I’ve seen modest and lukewarm and even ravaging reviews of Panzer Dragoon Saga before. Most of them analyze and overanalyze its obvious flaws. Too short. Too easy. Graphics are outdated(said by the same people who gush about FFVII). Fair enough. I ignore them or tolerate their points if written properly. However, it’s obvious this guy just doesn’t get it.
A fine review as it is, but some paragraphs have me scratching my head.
“The audio certainly isn’t bad, but it failed to captivate me like the audio of most other RPGs did. None of the music in the game really catches my ear. The audio does give the game kind of a “mystical” feel, but is overall inferior to most other RPGs. The sound effects are pretty good, though they did rehash the same sound effects for most of the enemies.”
“The game’s story isn’t bad either. As the game starts out, you take control of Edge, a young boy who at first seems like just a typical person, but then ends up having the fate of the world resting upon his shoulders. The game’s story does have some plot twists, and some parts of it interested me, but it’s not all that great. A lot of it is unoriginal, unfortunately.”
Que?
And the humdinger. How dare he suggest this?
“Now, here’s one of my problems with the game: there are voiceovers for almost every piece of dialogue in Panzer Dragoon Saga. The voiceovers are good, but they’re all in Japanese. You must read the text at the bottom of the screen to figure out what they are saying (Unless you know Japanese, of course). It’s not a huge flaw, but I would have enjoyed the cutscenes more if Sega had put English voiceovers for the English version. They probably didn’t have the time and money because, like I said before, the Saturn was already starting to die out.”
I love how the words Final Fantasy have become synonymous with role playing game, as if that particular series set some kind of standard from which all other RPGs should be judged. I’ve seen gamers even criticise Knights of the Old Republic for not playing anything like the latest Final Fantasy epic.
I wouldn’t worry about it; Panzer Dragoon Saga almost always receives high marks from any self-respecting RPG fan. Of course, not everyone has learnt how to appreciate the finer things in life; that’s their problem, not ours.
Now I agree that most of the review seems over-critical, but what strikes you as so bad about this part? To be honest, I suspect I’d have enjoyed the game more myself if it had (good) English voice-overs rather than the Japanese ones; the voice-overs were intended to be in the gamers’ own language, after all. Although it certainly isn’t a major flaw, it’s technically an incompleteness of translation; though of course I’m less unhappy about that and more happy that we got an English script at all…
Now I agree that most of the review seems over-critical, but what strikes you as so bad about this part? To be honest, I suspect I’d have enjoyed the game more myself if it had (good) English voice-overs rather than the Japanese ones; the voice-overs were intended to be in the gamers’ own language, after all. Although it certainly isn’t a major flaw, it’s technically an incompleteness of translation; though of course I’m less unhappy about that and more happy that we got an English script at all…[/quote]
Maybe it’s just me, then. I’ve somehow come to equate the Japanese track as somehow enhancing the rather alien feel of the Panzer Dragoon world. Playing Saga in English for me would be like watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in English(I’ve tried it).
Not at all, I almost always play with subtitles switched on myself if I have a choice; that’s mainly because of how unclear voice-over recordings in games often are though, and because they have a habit of getting covered up by sound effects or background music.
Ah, well I preferred that in English too. So yeah, it’s all just a matter of personal opinion; but you’re right, it seems like a fairly minor point for someone to bring up in a general review…
I prefered that PDS wasn’t in english…
like what dragoon lover said about movies, and what gehn said about the language it was originally in.
For example, dubbed indian films. I much prefer english subtitles… because it just doesn’t seem fitting if everyone is in their home down speaking english.
Let me put it this way: The accents still sounded Japanese when the characters were speaking Panzerese.
Maybe it’s just because I’ve played too many Japanese games that have bad English voice acting that I can’t actually imagine all of the Panzer Dragoon Saga characters sounding okay with English voice overs.
I’m one of those people who prefer to watch Anime with subtitles than with English voice overs.
Yeah… I suppose if you don’t understand what they’re saying, and you’re not watching actual body language, it’s hard to tell whether or not the acting is good. There’s been plenty of times (coughcoughOnimushacoughcough) where people insisted the Japanese voices were soooooo much better, but I refuse to agree. The Japanese was horrid.
(As a side note: The guy who played the main character, Takeshi Kaneshiro, sucks at acting in Japanese, but appears to be decent when acting in Chinese… at least according to my Chinese friends. Go figure.)
The two main chracters in Saga were famous and skilled anime “seiyuu” long before Saga.
For anime that is… I heard Edged’s voiceactor in “the day after”, but then again any hollywood movie utterly sucks in Japanese. Japanese as a language is so terribly cheesy…
Seriously, everything in Japanese is melodramatic. It’s so much easier to voice act in Japanese and make it sound cool because, well, it’s a cheesy language
Okay, not all the time. There are plenty of pieces of literature out there that are just brilliant (Natsume Soseki’s “Kokoro” for example), but as far as modern Japanese writing goes, cheesy.
Everyone, trust me, be thankful that Saga was blessed with Japanese voices. I hate to levy a criticism against the great True Way of Gaming, but in all fairness there are two things Sega seem chronically incapable of doing. One is competent marketing (
In fact, I’ve heard a rumour that at the time of the Saturn’s end Sega was so strapped for cash it wasn’t employing professional voice actors but pulling workers off their office floor and asking them to read out the lines…
Hahaha… I highly doubt that was out of a lack of cash. The only time I’ve heard that happening was for Space Channel 5 (for all the bit parts) and for… crap… Guardian Heroes? I forget.
But, crappy voice work isn’t just a Sega problem. Aside from a handful of AAA, multi-million dollar budget titles, how many localized games can you honestly say have great voice acting? Even big name brands like Resident Evil (which has gotten better, admittedly), Silent Hill, etc have horrible voice acting. It’s much different localizing the voice to fit the timing, cadence, and body language of a culture as vastly different as Japanese, than it is to simply write a script and record it without any limitations.
For example, a lot of the people love the voice over work in the Otogi series. Why? Simply because there is little to no actual character animation, it’s VERY slow paced (meaning there’s plenty of time to say a lot), etc. And yet, Otogi shares many of the same cast members as games such as Virtua Quest or Shinobi, both which get accused of having poor voice overs. It’s all in the presentation, unfortunately =\
So yeah, it’s all just a matter of personal opinion; but you’re right, it seems like a fairly minor point for someone to bring up in a general review…
