After recently beating Windwaker HD, I have now started playing Twilight Princess HD. The experience, of course, is very much enjoyable, but I can’t help but feel the game is lacking something. As a long time fan of the series, I am very much familiar with the way Zelda games work in terms of narrative and story. It has always been this way, so It is hard to expect anything other than this, but is it time for a Zelda game to have voice acting instead of text?
This is going to be an incredibly touchy subject for a lot of Zelda fans. The text boxes have been there since the beginning and have almost become a signature feature of the game. When we read the text we get to intemperate the voices ourselves and get the perfect experience, but with the rapid progression of the video game industry, has Zelda been left behind by not having voice acting?
There may have been a time when adding voice acting to a game like Zelda would have been considered far too big to achieve, but when compared to some of the bigger titles such as Grand Theft Auto 5 and all of the Metal Gear Solid games, Zelda doesn’t have a whole lot of dialog, especially considering that Link never speaks.
The main negative I can see against the “add voice acting” camp is that the choice of actors may not be what fans want/expect and it could potentially ruin the experience. This could be easily countered by simply having a setting that disables the voice acting and displays the text box as before. With this method, I am very surprised that It is taking so long for a Zelda game to have voice acting.
No matter what Nintendo does, they will always be able to sell millions of every Zelda game that they release, but they need to start adding some new things to the game. Voice acting is almost essential for any game that wants to have a heavy-hitting story. We all know that the story for Zelda has not changed in 20 years, voice acting would breathe some life into a story that we all love but can predict better than the tide.
I would love to see some Japanese voice actors do the voice acting, but of course, speak in English. The accent of Japanese people speaking English would fit the game very well as they have after all been reusing the same voice recordings for various characters since Ocarina of Time on the N64.
How do you feel about the idea of adding voice acting to the Legend of Zelda series?
