Poll: Do You Have An Issue With Xenoblade Chronicles' Accents?

It doesn't HAVE to be all British. It just is. Why the drama?

I love the fact that a quick localization of the original Wii release means that all western versions will have British accents forever. Cor blimey!

What a bunch of jokers!

Don't care. I'm just always surprised when publishers pay for western voice talent when they could easily just settle for English sub w/Japanese dub as we see with most rpgs developed out of Japan.

Damn, voted wrong on this one. I assumed the question in the poll was framed in the same way as the title so I clicked "no" as in "no I'm not bothered" rather than "Yes, I'm really feeling it".

I love the accents in the Xenoblade series. Gaming needs more Brits.

I like it. American V/O tends to make everything a bit to heroic for my liking, there's more of an inbuilt sense of humour to UK accents. Plus It's easier to differentiate between characters when you have a range of accents. You know it's Nia talking in XB2 because of her lovely Welsh brogue.

Nia from XC2 would not have been half as good if she hadn't been threatening to 'bash you up proper next time I swear' in a Welsh accent. Anything else is irrelevant in comparison.

And then people still wonder why Pokémon doesn't have voice acting.

Considering I'm not native-english anyway I couldn't care less

I actually really like the voices, who has a problem with them?

I’m glad they they are British but it makes me feel like I could be a voice actor given how terrible some of them sounded in that trailer

I'm probably going to get hate for this and also I have never played a title all the way through but I'm British and Shulk, Rex etc all sound like just...bad voice acting to me.
Like kids in a bland childrens movie there doesn't seem to be a huge range of emotion or vocal range.

When I played the Dragon Quest demo that was fine.

Maybe it's just because all I've ever seen is trailers but it's just not my bag.

I love Rex having a proper northern accent. I also love the that blades we're U.S. and the rest were British. It was a nice contrast

Do they assign characters accents based on a region they're from in game or is it just random? Like, everyone from the X region has a Yorkshire accent but everyone from the Y region has an estuary accent. Or is it just, here's your protagonist, they sound like they're from Liverpool and their brother sounds Cockney even though you grew up together in the posh town where everyone talks like the Queen.

I don't play the series, and I love hearing regional British accents in things, but they always felt off to me in the trailers. Perhaps they are fine in the game?

"A'right mate, 'ows about we stop all this 'ere figh'in, grab ahselves a noice cuppa tea and ave a little chat abou it?"

@MrGawain Technically there are many different accents in the US as well.

@Fizza It also makes it easy to spot a Xenoblade game at the start of a trailer

I like the mix of British and American accents that the drivers and blades have in XBC2, but if there were to be only one type of accent, I prefer the British one.

When you consider a lot of epic fantasy TV is full of British actors and their accents it kind of makes sense that the odd epic fantasy video game also has British accents.

Tbh, I don't mind but that may not be my lane since I'm from the U.S.

I will say the accents in the first game made it hard to play. It’s not a knock on British people or English (since they are the originator no need for a modifier), but simply because we share a root language of English, localization teams assume that all of the colloquialisms will just translate and they don’t. And it’s a larger gap than say dialect differences between the Northeast and South in the US.

I’m sure it’s the other way around for games that are localized in American English for British players (like BOTW Zelda’s fake accent). I can’t understand the cockney accent at all (even with subtitles) so it really ruins an experience for me. And the spelling differences in subtitles makes a person like me, who notices things like that, want to pull her hair out. So anytime I can switch to Japanese is a plus. I love that more games give options for Japanese subtitles as well now.

I stopped buying Dragon Quest games in English after 8. English Yangus almost ruined a series I have been playing since I was a child. Games used to (sometimes) have English/Australian English and American English tracks (usually non voiced games) and in an ideal world companies could afford to do that now. At least I have Japanese as a compromise.

Obviously on a UK based site, I will be the minority.

Edit since apparently I am being misunderstood:

TLDR: British voices Good, British words/spelling used (ie dialect) Hard for me to follow. No issues with British people.

I'm British and, while I don't care that the accents in the game are British, I did think the voice acting sounded pretty terrible. Especially the gruff Lahndan voice. Do the Xenoblade games offer the option to have subbed Japanese or just the localised audio?

@MrGawain Today I learned that a brogue is not just a shoe.
Edit: spelling - an r in learned eluded me

I played XC & XCX with English dub whilst I played XC2 in JP with subs after its amazing reveal trailer (felt it matched with its more anime feel; also is why I know that Tora was secretly planning the bikini module).

As for this one I’m not sure which way I play as I feel like going dub, but the scale of British accents in the trailer was surprising.

I like the voice acting for Xenoblade 1 and 3, but I didn't like it for 2 so I played it in japanese.

I liked the idea of different accents for different titans in 2, but other than that the accents were fine besides Rex. 1 was a little over the top though

I'm kind of used to British (et al) accents in my JRPGs, seems like it's been a thing for awhile now. Most of the US voiceovers for JRPG are pretty horrible so we listen to Japanese when this an option. US English for non-JRPG can be hit or miss, but they never seem to be not it for the JRPG. Or they're too into it.

Hands down worst JRPG voiuhce acting I've ever suffered thru was Arc Rise Fantasia on Wii, just abominable.😝

For XC3 my biggest problem was the guy sounded exactly like Shulk to me by I didn't see him anywhere. My kid said it's probably Shulk's son, hence the voice, and the eyes, but it still bothered me.

But overall British voices, and Welsh and Irish (IDK what qualifies these days) are better than US. If they sound like Ringo and George it works for me.

It makes a change from all the American accents on tv? Where they all rise up at the end like a question? It’s really annoying?

I don't understand how people have a problem with the accents. Like I understood people didn't like Xenoblade 2s english voice acting because there wasn't good voice direction, but I never had a problem with the accents themselves. I thought shulks voice actor did a fantastic job, and honestly, I can't imagine him without a British accent lol.

They've definitely over-Britted the accents it has to be said, but after a few hours in I doubt you'll notice it too much, voice acting in all mediums tends to be a bit exaggerated, take radio DJs for example. With Dragon Quest XI S I was quite tempted to switch it all to Japanese dialogue very early on, but I got used to it. Bear in mind I live in the UK so it all sounds a bit laid on to me. It sounds like Americans doing an English/Scottish accent.

@MrGawain Can't forget my personal favorite Nia quote, "And we're yuurrrr." Truly the regional dialects are part of Xenoblades charm, and I love the amount of different accents that there were in 2. Made each area and nation stand out in a memorable way

Latinos use to be bothered when games are localized in european spanish, there's even a campaing to push gamefreak to localize pokemon games in latin spanish, we had to wait many years for games to be localize in our accents but obviusly gamefreak have to act like a poor indie company like always. Do american people feel the same when they hear british accent or vise versa?

