BeefJack: "Both Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 will break MMO tradition by featuring voice acting. But is it really necessary, asks Yuliya Geikhman – in fact, could it do more harm than good?"
Final Fantasy VII 1997 exceeds 15.5 million units sold worldwide as of February 2026, reinforcing its legacy as the series best selling title.
I’d love to know how many units have been sold of all the Final Fantasy VII franchise games, including the original, the remakes, spin offs such as Crisis Core, and mobile games Ever Crisis. I bet a fair few copies.
Modern day publisher be like: "Failed to meet sales expectations. Pivoting to live service."
It's an absolute legend of a game. And I honestly really love how the remake trilogy is shaping up so far.
Final Fantasy 7 is one of the most iconic video games of all time, with it helping to changed the RPG landscape when it was released in 1997.
If you already own it... There, I saved you the click on a deliberately misleading article.
I bought the game yesterday on steam for $4 because Square Enix is trying to replace it with a version that has no mod support.
Prior to yesterday, I had no idea the game had so many great mods until people started making a fuss out of it.
u get the switch 1 version of the og ff7 for free if you own 7 remake for the switch 2.
lol.
Whether you're jumping in for the first time and playing for free or adventuring in our recently launched sixth expansion, Visions of Eternity, the best time to play Guild Wars 2 is now! Join the millions of players in Tyria and experience the friendliest MMO community firsthand.
I must admit...if there's one thing I'm worried about if Square ever do a FFVII remake, it's the voice acting. The Final Fantasy VII Compilation games have been pretty hit-and-miss when it comes to voice acting and there are so many ways that epic scenes can be screwed up with lousy voice acting. :(
I'm indifferent towards voice acting. If it's there, that's great, if not I'm not complaining.
I doubt it will ruin Star Wars: The Old Republic for two reasons:
1. Bioware has proven that they have the talent and eye for polish in order to create awesome RPG games that holster some of the best and most impressive voice work in the biz (which is also one of the pillars of their games).
2. It is going to bolster both the single player aspect of the game and give something unique to the multyplayer aspect. If you are playing solo, instead of just auto-accepting each and every quest (like most players do in contemporary MMO's like World of Warcraft) here, you will feel the full power of immersion which is the trademark of every Bioware game. NPC's will have personalities for once, they wouldn't be a freaking quest generating machines that are as bland as a pile of rocks.
Just imagine playing a "never ending" KOTOR with the best elements of Mass Effect / Dragon Age with loot / instances / daily missions and a possibility to play with other people.
So, to sum up, if your voice acting crew is up to the task and you have the writers to come up with interesting and unique approaches to making quests, I don't think voice acting could ruin ANY gaming experience.
I just want the option for original voices . It's my pet peeve and why i just usually import instead without hoping anything from publishers .
And before some idiots comme with the "weaboo" nonsense , how about i treat you to some french or german uncharted and gears of war and watch you perish from anguish ?
It's not just for jrpgs and japanese games ... stuff like the Witcher are just miles better in their original perfect voices .
While in remakes I could imagine that this would be up for debate, but if we're talking about new titles I would highly disagree that voice acting can in any way be a bad thing.
Let's analyse his arguments:
"Videogames add features just to be “different”"
True, but Voice Acting doesn't make them different, as nearly every game has it these days. A game without voice-acting will feel old and sluggish in comparison with the more modern industry. That's why MMOs are doing it.
"The power of that scene lays largely in its silence."
That's probably because it was written with that idea in mind. There's a distinct difference between the way you write for actual spoken dialogue, and the way you write for text-box information, as the second needs to incorporate emotions in a way that is obvious to the viewer with the first one.
"I can imagine after a while you reach a point where you just have to yell"
I'd probably get annoyed far earlier if a text-box popped up with my every move that I'd have to press X for. In fact, I get annoyed after 3 consecutive ones.
"can you remember a game where you did not end up skipping at least some of the voice acting?"
Uncharted (1&2), Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy X, Resistance (1&2&3), Mass Effect (1&2)... etc, I find it much harder to remember one in which I did end up skipping some of it. Besides, it's much more tempting to skip through a text-box in an MMO than it is to skip through spoken dialogue
"All this is, of course, assuming the voices are done well"
And also assuming the text has been written well, otherwise it becomes all the more tempting to skip through those boxes.
"hearing the characters speak just slows down the flow of the game"
Not as much as a textbox does.
"Tell me a story: otherwise I will be skipping over your words, whether they are written or spoken."
And if you write them instead of speak them, I'll skip over them even if it is a good story, as I and many others are simply not bothered to read a wall of text. That's where this abbreviation comes from: tl;dr.