Why Pokémon NEEDS Voice Acting

For years people have been asking for voice acting in Pokémon games, so why haven't they added it yet?
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#pokemon #pokemonscarletandviolet

[@TheRogueRenegade]

I really hope they add voice acting in the next Pokémon game Join the discord if you haven't! discord.gg/mYwSux2gZe

[@TR_DJ]

For like at least 99.99% the games with voice acting YOU CAN'T PICK YOUR OWN NAME!!!!!!

[@ProfessorTakatoPalm]

I joined

[@user-ri2yd1jh1r]

honestly though

[@CreativitySkys]

Look, the reason they won't ever add voice acting is because if they add voice acting in the games and the anime voice actors are different, people will complain more

[@user-ri2yd1jh1r]

@@CreativitySkys true but we could still have it occasionally maybe for the final boss

[@locodesert2]

Pokémon seems to be the one series that refuses to evolve for some reason.

[@TheRogueRenegade]

How ironic

[@jonkutchenriter]

So true!

[@calebisaacs4760]

So true

[@ribeysteak]

so true

[@darkeneddaylight5422]

I can taste the irony

[@cookiesontoast9981]

The biggest part where not having voice acting REALLY stook out to me was in Area Zero... when you're all walking through and they're all talking over your gameplay, I missed multiple lines of dialogue because they were talking while I was busy doing other stuff, and then on top of that It would cut off lines if I came across a Pokemon or something and I'd have no choice but to miss the dialogue. That part especially just felt so weird not having voice acting, it felt like they intended it to have voices there but they just didn't.

[@AquaVeil]

I had the same thought! That part in Area Zero seriously ticked me off. You miss so much story detail because you either stand still and wait a couple minutes and dodge Pokemon, or move around and get stuff done. Voice acting would have fixed it.

[@hellscoutaidan5134]

Yeah I ended up just standing at the start of each area while I waited for them to finish talking and I still managed to miss some of the first few lines of dialogue because of the wild Pokémon. It was an annoying issue that would have easily been fixed if they just spoke.

[@TytanicManic]

If pokemon had voice acting in the games, it would be sooooo good

[@TheRogueRenegade]

It really would which only makes the fact that it doesn't sting even more

[@TytanicManic]

​@@TheRogueRenegadeBack when scarlet and violet came out and I was playing it I always kept thinking to myself, wow it would be so much more dramatic if the characters had voice actors

[@charlesbomerschein9707]

Detective Pikachu 2 got voice acting.

[@DarkEclipse23]

Ya’ll would just complain about the voice. Y’all are never happy about anything.

[@charlesbomerschein9707]

@@DarkEclipse23 Y'all know that the HIGHEST grossing franchise is being lazy though. They should voice the cutscenes. Not every scene. Just cutscenes. Nemona from Horizons is prime example.

[@KyleoftheViridianForest]

Don't get me wrong I like creating my own voice for characters that don't have them but I'd like actual voice acting more tbh

[@cookiesontoast9981]

To be honest I've never really "enjoyed" creating my own voices for characters, it's just something you have to do sometimes, can't say it's something I would ever choose. Every time I think of a voice for something, the animated version with a VO or the sequel game with a VO or whatever comes out afterwards and I'm always annoyed because they don't sound like how I was imagining.

[@espadose]

@@cookiesontoast9981I’d say it only works for games like fallout 3 , new Vegas , Skyrim , cyberpunk ect.

[@dotscwibble]

For me it sucked creating the voices in my head and then the anime giving them a voice that doesnt match. Its just so odd.

[@mang0v4mp]

Exactly and it also makes the characters have much more personality.

[@blorgyschmorgy7556]

SAAAAMMMEEEEE

[@seanritzenthaler9208]

Not only did they have that awkward scene with Piers, but they doubled down on it with MC Ryme and her rap in SV.

[@thekenyonsquad5672]

they also doubled down on it in SwSh when Piers starts singing in public to draw a crowd so you and Hop can go find Leon near the end of the game.

[@angelicwarrior118]

IMO, at least the Ryme moments were didn’t have annoying noises being made.

