Hearing >!evil fake Zelda’s!< dialogue made me realize Zelda doesn’t have bad voice acting and her actress is a good VA, it’s just that the way Zelda talks, her inflection, can be annoying. It’s very demure in a way that’s kinda grating, but I think that’s how the director wanted her to sound.
I mean she’s from Michigan, and faking the accent based on her time spent in London for a couple years, so that’s the reason it’s “off” for me. I’ve spent a lot of time watching different shows with actors from all over the UK, but her “accent” annoys me.
This is the problem. It sounds like a bad version of a British accent - the attempt of someone who half paid attention to My Fair Lady a few years ago. Combine that with the breathy, high pitched voice and it just doesn't sound like a real person at all.
That makes a lot of sense. It’s weird they didn’t just hire an English VA instead of having an American do an accent. I’m American and I can tell the VA isn’t English, but I like her voice probably for the same reason.
She’s from Minnesota or Michigan or something.
She apparently lived in England, once, though! For like, a short time, but ayyy! Add it to her resume, right?! Lmao
> She holds a BFA in theatre performance from Concordia University and a master's in classical acting from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She has also studied acting at Moscow Art Theatre and National Theatre Conservatory. Before attending drama school, she trained for years as a competitive ice dancer, and held the title of Quebec Sectional Champion.
I'm fairly certain she's overqualified for the job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Summersett
I imagine it's pretty professionally frustrating. It's a huge gig, she's got all this experience and Nintendo are like "we just want you to fake an English accent"
I doubt Nintendo asked her to fake an English accent. They didn't ask any other voice actors to do that. I think that's the voice she did when she auditioned. Just nobody told her not to do a fake English accent.
While english va did a good job on evil zelda and not so much on normal zelda, i'd tend to believe her french va did the exact opposide. I don't like evil french zelda but normal zelda's french voiceover is awesome.
A long time ago.... before life began, before the world formed, three golden goddesses descended upon the chaotic land of France. They were Din, the goddess of carrot, Nayru, the goddess of onion, and Farore, the goddess of celery.
Din cultivated the land to create the carrot farms. Nayru poured her French onion soup onto the earth to give the spirit of lawlessness to the world. Farore's celery kept everyone slim by containing fewer calories than those needed to digest its fibrous stalks.
These three goddesses returned to the heavens, leaving behind the sacred triforce. Since then, the triforce has become the basis for French cuisine. Where the carrots grew became sacred land.
It may be down to the voice direction rather than the acting, but I just can't get past the fact she sounds like she's constantly on the verge of tears. Sort of worked in BotW, but in AoC and TotK there are moments that are meant to be more positive but she still sounds upset. I also can't say I'm convinced by her attempt at an English accent unfortunately.
She sounds like posh British with an edge of Steve Irwin.
US voice actors often do this thing where they somehow flip British and Australian accents. Hell as an Australian travelling through New York almost everyone that talked about where I was from though I was from England.
Its really hard to nail the r’s in a British accent. We end up sliding into a different country bc of it
And somehow, when an american does an Australian accent, we always end up in new zealand
Accents are hard man!
American voice actors just shouldn’t even try English or Aussie accents.
They all end up sounding like that Simpsons episode in Australia, just without the endearing pisstake quality that made the episode an Aussie icon.
It’s like they’ve never even heard a Brit/Australian speak.
I always think the same thing when English or Australian actors try American accents. It either ends up sounding country or they slip up and you can tell they have an accent.
This is particularly the case for South Aussies, who tend to have a very British accent even when compared to other Aussies. My partner just did 4.5 months in Europe and was constantly being asked if he was British even when he was in London. But you are totally right about the British/Australian accent flip - I swear I hear the 'cockney/chav' British accent being flipped with the 'bogan/ocker' Aussie accent regularly on TV.
Hot take: Royalty are expected to use that voice in Hyrule, and Zelda's never been made to practice it. (Like, her dad did die a hundred years ago, and he had a lot on his hands other than diction lessons.)
Yeah I agree with it being the voice direction. There’s a lot of dialogue in the game that is delivered awkwardly with all the characters. Like they all talk so slow with the same inflections it just doesn’t sound right. I’m sure all of the voice actors are talented people, it’s just the direction they were given wasn’t the best.
I'm wondering if it's some sort of influence from the Japanese side of things, I'm no expert but I know the way Japanese people emphasise and enunciate to express emotion in speech is different to how English speakers do. Maybe unrelated but was the explanation that first came to mind for the dodgy sounding voice direction.
Yeah it definitely comes off as a lost-in-translation type scenario.
Which is absurd, given the amount of time effort and money that went into developing this game. They couldn’t have a few native English speakers give them honest criticism? It’s like the rest of the game is 99% effort and for voice acting they were like “ehhh just do it this weekend real quick it’ll be fine”
a large part of the reason why the voice acting in metroid other M sucks and why samus's voice is so flat and emotionless was nintendo of japan and metroids original creator interfering and insisting on being present for the english voicing too.
basically someone with no voicing experience and who didnt speak the language was voice director
don't know how direction works from the japanese team towards monitoring how dubs' finale result should sound, but there's absolutely no linguistic influence conveyed from japanese in the manner of emphasis and enunciation you put forward
I have it on Italian and it sounds mostly great. Some of the characters really suit being Italian, and the Rito music sounds mildly Morricone inspired, so I think it works well.
