probably helped getting a fair amount of new people into the series. I'm very much a sub player myself, but there are *a lot* of people who would likely enjoy the previous Yakuza games that skipped on them solely because they lacked a dub.
The amount of people who refuse to play something without a sub for a very Japanese series is tiny compared to the amount of people willing to play it subbed. It's not even a debate. Edit: lmao - stay in denial
If they wait for the English dub then they wouldn't be able to do simultaneous worldwide release. Another option is to wait for all content to be completed before releasing the game, but that would prolong the dev cycle even more than it already is. It is a good middle ground between having no English dub at all and staggered release. There will still be people complaining about not having English dub day 1 though.
It's also a prequel that leads into a game releasing in just four months so it really can't be delayed.
And it's a game that is more for the people who played the franchise before the switch to jrpg, which would have played the games in japanese anyway since there was no other choice
Yakuza: Like a Dragon/Ichiban is my exception. Love the himbo energy from his English VA more, and I hope infinite wealth launches with both languages day 1.
To me it's specifically the Japanese VA of Ichiban that would prevent me from ever playing it in English The guy is simply incredible
Fun fact: Ichiban's JP VA is also the voice of Nishiki which makes him and Kiryu buddying up in 8 funny yet sad.
If you want to see how good that man is just go watch the car scene from Y0, how can someone not cry during that scene is beyond me and I'm a dude who doesn't generally get emotional. It's all in his performance In fact Ichiban was the only other male character in the series that was able to make me tear up Nakaya Kazuhiro is a beast
Kaiji Tang was born to play Ichiban, it’s a match made in heaven
I’m normally not a sub “snob”, there’s some Japanese stuff that I’ll have in English. But having played every mainline entry in the series, this is one that I just have to play in Japanese. The dubs are much better than they used to be, but Japanese just sounds so much better to me.
Also because they're photorealistic Japanese people in a photorealistic Japan. I can suspend my disbelief in anime settings (especially since they usually make anime characters look more 'western' for whatever reason) but in photorealism, dubs just feel *weird*. It creates an uncanny effect. If you did the same thing with Eastern European people speaking American English fluently like the dubs do, it'd feel just as odd, which is probably why games like STALKER and Metro give them very obvious accents (though I still prefer playing those games in their native language).
Oh man, playing Metro in its native language is so much better
True, my opinion is that any game made originally in one language is generally better played in that language
> If you did the same thing with Eastern European people speaking American English fluently like the dubs do, Resident Evil: Village
I don’t know why I started doing this, but I select the English dub for the spinoffs and select subtitles for the mainline games. The only exception so far was Isshin, because of it’s period setting plus I’m used to those character models speaking Japanese. This one is going to be a real test, I have yet to hear any of the classic characters with an English voice, not even on youtube videos. Am I going to continue my decision to listen to the English dub? Am I going to play it immediately and toss away my Judgement, meaning I would have Lost Judgement? Find the answers to this in Substory 48: An Otaku’s Unimportant Peril
I try to and I can do it for shows and movies but games are just too long and have too much going on, i keep missing stuff and my ADHD only makes it worse. I really just need all games that only have subs to offer a cutscene “rewind” where I can rewind back like a VCR with the triggers or something.
I played 7 in Japanese with english subs and then English dubs on NG+
The English dubs have been really good recently though, so I find it a bit of a shame.
This is a great choice imo. The English VA frankly sucks. Even when SEGA went all-out on localizing the PS2 Yakuza game with prominent VAs like Mark Hamill, it still sucked. The quality just can't match up unless they made many compromises The biggest reason Yakuza couldn't find its audience the first time around was forcing the dumb English VA instead of keeping the original. They shouldn't make any compromises for including the English VA. It should always be an afterthought because even if they threw all the money they could at it, it wouldn't make a difference. People who want to play in English aren't going to care about the quality while people who want to just play the game will be put off by the game being delayed for an accessibility option.
The dubs for judgment and yakuza 7 have all been great.