[@camheclutch1]

I find it hilarious that they don’t want voice acting for the players own perspective of the characters, while the anime literally creates that for you at the same time- edit: i think i started ww3 in the comments

[@DarkEclipse23]

Not everyone watches the anime and not everyone likes the voice choice.

[@xXJ4FARGAMERXx]

@@DarkEclipse23 that's still not a valid point. (Some people don't like this) therefore (we won't include it AT ALL) Imagine if this was applied to the music. Some people don't like the music so we won't include it AT ALL. Do you see how ridiculous that is??

[@theycallmeej4673]

⁠@@DarkEclipse23an that’s the reason they don’t do it’s because people will hate the voice choices.

[@TheUltima_Werewolf]

​@@theycallmeej4673You say that like every single person who plays the game is going to hate it. Sure some people might not like it but other people will

[@spamtongspamton7878]

@@theycallmeej4673 Really, best way to settle this issue is to include the option to mute VA in the settings, much like in the newest Lego Star Wars game.

[@michaelsingh8487]

At the very least Pokemon could just do emote noises like "Great!" and "Awwww...". That would honestly sound so good despite not being linked to the actual dialogue.

[@waddles1145]

they can just do what the legend of zelda games do, and only have voice acting during important cutscenes/events. honestly i’d take anything over the empty space we have now

[@krilly9245]

@@waddles1145 PLEASE WHEN WILL THEY HIRE SOMEONE TO SING PIERS CONCERT THATS ALL I WANT EVERYTHING ELSE CAN BE SILENT

[@TuckerPlays-vn2zz]

3:50 Actually the inklings do have a name for their language and it is the same name as their species "Inkling" which makes people wonder why octolings speak the same language even though they are an entirely different species.

[@lemonlemon7932]

They don't speak Inkling. Octolings canonically speak a different language, which is shown in some places. Most prominently with the Octoling amiibos in Splatoon 2, who speak butchered English to represent butchered "Inklish" They both just sound similar

[@TuckerPlays-vn2zz]

@@lemonlemon7932 That is really interesting thanks for pointing out my mistake.

[@themasterblaze7563]

I honestly do not care if they only hire JP VA's something is better than nothing. It's Crazy that B2W2 to this day still has more voice acting than every single mainline game combined.

[@DaakkuuYRS]

Yeah. I don't play in English anyway (unless the English cast is THAT good, in case of Nier for example). Heck, my favorite game franchise, Yakuza, didn't have English VA for over a decade.

[@infinityheart_tm9270]

Vriska. What are you doing here?

[@themasterblaze7563]

@@infinityheart_tm9270 >::::)

[@cyanclyde8456]

People really dont give Pokémon Yellow enough credit for having more voice acting than the games that actually need it

[@infinityheart_tm9270]

@@cyanclyde8456 Wait? Yellow had voice acting?

[@EIDiabeetus]

The Volo cutscene needed it, so did it myself. 100% agreed.

[@captain8051]

I wish that characters had voice acting cause I’m just curious to her what some characters would sound like. For example nemona

[@RayOLight]

Ash, female edition

[@captain8051]

@@RayOLight ?

[@justaserperiorfan.9242]

Ash, female edition

[@captain8051]

@@justaserperiorfan.9242 ?, why are y’all saying this

[@TeamGalactic-Cyrus]

Ash, female edition

[@slimeycorp]

It's so weird to me Pokemon has had full voice acting in their spinoffs before their mainline games. Pokemon New Snap and Masters EX are the only games with full voice acting, or- semi-full voice acting. HELL! Pokemon New Snap already had the fully voice acted cutscenes idea, with limited voice lines during gameplay. THEY ALREADY DID IT WITH NEW SNAP!

[@Confron7a7ion7]

Imagine if the end of Scarlet and Violet had voice acting. That ending sequence was already emotional without it but had it been voice acted it would have been perfect... Perfectly heart wrenching but still perfect lol.

[@iamthebutthead]

There's also a really simple way of having voice acting in the game while also letting people come up with their own concept of the characters. Pull an X and Y and give us a toggle to turn the Voices off, yknow, like most voice acted games have? Hell they had a whole sound slider for specifically voices.