Eh it is what is with JRPGs. Sometimes the VO is good, sometimes it's bad. Whether they are British or Japanese or American English I don't care. As long as I like the game and the characters, I couldn't care less. Plus even if the VO is bad it still makes me smile so for me it's a win win no matter what!

I usually go for Japanese with English subtitles when it’s an option in games like these. I find the dialogue delivery a little cheesy in English.

I like it. I'm not certain I'd want it any other way, now.

North American voice overs absolutely dominate English-dubbed video games and anime. It's always the same small pool of voice actors giving the characters the same voice archetypes. It's homogeneous and it's boring. I don't actually care one iota for Xeboblade, but the voice work always gets a smile from me when I see the trailers. It's something different. The characters don't sound like every other video game/anime out there and that's a good thing.

If you find the Cockney accents hard to understand (and there's a whole bunch of accents in there, not just Cockney), then the problem of with you, and not the dub.

It just wouldn't be Xenoblade without the British accents! I'm glad they kept the tradition going with XC3.

I played through most of XC1 back on the Wii, mostly with the original Japanese dialogue (my usual preference for Japanese productions). But I have to admit, often during free time while roaming around I would switch to English just to hear Shulk and Reyn's exclamations and they really grew on me.

(Saying this as an American. I think it's a nice bit of variety after so many countless North American English dubs over the years.)

@valharian I aways wondered if European/Castilian (sp?) Spanish bothered Latin Americans. My godmother spoke European Spanish and I learned (don’t remember it now) Latin American (primarily Mexican) Spanish in school so when she tried to teach me I had the same frustration I get with English vs American English.

There always seems to be a weird overreaction with certain people that they can't fathom the idea of english accents existing outside of standard american ones.

Xenoblade 1 had great voice acting from most of the main cast and more shaky acting for side characters.

Xenoblade 2 was fine for me until Rex got to his first action scene and couldn't scream for his life unlike Shulk. though that's more the actual voice direction than the fact that they used european accents at all.

Xenoblade 3, I can't really make a proper decision yet based solely on the first trailer. There's always much better acting in the context of the actual game as opposed to when the trailers are always shown, I don't know why.

@valharian That's really interesting- I didn't know that they were only localized in European Spanish.

I'm American and British English is definitely different, but after a few minutes of playing a game or watching a show you just kinda get used to it. Every once in a while you'll hear a phrase or word that we don't use and maybe need to look it up or use context clues, but that's really it- at least for me. I'd think it's the same thing for British English speakers hearing American English as well.

Technically 4th in the series but anyway, it’s fine to me no matter what accents are used since gameplay is my only concern.

There’s no such thing as a British accent.

Am I really in the timeline with a British newsblog asking its audience if they have an issue with various British accents in the dub?

Anyway, I suspect what was a circumstantial choice back with XC1 eventually became a conscious one with XC2 as they realized that a variety of accents could play well into distinguishing various origins and cultures in the dub. Blades, for instance, apparently speak American English, so it applies even to Pyra and Mythra despite Skye Bennett being British herself.

Personally, I lack any strong feelings on the matter because I mostly stick to original Japanese voices where possible... aaaaaand because I'm a poor accent detector anyway. I had no idea FFXIII's Vanille had an Australian accent in the dub until I read about it.😅

The fact that this is even a discussion is just weird to me. Are there really people out there that think "Oh this game is British, I can't play it" outside of people who are just memeing really hard? I can understand if you have gripes with the quality of the voice acting itself, that's a totally different topic, but the idea of a game having a British voice cast being a total turnoff for somebody is something I genuinely cannot wrap my head around.

Thasssa stoopa queshion!

I hate when people are upset by games having such a bevy of British accents, because honestly for the longest time we've had mostly American or RP British, you know that typical BBC broadcasting voice.

I like that nowadays there's a wealth of variety, just like there is in the UK itself. Everyone knows who Troy Baker, Yuri Lowethal and Laura Bailey are. They're all great VO artists, but let's give some of the smaller British VO talent take some of the work too, please.

Diversity is good and if you don't think so.. well, I guess you're just a buncha jokahs!

@Purgatorium Yeah, it's regional... For the most part. Though typically so many of the characters have crazy backstories taking them all over that it's excusable when it isn't.

@Ryu_Niiyama yeah localization is hard. Each culture has their own way of expression within the same language so there is never one size fits all approach.
Having said that I’m lucky not to really notice those differences too much.

I'm not bothered either way, as I'll be playing exclusively with the original audio.

@dustinprewitt Is that a Jar Jar Binks impression?

@arrmixer lol even on this site, I am usually the one going “would someone tell me what a lorry (sp?) is?!” And that is just word usage differences, turns of phrase are worse. I still never know how to react to “and bob’s yer uncle!” Again it’s not a knock against the other permutations of English, but for the way my brain is wired, it’s easier to work out a completely foreign language than a regional sibling language.

No more than Brits playing American parts in movies with heavy American accents. If you can pull it off who cares?

Actually feel more balanced in 3 than in 1

I have an issue with bad voice acting though…. This seems like XC 2 levels of bad ….

I just wish we could have amazing English VO like the first game and X.

The English VO director should be replaced

I don't think it's the accents that are the issue for me, more the quality of scripts and voice acting, which is usually annoying in either US or UK accents.

Xenoblade is particularly annoying cause they repeat the same phrases over and over again while you fight. This is why the option to have a Japanese voice cast option is important in these games. It's not quite as annoying if I can't understand what they say during the battles. I guess the Japanese team don't realise this because they don't understand what they are saying in the translation. Xenoblade X on WiiU was even worse with super annoying music you couldn't turn down without muting the TV. This genuinely bordered on spoiling the game for me.

It isn’t the fact that they are British. The voice acting is just bad. Would have been the same way with American.
The fact they are so over exaggerated is the problem.

I'm so pumped for the game

I love the fact they use british voice talents for the xenoblade games. American voices can feel kinda samey after the fiteen billionth time they are used for games and films etc. that come out, especially high profile ones. Xenoblade without the bri'ish just doesn't hit the same.

Love the accents, and love that I could tell the trailer was for Xenoblade 3 the moment someone started speaking

I think it’s genuinely quite refreshing. Definitely better than Fire Emblem and its ye olden setting where everyone speaks with modern day American accents.

As a resident of the US, I love the accents. I wish they'd let NoE dub more often.

I play them in Japanese so I don't really care. But I knew the moment they spoke British that it was Xenoblade, brand recognition. So I'd rather they keep it British.

I don't really care that much. Should they have American accents instead? Or Swedish?