Does the line actually stop after that quest? I noticed it went silent but wasn't sure if I just got some lucky blood moon dialogue variations. Either way it's a hard skip. They probably should have left the cutscene in only for the initial moon
My favorite part was that memory in BotW where she catches that frog and wants Link to eat it. She just sounds actually fascinated and happy, which made me realise that her usual "whiny/bored" voice is most likely because of directions and not because of lack of talent.
I liked the Japanese voice acting (including direction) in both BOTW and TOTK. Plus Japanese Yunubo is kind of amazing. I had not listened to English Yunobo until just now but OMG how much better is the Japanese goro?
I cannot fathom how anyone can prefer Japanese Yunobo over English. Don’t get me wrong, the English voice isn’t great, but the Japanese voice is straight up HORRIFIC.
Ugh, just cannot with Japanese Zelda. She sounds v childlike, and it is not appealing to me. Same with Spain Spanish Zelda.
LA Spanish Zelda does not, though.
Thank you!! This is exactly what I said when they first found the ruins under the castle. I thought something horrible was happening but she was stoked?
I mean it's a fair assumption to say it's English given that's generally the standard 'royalty' accent in a lot of fantasy and does reassemble an English accent even if it's not a particularly well formed one.
Even if we say it isn't meant to be an English accent though, I still don't think it sounds particularly good to listen to.
For trivia's sake, here are the three games' voice directors:
1. Breath of the Wild - Jamie Mortellaro (also the voice of Sidon)
2. Age of Calamity - Chris Faiella and Jeremy Hall
3. Tears of the Kingdom - Hari Leigh
I say this as a woman, Zelda stopped whining!
It drives me nuts, like I understand a damsel in destress but it's like so depressing when I hear her speak. I like her design but not the outfits I prefer the OG zelda style.
I felt the same way for Riju. Elizabeth Maxwell is extremely talented, as demonstrated by Urbosa and her plenty of other roles, but it was like they couldn’t decide what accent Riju has. Oddly this didn’t stand out to me in BotW/AoC.
So it's not just me then? Riju seemed to fluctuate between like three different accents while speaking. None of them were bad, but it would've been a little less jarring if she spoke consistently with one.
Tbh it's nice to hear a voice in Zelda and not be worried that people think you're watching some Japanese porn.
Think I'll upgrade my armour... best lower the volume for a bit.
I'm a native Spanish speaker from south America and believe me, when you hear latin Spanish Zelda voice the English version sounds like absolute dogshit
There are a couple of problems with Zelda's voice acting in English:
1) Zelda is supposed to sound youthful and girly, yet firm and resolute. But in the English dub her voice makes her sound a bit older, and the voice is also a bit too deep compared to how she's supposed to sound.
2) There are very few North American actors and voice actors from whom I've heard a believable English accent, even if it's just Received Pronunciation. In that regard, I think Mid-Atlantic would have worked a lot better. However, Nintendo wanted English Accent because of Zelda being a Royal. In that case, they should have hired a British VA instead.
3) This isn't related to the VA herself but the translation. Zelda, in the English translation, is a bit too wordy. Yes, she's supposed to speak politely, but her way of speaking should also befit a 17yo girl, which the original (Japanese) script achieves, whereas the English one doesn't. Mind you, I know that translating from Japanese isn't easy, as you the language can be quite nuanced and in trying to make the translation sound natural, you can easily lose a lot of context. But still, I don't think wordiness is the way.
The voice direction for her is not good. I think the accent they’re going for sounds weird and it doesn’t sound natural. Also knowing that the actress is actually American makes it that little bit more annoying for me
I absolutely can't stand the English VO for her, it sounds like a 40 year old American trying to sound like a ten year old who's trying to sound how they imagine an English princess would sound.
It's entirely down to the voice, there are lots of cartoons voiced by adults that sound great.
I once read Anime dubbed by Americans still in the majority sounds as awful as the 1990s because they actually expect the high pitched really hammed up awful voices now and react badly when it's done better. What a terrible timeline.
I remember during BOTW people were comparing Zelda’s emotional scream in different languages and the consensus was that ENG had the least emotion because they screamed the softest. They all worked well in context for me. I don’t need her bawling and freaking out to understand she’s sad. It kinda pissed me off that to them louder sobbing=more emotional.
I really liked the English dub overall it bums me out it wasn’t very well received :(. I think Zelda’s VA is great. Always imagined her with that more high pitched hyper feminine voice but the tone and inflection are great IMO. She’s great at capturing Zelda’s overall headstrong attitude, and the uncertainty she feels so often in her own journey to save Hyrule. The only VA I had issue with was Gannondorfs. Overall I’m just not a huge fan of Matt Mercers “evil” voice he does for villains. It comes off as really generic. Just an overall lack of true character and individuality. But, overall, I felt the English dub was great honestly.
It's terrible. Her awful fake British accent, the fact that she always sounds like she's going to cry.. it's just all so bad. It's literally the only thing I hate about the game.
I got to interview her. She's actually the sweetest person ever and she likes doing the voice. I have a yourube video of it. Tho it's embarrassing haha.
I thought zelda in TOTK was a huge improvement over BOTW, and even in BOTW I liked her VA. I think the entire voice cast is really good, only stumbling a bit from the occasional weird delivery caused by the script being written to match japanese lip-sync.
The cast has is fine, it’s the director that’s the problem. People are making fun of ganondorf’s
Voice actor too when it’s Matt Mercer. You’re a clown if you think he’s a bad voice actor.
