Video: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's Localised Voice Acting is Pretty Darn Varied

I'm excited as long as Link can still only say "HYUHHH!"

I seen there's a trailer of Zelda crying in 7 different languages.

Mind you, I didn't watch it as I'm trying to avoid watching any more footage before it comes out.

My question is can you turn the voice acting off?

The Japanese voice acting is really really amazing. It was very moving when I saw it during the presentation. Looking up the trailer again later is when I discovered it was dubbed in several languages. This was really unfortunate, because it likely means I won't get to play with Japanese audio and English subs, as Nintendo of America is realllllly terrible when it comes to this sort of thing. Especially in recent years. I might actually put off buying the game until I find out if this'll be an option. If not, I'll have to wait until the homebrew scene for the Switch grows and I can forcefully undub it.

as long as it's pretty, i don't care how darned it is. i think that old lady is the same one that told me to kill monsters in a tower and feed my girlfriend the remains. she gets around.

Er, why does "English" have the American Flag attached to the trailer? lol

@Soundtoxin I really hope that we get English subtitles with Japanese voiceover!

@Jamotello Wwwwhhhhaaaatttt???? Nope, nevermind, I don't wanna know.

I just hope we get to choose which voice track we want. I'd like to choose the Japanese or Russian track and just pretend they're speaking Hylian.

that's pretty darn cool.

@AlexOlney hadn't really considered that. But yeah, maybe there'll be voice acting just for the big cinematic scenes. That's no so bad i think.

This is the first Nintendo game that came with Latin American dub in years (since StarFox 64 3D). They often don't even release the games in America with the european spanish subs.

Surely somebody knows if Japanese voice with English subtitles is an option...anybody?

The Italian voices aren't bad, although Pietro Ubaldi as the Goron is groan-worthy given his somewhat corny voice is all over the darn place in Italy.

Russian sounds pretty damn good, better than English. Of course Japanese would be perfect, but we Europeans probably won't get it.

The real question is... can we just turn it off all together and just have the text?

I don't think the English VA is very good, I'm hoping we get to choose Japanese with English subtitles!

@AlexOlney Im almost certain the voice acting will be for all the major cut scenes ONLY. I mean, has Nintendo actually confirmed that there is full voice acting in the game? I didnt see any sort of lip syncing and its possible the voice over was for the trailer only?

@kevfrei Amen. Link can never speak, and this is why a Zelda movie is next to impossible.

Is Link voiced

I loved the Latin America dub, alongside the Japanese one.
Still, the english one is growing on me.... slowly, but it is. Anyway, you can see how they went all out with the game, the VA even have the same pitch when talking!

My only complain is that Nintendo forced the dubbers in LA to use the Spanish pronunciation for words like Hyrule, instead of using the original english pronunciation everyone uses! Grr...

That just got annoying towards the end. Can we just keep the Japanese crying for all languages?!

So long as we don't get a repeat of CD-i we'll be golden

I'll keep everything in English. The other languages do nothing for me.

Zelda crying in eight different languages was just heartbreaking.

@Soundtoxin You're so extra but suit yourself! I'll be enjoying the game the way it is released on March 3

Now if only we could get the voice actor for Link who said:

Excuuuuse me princess!

well i liked the English voices plus i think adding voices was a big move for Zelda but i reckon it will be better for it as it can tell a more varied story

@cfgk24 because it's the US release and not the Australian release.

Is this serious? Is it a cultural thing?I've seen comments on people saying that zelda crying in japanese is over the top and exagerated, like an anime or something...
wtf?! I thought that crying was something spontaneous that people did differently depending on each person and the reason they're crying ._.
I like playing games in english (I don't like playing in my native language.) But if they offer the japanese version in the options that's a no-brainwer

Aren't people who are getting a non-English version judging it a little prematurely? (Assuming that's your native language) We only really got a few seconds of voice acting to listen to in this trailer, in total.

I guess if you really like listening to Japanese (or whichever language you choose)...

