Shantotto in Dissidia ENG: A Link to FFXI?

[Yugl]

This.

Seriously, need more people who grew up gamers doing the voices for video games.

You want a bunch of teenagers VAing your video games?

[urat]

As per the endings:

The characters will have a different phrase they state depending on what hp% you end the battle on.

IE if you barely scrape by in crit hp, they'll be holding their arm breathing heavy, saying something like, "That was a close one" or "I cant believe I pulled that off", shantotto if i'm correct, says something along the lines of, "You were very strong, but not strong enough" etc etc.

They also have different phrases at the start of the fight, including a specail catchphrase for bosses, and different phrases for how hard they got pwned if you lose.

Lotsa lotsa voice acting

[Silenka]

You know voice actors get shit for paychecks right? lol

That's their biggest complaint about the industry always, they don't really get paid very well for it, they put in long hours for dubs because they love doing it (albeit rather poorly in most VA's cases =/ )

[Hookah]

To answer the NA Voice Actor mediocrity question people seem to be throwing around...

The NA Voice Actor of Kuja, JD Cullum, has a youtube page apparently. A lot of FF fans asked about how it was to voice act for Kuja... some of the responses were pretty surprising.

Basically, they just gave him a vague idea of how Kuja should have sounded like ("Be feminine and breathy with your voice") and... that was it apparently. No directing, no background checking to see what the character is like. Nothing. He apparently said it was actually quite difficult to voice Kuja since he knew so little of the actual character itself.

Hell, he even admitted he hasn't even played the damn game.

His comments:

===

I will say this about the job, and then I'll leave the discussion, but perhaps it might provide you some insight into how these things work. I was being directed by a director who spoke to me via a translator, and she was trying to get me to literally imitate the Japanese actor who played the part. Now, it's one thing to try to imitate George W. Bush or anyone else in my native language, but it's absurd to try to imitate an unseen actor in a completely foreign language. Also, you may notice...

cont'd) ... that I extend my speech patterns in bizarre and unaccountable ways. That is because I am trying to match the time of the Japanese phrases. Well, Japanese is perhaps quite not as economical as English, at least for certain phrases. Sometimes I had to slow down and extend my voice to an absurd and unnatural degree to fit with the animation.

Finally, I was given no information about the character I was playing and I still don't really know, but I do know I was encouraged to sound breathy and feminine. Not my preferred approach but my job was to try to deliver what the director wanted. If you want a better sample of my v.o. work, you can hear me as the Frosted Mini Wheat...

I confess I'm not familiar with the rest of the project. They simply provide me with the lines for my character and then I record each one individually, while watching video playback. The whole thing took about 20 hours of work.

===

And... that's it!

Glad to see the guy takes his job seriously enough to actually do some research on his own for the role. I know it must be difficult to find some kind of media on Final Fantasy, since it's such a niche series, really not very popular. I mean it's not like he could just type the name into youtube or even google and come up with a ton of results to choose from and work with.

What a fucking douchebag. If this guy is industry standard then no wonder american VA's are so god awful.

[Talint]

You want a bunch of teenagers VAing your video games?

If it's a jRPG, chances are good that the characters are all teenagers anyway!

[Ququroon]

Her character bio in the Museum mentions something about her biggest regret being that she never married. Was this mentioned in a quest, or am I missing something?

[Silenka]

Who, Shantotto? There isn't a man in the FFXI world who could keep up with her, of course she's not married.

[Corrderio]

Who'd want to marry her with her superiority complex?

[Bress]

shantotto's finishing move fucking rocks!

youtube.com/watch?v=XCy1xevi2ZI&feature=related]YouTube - Dissidia Final Fantasy - Shantotto vs. Gabranth

why cant we do this in XI.

watching that video it look to me that she used Retribution at around 2:04, that's nifty.

[Aselin]

I just watched that video in the OP with the English VA and I have to say that pretty much nails Shantotto. It matches her attitude, haughty and bitchy. It makes me wish they at least included voice-overs for the cutscenes in FFXI. I can only imagine how other characters would sound in the game.