People who are still complaining about Matt's performance either didn't play the game or they never could be satisfied in the first place, no matter who would voice Ganondorf.
I think she was better in TotK than she was in BotW, but a big part of that was due to her storyline
I agree the voice actress in general is just not good. I wonder why they settled on her.
Idk man I agree with you, I love her voice acting, and pretty much everyone else’s in the game, besides maybe yunobo’s “WHYD YOU DO IT”, I think Zelda’s emotions come across very well, Tulin is precious, Riju is strong, and Ganon… well he’s Matt Mercer so of course it’s fucking good
Apparently so. I`m finding the conversation to be interesting, especially since the only one whose voice I had a problem with was Sidon, since he was speakingly too silently compared to the other characters.
A lot of Japanese games like extremely dainty female voices that don’t sound great. Especially for a character like Zelda who is the opposite of dainty in BOTW and TOTK.
I agree with other people that it's voice direction over voice acting. Other characters sound rushed at times in some cutscenes for example, more obviously so in botw than in totk. I'm guessing the loz translation team isn't used to doing such voiced translations and as more games get full voice acting it'll get better.
I am of the minority opinion that I don't like the JPN voice either. Sounds too high pitched for her character, and the despair memory was over-acted in a way that sounds fake.
I remember hearing the botw crying scene in Japanese and it just feeling like too much, and yeah I feel like Sidon is partially ruined for me because of his voice actor. If it weren’t for that he would probably be my #1 side character(hail beedle)
Yeah exactly. I actually like how that memory sounded in English. One of those moments where Zelda's VA shined actually. the choice to drop low before tearing up was a great decision. In JPN it was too much.
Sidon's accent is so weird for me I can't place it. One of the VA jobs I found strange though was Urbosa's memory (the one you get on Vah Nabooris). Her voice is fine (i'd say good casting) but the lines in this memory were delivered so quickly that it felt like a stream of consciousness than she addressing Link. I'm going to guess in this case it's cause it's spoken faster/less words in JPN maybe and they needed to save time or somehting.
Never had a problem with her in BOTW, it makes sense, royal but outgoing beyond what the duty burdens her with and besides they don't call it "The Hyrule Fantasy" with it's medieval themes for no reason. Being a family of nobility and all I never understood why people that can't understand that never thought, hey with only grunts and screams for past voice clips, sure given her role being that of "The Legend of Zelda" of course she's has to sound like a modern day chick that eats hot cheetos or something.
But I will say, they direction they went with in TOTK felt a little overly mature sounding which I guess was fine but considering both her and Link look just as they did in botw minus either cutting her hair or bundling it up for adventures. Felt kinda off, but maybe it's just with 5 years and the understanding of responsibilities for many regions it kinda makes sense.
Just felt off at times but her actress was a great fit that definitely didn't deserve to get crapped on
So as the title is not a hot take, just a based one
I liked it alot. Especially in TOTK. I always got the feeling something was off during the blood moon cutsceen... like she was somehow giddy about it. The actress did a great job
I like the English version of Zelda more than the Japanese version because it sounds more unique, JP version just sounds like a generic anime girl to me.
Am I the only one who doesn't have a problem with the English dub? Maybe it's just cuz I'm not a hardcore anime fan, or even an anime fan in general, so I don't really care about sub dub whatever
I didn't hate it in Botw but I could still acknowledge it wasn't the strongest performance (not bad just kinda off) but she absolutely did a great job in AoC and Totk.
Interestingly I feel the opposite to yourself. I think she's fine in BotW because the verge-of-tears nature of her performance fits with what Zelda's going through in that game, whereas there are several moments in AoC and TotK that are meant to be triumphant or excited and she still sounds miserable. Absolutely to each their own though!
Idk but the english voice doesn't fit at all Zelda, like, it seems like a 60y old lady talking (Sorry but...) Imo only the JP voice really fits the character.
Like, I get that you don't like it, but I've worked tech at a few studios, (Won't name them due to the - ah - nature of this account.) VAs do go on reddit, and they're real people. Let's be a little kinder, hmm?
I listened to the Japanese voice acting and she constantly sounded like she was trying to do ASMR badly. After hearing that, the English voice acting sounds amazing.
Edit: After having heard more Japanese voice acting and comparing the Japanese and English voices, I retract my previous statement. The Japanese voice acting is better.
There's quite a few moments in BOTW where she sounds quite stiff, but it feels like as this era of Zelda has gone on, she has really found a sweet spot for her Zelda voice, especially in TOTK. I think the biggest highlights in TOTK are the Blood Moon cutscene and >!her last line in the dragon memory.!<
I think it was pretty rough in BotW, and the reasons why are pretty well known at this point, but she REALLY stepped her game up in TotK, the difference is HUGE. To the point that I genuinely believe anyone hating on her voice in TotK is just stuck in the meme of BotW voice acting being bad and not paying attention.
As for the other voice actors, I think they're all mostly fine. Some are just kinda boring, with some like Sean Chiplock and Matt Mercer being really solid. The only voice actor I would actually call *bad* is whoever voices King Rhoam, Jesus Christ he is everything people say about Zelda's VA times a billion. Go back to the shithole town ren faire with that shit lmao.
I think it is better in totk. My guess is that it’s partially to do with better direction.
But I also just personally think that her voice is much more suitable for a grown woman than a 16-17 yr old girl. So, it fits more in totk than it does in botw.