The Xenoblade Chronicles games are pretty much the ONLY JPRGs where I don't immediately swap in the Japanese voice acting.

Yes, it bothered me but so does pretty much all voice acting in RPGs. The only one I enjoyed was FF 12, which also had a much more setting appropriate writing style. It felt more Shakespearian.

I switched to the Japanese voice track. I just found it too parochial hearing northern and Welsh accents spill out the overblown shonen dialogue!

Honestly it doesn't bother me.
Being a non native english speaker I quite like it but would not mind if it was American English.

I remember hating it originally, on the Wii version. Since then, i guess I got used to it, because i had honestly forgotten that i didn't like it until reading this article. At this point, i think it needs to stay that way, tho, unless there's a reboot. As long as there's any relation to the 1st 3 titles, those games need to remain mostly British. If they found some other world, or something, maybe different accents would fit, but i hate too much change, especially in a series I've gotten used to (looking at YOU Final Fantasy gameplay...😡😡😡).

I'm not sure if you can do better than the scouse dung beetles in Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Every time a trailer for these appear I forget they actually have english voices, I've always played with the original japanese ones. But I can't say I had anything against the ones I heard in the trailer.

It comes off as being over-the-top most of the time, but if the voices were any less enthusiastic I would probably skip the dialogue altogether. So at least it's good for a laugh, as it only occasionally gets irritating.

@Brad_Hogan Really...? Name calling people with different opinions? That's mature 🙄

American here, but I love the British cast in Xenoblade. I’m a big Doctor Who fan so I love Jenna Coleman’s performance as Melia in the first game. And I love how Xenoblade 2 uses regional accents to show the differences between cultures in the game’s world (Gormotti is Welsh, Ardanians are Scottish, etc.) These touches add a lot of charm to the game’s story and presentation. I wish more games and anime had localizations like Xenoblade; having everyone be American all the time is boring!

Love the British accents as it kinda gives the series it own identity compared to other Nintendo RPGs. However, a couple of American VAs every now and then wouldn't be bad. As long as they pronounce Nopon as Nop-on instead of No-pon. If not, then keep them British.

If I could say one thing to the developers regarding the voice over accents, I guess it would be " Let's keep going like this, guys."

I love the British accents in Xenoblade, especially Nia and Morag's voices in XC2. It feels like the accents are part of the series identity.

It's refreshing to hear them, especially when the majority of English voices and localizations in games are American, to the extent that the name of Paper Mario "Color" Splash wasn't even changed for the European release

Even though I'm British myself I still find the voice acting too much, mainly because I'm used to all other dubbed JRPG's having what I consider "anime" voice acting. I suppose to Americans its nice hearing a different accent in games

The voice acting in the fables games used to get to me as well. But I won't let the voice acting effect my enjoyment of the game.

In the last game though if I had to change one person's voice it would have to be Rex

I don't mind them being British accents... it's the actors they have got, i personally dont think they sound good at all. That's not me saying they sound like someone trying to mimic a british accent, i am British myself. But it sounds wooden, and when it doesnt sound wooden it sounds way too over the top. But, each to their own. Maybe it sounds cringe to me because i've played so many games with american accents!

My only issue is that I can’t listen to Nia speak all day every day

I like it. I can't stand that pretty much every English version is voiced by American actors. Its nice to hear our own voices for a change.

@TowaHerschel7

Yes, but you're unlikely to hear an accent from Boston, Wisconsin, Missouri, or even a Canadian accent in most games. There's also a 'generic American accent' that is used in a lot of Japanese translated games.

The accents are cool. They're a small detail that helps Xenoblade stand out against an ocean of superficially similar jrpgs. What really needs to change about the voice acting is the amount of polish put into it. 1's voice acting was mostly fantastic, but 2 felt like they literally stuck the actors in a room with a list of individual lines and no context for them, and some of the audio levels aren't even balanced well. A lot of Nintendo games have similar problems with voice acting, so I don't know if it's the result of some anti-leak policy or if they're just not used to doing fully voiced games yet.

It's nice to have some UK accents, it helps separate the series from the endless anime RPGs dubs and translations that exist.

"North American accent"??? Yup, a tiny formerly European island has got loads of "regional accents," but the continent of North America has just one....

I mean I don’t really care.

With that said, I would like for games to incorporate a larger variety of voice actors with different accents.

It would be pretty cool to see games where one character speaks with a thick American Southern Accent (I could easily fill that role), another with a Welsh accent, and another character voiced by a native French speaker speaking English.

It would give a lot of variety to the voices and imply that the characters are from different parts of the game world.

I'm just here for the poll, I couldn't care less about Xenoblade lol

Voice acting is only Japanese and English. I don’t understand the first, and for the second as foreign language I know there are a few differences I will possible not really notice it.

I would be concerned if there would be German voice acting and some characters would sound Bavarian.

Meanwhile, I wonder why only the Royal Family of Hyrule in BotW/AoC has a British accent whereas everyone else has North American...

@DJDM

I know I feel a little insulted lol.

I’m from the American south and I speak with a thick southern accent. Put me next to someone from California and our accents are 100% different.

I used to talk to this real pretty Canadian gal who moved down here. We found each other’s accents really attractive because of how drastically different they were.

@DJDM
Aboot that...you are definitely right about it. Canadians pretty much have the same accent as Americans. To anyone else reading this, sorry about that, eh/ay/ey?

For the record, I am Canadian myself.

@ModdedInkling

Not gonna lie, I love Canadian accents.

I’m a strange dude. I’m biracial (black and white) and from the south. But I have a thick traditional southern accent. Picked it up from my white grandparents who raised me.

Even down here in the south, there’s a bunch of accents. The upper south is a lot different than the gulf states. Then you got those folks in southern Louisiana with off brand French accents mixed with some Acadian and ten different creole accents, including Haitian in the black community.

If you're talking about the human characters, nope they're fine, if you're talking about "meh meh meh meh meh" and how the Nopon talk then we have a problem.

I love the British accents and dialect in XC. It's part of the games identity at this point. Wouldn't be right without it. But, I grew up watching BBC, so.....none of it seems unusual to me.

@nhSnork I had no idea Skye was British. At no point across her 2.5 characters across 2 games did I ever think she was anything other than American. That's a heck of a perfect accent even across subtle differences in character tones she had.

@Mattock1987 That's a California accent (or a sub-regional one at that.) As an eastern yank it irritates the heck out of me, too.... Nobody else across the entire US other than middle school girls talk like that....but everyone on TV does. But Hollywood's in California so that's what the local talent sounds like. Waddayagonna do aboudit?