No wonder this game took forever to make!

@joealejos This is what I'm expecting. If memory serves, we've seen a number of clips in which regular dialogue is not voice-acted. That could be the result of an early build, but given the proximity of the release, I would imagine that we'll only have dialogue in major cutscenes.

Japanese sounds best of course, though they all have a great old lady voice, except maybe Italian. English Deku tree and King of Hyrule(?) don't sound old enough, but every other language sounds good. Zelda sounds hysterical in all languages; English probably being the worst.

@Spoony_Tech I feel the exact opposite. Japanese crying is so over the top, like it usually is in anime. I strongly dislike it, even though the overall Japanese dub sounds awesome, and only adds to the Studio Ghibli feel.

Why does the English VA sound like the most 'put on' voice of them all.
Props to both Spanish and Japanese dubs

@ricklongo I get strong anime vibes from that as well. Pop that into any anime crying scene and no one would think twice about it.

@thesilverbrick It's not like movies with mute protagonist are impossible. Wall-E for example. Or they could just make a fairy speak for him.

Wha..wh...WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!

They are dubbing it in every language?!?!?! O___O;;;;

...sorry for the reaction, but the idea of playing a game dubbed in Italian it's always a fantastic unbelievable news to me, it happened really rarely in my gaming life, and obviously never even dared to dream that one day it would have happened with a Zelda title O_O

Oh phew.. I'm glad they gave Zelda a UK accent. NoA could so easily have given her some cutesy little American school girl voice; and I would have been cringing my way through this whole game.

It's only my opinion, but I think Spanish (Latin), English and Japanese sound the best.

@BakaKnight There are a lot more languages than that, lol.

Almost everyone has already seen this.

On a sidenote: The awesome looking Goron is more in line with the gorons from Four sword adventures. He's also wearing a Roman-like cloth-piece.

I like the English Dub but I would prefer the Japanese Dub with English Subs.

As long as we get to pick the original Japanese voices, I'm fine. ^^ They're easily the best.

LOL at the spanish version: "El cataclismo que se conoce como Ganon" which is "The cataclysm known as Ganon" instead of Calamity Ganon.

EDIT: Actually the latin spanish is not bad, may even sound better than the english one, specially the Deku Tree. Seems like this could be the first game I'll ever play in spanish.

Really hope I can choose Japanese or failing that turn them off. Really not keen on the hammy American dub.

@CB85
Me too it gives me the feeling that im watching an anime.

I'm really not a fan. The old woman at the beginning sounds ok, but the rest just don't fit in a Zelda game for me. Especially what I'm assuming is the king. Sounds more like an American TV show narrator than the character of a king in a fantasy world. And that's what I always believe to be the issue, attaching English human voices with regional/national accents to fantasy characters in a fantasy world just never works. None of it except the Japanese will be lip synced either I suspect.

Here's hoping it's just used in cut scenes and not throughout the whole game.

@SanderEvers nice bias then

They should add one more language...
HYLIAN! That would be awesome lol, or i just use japanese if possible with sub lol

@The-Chosen-one I know right? And it only enhances the Studio Ghibli vibe the game has (which is a good thing, as that's what the devs intended).

Zelda in English always seems to be crying.

If you ask me the english dub didn't have any emotion to it. Especially the old woman at the beginning (sounds like she's just casually reading the script), and most especially Zelda's crying scene. The JP and the other languages have more passion IMHO.

Oh! BotW really has this many languages options?
When I saw a video about this from an unknown channel on YT, I just assumed this was click-bait haha!

@Miss_Dark As a Norwegian I am not sure if I want a Norwegian Zelda as the dubs at least for kids shows aren't usually that optimal, even though the movie dubbing is okey I still think I pass ;^^. (Search up "Norsk Zelda" on Youtube if you are interested as there are a few things there).

I think I stick with Japanese as the voice sound more authentic probably as Zelda voice actors are usually Japanese, but wouldn't mind an option for spoken Hylian :+).