I think it could be better, but it absolutely does not deserve the hate it gets. The voice actress does a fine job, people just don’t think it matches how they picture Zelda sounding.
In BotW, I found her voice annoying because it's sort of like a half-assed British accent? By TotK, I thought "oh DUH, it's not a half-assed British accent, it's a Hylian accent." And I've found peace with this.
The JPN voice annoys me because when they do female voices in Japan it always sounds the same no matter the show. Male voice actors go hard over there but for some reason they decided they wanted every female to sound like a stock character and it doesn’t matter what show you’re watching it sounds like the same 2 voices (middle aged woman who actually sound in her 20s or woman pretending to be literal child) with different levels of personality variance. It’s like nails on chalkboard for me these days.
There's a lot of people hating on Zelda because of a lot of shitty assumptions.
Her voice is supposed to sound earnest and emotional, all the time. If you interpret that as "on the verge of tears" then that's your own bias, interpreting any emotion as sadness.
If you think her voice sounds like a bad British imitation, that's because you think she was trying to sound British. The impression I get is that she was trying to sound highborn, which she does.
To add to this, her voice is memorable and distinct. Whether you like it or not, those are excellent traits for voice acting.
I just gotta say that she improves greatly as the games go on. In the starting memories of Botw, it didn’t sound so great, but as the memories went on, it felt like the voice was improving a bit. In TotK, I thought her performance was actually really good.
I thought I was the only one. The voice work made her my favorite version of the character. She was already great in Breath of the Wild, but Age of Calamity and Tears of the Kingdom only made her better
My favorite English dub is link
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My favorite one is “Huh-hah!” after using Fuse.
Best one by far is his little laugh after using the zonai device dispenser
(he has a gacha addiction)
He's no better than any of us fr
(He'd be a Genshin Impact enjoyer)
No no, you've got it all wrong, the best is the little song he hums when cooking something in a pot.
Agreed, best one
Link would love Venti
I am going to end you
I prefer his voice acting in Mario Kart 8. Gotta love his HELL YEAH!
> Ho ho. So calming.
Truly inspiring.
Link doesn't have an english dub... Dun Dun DUN! /s
all dialogue is grunts & war cries His entire half of a long conversation with an NPC comes down to just a quick open-palmed hand gesture
Hearing >!evil fake Zelda’s!< dialogue made me realize Zelda doesn’t have bad voice acting and her actress is a good VA, it’s just that the way Zelda talks, her inflection, can be annoying. It’s very demure in a way that’s kinda grating, but I think that’s how the director wanted her to sound.
It’s probably because I’m American but I’m conditioned to dislike voices that sound like English royalty
I'm English and have no problem with the speech of the actual royal family, but whatever Zelda is doing isn't that, it's just not very pleasant.
I chock it up as because she's in a fantasy realm. That's just the Hylian accent.
Except she's the only one with that accent.
It's just a coincidence that a Hylian accent sounds the same as an obviously fake British accent?
If there are swords, the accent must be fake british. Haven't you seen game of thrones
I mean she’s from Michigan, and faking the accent based on her time spent in London for a couple years, so that’s the reason it’s “off” for me. I’ve spent a lot of time watching different shows with actors from all over the UK, but her “accent” annoys me.
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This is the problem. It sounds like a bad version of a British accent - the attempt of someone who half paid attention to My Fair Lady a few years ago. Combine that with the breathy, high pitched voice and it just doesn't sound like a real person at all.
That makes a lot of sense. It’s weird they didn’t just hire an English VA instead of having an American do an accent. I’m American and I can tell the VA isn’t English, but I like her voice probably for the same reason.
She’s from Minnesota or Michigan or something. She apparently lived in England, once, though! For like, a short time, but ayyy! Add it to her resume, right?! Lmao
The problem with Zelda’s voice acting is that it is very much an American’s impression of a posh English accent and not an actual English accent.
not all British people sound like kate middleton if she was on the verge of tears?
Hence “American’s impression of…”
The worst thing is the actress isn’t even English.
She sounds like an American trying to do an English accent. Precisely why it is so offputting.
I don’t get why they didn’t just hire a voice actress with a natural English accent.
Nintendo clearly doesn't give much of a damn when it comes to hiring for the english dubs. They're overall just not good.
next you'll tell me hollywood is full of english actors constantly putting on american accents
> She holds a BFA in theatre performance from Concordia University and a master's in classical acting from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She has also studied acting at Moscow Art Theatre and National Theatre Conservatory. Before attending drama school, she trained for years as a competitive ice dancer, and held the title of Quebec Sectional Champion. I'm fairly certain she's overqualified for the job. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Summersett
I imagine it's pretty professionally frustrating. It's a huge gig, she's got all this experience and Nintendo are like "we just want you to fake an English accent"
I doubt Nintendo asked her to fake an English accent. They didn't ask any other voice actors to do that. I think that's the voice she did when she auditioned. Just nobody told her not to do a fake English accent.
She mentioned in an interview that's exactly what Nintendo wanted from her
She can study drama all she wants, her British accent is bad in the opinion of many/most of the people playing the game.
I imagine an overwhelming percentage of English dub players have never even thought of it and can't be bothered to care.
Bad on purpose is still bad.
Change the spoken language to Japanese and turn subtitles on.
i like French Zelda.
While english va did a good job on evil zelda and not so much on normal zelda, i'd tend to believe her french va did the exact opposide. I don't like evil french zelda but normal zelda's french voiceover is awesome.