@TowaHerschel7 The regional accents still exist, but it seems like it's so much more pocketed than it was even just 30 years ago. The accents have been so homogenized and blended out so much you kind of have to try to find them more times than not now. I mean there's still the pockets of the Georgians, Tennessee, TX (in some areas) where ya'll have the draawl, and the Bostonians that still paahk the caah, and the Noo Yawkas being Noo Yawkas. And then?? There's the Californians? But more and more of the accents have been blending through where they're barely detectable and hard to isolate one from another even as a native. So much of the midwestern accents have seemed to blend together into some big combination of the old midwestern accents, canadian accents that all sound generally like the bog-standard Ohio. And the Chicago sound is all but gone. It's sad, real life has lost a log of character here were people both through the US and Canada kind of all just sound mostly the same now except for handfuls of extreme locales. I blame television homogenizing everything to Californian. It's like a mass media RP.

Much prefer the dubs of games like Xenoblade or Dragon Quest to American voice actors either trying to sound super edgy or like Japanese teens. I don't even care if it's Mancunian, Geordie, Welsh or whatever because UK voice actors are also much better at doing a fairly neutral accent than US ones.

Good. I hate the squeeky teenage girl american voices in most JRPGs.

@Ryu_Niiyama Think that might be a more personal problem. I'm from the US too, and was in my mid-teens when I played the original Xenoblade. I can remember the voice acting standing out, but I actually really enjoyed it. It gave the whole game more of a fantasy vibe than it would have had otherwise. I don't remember having any issues with understanding either the pronunciation or colloquialisms, so I assume I just worked them out from context.

I mean, British accents are incredibly sexy, so I don't see how anyone could have a problem with them?

I love the British accents in Xenoblade series. I am from the UK.

I couldn't care less. I just use original JP voices.

Find it honestly perplexing someone from the UK wrote this

It's weird and extremely immersion-breaking. I'll take japanese voices any day of the week.

It's a combination of British and New Zealand accent

@Anachronism ??? my entire post was from my perspective. The article asks if a person has issues with British voices (it’s more the dialect and words used than the sound of the voices as I explained) and I said that I did and explained why. It’s not a “personal problem” (which has the colloquial implication that there is something “wrong” with the speaker). However, it is a personal grievance…but I never stated that it was anything other than that. Happy you have a different experience however.

I always play with Japanese voices. It's the most Japanesiest of JRPGs, anything else just feels weird.

Come on, Nintendo Life! In my opinion, as a British Nintendo website, you should be flying the flag for the UK in the gaming world, not acting with the awkward bemusement shown in this article!

I think it's brilliant that the diverse linguistic variation found in my home country is shown off in such a highly rated series, especially one localised from Japanese with a strong anime style. Seeing as so many anime and Japanese games are localised using American English, with many characters from different series sounding eerily similar, hearing British voices and language is a breath of fresh air, and serves as a reminder that other English varieties exist outside the small pool that are typically used for dubbing video games and anime.

This may sound a bit over the top, but when I first heard the British accents in Xenoblade Chronicles, I was grinning from ear to ear because it felt like accents from my country were finally being represented in video games beyond stereotypical roles like the sophisticated villain (RP) and the lovable rogue (occasional Cockney). I realise that people with British accents are hardly a minority in the same sense as other minority groups in western society, but the sense of joy I got from hearing speech like mine in a major Nintendo game was as much to do with representation as it was simply enjoying it for the sake of it.

What I would really like is to see more Nintendo games localised into British English for their PAL releases. Nintendo is very inconsistent at this (compare the inclusion of 'football' in the title of the new Mario Strikers game to the American spelling of 'colo(u)r' in the Wii U Paper Mario title), while some developers, such as The Pokémon Company / GameFreak, act as if British English doesn't exist (beyond a few token changes for Galar in Sword and Shield). It would be nice if Nintendo Life also used PAL game titles and GBP by default on the website to reflect their origins rather than the NA ones and USD; presumably this is for search engine optimisation and to attract clicks.

Some people might think I'm being parochial, but I just like to see my home country well represented in gaming!

I love the British voices, it gives the series a lot of its personality. I'm so used to non-specific North American and Japanese voices that the British voices are refreshing for me to hear. I have a bit of a regional accent myself, being from Atlantic Canada, so I enjoy hearing different accents out there!

Japanese voices are the norm for the setting of the story. It isn't even translated to my language, I don't care about the english voices.

i love British accent far better than us, especially in ancient or dark ages themed games u.s. accent seem out of place

No? Why is this a big deal. The fantasy genera almost always uses britishy sounding accents. Maybe not much in video games, but in movie and tv it’s a thing.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I wasn't really a fan of Xenoblade Chronicles 1 or 2. The story was fine, but I found 1 to be boring and the RNG for getting decent characters on 2 was just annoying for me. The British accents, however, just put the final nail in their coffins for me. I ended up playing both without sound. It was better that way, but not much. Only game I hope to see again is X. Again, I am probably in the minority on this, but I am fine with that.

I hate when fantasy settings, JRPGS in particular, are defaulted to British English. It's so stupid and I hate hearing it. It's one of the reasons I can't stand Dragon Quest localizations

@Ryu_Niiyama Sorry, didn't mean to offend you. The way your first comment ended made it sound like an issue of European vs NA English speakers, so just wanted to offer my perspective.

They are much better than American accents.

As a Brit, I actually like hearing decent British accents in video games. We get American accents like 90% of the time and when we finally get something not-American people lose their minds.
Although, I don't think the first XC game had 'a variety of regional accents'. It's only XC2 that expanded on them. The voices in XC3 seem to be mostly the same by comparison.
Also, XC2 had really, really bad voice direction so I'm hoping XC3 gets a better one and I fully enjoy the English Dub. It seems like we won't have to hear Rex's voice this time so that's already a plus.

I find it very tacky because they're clearly directed to ham it up

I mean, I hate to be that guy, but Xenoblade Chronicles X didn't have British accents (aside from the Classic voice option for Cross).

I don't mind the human characters at all but every time a Nopon opens its mouth I immediately want to punt it a mile (or 1.706 kilometers) into the atmosphere. They look like the perfect thing to just kick in the tummy with all the force you can muster. Like little kickballs. Riki is not allowed in my party because I hate hearing him speak so much.

@DirkaDirka Article skipper.

@TheRedComet
Yeah, I figured considering you've met a Canadian yourself.

@DABYX did we play the same game? Rex doesn't have the best va, but even he was leagues ahead of something like DQ11. Adam Bowden did probably the best performance I've seen in any videogame, and the emotion portrayed is astounding

Speaking as a born-and-raised American, I have absolutely no problem with British accents in Xenoblade Chronicles, either now or in the future.

I would just ask that they use British actors to voice these characters instead of hiring actors of different nationalities (i.e., America) to imitate a British accent.