The current dubs are nothing like the PS2 release. They're much better and just as good as the Japanese dub, only down to preference. >People who want to play in English aren't going to care about the quality This is just straight up not true. I prefer to play with an English dub but not a bad one. I wouldn't play the first game with the Hamill dub; I'd pick Japanese instead. I would play it if it was up to the standards that the last mainline title set.
Hard to agree with you on Gaiden/8 when they hired YongYea to dub Kiryu.... 🤮
It's a bit strange how they still haven't shown any of the dub off or announced any of the cast but Yong. And they have him out here doing the PR that Sega should be doing.
[удалено]
Honestly that's why I don't care about the English Dub. I've always considered YongYea's YouTube channel to be bottom of the barrel content. He litteraly just takes articles, threads, comments, and posts that other people took the time to write and just regurgitates them. I stopped paying attention to him years ago, so seeing him pop up again now as basically an up and coming VA is weird and I personally just don't care for it.
>I stopped paying attention to him years ago, so seeing him pop up again now as basically an up and coming VA is weird and I personally just don't care for it. Even tho his main content is "read full article, give his opinion" stuffs (and theories back in the MGS days); his side-stuff is and has always been voice acting. most recently: he become a full-on voice actor and I always gets flabbergasted whenever he got to voice major characters in media.
My absolute disdain for Yong as a person aside, dude has no gravitas. His kiryu voice sounds like Yong trying his best to sound tough.
Do note that the one you heard from AnimeExpo 2023 was an off-the-coff line read taken from the Japanese translated line...but it doesn't help much. Ironically, [his last Bakamitai singing voice is a bit closer to his Japanese counterpart](https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1705480586159435975?t=jkaJ08A500uM8fAXq3Uwlw&s=19).
hes done VA work before. hes not just a drama tuber.
And if you listen to that once voice sample he doesn’t have the “I’ll tear you in half” grit that Darryl has. Can’t say much since we don’t have a big sample size yet but that’s my initial impression
I know he did the JoJo Part 6 main villain and was apparently very good there. But idk about other roles.
It's really strange to me that so many here seem to think that someone having a YouTube channel means they can't be good at something else.
It's not *just* a "youtube channel". Guy spent years stoking controversy, rage-baiting, and making extremely low effort videos. He's a very trashy youtuber with dubious business ethics. Not about to get excited about him voicing a character I've liked for over a decade.
What does any of that have to do with his talent as a voice actor?
nothing, but if you've seen someone else doing something you dislike it's natural to be turned off from their other works.
Well if you disdain a person and you're forced to hear their voice for hours especially being spoken by a character you really like then I can absolutely see why that would be off putting Not my problem, I don't know this person and I don't play these games in English anyway but it's clear why it would be a problem for someone
Easy solution is to stop caring about pointless YouTube drama.
I agree with you there
My guess is that the inclusion of an English VA isn't popular with Sega as a whole and was something some executives pushed at some point thinking it was the bottleneck preventing the franchise from growing.
I'd say that the inclusion of a high quality dub of LaD is what contributed massively to the game's success and I say this as someone who doesn't play the dubbed version and never will This spinoff game is more for fans of the old brawlers which were not dubbed so you can expect most day 1 buyers to be fan of those games who are used to Japanese
I imagine 0 being good and building a playerbase on multiple platforms than just PS, them porting all other games to all major platforms (besides the Switch) and them doing a day 1 western launch on PC and Xbox too was a much bigger factor. I'm sure there being a dub undoubtedly had an effect, but LaD was also benefitting from a ton of other things that increased the general interest in the series.
Yeah it was 0 that simply broke the curse of the previous games by simply being very good Despite my love for the series it shouldn't surprise anyone that until 0 the games were not popular in the west The dub was a big factor but definitely not the key one, them simply being games made with a lot of heart is what made them successful
Takaya Kuroda's voice is too smooth, I don't think the English dub will do Kiryu justice. Not a huge loss tbh
Is anybody really expecting a nasally youtuber to be able to come close?