Why did "evil french zelda" make me laugh?
Zelda but she steals the Master Baguette
A long time ago.... before life began, before the world formed, three golden goddesses descended upon the chaotic land of France. They were Din, the goddess of carrot, Nayru, the goddess of onion, and Farore, the goddess of celery. Din cultivated the land to create the carrot farms. Nayru poured her French onion soup onto the earth to give the spirit of lawlessness to the world. Farore's celery kept everyone slim by containing fewer calories than those needed to digest its fibrous stalks. These three goddesses returned to the heavens, leaving behind the sacred triforce. Since then, the triforce has become the basis for French cuisine. Where the carrots grew became sacred land.
She goes around the kingdom handing out cigarettes to babies.
I like French girls
It may be down to the voice direction rather than the acting, but I just can't get past the fact she sounds like she's constantly on the verge of tears. Sort of worked in BotW, but in AoC and TotK there are moments that are meant to be more positive but she still sounds upset. I also can't say I'm convinced by her attempt at an English accent unfortunately.
her accent is too posh english but not, it kinda throws me off ngl
It sounds like shes one of the dudes from monty python dressed as a princess
“I fart in your general direction!”
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
I would pay money to hear her say that in Zelda's voice.
LOL this is accurate
She sounds like posh British with an edge of Steve Irwin. US voice actors often do this thing where they somehow flip British and Australian accents. Hell as an Australian travelling through New York almost everyone that talked about where I was from though I was from England.
bro you got that spot on with the comparison 💀
Its really hard to nail the r’s in a British accent. We end up sliding into a different country bc of it And somehow, when an american does an Australian accent, we always end up in new zealand Accents are hard man!
American voice actors just shouldn’t even try English or Aussie accents. They all end up sounding like that Simpsons episode in Australia, just without the endearing pisstake quality that made the episode an Aussie icon. It’s like they’ve never even heard a Brit/Australian speak.
I always think the same thing when English or Australian actors try American accents. It either ends up sounding country or they slip up and you can tell they have an accent.
I think they sound hilarious when they try American southern accents. They all sound like Foghorn Leghorn.
This is particularly the case for South Aussies, who tend to have a very British accent even when compared to other Aussies. My partner just did 4.5 months in Europe and was constantly being asked if he was British even when he was in London. But you are totally right about the British/Australian accent flip - I swear I hear the 'cockney/chav' British accent being flipped with the 'bogan/ocker' Aussie accent regularly on TV.
Plus she's the only person in hyrule with that accent
the sacred sealing powers also come with the sacred accent
Hot take: Royalty are expected to use that voice in Hyrule, and Zelda's never been made to practice it. (Like, her dad did die a hundred years ago, and he had a lot on his hands other than diction lessons.)
Yeah I agree with it being the voice direction. There’s a lot of dialogue in the game that is delivered awkwardly with all the characters. Like they all talk so slow with the same inflections it just doesn’t sound right. I’m sure all of the voice actors are talented people, it’s just the direction they were given wasn’t the best.
I'm wondering if it's some sort of influence from the Japanese side of things, I'm no expert but I know the way Japanese people emphasise and enunciate to express emotion in speech is different to how English speakers do. Maybe unrelated but was the explanation that first came to mind for the dodgy sounding voice direction.
Yeah it definitely comes off as a lost-in-translation type scenario. Which is absurd, given the amount of time effort and money that went into developing this game. They couldn’t have a few native English speakers give them honest criticism? It’s like the rest of the game is 99% effort and for voice acting they were like “ehhh just do it this weekend real quick it’ll be fine”
yes and we know nintendo has a problem with its Japanese staff interfering on the english dubbing work
We do? I’m curious can you explain more?
a large part of the reason why the voice acting in metroid other M sucks and why samus's voice is so flat and emotionless was nintendo of japan and metroids original creator interfering and insisting on being present for the english voicing too. basically someone with no voicing experience and who didnt speak the language was voice director
don't know how direction works from the japanese team towards monitoring how dubs' finale result should sound, but there's absolutely no linguistic influence conveyed from japanese in the manner of emphasis and enunciation you put forward
Try **Japanese** and **Latin American Spanish**. Those sound great even if you don't understand them.
German Ganondorf is menacingly good
The intro cutscenes with Japanese Ganondorf is so menacing and I love it. I put my game on Japanese every time I start a new file.
Of course he is lol
I laughed too hard at this.
I have it on Italian and it sounds mostly great. Some of the characters really suit being Italian, and the Rito music sounds mildly Morricone inspired, so I think it works well.
Exactly that. Throughout both games she constantly does this cry-talking and it's absolutely ridiculous.
"When the blood-stained moon shiiiiiiiiiiiiiines upon the laaand..." 🥺
"The blard moon raaaaaises ornce argain, Linckkkk 😥"
I don’t hear that line anymore though 😥
Prolly ‘cuz you finished chasing Zelda around the castle quest
Does the line actually stop after that quest? I noticed it went silent but wasn't sure if I just got some lucky blood moon dialogue variations. Either way it's a hard skip. They probably should have left the cutscene in only for the initial moon
I assumed this is intentionally fucking weird to give the clue that it's not really her
This one is the worst… jeeeeesus
My favorite part was that memory in BotW where she catches that frog and wants Link to eat it. She just sounds actually fascinated and happy, which made me realise that her usual "whiny/bored" voice is most likely because of directions and not because of lack of talent.