[@ProfessorTakatoPalm]

I agree with you 100%! That’s what I’ve been saying forever! I would love to hear characters speak in the games. Nemona most of all!

[@TheRogueRenegade]

If the next games don't have voice acting I'm gonna riot

[@CraftingGummi]

I’d die to hear Nemon, Penny, and Arven talk.

[@ProfessorTakatoPalm]

@@CraftingGummi Me too! Nemona is my favorite character in Scarlet & Violet

[@Richtofen-gy9cj]

@@TheRogueRenegade Still, i'd take the option to disable all the handholding over any voice acting

[@liamtherobot9656]

@@TheRogueRenegadeGamefreak is lazy

[@salmonfish5314]

When you meet Piers for the first time in sword and shield, it felt so awkward due to the lack of a voice. Like how is that a gym leader from three generations ago in a Ds game had a voice but not this one? and mind you they are both rockstars I’m referring to Roxie if you’re wondering

[@Richtofen-gy9cj]

Because B2W2 were among the worst selling main series games, they didn't care for effort anymore

[@DrCoeloCephalo]

Yo-Kai Watch is a monster collector JRPG with a good number of games on the 3DS. Yo-Kai Watch 3 has 752 monsters in one game. EVERY monster in the game has voice acting of saying their name and some short lines like you would expect to hear from the Pokemon anime. It has audio for Japanese, English, Spanish and German. *No excuses.*

[@saltyralts]

Yo-Kai Watch is peak.

[@Dawg347]

@@saltyraltsway underrated.

[@Dawg347]

Or under-appreciated

[@Danfth]

people still remember yo kai watch?

[@StormyStars64]

I know they want players to have their own voice headcannons (makes people imagine characters with other non pokemon character voices) but then when Masters shows up then everyones voice headcannons are pretty much false so i dont see why they skip out on the voices

[@levievil9220]

They basically threw out that argument whenever masters came out even then the anime also throws out some head cannon voices

[@jmurray1110]

Cough Gloria cough

[@rekc_bcq4816]

For me I feel like Scarlet and Violet especially made me get upset about no voice acting. Specifically Nemona would have benefited so much from voice acting. She’s already so fun and energetic and I feel like that would amplify it in magnitudes. I want to hear her speak a million words a minute. This part probably wouldn’t happen but I would have LOVED IT if characters had accents. Again I feel like it would make Nemona so much more charming if she had a Spanish accent. I’m biased there since I’m Hispanic but still. Then since Penny seems to be from Galar it would be great to set her apart with an English accent. I had forgot about Piers until you mentioned it but now that I remember I’m so frustrated.

[@jasonreed7522]

Another point in SV that definitely would have been enhanced by voice acting is gym leader Ryme and her rapping. And even if they don't go for full on voice acting they definitely can provide music timed roughly the the rhythm/cadence of how the speaker would be talking. Having Nemona visually yelling at me hyper excited while relaxing music in the only sound to be heard is just such an awkward bit of cognitive dissonance to be subjected to.

[@LimeLoaf]

Record every single piece of dialog in around 15 different languages in a 3 year timespan.

[@rekc_bcq4816]

@@LimeLoaf They have enough money to hire and allocate teams to that. Nintendo can do similar with Tears of The Kingdom. Not everything is voice acting but the main cutscenes are.

[@LimeLoaf]

@@rekc_bcq4816 thats fair but I feel like you guys (Not you specifically but referring to the entire pokemon community) will still complain about it. trees already make you guys throw hissy fits so like, are we *really* ready for VA. (I also think they need to implement mutable dialog and skip able cutscenes before VA)

[@rekc_bcq4816]

@@LimeLoaf Personally I always found those comments to be reasonable but overblown. While I think those aspects could be worked on in a similar manner, I care most about performance and VA. I'm personally biased because I went to school for acting but still. I know first hand how much mileage you get out of voice acting. Words are great but having someone to bring them to life makes them hit so much harder.