Do you get scored at the end of each battle or something? If so the following is ok but if its just static text...

"A decent job, even with all the fuss. I hereby score you, a solid B minus"

What wasn't that B plus to rhyme?!

Half rhyme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you're wondering about her rhyming... (slight derail, forgive me)

Spoiler: show

I've used half rhymes before in other writings.

One would assume that "plus" would rhyme better with "fuss," but are taken off guard when they see "minus" because they never heard of half rhymes before.

All you have to do is pronounce it a few times in your head or vocally out loud:

Full rhyme (with "plus") -

A decent job, / even with all the fuss.
fuh'ss.
I hereby score you, / a solid B plus.
pluh'ss.

Half rhyme (with "minus") -

A decent job, / even with all the fuss.
fuh'ss.
I hereby score you, / a solid B minus.
nuh'ss.

Another example from one of my writings:

Words cannot speak, but my heart silently
move my lips to the flow of time's passed by

To where we once begun and ne'er see
what had clouded our hearts that ne'er lie.

The words "silently" and "see" are half rhymes. They rhyme on "-ly" (lee) and "see" (see). The stanzas, or quatrains, follow the form of abab as you can see above.

Since writing is a hobby of mine, reading whatever Shantotto says in the game makes me feel pretty elated just to see them. There are, surprisingly, creative writers for this game. (Well, US version since I believe she doesn't rhyme in the Japanese version if I recall correctly).

I'm actually looking forward to the next and last mini-expansion because of her. It would be like reading one long rhyming poetry in every cutscene from beginning to end, as if you were reading the sonnets of a Shakespearean play. (Though, of course, not in the same quality.)

[Ququroon]

Her Japanese VA matches better. It's a lot higher of a voice, but still has the same bitchiness.

[Trocian]

watching that video it look to me that she used Retribution at around 2:04, that's nifty.

Yeah, that skill is called Retribution. Also, her ultimate weapon is Claustrum.

[Crysten]

Yeah, that skill is called Retribution. Also, her ultimate weapon is Claustrum.

in before lolClaustrum

As for the VAing, I think they really did nail Shantotto on the English dub. The upper class, British accent just sums up everything she really is - Grade A bitch.

I personally think the Japanese are the only people who can take a bitchy attitude, speak it like a chipmunk and get clean away with it. In English that would turn out so freaking wrong. D:

[evilpaul]

God the English VA is terrible ._. Though that is kinda cool!

EDIT: Anything related to XI is after the 2 minute mark

I think Square-Enix deliberately gets terrible VAs and voice direction for its English releases.

FFXII is the only one I can think of where it was decent mostly.

[urat]

As for her half rhyme, I think they made the fuss/minus rhyme on purpose, as if shantotto was being insulting.

A inside joke of hers, kind of a, "hah, thought you were going to get a plus right? Guess again!" which definitely follows shantotto's style.

Thats how I got it

[evilpaul]

'Plus' would have rhymed, but she was being deliberately degrading.

[Spider-Dan]

On a side note, if they had put an XI villain in Dissidia, could it have been anyone but Shadow Lord?

Even the Zilart brothers seem a bit of a reach.

[Karbuncle]

ME' LORD PROMATHIA OF COURSE.

or the BLU guy from ToAU o .o;

[Yugl]

On a side note, if they had put an XI villain in Dissidia, could it have been anyone but Shadow Lord?

Even the Zilart brothers seem a bit of a reach.

AV obviously.

Edit: NAJA.

[ronin sparthos]

I think Square-Enix deliberately gets terrible VAs and voice direction for its English releases.

FFXII is the only one I can think of where it was decent mostly.

Valkyrie Profile 2 had pretty good English VAs, Odin was spot on though Lezard's VA completely obliterated the other other VAs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBhksfGFiQ8 - Small clip of Lezard. (Minor VP2 spoils)

The remake of Final Fantasy Tactics is another example of good English VAs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4kWbHePQbU - One of the better scenes without too many spoils.