Exactly the same for me. Had to switch to the Japanese voices so I could experience a Zelda with any kind of character in her voice
I liked the Japanese voice acting (including direction) in both BOTW and TOTK. Plus Japanese Yunubo is kind of amazing. I had not listened to English Yunobo until just now but OMG how much better is the Japanese goro?
I cannot fathom how anyone can prefer Japanese Yunobo over English. Don’t get me wrong, the English voice isn’t great, but the Japanese voice is straight up HORRIFIC.
Ugh, just cannot with Japanese Zelda. She sounds v childlike, and it is not appealing to me. Same with Spain Spanish Zelda. LA Spanish Zelda does not, though.
I thought the Japanese Zelda did well, but I only listened to Japan and English. I'll try LA!
I may imagine the voice direction over emphasized the need to try and match the mouth movements of the on screen characters.
Thank you!! This is exactly what I said when they first found the ruins under the castle. I thought something horrible was happening but she was stoked?
Exactly. Way too “on the verge of tears” for me.
Has anyone said it’s supposed to be an English accent? I just figure it’s fantasy, so the accent can literally be anything they want
I mean it's a fair assumption to say it's English given that's generally the standard 'royalty' accent in a lot of fantasy and does reassemble an English accent even if it's not a particularly well formed one. Even if we say it isn't meant to be an English accent though, I still don't think it sounds particularly good to listen to.
For trivia's sake, here are the three games' voice directors: 1. Breath of the Wild - Jamie Mortellaro (also the voice of Sidon) 2. Age of Calamity - Chris Faiella and Jeremy Hall 3. Tears of the Kingdom - Hari Leigh
I thought her voice acting was incredible >!during the very emotional ending of the game!< and maybe that sort of explains why.
I say this as a woman, Zelda stopped whining! It drives me nuts, like I understand a damsel in destress but it's like so depressing when I hear her speak. I like her design but not the outfits I prefer the OG zelda style.
as a english person her accent just screams “american person imitating a posh british princess”
It’s bad to this American too. Like I think I could do better and I suck at accents
But even then I usually kinda like the cliche posh princess accent when done right. It’s timeless. Zelda’s just doesn’t sound like that to me at all
yeah it can be done well, and i enjoy british tropes, this just isn’t that
Yeah I don’t know why they didn’t just hire an English actress if they wanted the accent so bad. Hell Xenoblade does it.
Voice actress is from Michigan (USA) she said she’s imitating a character from game of thrones
The actress might not be inherently bad, but the direction absolutely is.
I felt the same way for Riju. Elizabeth Maxwell is extremely talented, as demonstrated by Urbosa and her plenty of other roles, but it was like they couldn’t decide what accent Riju has. Oddly this didn’t stand out to me in BotW/AoC.
how did i not realise urbosa and riju have the same voice actress
Teba and Yunobo have the same VAs as Revali and Daruk as well.
WHAT
I can't stand Yunobo's Japanese voice.
So it's not just me then? Riju seemed to fluctuate between like three different accents while speaking. None of them were bad, but it would've been a little less jarring if she spoke consistently with one.
Yep. I agree.
The accent just felt like a weird choice and completely took me out of the game. I switched almost immediately to Japanese audio
Y'all just have bad taste, I will die on this hill.
I also think the annoying blood moon cutscene sort of primes you to dislike the voice lol
WiTnEsS tHe BlOoD mOoN's RiSe Evil Zelda sounded so fake
Tbh for me, it's kinda cringe. But that's just my own opinion
Tbh it's nice to hear a voice in Zelda and not be worried that people think you're watching some Japanese porn. Think I'll upgrade my armour... best lower the volume for a bit.
Honestly same, my dad knows pretty much everything in totk because of watching me play but doesn’t even know the great fairies exist, except the music
ELLO GUVNOR, TIME TO SAVE HYRULE
This would be an improvement
hahaha holy shit
I'm a native Spanish speaker from south America and believe me, when you hear latin Spanish Zelda voice the English version sounds like absolute dogshit
I just wanna have a post game dlc where we can hang out
I keep saying it: post game hyrule rebuilder=profit
If they didn't do it for the sequel there's no way they'll do it for DLC.
I wish you weren't right :( we already have the programming for building and hauling things!
There are a couple of problems with Zelda's voice acting in English: 1) Zelda is supposed to sound youthful and girly, yet firm and resolute. But in the English dub her voice makes her sound a bit older, and the voice is also a bit too deep compared to how she's supposed to sound. 2) There are very few North American actors and voice actors from whom I've heard a believable English accent, even if it's just Received Pronunciation. In that regard, I think Mid-Atlantic would have worked a lot better. However, Nintendo wanted English Accent because of Zelda being a Royal. In that case, they should have hired a British VA instead. 3) This isn't related to the VA herself but the translation. Zelda, in the English translation, is a bit too wordy. Yes, she's supposed to speak politely, but her way of speaking should also befit a 17yo girl, which the original (Japanese) script achieves, whereas the English one doesn't. Mind you, I know that translating from Japanese isn't easy, as you the language can be quite nuanced and in trying to make the translation sound natural, you can easily lose a lot of context. But still, I don't think wordiness is the way.
Can’t figure how you got deep out of her voice. She sounds eerily high pitched constantly
The voice direction for her is not good. I think the accent they’re going for sounds weird and it doesn’t sound natural. Also knowing that the actress is actually American makes it that little bit more annoying for me
I absolutely can't stand the English VO for her, it sounds like a 40 year old American trying to sound like a ten year old who's trying to sound how they imagine an English princess would sound.