I most certainly hope for Japanese audio I don't need anything else.

I just wish we get the option to change the language.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE It looks like Zelda is really upset about something

Oh boy, this debate.
I like the English VAs and don't think the Japanese is perfect. Westaboo confirmed yadda yadda.

I just find it funny that there are those in Japan who like English VAs more than Japanese ones because they feel Japanese VAs overact everything-- an opinion that many echo over here.

@thesilverbrick @kevfrei

Incidentally, if you've ever wanted to hear how Link would sound if he could say more than HYAAH...

At 4:33

I'll never quite understand the obsession an admittedly small niche of gamers (but seemingly a large portion of dedicated Nintendo gamers who engage in conversation about it on the internet) with having Japanese voice overs. If you can speak the language it makes sense since it's the original, but otherwise it's a language you can't understand, but it's also an exceedingly different school of theater than what most of us (particularly from the English school of theater, and consequently the US.) Like @Grawlog said it's very very grating and over the top to the listener accustomed to the western schools. It's "normal" for Japanese theater, but that's an acquired taste for a westerner. If you're not an anime fan (I don't dislike it, I'm just not someone who watches it more than once in a blue moon) who's grown accustomed to it, it just sounds terrible. In my case I've become used to it mostly through other games that aren't localized but given a choice of that or a language I actually understand, there's not much choice!

When that crying came on I was hoping very much they didn't instruct the English VA's to act in Japanese style. Fortunately they didn't. The Japanese school of theater traditionally over-emphasizes all things, mostly out of tradition from theater days long gone. Animation seems to have carried that tradition over even more than Japanese cinema. I'm surprised that even in Japan it hasn't mellowed more. I don't think that crying is any less grating to people there than here, they're just slightly more accustomed to hearing it.

@nab1 sometimes you need to change words for it to make more sense in another language, not that calamity needed to be changed but perhaps it has more power that line with cataclismo.

Would love to see the VA's from DarkSouls do their own take on this. The Old Lady from the DarkSouls intro replacing the Old Lady in Zelda would be nice 👌

Are you people serious about the Japanese voice acting? The English is 100 times better. The Japanese is ten times over the top lol. WAHAHAAAHAHAHA for the crying lol. Just awful. Stop acting like you aren't just preferring the Japanese because you think its cool and trendy to like the original language over your own. It is not better. Its too over the top and the emotions absolutely don't translate to our speaking style.

I don't really care for the English voices for Zelda and her father (I prefer the Japanese) but everything else sounds pretty good. Even though it was probably the shortest clip, I like all of the Goron's voices.

@Grawlog Some of it can be good, especially in quieter scenes, but for some reason a lot of Japanese voice actors start wailing and use the stereotypical anime cry, which drives me absolutely insane. I understand it's a sort of cultural thing, and that's fine, but I certainly couldn't stand such an amazing game as Breath of the Wild sounding like an anime. That would completely kill the whole atmosphere for me.

No offense to anyone who likes it. I just would rather it be a little more toned down, rather than shrieking every time something slightly dramatic happens. But ultimately, English is my native tongue, so that's what I'll be listening to either way, just out of personal preference.

@2CUTE4YOU lol I think @Jamotello is talking about Wii game Pandoras Tower

@Soundtoxin Moving? Really? Because all I remember from watching the Japanese trailer was Zelda's cringe inducing screeching and wailing that is so typical of Japanese 'drama'. All females in Japan are weak minded idiots who must wail and cry. FAR prefer the English version. More subtle.

@Soundtoxin If you get it on Switch just order the Japanese version. It's not region-locked. Also, the Japanese voice acting in that trailer is gross.

@HappyMaskedGuy Agreed.

@LetsGoRetro This guy gets it.

I am surprised there are this much of Japanese VS English voice acting debate, but a bit understandable from various different reasons I suppose.