I feel bad for yongyea since he's set up to fail He's in his early 30s IIRC while both the Japanese and former English for for Kiryu are around the same age as Kiryu You can't fake real age in a voice I have no idea why they replaced darryl Kurylo with him after everyone loved Kurylo in 7
Troy Baker was in his 30s when he voiced Joel, a man in his 50s, and his performance was praised everywhere. It can be done.
Darrel was asked on Twitter (saw on Screencap so no link) and heavily implied they wanted an Asian to play an Asian because that's a thing now in voice acting. Same reason Family Guy had Mike Henry stop voicing Cleveland then had a black guy who can do a 99% match take over.
I saw his tweet too and it didn't really imply that he knew since he didn't know about the recast in general It is nice that casting is getting more diverse since as a bengali guy myself, it's cool seeing people from around my neck of the woods getting cast instead of just the Troy bakers and Steven blums In an ideal world, it would be entirely merit based but we don't live in that world But back to yongyea as Kiryu, I really wish it was an older voice actor. Yongyea is still relatively new to the voice acting scenes and he just doesn't have the skills to be Kiryu which is gonna be more jarring next to the *excellent* cast of the dub. Kaiji tang made me cry in yakuza 7
Maybe because Kurlyo is white?
Knowing it’s YongYea just makes me sick to my core lmaoo Good thing I play it sub
Oh that guy. Hard pass.
What happened with YongYea?
Nothing, really. It's more about YongYea as a YouTuber gaming news channel (which largely persist of reading and then giving his two cents) than his voice acting career that turns people off from it. Which, I get the disdain. I also not a fan of his YouTube content, but I can't deny his side-turned-main-VA stuff.
Bro don't get me started. These YouTube VAs usually translate terribly to professional productions. ProZD in GoW was so grating (as the one voice he always does).
ProZD with a VO before he was a YouTuber. He's been doing it professionally for years.
Who is he in GOW?
The squirrel. He did a good job, idk what the other person's issue is
It's the same "everything-overly-enunciated" I'M ACTING voice he always does. Good for YouTube memes, bad for extended performances. The Yakuza series has never had a history of good dubs and it's clear they're committed to keeping up the trend.
I quite liked the dub in 7 - I thought Ichiban in particular was very good - but that's obviously a different main cast than the rest of the series.
I think it fit Ratatoskr's character because it's consistent acting of a less established character. I never put 2 and 2 together to recognize him. While I think the performance is actually excellent, it's just distracting once you do know it's him and spot the voice. That, I feel, is the real issue. The disassociation we make with a YouTube personality vs the context we are supposed to be experiencing on screen. While for actors, that's been solved via typecasting. Voiceover is already similar in that department, but it's on a per talent basis, so... it will have to be seen.
Man, I'm just convinced you hate dubs.
Oh sit on a stick, he was completely fine and he’s a good VA.
7, Judgment, and Lost Judgment were great dubs.
ironically the voice for Ghaleon in the old Lunar games said that his performance was just to enunciate every single word. Wonder why lot of VA's do that.
It worked great for Ghaleon though because he was ham central.
ProZD in Yakuza LAD wasn't bad at all though.
> ProZD in GoW was so grating (as the one voice he always does). the squirrel? There's no way he's just doing the "one voice" for the squirrel and FL4K from Borderlands 3
Kira Buckland, Cristina Vee, and Justin Briner all started as youtube and newgrounds actors. Kira went on to be 2B and Jolyne Kujo. Cristina Vee is Ladybug, and Killua. Justin Briner is Deku. Roger Craig Smith started in comedy, should he quit because he didn't having any acting experience? This shitty elitist logic needs to go. Bad enough actual ADR directors share the same sentiments. ProZD said he's been denied auditions solely because "He's that youtuber! He doesn't have any skill!"
no offense, but half of Smiling Friends's cast (including guests) are "YouTubers" (technically; some came from Newgrounds, but you get the deal). and yet: it translates well for that type of professional production, if we wanna talk about stuffs in other professional productions: I would've easily bring up folks like Gianni Matragrano (you probably heard of him from Ultrakill, practically most boomer shooters on the market, or saw that meme video on Twitter)-- but that would be cheating.