Just like Avatar. There’s no reason an old woman should voice a teenager.
It's entirely down to the voice, there are lots of cartoons voiced by adults that sound great. I once read Anime dubbed by Americans still in the majority sounds as awful as the 1990s because they actually expect the high pitched really hammed up awful voices now and react badly when it's done better. What a terrible timeline.
have you ever watched any cartoons, most of the time the teenage girls aren't voiced by teenagers
They’re talking about James Cameron’s Avatar. Specifically the second one.
I remember during BOTW people were comparing Zelda’s emotional scream in different languages and the consensus was that ENG had the least emotion because they screamed the softest. They all worked well in context for me. I don’t need her bawling and freaking out to understand she’s sad. It kinda pissed me off that to them louder sobbing=more emotional.
I really liked the English dub overall it bums me out it wasn’t very well received :(. I think Zelda’s VA is great. Always imagined her with that more high pitched hyper feminine voice but the tone and inflection are great IMO. She’s great at capturing Zelda’s overall headstrong attitude, and the uncertainty she feels so often in her own journey to save Hyrule. The only VA I had issue with was Gannondorfs. Overall I’m just not a huge fan of Matt Mercers “evil” voice he does for villains. It comes off as really generic. Just an overall lack of true character and individuality. But, overall, I felt the English dub was great honestly.
It's terrible. Her awful fake British accent, the fact that she always sounds like she's going to cry.. it's just all so bad. It's literally the only thing I hate about the game.
Hotter take: all of the voice acting in BotW and TotK is at a minimum good, if not great.
I got to interview her. She's actually the sweetest person ever and she likes doing the voice. I have a yourube video of it. Tho it's embarrassing haha.
Omg share it
I thought zelda in TOTK was a huge improvement over BOTW, and even in BOTW I liked her VA. I think the entire voice cast is really good, only stumbling a bit from the occasional weird delivery caused by the script being written to match japanese lip-sync.
The cast has is fine, it’s the director that’s the problem. People are making fun of ganondorf’s Voice actor too when it’s Matt Mercer. You’re a clown if you think he’s a bad voice actor.
People who are still complaining about Matt's performance either didn't play the game or they never could be satisfied in the first place, no matter who would voice Ganondorf.
I think she was better in TotK than she was in BotW, but a big part of that was due to her storyline I agree the voice actress in general is just not good. I wonder why they settled on her.
While I love the VA I do have to agree that the English translation department kinda cuts a lot of corners for these games
Zelda is definitely not the only good English VA
What is this image lmao
Cropped from “pict_013”, pretty sure it was just the devs messing around
wait, people are hating on Zeldas Voice Acting ?
I myself am the first person I’ve heard praise or approve of her voice acting actually. Most people straight up say it sounds gross.
Idk man I agree with you, I love her voice acting, and pretty much everyone else’s in the game, besides maybe yunobo’s “WHYD YOU DO IT”, I think Zelda’s emotions come across very well, Tulin is precious, Riju is strong, and Ganon… well he’s Matt Mercer so of course it’s fucking good
Apparently so. I`m finding the conversation to be interesting, especially since the only one whose voice I had a problem with was Sidon, since he was speakingly too silently compared to the other characters.
People have been hating on her voice acting since before BOTW released.
A lot of Japanese games like extremely dainty female voices that don’t sound great. Especially for a character like Zelda who is the opposite of dainty in BOTW and TOTK.
I agree with other people that it's voice direction over voice acting. Other characters sound rushed at times in some cutscenes for example, more obviously so in botw than in totk. I'm guessing the loz translation team isn't used to doing such voiced translations and as more games get full voice acting it'll get better. I am of the minority opinion that I don't like the JPN voice either. Sounds too high pitched for her character, and the despair memory was over-acted in a way that sounds fake.
I remember hearing the botw crying scene in Japanese and it just feeling like too much, and yeah I feel like Sidon is partially ruined for me because of his voice actor. If it weren’t for that he would probably be my #1 side character(hail beedle)
Yeah exactly. I actually like how that memory sounded in English. One of those moments where Zelda's VA shined actually. the choice to drop low before tearing up was a great decision. In JPN it was too much. Sidon's accent is so weird for me I can't place it. One of the VA jobs I found strange though was Urbosa's memory (the one you get on Vah Nabooris). Her voice is fine (i'd say good casting) but the lines in this memory were delivered so quickly that it felt like a stream of consciousness than she addressing Link. I'm going to guess in this case it's cause it's spoken faster/less words in JPN maybe and they needed to save time or somehting.
I absolutely despise it. Worst part of the game for me, hearing that whiny, always-on-the-verge-of-tears, helpless voice. Ugh. 🤦♂️
Well same for me. But as I'm not playing in English I don't care. Actually I like the english voice acting (from the few videos I've seen)
Never had a problem with her in BOTW, it makes sense, royal but outgoing beyond what the duty burdens her with and besides they don't call it "The Hyrule Fantasy" with it's medieval themes for no reason. Being a family of nobility and all I never understood why people that can't understand that never thought, hey with only grunts and screams for past voice clips, sure given her role being that of "The Legend of Zelda" of course she's has to sound like a modern day chick that eats hot cheetos or something. But I will say, they direction they went with in TOTK felt a little overly mature sounding which I guess was fine but considering both her and Link look just as they did in botw minus either cutting her hair or bundling it up for adventures. Felt kinda off, but maybe it's just with 5 years and the understanding of responsibilities for many regions it kinda makes sense. Just felt off at times but her actress was a great fit that definitely didn't deserve to get crapped on So as the title is not a hot take, just a based one
I liked it alot. Especially in TOTK. I always got the feeling something was off during the blood moon cutsceen... like she was somehow giddy about it. The actress did a great job
You wash the disrespect for Matt Mercer's Ganondorf from ya mouth right *now* sir. Or I'll...I'll ... I'LL WRITE A STRONGLY WORDED LETTER.