I personally prefer Japanese or Hylian if Hylian was included, and English isn't my first language so I usually use the original language if I can depending on if I am used to the dub or not already or that the dub sounds better.

I will say I am usually fine with English dubs in games, just that for Japanese like games it is nice having Japanese as a option for me :+). No matter what voice acting version of BOTW you like, I hope you all have a fun time playing BOTW ^^.

I like the Russian VA best, but the other languages had their moments of brilliance there.

@GravyThief No offense, but I just can't trust the opinion of a dog, let alone one that steals gravy.

@Kmno I know, it's just that since spanish is my native language, it seems as everything is always translated into much longer sentences. I use all my devices in english just because many times words don't even fit. I'll give them props though for not going the usual route of translating things too literally, but actually putting some effort in translating the message, not the words.

@cfgk24 I'm guessing it's possibly due to the fact that they pulled the clips from the English trailer that was specifically released by Nintendo of America which is labeled as being specific to North America. And obviously they wouldn't use the Canadian flag, lols.

@KirbyTheVampire I don't think he was saying that Japanese people are weak-minded idiots. I think he was saying that females are portrayed as such in Japanese popular culture, which isn't much of an exaggeration.

@BAN Ah, I see. Never mind then. I just wasn't sure from the lack of clarification.

The English ones need a U.K. version. Cockney Ganon and Princess Essex please

@OfNullAndVoid
That would be gold man, pure gold.

I noticed that at 5:19, the English voice sounds exactly like Leon Bronev and Newton Belduke from the Professor Layton series. Does anyone else notice it?

I'm surprised Japan has such an expansive voice-over scene. They only have, like, 6-7 distinctive voice archetypes. Innocent school girl; androgynous boy (maybe?); female villain; angry, constipated-sounding old man; throaty old lady; super-campy weird Tingle type; generic deep-voiced villain guy.

All delivered with the subtlety of a telenovela.

I don't know all the characters involved, but if some variation of Darunia is in it and he's over-the-top, I will be a very happy camper.

...I gotta say the German and Russian dubs resonate with me the most. While I have a bit of a handle on German, I think I'll just play the game in my native English.

@kevfrei

lol your first comment made me laugh really hard.
when everyone is talking link screams; Seatsiaaaaaa, uh.. yaaaaa! Everyone is looking at link like; What he ^#*$#. Becouse no one understands him he will threw stuf in the room to find rupees instead lol.

The Japanese one is amazing. If it's possible to Switch from English to Japanese, then I'll certainly do that.

@kevfrei

Something like this lol!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0cnG1m2XbI

@nab1 It's cataclysm in the German version as well. Who knows, maybe that's closer to the Japanese original than 'calamity'.

All this commotion over which language sounds the best and I bet there's like 5 mins of spoken lines in the game.

English voices were fine.

I'll be playing it as my young son watches... English for us then. Nice not to have to read every line of text out to him. If I was playing alone id prob opt for Japanese with eng subs.

I'll go for Japanese with English subs, like I always do, if it's possible. Most English voice acting in games is American anyway, which grates on these British ears. If the VA was done in a similar way to DQ7's dialogue text, which was written in different dialects/accents depending on which island you were on (including Yorkshire!), then that would be great. But it's usually a generic (to my ears) variety of American. If I can't have Japanese I'll probably go for either Spanish or Russian.

@Tyranexx
I've gotta say, I'm baffled.
Italian voice actors are usually known as some of the best in the world but my language's dub is absolutely horrible.
I mean, German and Russian are the close second to the Japanese dub, what is going on? And even English to me is "just" ok. I'm really puzzled by Nintendo's choice to be honest.

@BAN haha! Wise words my friend! 😀

@AlexOlney
Dude, it's Nintendo.
It's like the Disney of gaming.
If they can get Cloud to be in Smash, anything is possible at this point (besides decent third-party support, that is).
"But Nintendo is underestimated all the time!"
So is Disney. Then Tangled, Frozen, Wreck-It Ralph, Gravity Falls, Zootopia, The Princess And The Frog, Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil and Wander Over Yonder came along. Hopefully the Nintendo renaissance is behind the corner.