[@kiyoshiizumi02]

As someone who played NEO: The World Ends With You, Pokemon Sword, and Pokemon Violet.. I agree that its nuts how the Pokemon switch games don’t have voice acting yet.

[@lolamistly5405]

Up to gen 7, i brushed off comments about "pokemon needs voice acting" as i thought it was a silly conplaint. Then with swsh i thought okay some scenes could benefit from voice acting but it doesnt need it. Then we got scarvio and MAN those cut scenes NEEDED voice acting. I understand not voicing text boxes, but you shouldnt have full movie scenes with subtitles we should have some voices

[@mariustan9275]

Especially given some of Nintendo's other games. You look at Fire Emblem Three Houses basically everything is voiced. Then again the devs for Pokemon are different from the ones who make the Nintendo games.

[@rockowlgamer631]

Hell there was some youtube videos on random people doing the voices for arven, Penny, and Nemona which sounded pretty good.

[@An_average_BA_enthusiast]

The main issue has to come to TPC. There's barely time between making products like games, anime, tcg, and merchandise to have new ideas. Besides, there's no reason to try to add new features when the games still sell well.

[@Danfth]

nahh, that doesnt change the fact we still need voice acting

[@IgnitedQuils]

This can be excused in earlier games like Final Fantasy VII-IX due to the generation of consoles in terms of how video games were and people getting used to 3D art, and X leaped into voice acting despite Sakaguchi’s worries. Ever since 2001, Final Fantasy has been doing voice acting. I can’t take Arven’s emotional moments seriously in the Area Zero part of the story, even during scenes where you fight the gym leaders and major characters with their mouthes talking. It feels like a silent movie and as if they intended to have voice acting due to their mouthes moving. Especially the FMV like cutscenes in SV.

[@jasonreed7522]

Its like watching subbed anime with the TV muted, sure you get the same information, but the lack of audio is just painful. Also only around 7% of communication is the litteral words said, the rest is divided between body language and tone of voice/speach manorisms

[@paledesertmoth6255]

Voice acting for the 8 languages that they have (which should be more in my opnion but I'd be happy with only english and japanese) wouldn't even make a scratch on their profits (have you seen those sale figures?), I think the problem is the logistics that are so rushed already with the yearly releases, so at the end of the day it's more inconvenient than expensive, It would be really nice if Gamefreak had a better release schedule and management (and better parter studios, ILCA is struggling to say the least) because the games are coming out in really poor conditions

[@harveycustodio2625]

The Sales are unfortunately divided up between Nintendo the Publisher, Creatures Inc the Co-Dev, TPC the Owner of the Franchise, GameFreak the Main Dev and the various other grous that make sure the Games are Developed, Put inside the Cartridges, Sent out to Retailers and Sold. Not to mention, TPC treats the Games as more marketing than actual art pieces that can compete for GotY... Pokemon Merch makes more than the Games every will now...

[@cecilrhodes2153]

@@harveycustodio2625that makes it even weirder that Gamefreak are so bonkers against emulation/romhacks. Pokémon as an IP benefits more from having more people play it through any means, vanilla/modded/hacked/etc. They should be celebrating that people love it enough to invest so much effort into making more content using their Pokémon. The more someone loves a Pokémon, the more likely they are to buy merch of that Pokémon.

[@enigmathora3958]

Okay real hot take... what if talking cutscenes (not the animated ones) were styled like visual novels. Official art, changing expressions, the like. I imagine it'd definitely be a whole different feel but it was an interesting idea in my head.

[@cooldude-qz1gf]

Tbf all the new Pokemon games have been made with quantity over quality, you can literally see this with scarlet and violet as prime examples

[@Gaming_main13]

I feel like one of the reasons they refuse to add voice acting could be time constraints since they make so many games in just a few years. It still is a shame that they refuse to add voice acting. Just the cutscenes would have been enough

[@mariustan9275]

I mean at this point most Pokemon games really need more time to develop. At this point Pokemon games are released yearly.