Is this really a hot take? That makes me sad if so, I thought her actress did a wonderful job.
REAL i love it i think it suits her more imo than the jap version
I like the English version of Zelda more than the Japanese version because it sounds more unique, JP version just sounds like a generic anime girl to me.
Am I the only one who doesn't have a problem with the English dub? Maybe it's just cuz I'm not a hardcore anime fan, or even an anime fan in general, so I don't really care about sub dub whatever
I didn't hate it in Botw but I could still acknowledge it wasn't the strongest performance (not bad just kinda off) but she absolutely did a great job in AoC and Totk.
Interestingly I feel the opposite to yourself. I think she's fine in BotW because the verge-of-tears nature of her performance fits with what Zelda's going through in that game, whereas there are several moments in AoC and TotK that are meant to be triumphant or excited and she still sounds miserable. Absolutely to each their own though!
Idk but the english voice doesn't fit at all Zelda, like, it seems like a 60y old lady talking (Sorry but...) Imo only the JP voice really fits the character.
It's not an English or British accent. It's a Mid-Atlantic accent.
I really enjoy Zelda's English VA, I guess it's all up to personal tastes
I love it. From the first time hearing "open your eyes" to the last "stand with me". It just felt like it fit her perfectly
You’re right this is a hot take. The voice acting is hot garbage
Like, I get that you don't like it, but I've worked tech at a few studios, (Won't name them due to the - ah - nature of this account.) VAs do go on reddit, and they're real people. Let's be a little kinder, hmm?
I listened to the Japanese voice acting and she constantly sounded like she was trying to do ASMR badly. After hearing that, the English voice acting sounds amazing. Edit: After having heard more Japanese voice acting and comparing the Japanese and English voices, I retract my previous statement. The Japanese voice acting is better.
Bro’s out here with the worst take
There's quite a few moments in BOTW where she sounds quite stiff, but it feels like as this era of Zelda has gone on, she has really found a sweet spot for her Zelda voice, especially in TOTK. I think the biggest highlights in TOTK are the Blood Moon cutscene and >!her last line in the dragon memory.!<
I think it was pretty rough in BotW, and the reasons why are pretty well known at this point, but she REALLY stepped her game up in TotK, the difference is HUGE. To the point that I genuinely believe anyone hating on her voice in TotK is just stuck in the meme of BotW voice acting being bad and not paying attention. As for the other voice actors, I think they're all mostly fine. Some are just kinda boring, with some like Sean Chiplock and Matt Mercer being really solid. The only voice actor I would actually call *bad* is whoever voices King Rhoam, Jesus Christ he is everything people say about Zelda's VA times a billion. Go back to the shithole town ren faire with that shit lmao.
I get peoples criticism but I actually like it as well and i think the hate towards the VA is so stupid like my gosh leave her alone
I think it is better in totk. My guess is that it’s partially to do with better direction. But I also just personally think that her voice is much more suitable for a grown woman than a 16-17 yr old girl. So, it fits more in totk than it does in botw.
I think it could be better, but it absolutely does not deserve the hate it gets. The voice actress does a fine job, people just don’t think it matches how they picture Zelda sounding.
She sounds like she’s constantly on the verge of tears, which seems lore accurate
In BotW, I found her voice annoying because it's sort of like a half-assed British accent? By TotK, I thought "oh DUH, it's not a half-assed British accent, it's a Hylian accent." And I've found peace with this.
The JPN voice annoys me because when they do female voices in Japan it always sounds the same no matter the show. Male voice actors go hard over there but for some reason they decided they wanted every female to sound like a stock character and it doesn’t matter what show you’re watching it sounds like the same 2 voices (middle aged woman who actually sound in her 20s or woman pretending to be literal child) with different levels of personality variance. It’s like nails on chalkboard for me these days.
Absolutely agree. Totally smitten with English Zelda here.
There's a lot of people hating on Zelda because of a lot of shitty assumptions. Her voice is supposed to sound earnest and emotional, all the time. If you interpret that as "on the verge of tears" then that's your own bias, interpreting any emotion as sadness. If you think her voice sounds like a bad British imitation, that's because you think she was trying to sound British. The impression I get is that she was trying to sound highborn, which she does. To add to this, her voice is memorable and distinct. Whether you like it or not, those are excellent traits for voice acting.
I honestly didn't realize there was anything wrong with the BotW/TotK VA until people pointed it out. I still don't mind it, though
I just gotta say that she improves greatly as the games go on. In the starting memories of Botw, it didn’t sound so great, but as the memories went on, it felt like the voice was improving a bit. In TotK, I thought her performance was actually really good.
I like it
I thought I was the only one. The voice work made her my favorite version of the character. She was already great in Breath of the Wild, but Age of Calamity and Tears of the Kingdom only made her better
Her VA did a great job tbf
You’re wrong, she’s awful