I really hope I can leave jap voice over and have subtitles like in the direct!

Ugh, this voice acting is going to be awful I can see it now. Should have stuck with no VA.

@KirbyTheVampire I mean, I could be wrong, but I feel pretty confident in my interpretation.

@BAN Bingo. Thank you for helping that young man understand what I thought was fairly well implied. I need to be more specific.

Japanese culture demands that women be weak minded, child bearing softheads who need Japanese men to tame, discipline and spoon-feed them, because otherwise their inferior minds would melt them into barren pink puddles of tears and regret.

Oh, and mutual consent in the bedroom is optional.

@NEStalgia Amen! I agree wholeheartedly. I have a friend who was telling me he thinks the Japanese voice-acting is better because they have "more experience"?! Not sure what he meant by that. I could sort of see if he said he thought their quality of acting was better, but that's not what he said.
At any rate, it's kind of hard to judge the quality on voice acting if it's not in your native tongue, in my opinion. I get that sometimes English dubs on Japanese work (anime or games) stinks, but to say that Japanese is "better" when you can only understand English seems odd to me.
Personally, I thought FE: Awakening had good voice acting for the cut scenes. So if it's of that quality, then I'll be happy.

(raises hand cautiously) Can I just have text please?

Funny that Pietro Ubaldi(the goron's italian VA) is in a Zelda game,since he has a long history with SEGA.
He voiced Sonic in AOSTH and Sonic underground,the announcer of Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing and Zonom in Sonic Lost World.

The Spanish (Latin) was pretty good.
It's funny how every time voice acting comes up, people always argue over english vs japanese, dub vs sub like people are actually going to change their preference.

@Adhrast: I'd heard that too about Italian VAs and am equally baffled. The English one is passable at least, but I know I'll still occasionally cringe with some of the voice acting.

@LetsGoRetro @FiveDigitLP Generally, the reason many individuals prefer the original Japanese over their own language is because the people who created the game will have had input on how the voice parts were acted and portrayed. As in the case of Hayao Miyazaki having personally directed all voice sessions in most, if not all, his films, the original Japanese acting will always be closer to, and more representative of, the intent of the of the creator. Compare the English voice work on Spirited Away, for example, to the original Japanese. Disney changed so many things in the script of that film in English that it completely altered the characters' development and the pacing of the plot.

Also, @LetsGoRetro, don't pretend like you're not doing what you accuse others of; trying to act "cool and trendy" by bashing people who prefer something other than their native language is just as bad as any weebish nonsense that bothers you. Get over yourself.

@Soundtoxin Someone probably already said this, but the Switch is region-free. Just buy the Japanese version of the game.

@G-Boy This. It was cruel having to hear her cry so many times.

Am I playing a Zelda game IN ITALIAN? *faints

@HappyMaskedGuy It was a simple misread, and a fairly obvious one at that. No need to be condescending about it.

Gotta love all of the love of the non English versions because it's the "cool" thing to do

@KirbyTheVampire I wasn't being condescending- just applying some dry humour. No harm was intended

I feel like Russian and Japanese have the best crying, moreso Russian.

I still prefer gibberish. At least Yooka-Laylee will have it.

Only thing I care about is 42 days...

@nab1 Si, en España estamos hasta los buñoles de que se cambien los nombres de las cosas y se inventen las traducciones cambiando, a veces, lo que en realidad se dice hasta el punto de trasgiversar la historia u omitir parte de ella. Pasa hasta en las películas. Es realmente vergonzoso TT___TT

If they made this optional, then everybody will be happy. It's that easy nintendo.

Pretty satisfied with the English translation so far. Hopefully this goes better than Other M.

@Ras Not sure how you guys think that's a solution. I am not fluent, and somehow I doubt the Japanese version will have English subtitles and text.