[@mrtrollnator123]

​@@mariustan9275true

[@GamingWarlord64]

Yearly release is the core problem here

[@PhilipLL]

I don't really miss the voice acting all that much, maybe in the cutscenes. But i think something like animalise would be really great. The silence plus the bling noise it kinda getting on my bad side at this point

[@Blueradcherries]

I feel like another reason why they don’t do voice acting (for this I’m talking about Scarlet and Violet), is in the cutscenes that you mentioned (for example the one where Turo/Sada asked you to defeat them), they say the player name in some of them (like in most of them actually). But still, they could just have the character say “kid” or “trainer” . That, or have the option to enable voice acting with a plethora of preset names (yes, I know Pokémon is all about creating your own path/journey but still)

[@haon_the_fox75]

And another option for people who don’t want voice acting: Make it able to be toggled when you launch the game and in the settings so people can choose if they want voice acting or not!

[@ladypool1404]

I also find it weird that when there's a cutscene, the characters have no voices. Their lips are moving but no sound is coming out. That's a bit boring too because since they have no voices, i just want to skip the dialoges. If they got one, i would listen to what they say. Like you said, it will make the game more fun and more alive. I really hope we'll get voice acting in the next pokemon game.

[@maravreloaded]

The only problem with voice acting is the amount of customisation the games have. Like, imagine they had to say over 1.000.000 possible names per character. Or over 1000 Pokémon species names. The solution? Instead of saying "hello :Name:" they would say "hello you" or "hello trainer". Instead of saying "your :species name: is cool" they would say "your Pokémon is cool" As simple as that.

[@theinsanegamer1024]

Persona does this, either by omitting the name, like "Oh hey, (name) they just say "Oh hey." or by changing it to "Oh hey, man." or "[This guy] got in real trouble because of some sh*t*y people."

[@jonkutchenriter]

I would agree 100 with this take! We need it!

[@TheRogueRenegade]

Make it happen GameFreak please

[@jonkutchenriter]

​@@TheRogueRenegadeWe need to attempt to get it trending! The fact that a mobile game has it but Pokemon Scarlett does is crazy!

[@GamingWarlord64]

Ever since gen 8 we needed it. Gen 6-7 was one thing dew to voice acting not being a standard on the 3DS but once we got to SwSh it needed to be there expeshaly with the mouth flaps being there

[@Castersvarog]

Heck, there’s a KZbin channel called Manontheinternet that’s going out of its way to do a fanmade dub of the SV cutscenes, and it’s really good. So if a group of regular people can make this for _free_ then why the fuck can’t a multi billion dollar franchise do it when _they’re already doing it on a spin off mobile game_ *_that feature the characters already present in the main games_*

[@vicentemeneses4392]

I agree with everything and one important thing in voice acting is the emotion, feelings that shares it and memory, I liked Pokemon Sword and Violet but is hard for me remember some of the cutscene and plot moments (That in the game are meant to have emotions) in contrast of Xenoblade for example, i remember every single character, emotion, feeling and moment of the 3 games due to the voices, tones and accents, you clearly share the emotions the characters are going too, same with BOTW and TOTK with voices in importants moments and cutscenes. You can feel emotions only with text but is harder and must be tie with the OST, some of the cutscene in Pokemon lack in that regard too even having great music and themes, the final battle with Nemona the theme hits so hard , with voice would be gorgeous

[@Hotdog718]

I'd be cool with just random noises from characters when you talk to them, just anything but dead fucking silence

[@terancetan5503]

I agree 200% with this video - while it used to be technical limitations, once the mainline games made it onto the Switch, there's literally been no excuse not to include voice acting. TBH, Ohmori's explanation, while logical, sounds more like an excuse to cover up for laziness than anything else, though that wasn't the ONLY problem down at Game Freak during the development of Scarlet and Violet.

[@demonshiter79]

Totk is a perfect example of what pokemon should have , in Totk they only have voice acting for major cutscene and it really sets the tone of the situation

[@deaddead698]

That one fandub some people did for the cutscene before area zero was SO GOOD. That scene was literally MADE to be acted so that made me pretty upset

[@jamilgarcia3296]

Something funny is that when my brother was at the climax of Pokémon violet I started voicing the characters to set the mood and he enjoyed it a lot more than what he probably would have if I didn’t.