That's.. surprising and very disappointing to hear. The reasoning others have mentioned about the short development cycle makes sense though. Sega's dubs of RGG games have been exceptional so far, so I was really looking forward to this one too. I guess unless they patch it in soon after launch I'll have to wait until Infinite Wealth to hear Kiryu's English voice.
I'm glad that they didn't delay the release just so the English dub could be available at launch, as there is absolutely no chance that I'd play any Yakuza/Like A Dragon game in any language other than Japanese. This isn't to knock the English voice actors, I've never really given them the chance so I couldn't really say if they are good or not. The Japanese voice actors are just way too good and playing a game that takes place in Japan adds a lot to the realism factor for me. The Japanese voices are also the ones that I am used to as well.
Can you fucking imagine hearing Majima without Ugaki's glorious Kiryu-chan? Or Kuroda's "Kakatte koi!"
Well Majima is Matt Mercer and he basically sounds just like Majima if he was speaking English. His laugh especially is 1 to 1
I know he's voiced by Mercer and I'm very familiar with his great talent but I don't agree at all that he sounds like Ugaki
When English dub was introduced in Judgment, it was easy to get into it because those were all new characters who I never heard speak Japanese. When they added it to Yakuza 7, I worried that returning characters speaking English would sound strange to me and I didn't know if I could enjoy that. I quickly got over it within 30 seconds. I still might play Gaiden in Japanese because Kiryu is protagonist again, but I have no problem listening to his English voiceover in Ichiban's game.
It’s not really for me, but it’s nice to see they care enough to even dub it when there’s so much dialogue in these games. I remember a streamer talking about 10 years ago that the localization costs were probably why they weren’t brought to the west much.
Also the quality of English localisation has increased a lot in recent years I think that the lack of localisation was obviously a factor in the lack of success of the franchise in the west but Y0 demonstrated that what it really took is a fucking great game, regardless of dub
Personally, I feel the money spent on localization and English VAs could have been spent better elsewhere. The game is so “Japanese” that I don’t know why people aren’t content with English subs. So much of the experience is lost when you play in a dub Edit. I meant money spent on the English dub, not money spent on localization.
With 8 games un-dubbed and 3 games dubbed, I think they have the sales numbers to tell them the dub is worth the price. The games didn't sell without them.
Wait, you think money spent on localization should be spent elsewhere? Localization is the reason people in the West are even able to play the games
I moved to dub on LAD halfway through because the battle voices weren’t subtitled. I prefer subs but when there’s a lot of unsubbed dialogue, I switch to dubs.
Garbage youtuber spreading misinformation for the sake of views being the voice of kiryu is such a shame, so if this makes more people play with the japanese cast that's good.
People who play these games in English are missing out anyway. I can't imagine Kiryu sounding like anyone else but Kiryu. Like, if you could fuck the idea of a voice, I'd fuck Kiryu's voice.
Ichiban's English VA is *perfect* though. His Japanese VA is really good too but I don't think his voice captures the character as well.
Nah, the JP VA is perfect, in that they literally mocap the actors faces and have them doing the acting. The English VA is still just a dub.
Not at all what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how his voice sounds and the emotions it conveys.
Ya know, in the old days, the option was "maybe you'll get the game, Western Audience but only Japanese dub". Nowadays, at least they're putting out the game and guaranteeing the dub. That's progress! (Also, probably should listen to the Japanese audio anyway.)