No one can do a British accent better than a Brit can, I say.

The British dub gives Xenoblade a special charm that no other JRPG has. Especially when you consider many JRPGs nowadays tend to hire the exact same dozen male and female American VAs for their work. No fault to the VAs them of course, but with Xenoblade being dubbed in a completely different region, it helps the games stand out compared to all the other JRPGs on the market that tend to recycle the same talent.

The accents in Xenoblade make the world feel more alive and give it more personality.
For me that easily makes the english option more memorable than the japanese voices.

@Bret dang, I've been caught. My bad!

@NEStalgia Bet you didn't know Pheonicians have a somewhat unique dialect and accent, though I digress it too is becoming more difficult to discern from the West Coast dialect and accent.

Phoenician = Phoenix Arizona Citizen icyww. 😉

It's a refreshing change since 99% of JRPG localisations are done with the US market in mind.

@TowaHerschel7 That's because a lot of the folks in Phoenix are expats. So it's a dialect/accent soup. How New York (since as a port and airport city...and New York...they have a lot of different peoples coming and going) has maintained its accent dominance is amazing.

@BionicDodo You can play with Japanese audio and English subtitles.

I love it! Outside of the obvious fun twists they can do with it (like in Xenoblade 2 where all the humans had British accents and the Blades had American accents) that also means they can get British actors like Jenna Coleman to do voice work! Love Jenna on Doctor Who and Victoria so it is just so cool to have her in Xenoblade! Maybe she can someday convince her friend Matt Smith to join the cast!

I just love it so much! And yes I know there are more fantastic British actors than just Jenna Coleman in the games it is just one of the more mindblowing ones that they got her and that she loves returning to the games. She could have easily said no to coming back for Future Connected or Xenoblade 3, but she said yes!

@TowaHerschel7 LOL, I definitely spent way too much time trying to figure out how a 7,000 year old dead civilization/language was factoring into the conversation before I realized what that meant

I love the voice acting for the most part, but since i can always swap to japanese if it really gets too much it has never been a negative issue. It is just fun and i love those memes

Xenoblade Chronicles X was my personal introduction to the franchise (sadly, also the only iteration so far never brought to the Switch), and I played well over 200 hours. It felt like a (much) bigger, more epic, and better take on Phantasy Star Online, which I also loved back in the day. I own both XC 1 and 2, but I'll be honest: neither has held my attention for more than a few hours. There's just a disconnect there between the over-the-top accents and the fact that so many environments...even the hubs...seem way too oversized, spread out, and convoluted simply for the sake of being big. Battle mechanics are often clunky, and I don't like babysitting AI-controlled party members who tend to get themselves killed (one reason I've always preferred turn-based RPGs overall). Oh, and I absolutely HATE all the endlessly repetitive shouts and phrases every time you are in battle. Great-looking games with huge worlds to explore, but they're held back by some very basic design, mechanics, and audio choices. I think that as a series Xenoblade is overrated.

@Jstar338 I am basing off of a trailer vs like 10-20 mins of a demo. So I can understand my initial impression may be flawed.

Still seemsa bit PG though

@Madao Thanks for the info. Really need to get round to trying this series!

I love it! As an American I think it's awesome that Nintendo is using more than just the few big American voice actors that the rest of the industry uses a lot. I think they should've used the same voice actors for Pokemon Sword and Shield.

it really doesn't matter. it should be the right person for the right character more than anything.

The first Xenoblade game has great voice acting (for a game), and I can't imagine the English cast not being British. The Japanese cast is good too. For the second game, and even the trailer for the third game, the Japanese cast is considerably better, so with that option available I would recommend anyone to play it that way.

Keep the accents. Consistency. 🙂

@eaglebob345 How dare Nintendo not cast Troy Baker as Shulk! HOW DARE THEY! All kidding aside, the Xenoblade cast has been very diverse and I love it! It's nice to hear other fantastic actors! Adam Howden is so natural as Shulk!

I just love the welsh touches especially Nia. I think they did a great job with the voice acting.

@K1LLEGAL that's Rex's va for ya. His first ever roll as a va was for the main character of xenoblade 2.

As long as there’s an English version I’m good, but it would really help if they would sync up the animations to the voices…

not bothered cuz i would use jp audio regardless

No problem here with the fact that it's British English. Where I do start having a problem is when they completely miscast people for their roles. The voice of Rex in XC2 doesn't fit the age or the morphology of the character at all. And Azurda's English voice was simply unbearable.

That's nothing to do with the accent, or even the acting of the actors themselves, it's just a botch job of casting the right people for the right characters. The Last Story on Wii also had an all Brits cast and it had fantastic performances that fit the characters well (Syrenne is still my favourite)

Also, lest people forget... Xenoblade Chronicles X did NOT have an all British cast. In fact it was all American if I remember well.

I turned the dub to the Japanese track in the original Wii version because I just couldn't anymore. Then I got tired of the Japanese cast as well. I just turned the games volume down. Xenoblade X had some seriously bad music choices but the voice acting was meh enough not to be distracting. There also seemed like there was much less voice acting in X but I didn't make it too far because how vague, convoluted and grindy that game is. Xenoblade 2 dub really grates on me for certain characters but not as much as the first one. Would I like a more variety of accents? Yes. Will it be a factor in whether or not I buy the game? No.

I can listen to you all speak all day. British accent make me melt like butter. British and Irish accents I ❤️.

It isn't that different than every English language movie set in ancient Rome. Plus, I'm okay accepting all the swordplay in a universe that has laser guns. Why would the accents be a sticking point?

I absolutely love it, if the voices match the characters then that's all I need.

Which is why I can't stand the voice change in the Sonic series >2009, everyone except Eggman sounds like a bland/generic or try-hard voice, simply bad casting.

Arc Rise Fantasia is another case where the English dub is hated, but I think the casting is perfect, the direction and/or writing is what failed.

I don’t have to deal with this since XB2. Japanese voices day 1. That Rex dub was horrible that it was meme material everytime he screamed

I don’t play Xenoblade, but I really don’t mind. I think a mixture of accents could be cool though. Imagine a party of characters with British accents, American accents, or even Australian accents! I think that would be interesting haha

@Ninetaled interesting - not a bad gig to get! Fair play

Oh yes. Very off putting. Generally I can’t stand voice acting in games, and with Xenoblade it was one of the reasons for giving it up quickly. The music was another.

@NEStalgia I did that too. It was weird because I could see the comment applying to the original Phoenicians, and I was like that's really cool but who in the Xenoblade games is Phoenician and how does that work?

@moodycat Bosch is also a very talented Martial arts fighter whose made a few low budget films. ,Watch Broken Path.