[@Max30504]

Apart from pokemon masters ex , they added voice acting for new pokemon snap but it is just for a couple of cut scenes and some dialogues

[@HyperShadow42]

If Nintendo thinks voice acting would be out of place in Pokémon they should have an option to turn voices on or off

[@jasonreed7522]

Nintendo doesn't like options, atleast based on the remasters of classics they release with changed controls and no settings to enable "classic" controls, let alone full rebinding like many modern games offer. Realistically they have almost always included an option to disable battle animations so it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to have one to mute voice acting in a new game.

[@mariustan9275]

@@jasonreed7522 True

[@Xanegoh]

7:46 This reminds me of Adumplaze lp of 'Life is Strange: True Colors'. He turned on streamer mode, which removes copyrighted music, and there's one scene of the characters dancing to a song and it's just dead silence.

[@evoli_nerd]

1:55 I like this picture of all the different Enlightened Byleth’s (OG, SSBU costume 8, and possessed) recreating the Spider Man meme. Speaking of Byleth, I still need to finish up the remaining paths on Houses and Hopes…

[@ChonkyToad]

Whats gonna happen is: They release japanese and english dubs and some mother fucker says they want more languges. The Pokemon company just can't win.

[@MrSupersmash93]

I always feel that Nemona would be voice ethier Erica Linebeck or Cherami Leigh.

[@rockyjmoon3]

Absolutely!

[@mizusenshi8172]

It's interesting that you bring up Ace Attorney. The series has always had limited voice acting (for "Objection!" "Hold it!" and other word bubble phrases in the courtroom segments) but they only started really adding more voice acting more recently. I think this is largely due to the Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright crossover game, which introduced anime-style cutscenes to the Ace Attorney series (they are a staple of the Layton series, but were new to Ace Attorney). The voice acting in that game is limited to the cutscenes (both animated and regular) and some courtroom scenes (there's the usual "Objection"/"Hold it" stuff, plus a few actual spoken lines). And also probably the Ace Attorney anime being made may have made a difference too. (I just played Layton vs Wright a few months ago, in order to get the DLC before the 3DS eShop closed, which is why I have it on the brain). You can see the influence of this in more recent Ace Attorney games like Spirit of Justice and Dual Destinies, which have more voice acting than previous AA games. I get that they want people to have an image of a character in their head, and that voice acting might shatter that illusion, but I think it can go both ways. When Marnie, Bede, and Hop were introduced to Masters, I was curious what their voices would be like, since as far as I know they didn't have anime counterparts at the time. And they seemed pretty spot on, even having British accents. It does seem weird that Pokémon doesn't have ANY voice acting whatsoever. Especially with having such a long-running anime too. Granted, like you said, not ALL the voice acting is great (I really cannot stand Lillie's English voice in the anime) but a good amount of it. Like you said, it doesn't have to be EVERY line of dialogue. But I feel like cutscenes would work. I know some games where even in cutscenes they will just do limited voice acting, like have a character only say a part of a line out loud, or make grunts or other reaction noises during dialogue. Pokémon has always been great with music, and even some of its sound effects are iconic, like the beeping when they heal your Pokémon or the "Congrats your Pokémon evolved" jingle, both of which have stayed mostly unchanged for years. I feel like they could do just as well with voice acting. Heck, if they can have a freaking battle announcer in Pokémon Stadium (who would ask "What's the matter trainer?" when you don't act right away, which was annoying cause you couldn't pause the original Stadium game during battles for some reason), they should be able to do voice acting by NOW.

[@Headle4s]

I'm glad I know I'm not the only one who wants voice acting in the pokémon games to spice things up a bit more

[@maravreloaded]

3:16 they should follow the BOTW strategy. Big scenes have voice acting, random dialogue just has voice clips or sounds.