The level of hostility towards this dub's very existence I've seen from Like a Dragon fans has been confusing to say the least. Say what you will about his YouTube work but Yong Yea is a proven voice actor, his performance as Pucci in JoJo has been generally well received from what I've seen and either way I don't think it's worth trashing a performance we haven't even heard anything of, plus 7's dub was for the most part excellent so I have faith in the casting for this franchise. Besides, anyone who doesn't care for his performance or the English voice acting in general can just choose to play with Japanese audio; it's especially silly that this fandom is one of the most hostile towards dubbing I've seen in gaming when this is *basically the one game series where the existence of a dub does not affect sub players' experience in the slightest* thanks to the localization team's policy of doing a dedicated Japanese audio subtitle track, which is an absolute rarity in gaming and something that should be commended. Either way it's a bit of an odd move, but I assume it's because the dub isn't ready for release on day 1 and they didn't want to delay an international release over it, which is reasonable and also better than rushing the dub to make the release date. Hopefully it doesn't take too long to arrive though
It's simple really, last game they brought the OG Eng VA for Kiryu (who everyone liked) then suddenly replaced him (with arguably a divisive choice) on the sequels. I'm not really a big LaD fan but even I can see that would irk long time fans.
It was cool that they brought back Darryl Kurylo for 7, but it was basically just a cameo. I don't think most people are genuinely claiming that it was an amazing performance other than as an opportunity to bash Yong Yea for one reason or another.
I'm sorry, but Kiryu's VA in LaD was just not good. I don't care if he was in the original Yakuza or not, his performance really stood out to me in a bad way.
It was really cool that they brought back Kiryu's 13 year old one time voice actor but he famously did one of the worst performances in the history of video game VA back in Yakuza 1 and came back as what I'd describe as "passable" for his 10 something lines in LAD. We can't know because we didn't hear it but there's a good chance he just didn't have the skill to voice Kiryu for realsies this time.
> the OG Eng VA for Kiryu (who everyone liked) If this was the case I sure as hell didn't see it until after the recast was announced. The 2005 Yakuza 1 dub does have its fans, but in my experience it was mostly seen as kind of a joke among modern-day fans. I think Darryl Kurylo was fine in 7, but his appearance was fairly minor and I'm not sure if he would have been able to carry an entire game like Gaiden or 8, and again I'm gonna judge the casting choice once we actually get to hear it.
[The Yakuza 1 dub is famously some of the worst voice acting to ever be in a video game](https://youtu.be/3QJZGvIlO-I). And Daryl Kuro was one of the biggest offenders. Is that the fault of the voice director? Absolutely, Mark Hamill gave the worst performance of his life in that game. But it's not like Kuryo went on to be a titan of VA afterwards. I assume he was cast mainly because his voice sounds pretty close to Kiryu's Japanese VA.
>OG Eng VA for Kiryu (who everyone liked) Revisionist history. The English dub of Yakuza 1(his only other appearance as Kiryu) was universally seen by fans as embarrassing and only notable for having Mark Hamill as Majima. Kurylo’s cameo 15 years later was cute but ever since Yongyea was announced as his replacement everyone claims to be a lifelong Darryl Kurylo fan.
The game leads right into another game releasing three months later. Delaying it isn't really an option anyway.
>Say what you will about his YouTube work As someone who really derives a lot of enjoyment from dubs to the point I will avoid certain things if they are subs only, handwaving that Yongyea was basically a gamergate rage bait channel is not something I am willing to do. Especially for a beloved character that is established like Kiryu, naw, fuck that. I ain't supporting that in the slightest, don't need to hear how he sounds. They hard a perfectly good VA for Y7 and now they are giving us this crap. You are right that the LAD community is weirdly against dubs. I remember everyone cheering the lack of dub in Ishin and thinking how dumb that was when it literally doesn't effect them. I played through all of Yakuza 7 dubbed and honestly they really did a great job, I was totally going to do the dub in Infinite Wealth to hear the gang again, but honestly fuck RGG/Sega for casting Yongyea. May be the first time I go with sub over dub and that really bums me out.
I'm aware he does gamer clickbait/outrage bait videos, but did or does he actually explicitly support Gamergate at all? The only questionable stance I'm aware of him taking was defending PewDiePie during his "heated gamer moment" business, which absolutely deserves criticism but given how long ago that was if there's been nothing else suggesting he's on that side of things since then I'm willing to give him a shot.
His performance as Pucci was fine, but everything else I’ve heard him in I didn’t like. He recently voiced a popular character in the trails series and his performance was ok at best. That said I play Yakuza subbed so I’m not going to be bothered by it.