The British voice acting was a nice change of pace for me, being so used to hearing American English in so many games. As long as there's some dubbing, I'll take what I can get...I will always prefer even spotty voice acting I can understand over subs, be it in games or anime or what have you.

Be nice if the accents where more diverse, using non native English speakers with European accents to voice some characters to give them their own authenticity.

OT, I do like the accents in Xenoblade and Dragon Quest and I love that they are regional. I hate how everybody sounds the same in 90% of the video games today, especially when it's literally the same actors in so many games. Most of the time I play in Japanese when there's an option, but with Xenoblade it never crossed my mind. I'm just, I'm really feeling it. If you know, you know.

Why is the Xenoblade series being singled out?

If anything, I’m sick of the same old American accents (from a very shallow talent pool) recurring in dubs of Japanese media.

I wholly welcome shaking things up.

But I generally default to Japanese voiceovers anyway, so, this doesn’t bother me a whole lot, at least in this instance.

@Ryu_Niiyama same. yeah I do that with Spanish as well lol each Latin country has their own nuisances as well.

"it affected the canon"

Don't get this. The first game had British accents. Before then, it was just Japanese. How does NOA wussing out change the canon, when the western canon is that the mainline titles always had British accents, and not American ones?

Americans getting upset about any English being spoken in anything other than an American accent is just national main character syndrome. Like when Far Cry had the gall to have you shoot Americans instead of foreigners, and they all got triggered.

It would be sort of strange to have American accents for most of the characters at this point, wouldn't it? The British dubs are just part of the series' identity now.

Not everybody in every game who speaks English needs to sound American.

I think it’s really cool - it lends the series its own identity, compared to some of the other big JRPGs put out there, such as Square’s stuff. I think this should continue to be the tradition going forward for the series

Weirdly, talking about this today. Took me right out of the game. So much so, haven't gone back to it. Promised myself I would return to the original language with English subtitles. Haven't done that either. Yet. But plan to. The voices just didn't fit the characters. At all. Jarring. But that was just in my head. Or so I thought. Or we wouldn't have this article...

I really wish more films, shows and games got British English dubs.
From the top of my head, I can list the following with proper British dubs (not just American/Canadian dubs specifically made for a British market):

• Gamera: The Guardian of the Universe (the other Heisei Trilogy films never got British dubs but we did get a joke redneck dub of Gamera 2: Attack of Legion; it's satisfying to hear the word Gyaos being said in a British accent and the UK dub has rave music for the soundtrack)
• Arrietty (honestly a much better dub than what Disney/Pixar/Lucasfilm/Amblin did for the American market, too bad GKIDS never released it in the US; ironic considering the film was a Japan-UK-France co-production; the US dub is now dated since it stars Disney Channel teen stars who have faded into obscurity while the UK dub has Saoirse Ronan and Tom Holland in his very first role long before he became Spider-Man)
• Mary and the Witch's Flower (great that this British dub was also released in the US since the film was a Japan-UK co-production)
• Inazuma Eleven
• The Last Story
• Pandora's Tower
• Some awful German animated film called Monster Family

The voices were part of why I picked up the first one. A refreshing change from the typical males sounding like they swallow gravel and practice their "mean guy" voice in the shower.

Unfortunately the jankie battle system controls made me not go very far.

I have no issues with the accents but the performances fell flat. Important scenes didn't feel great.

Crickey mate

I think it is common knowledge in the community why the voices of the first game were in british english.
The tweets here points it out as if this was some kind of revelation that changes something.
The fact of the matter is, that the voices became iconic and there is nothing wrong with that.

What I always find a liitle strange though, as someone who doesn't have english as first language, is when people act like there is something wrong with the accent.
As if the british accent is somehow a weird way of speaking the language, like, well, some strange dialect some people use.
The UK is kinda the home country of this language though.

To me, both the american and the british dialect are equaly normal, because widely used as standard dialect in both countries. In fact I didn't even register that they were speaking british english in this trailer, until someone pointed it out.
To me, british english isn't any more strange than american english. Only I am a little more used to the american version because of media.

@P-Man
Funny you say that, because that is what they did in Xenoblade 2.
There are several countries in Xenoblade 2 and any one of them used a different dialect of english.

Finaly after years of American oppression in video games and movies forcing great actors like Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Martin Freeman and many more to use American accents. Whilst simultaneously appropriating British culture for it's own ends by inserting american accents into the lore of great British heroes such as robin hood!
Now I feel validated and represented, its literally saved lives!

Honestly, I think the Xenoblade voice acting is better and it fits the series, same with Dragon Quest and that voice acting.

I applaud any production that doesn't use the ever same voices ad nauseum. I'm sick and tired of hearing Lowenthal, Baker, Strong, Hale etc.
Xenoblade et al introduced some talented fresh lead voices to the scene to break up the ever same "cool kids club" that voices nearly everything now.

No, i wouldn't want to have it any other way.

I love how when Skye Bennett was picked to do Pyra/Mythra, she was specifically a Brit who could do an American accent. Can't explain it but I've always enjoyed the voice direction of Xenoblade games.

I would much rather it than some forced fantasy American accents.

I personally don't care either way for the simple fact that I have been playing JRPGs since the SNES and love to read the story. I also played with the original japanese voices since the original Playstation. I'm not against the english language at all, its just that I prefer to play "japanese" role playing games in you know....."japanese".

@Mattock1987 That’s the California accent, especially the valley girl one. It annoys us from other states too.

It's not just that they use British accents that blows my mind. It's that they sometimed use regional accents rather than the generic drama school/newsreader voice that most non-UK people think is an English accent. That's the really rare part.

I have no problem woth the accents. The VA for XBC2... God, they were awful. Probably the direction was at fault, but I hate almost all characters from that game

At this point, they need to just lean into it and keep it. It works and it would be weirder to not include it now.
SOURCE: Me, someone who got only 4 hours into the first game on 3DS and never actually played the others and will admit that I need to “get on that.”

I feel like I’m severely missing out by having not played the others or finished the first. Don’t hate me but I’d be more inclined if I could actually do the button mashing myself and not only just select the attacks.

Why is this even a problem, Your not telling me shulk would have sounded as cool as he did without the accent, Like I can't even hear shulk sounded like anything else, It just sounds so natural. Still don't know why they have to complain. There are many games that don't have Brit accents, Don't like how it sound just change the dub, its not hard.
Twitter dude, making drama for no good reason.

Edit: I'm not even from the UK, But I have always been a sucker for British accent, But I have no idea why to tell you the truthI heard it a lot, but from what I can't remember.

First XB game had fantastic voice acting. XB2 had inconsistent voice acting and just bad direction.

Maybe they’re related to the ancient Romans..

@Fizza I feel like i'm the only dude here who hasn't played Xenoblade.