THIS, THIS is why Zelda shouldn't have voice acting. El blecho.

I'll be playing with japanese voices. After listening to Zelda cry with the english VA's I knew it was among the worst I have ever heard.. It's worse than games that haven't even been released yet. Japanese VA's are proud of what they do while the american/english ones sound like they did it on a coffee break. No emotion whatsoever.

Regarding the crying scene, I actually think the English one is much better than people are giving it credit for. It's going for a different, more subtle vibe than the others. In the trailer with the epic music the Japanese one has the most impact for sure, but I think in-game the more realistic sobbing will actually be better. Overall, really, really impressed by the voice acting so far. I hope it's in more than just the major cutscenes (although I still hope that minor interactions in the gameplay setting still have text)

I just wish I could turn VA off and read it through text bubbles like before. Never been a fan of voice acting in videogames, it's almost always cheesy and slows down the game.

In a way I'd wish they'd created their own Hylian language for voice over, but hey it's not that big of a deal. If there's a choice I'd probably go Japanese with English subtitles. But it's not like the English VO is in the same league of House of the Dead 2 so it's not a huge problem.

English VA for me since I won't get in my native language. So I like to hear something i can understand.
Spanish and Russian are also great.
And I agree that the japanese Va in the crying scene is just plain over the top. Sounds better in other languages. More subtle.

@BlastClaw That's not how we talk to each other around here. Go read the Community Rules and don't post any more abuse or profanity or you'll risk your account being banned.

Funny, every language speaks pretty much the same text...except the german version....
I so hope you can switch languages or turn them off entirely...

@Miss_Dark Trøndersk maybe, my own dialect, but no I think I prefer Japanese or just subtitles with no voice acting than Norwegian ;^^.

Technically Norway has a lot of similar basic sounding sounds, like a, e, i, o, u and such are similar, but Norwegian sounding more monotone or at least to me ;^^. (Depend a bit on the dialect though).

Either way, looking forward to BOTW and I hope you have a fun time playing BOTW too Miss_Dark :+).

Don't really like the voices in this game...

I couldn't help but notice, there is a Latin American Spanish and a Spain Spanish, but only American English and French French. No love for British English or Canadian French?

Also the crying scene... Crying is a universal language, and I am surprised by how similar the voices of all characters sounded (except the overdramatic Japanese crying, but that is on the voice actor, not the actual vocal type).

A few misses here and there, but overall good. I listened closely to the Spanish and Latin America dubs. In some scenes, it is like they are not even saying the same words. As someone who doesn't understand Spanish, I'm not sure if the sentence structure or meanings of the words have changed at all. Still French Canadian or British English would have been cool.

@Miss_Dark Fair enough :+).

I am buying the Switch at launch just because of BOTW as I really like Zelda games ^^. (And not really wanting to get too spoiled).

I would be waiting if it wasn't for BOTW I think, but due to BOTW I need the Switch at launch.

Anyway, hope you enjoy Fire Emblem Echoes Miss_Dark and that you will have a ton of fun playing other games too :+).

I saw nothing wrong with any of the voice acting in this video. The most emotional line is clearly the Zelda one shown before the (apparently now infamous) crying scene, and seems to be delivered fairly capably in all supported languages. The Japanese one seems to be the most "enthusiastically executed", which is highly typical of voice acting in that region.

I'd also point out that since the game is never going to be experienced in this style — cycling through the same scene in several different languages — this video is pretty pointless. As long as the voice acting is consistent within the single language that is being experienced, what it sounds like elsewhere on the planet is completely irrelevant. I find it especially suspect that the video creator chose to separate Zelda's "Everything I've done up to this point..." line from the shot of her crying, as it was not at all necessary for the comparison advertised by the video and serves only to create an overly drawn-out (and probably intended to be humorous) repeated shot of Zelda crying for 2 seconds as voiced by several different women.

In short, the video is trash and should be ignored.