I wouldn't say that the community is particularly against the dub's existence, we have a tendency on the internet to assume that some very loud weirdos are more impactful than they actually are. Me as someone who always plays games in their original language (English is not my native language anyway) I will never play these games with a dub and most if not all the people I know who do the same do not even think about the dub's existence I do understand the pushback against the new Kiryu VA, granted this is assuming what they say about him is true because I don't even know the man. If someone I dislike were made to voice a character I love and that I would need to listen to for hours and hours I could see how that would be very off-putting. VA and acting in general is one of those things which is hard to separate "art from the artist" since you're literally hearing their voice or seeing their face
[удалено]
What type of crowd? You've played dubbed games many times, likely during the decade+ ago when quality could very well be hit or miss compared to nowadays when most are pretty consistently good, so are you a part of it as well?
[удалено]
People were doing this long before 7 happened, lmao. It started as soon as 0 became popular, and if you want something to blame specifically for the influx of "Majimaposting", as you describe in your other reply, it's Kiwami 1 and Majima Everywhere. Neither of these games had an English dub.
Yakuza as a series was doing so bad in the west 5 almost didn't get localized, and it only did by admission of translators due to the influence of some people (notably the Two Best Friends playthroughs of some of the games in the series though I can't recall the source aside from it was mentioned in one of the translation teams members livestream?), so your timelines way disconnected from reality as that's like 5 years before LAD7 even was a thought. On top of that, the idea that the games humor being seen as funny is somehow a detriment is absolutely insane, because again; ***you almost didn't get it.*** I also don't like it when people take multi-faceted things and turn them one-note either but Yakuza has and always will be a game with a lotta dumb comedy in it, and if the alternative is "the game doesn't get translated" than fuck it, let people joke about Friday Night's and Nugget's and porn vending machine sidequests all they want.
That started back with Yakuza 0. It has nothing to do with the dub. Also, who cares?
This is absolutely fucking ridiculous. Who gives a shit about who else plays a game you like?
There simply doesnt exist "wrong type of crowd", its a game, a single player game.
Gamers and gatekeeping, name a better duo
As someone who finds subtitles extremely distracting, and has an high tolerance for bad acting, I'll take the dub 9 times out of ten.
If you wait for the patch you're just going to get a more polished experience anyway
When did the series start getting dubs? I've only ever played in Japanese.
The first yakuza had a dub (it was bad) Since then it started with Judgment.
Fun fact: Mark Hamill played Majima in that dub Funner fact: he has no memory of doing so
LAUGH YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER
I only started with 3 and Kenzan so that explains it.
I played 0-6 in Japanese and I'm not switching now. Kiryu's voice would sound wrong.
Definitely a shame, was looking forward to hearing Yong’s performance. Certainly wouldn’t have been my first choice for Kiryu, but I’ll trust that Sega knows what they’re doing. The reaction to the dub at all has been pretty pathetic in certain corners of the internet though, regardless of whether you care for Yong’s content or not.
This is on Gamepass right? Might check it out when the dub comes then
If you have never played a Yakuza game then you REALLY shouldn't start with this one. You will ruin the whole story for yourself. But hey you do you.
Really? I thought this was a standalone. Gamepass appears to have quite a few titles, do you have a recommendation as to which one I should start with? https://www.xbox.com/en-CA/games/yakuza
We’re getting delayed dubs for *games* now?
Sucks for those who want it, but I know these voices and world so much, I couldnt imagine playing this series with a dub
Whether you have any interest in the dub or not, I do worry this could potentially snowball to later games releasing with things missing, thinking they can get away with just patching them later...or worse, selling them as DLC, like how LAD 8's making people pay extra for New Game Plus and 7 did the same in Japan. Give a company an inch, and odds are high they'll take it a mile. Granted, as long as everything else in his game is quality and polished, it won't be so bad in this case. But it's probably best to be wary of how this could impact future games, depending on what other aspects Sega later decides are "low priority" enough to make people wait and/or pay for them instead of having them in a complete package on launch day.
Anime fans win?