@mikegamer I love the voice acting in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Is it objectively great? Maybe not, but dammit it's just fun.

It wouldn't be a mainline Xenoblade game without the accents if you ask me. I'm from North America, but it's just a part of the series and it'd feel wrong if they just hired famous American voice actors as opposed to the varied dialects 1, 2, and now 3 have all had. Same goes for Dragon Quest since I'm seeing some others bring that series up as well, the accents make both worlds feel bigger and more alive.

Love it.

It gives the series more personality and identity. The overwhelming majority of games use American accent, which is fine, but British is a nice change of pace. Being American, I love British accents. Makes the characters feel more foreign.

Cor blimey, guvna, it's a sticky wicket, innit?

I'm not terribly fond of it, but whatever, I've played all of the Xenoblade games so far with Japanese voices and I'll continue to do that.

Why is this even a question? Weird take, NL, weird take.

@Kirgo Guess I should have done my research first, but now I know! Thanks for the info!

I think the voicework in specifically Xenoblade and Xenoblade 2 is mostly awful. Not all of it. A few characters in each are fine and some are just reprehensible (like all of the Nopons, Nia and a few others). But.. I don't think that's because it's British and being British doesn't strike me as an issue. I know some people like it and I'm fine with it. If I want to hear something else, the original language voice over work in Japanese is available, so I have no complaints.

In fact, there seem to be a lot of people who are happy to have a series with a lot of British voice work so more power to them. I appreciate thematics like that. Dragon Quest often has kind of bad/cheesy voiceovers too but I appreciate that with the voice work and the translation that they stick with some fun themes.

I remember playing XC2 and I couldnt stand the MC's voice in English. So I played it with English subs instead. Was much nicer.

@Troll_Decimator It's mostly Rex's VA, esp, when he "screams" it just....ugh.

Looks like I'm the odd man out. I don't like the british accents, but I don't think it should change either. Should be a constant reminder to Nintendo America what Fup they pulled because they thought something was niche. JRPGs aren't niche, they've just become to cliché for their own good. Which is part of the problem with indie dev's who keep trying to resurrect the genre and falling back on tropes to make their games work.

Additionally British folk should consider this a win.

That being said I'd appreciate a wider range of Accents. North American Accent is hard to pin down like British English.

I'm not gonna lie. It's weird. I try not to let it bother me because I can still (mostly) understand the characters without having to read the subtitles.

I really hate the accents. Coulndt finish the second game because of it. Also the constant anouncing of their attacks. Terrible.

Doesn't bother me at all to the point i never really noticed they were british, i suppose being british myself i'm just used to it so when i hear it a game its just natural.

Strongly prefer the Japanese in Xenoblade, but as an American I like the British and UK accents. Fantasy here has always been tied to medieval England and the accent feels appropriate.

To me English just doesn't fit well with JRPGs anyway, got nothing against British English. Most of the time I prefer it over American English.

When I hear British English, I really don't think I sound like that. I hear American English in movies, etc, thats what I think I sound like.

So Xenoblade does sound a bit off, but that's part of it's charm.

Fantasy in general has always had a relationship with medieval England: you don’t hear anybody speaking in an American accent in Lord of the Rings do you?

I actually found the accents directly improved my love for the original XC. At the time very few RPGs had a mix of British voices and so as a Saxon myself it was nice to hear.

I’ve sheas assumed America equates Fantasy to England because our country has 2000 years of history that is still visible all around us. People literally dig up old Roman coins in they gardens and the amount of churches and castles we still have surviving from the time of King Alfred is incredible.

Compare this to America where the majority of people are descended from colonists and therefore do not have links to the ancient cities of central and South America. Their own National history only stretches back 350 years.

It gave us Catrin-Mai Huw and she's a damn saint. It was all worth it for that alone.

I'm a brit myself but hearing northern accents so distinctly is very jarring. Could do without, honestly.

I like tha fact that because the first one on the Wii was originally localised in the UK they have stuck with British accents throughout the series to give it a consistent feel. I don't find it jarring at all and seems more like you are embarrassed more about hearing different regional accents and think "do I sound like that to other people" than anything if you don't like hearing it.

I like it, but as pointed out saying it "has to be British" is incorrect. Xenoblade 2 could easily have switched up the voice overs since it wasn't affected like the first game. But they chose British accents probably because they could choose a wider range. You had northern, southern, Welsh, Scottish. Of course an Aussie accent thrown in too, it really fitted with the idea of different nations and identities.

One thing I will say as someone hailing from Bristol, not every British-English accent has to be non-rhotic. Some of us pronounce R's towards the end of words exactly like they do in America.

I just play the games in Japanese...

I was surprised at first, whilst playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2, hearing the brummie and northern accents but it just works

@CharlieGirl Who says it was quick?! 😅 It’s a huge game.

I don’t mind it, but I usually change the voice to Japanese when I play any Xenoblade game anyway.

The canonical reason why all the characters in the Xenoblade universe are British is revealed at the end of Xenoblade 1

I enjoyed the accents in the first game and in Last Story (needs a remaster/HD edition), but I didn't enjoy Xenoblade Chronicles 2s voice acting, and the timing was all wrong in the battles to the point I simply do not like the game altogether. Even changing the frequency, messes the battle timing up, it doesn't flow like XC and XCX.

Practically nobody cares, Americans included.

No. I don't, and nobody should. I'm an American, and I love hearing foreign accents, especially British. Aside from that, I would well believe that the voice actors are chosen based on their talent, and from my play of XC2, I think most of them did a pretty good job.

If the voice fits the character…..then it is fine with me. Even if it is a bad accent, as long as it makes sense.

I hate the British accents, but I always just switch the spoken language to Japanese, and it sounds just right.

@Mattock1987 In case you're curious, that's a specific quirk, called upspeak/uptalk. As an accent feature, it's mostly west coast/California and outside of that area usually only seen in young people. I'm on the east coast and almost never hear it in real life. It's been ridiculed as "valley girl speak" most of my life.

@diastelo you’re right, I shouldn’t generalise? Because both the US and the UK are areas with diverse accents and dialects? I’ll stop now. I’m being an arse.

Hey @nintendolife at the related games section you forgot Xenoblade Chronicles X. The best one until Xenoblade Chronicles 3 comes out.

Also it would not be the same game. Voice acting can make or break a game. Look at Pokémon legend of arceus. No voice acting in a semi open word game in 2022. Xenoblade is great with British or Japanese voice actors. If it had American it would not be a great game.

I don't mind accents. It shouldn't make a difference. The way Xenoblade 2 gives each country its own accent is a wonderful detail. So few games include details like that.
The voice acting quality is another matter. The Xenoblade series reaches some great heights, but also has a lot of awkward low points.

Does anyone Remember the Romans in Spartan: Total Warrior? The Roman Generals had Shakespearean English accents and the Roman soldiers were Cockneys lol

@Troll_Decimator Personally, I think the voice acting in XC2 is pretty good on average, but it's inconsistent. There are some poorly delivered lines that really throw things off.

@Ryu_Niiyama So you'd prefer a more American localisation?

I’ve yet to see any of the games’ main characters dance to “Step in Time” with tight choreography, so for now, no, I don’t have a problem with the ‘Britishness’ of the voice acting. A ‘British’ cast is run with precision, and Xenoblade requires nothing less!

@NerdyBoutKirby if you mean for xenoblade I play in Japanese so I don’t care anymore, but in general?

Honestly I would love it if companies could afford to account for/localize for as many regions as possible. for instance, if they could have when you select English you get three options: UK, USA, AUS. I’m cool with them keeping the same voice actors since I have no issue with the way British people sound; it’s what they say and how it’s spelled (ie: the dialect) that gets me.

In an ideal world each region would have their own dub and proper localization. I would love it if a UK person bought a game and got UK VAs and UK localization, if an American bought the same game in their region they would at least get NA localization (again I am ok with most accents of native English speakers) and an AUS person gets AUS VAs and localization… and everyone have the option for Japanese VAs AND subtitles (not a fan of games that don’t allow Japanese subtitles as JPN VAs with NA localization don’t always mix) on one cart (if it’s a Japanese made game). But that’s a pipe dream.

I feel giving at least major regions and regions with language permutations their own localization, it gives each country’s talent a job (always good…people gotta eat) and it respects the culture and time of the gamer.

That being said I am only talking about dialect for understanding the script. If a game is set in London, good localization makes the British characters sound like British people but there might be a little more context added so that an NA person doesn’t have to sit with a slang dictionary. Obviously that context would not exist in the script for Uk localization. I am not a fan of pretending the setting of the game moved. Ace Attorney for example. I would rather a codex to explain all the puns in game.

Edited to make more succinct.

Lots of British actors have absolutely terrible American accents. It is what it is.

Voice acting is painful, whyni haven't touched it since the Wii

@Ryu_Niiyama I'm Australian and there is absolutely no way in hell I'd play a game with AuS accent. Imagine translating it, we don't even pronunce words in their entirety

If anything AUS is very americanised

I may sound like a pretty cliche American but, I LOVE British accents and hope they keep this tradition for the whole series. Wish more games would do it actually. 😌

Having British accents is a nice change of pace from the default American accent we hear everywhere

@twztid13 Thank you!

@Mattock1987?

hahaha, to be fair though that's a regional NA accent and not universal?

edit: added question mark at the end?

I traded in Xenoblade DE hoping it would stop the voices in my head... It didn't.

Let's not lose our heads tho'

I'm English, and don't mind what accents are used, but I DO care when the voice acting is bad, hence with BOTW I was elated to be able to have English subs and original Japanese voice acting.

As long as I get Japanese voice acting as an option which should be standard in Japanese made games then I am fine with whatever lol.

@Magician That's because most English speaking gamers much prefer an English dub of some kind over being required to read subtitles, so the extra expense is very well worth it. This isn't like anime where a significant portion of the viewership are sub snobs, and it's not financially viable to dub the less popular and more niche series.

@JJ_Brum Yeah, even the Imperial and First Order officers and the occasional Jedi in Star Wars have British accents. They give fantasy and sci-fi works a certain extra flair.

@Mattock1987 What are you talking about?! American English speakers only raise an inflection at the end of sentences to indicate a question or that they're less than sure about their response, just like every other English speaking country. How would we differentiate between statements and questions with the same sentence structures in spoken English if we were using that inflection all the time?

@valharian Not really. There aren't as many important differences between the different variations of English as there are between European and Latin American Spanish, and several of the differences that do exist are either mostly common knowledge among English speakers and/or easily figured out from context. That's why most media works stick with a single English language track.

@DiggleDog Would you really prefer Fire Emblem with something like Shakespearean English instead?

@MrGawain As someone from Missouri, I refute the idea that we don't have pretty much the same kind of generic accents you hear most American actors use. In fact, U.S. national news broadcasters often come from the midwest region (not counting the northern midwest), since we generally have the most neutral American accents.

Well, at least in the northern 2/3rds of Missouri...

@Grandiajet It's Japanese voice acting that has a much bigger problem with squeakiness.

British all the way baby!

i love when there different regional acents in a game, i tired of just hearing only american acent in the games i play.

@CharlieGirl I'm going to have to agree to STRONGLY DISAGREE with you on that one. Wait are you British, British lover, or just a troll?

@Willsy I wouldn't go that far (for the most part cough cough xenoblade 2 cough Rex and Nia cough cough) but yea kinda agree, still play and like the games though.

@mikegamer my opinion-
XB1- OK voice acting I mean it was bearable
XB2- completely agree, some was better than 1 and some was worse
XBX- WHY COULDN'T THEY JUST F-ING STICK WITH THIS!!! Pardon my french.

@Giancarlothomaz I like hearing regional English variety too but not when it's like xenoblade and literally EVERYONE sounds british.

@Kuraiholy um I'm sorry but who?

@Lyricana don't know if I would say mostly but yea I pretty much agree about 1 and 2. Completely agree about Nia too (nopon never bothered me), don't know how anyone could stand her voice. Don't know what it is about British voice acting, but a lot of the time the voices make the characters sound a LOT older than their supposed to and I've always hated that, Rex, Nia, and bayonetta come to mind... @Einherjar I agree with the part about not using the same voice actors for everything because no matter how good they may sound hearing them ALL the time does get tiring very quickly. But yes I would have it another way, specifically with American accents please they just sound more natural and "better" to me.

@AstralRedStar705 actress that plays Nia. You can search her and see her in some live action stuff. She seems really nice lol. Mythra/Pyra's voice actress also is in a band and makes rockishpunkish music too. https://www.devastjohn.com/

@AstralRedStar705 Wasn't a fan of XBX voice acting

@Kuraiholy thats cool about Nia I guess, just hated her performance in XC2. Also really liked pyra's voice in XC2, was probably my favorite. Didn't know she was in a band though that's kinda cool thanks for telling me!

@mikegamer really? I haven't heard much as I didn't get very far in the game so I can't really give an opinion on the overall quality but I was ecstatic that they weren't using British voices, but I also really don't like British voices generally speaking.

@AstralRedStar705 It's just Ahkos and Malos' voice actors are the ones that bugged me the most

@DABYX at least it's not botw's zelda va i mean i can't stand British va's but at least they are not as cringe as zelda