[@JT_VA]

As a voice actor myself I would personally love to see a Pokémon game with at least some form of voice acting, personally I would love to see a custom voice option, something like in street fighter 6 or other games were you choose from a selection of prerecorded voices for the protagonist, this could cut down the time needed for voice acting since it would just be generic lines like “go (Pokémon)” or “I choose you (Pokémon)”, if they’re going to give us such creative freedom with the character customisation I think that it’s something they should consider

[@jasonreed7522]

Even just having the music in cutscenes properly reflect the way the character is speaking would go a long way towards getting the emotion right. But thats a trick from the DS era; on the switch there really isn't an excuse to not do atleast limited voice acting. (Gym leaders + major characters like Penny, Nemona, Arven, ext) Technically if they only did "major characters" they could do some fakeouts by intentionally voicing or not voicing characters in the beginning to make players not realize they are import much later in the story or think a nobody will matter more than they do.

[@megatronacepticon]

I can live with most of the game not having it, but Area Zero really needed voice acting. The dialogue there is automatic so it disappears on its own, meaning that if you don't stop to read it when it appears you miss out on vital characterization of your friends, especially Penny since she only starts coming out of her shell in Area Zero, but if you're reading it then you're not properly taking in the Area Zero scenery and dodging encounters, which then interrupts the dialogue anyway.

[@BlueKingJester]

really flavorful text for the characters...so a personality. The way the developers word a characters dialogue provides the image and understanding of these characters that the quote says they're trying to avoid with voice acting.

[@heresheybark]

Splatoon, Mario, and Pikmin all have voice acting. It's just that two of those games they don't actually say words. Here are the voice actors of permanent characters from those games, Callie and Marie from Splatoon are voiced by Yuki Mizutani and Mari Kikuma respectively, Mario is voiced by Charles Martinet while Olimar the main character in most of the Pikmin games is voiced by Kazumi Totaka.

[@samuelhuff3427]

For some reason reason Pokemon in its entire history has been behind. They were drastically behind on the advances of 3D animation in video games, and they still haven’t included voice acting in the main line games. Even Legend of Zelda had some noises for Link in the very first LoZ game!

[@yarc9]

link is just one character Pokémon have to swap out characters each generation

[@samuelhuff3427]

@@yarc9 considering the characters just made noises at the time, they could’ve just used an actor to make character sounds for multiple generations

[@shadowwriter329]

Yeah the cutscenes in Scarlet and Violet should of had voice acting. Imagine Arven overjoyed that his best bud has recovered. Nemona excited over facing an opponent that can make her go all out and feel the thrill of a good battle. Penny meeting her friends face to face for the first time in forever. The AI professor begging the player to defeat them to stop the machine. You can find videos of fans giving voices to these scenes and bring them up to 11.

[@maravreloaded]

Pokémon having voice acting in Spin-Offs. Pokémon having voice acting in MOBILE GAMES. Pokémon having voice acting in regular games: lol nope.

[@Strawhatsnow]

I hate having to give them voices in my head when I read it. I just wish they’d add voices. It just feels so lifeless & breaks immersion.

[@justsomeguywithoutamustach7402]

I slightly disagree on this one. You are using examples of jrpg visual novels which the dialogue consists of 99% of the core game material, some of them come into 2d as well My point is that its an unfair analogy to compare a game which rests on its dialogue and visual novelity to Pokemon, where dialogue is just a small part of the vast world they have to be working on (Pokemon, Designs, Typings, Competitiveness, QoL Features, Graphics, Compatibility, Communication, Story)

[@shmeepshmoop2717]

i mean, the anime and the games are completely different your right so... i think that hiring VAs would completely raise the game and they could totally just have it in the options that you can turn on and off in the options if people got pissed about it, but for sure the many languages of pokemon and how big it is could be annoying is if they Didn't make the dub options available to every language then it could be seen as favouritism because of how global and popular pokemon is, but i for sure agree with you, voice acting would be awesome in the games

[@jonaskole2114]

Its a time/money thing, the lack of quality in pokemon games comes from the speed Nintendo expects their releases. That said these issues could easily be solved by greatly increasing the size of the dev team, but gamefreak isnt willing to spend money on that

[@knellchthyomi2884]

Man I want to be a voice actor. I am trying. If they ever do, I want to play anything I can.

[@rockyjmoon3]

Same

[@Imperialgold-zb1si]

Common rouge W

[@captain8051]

Agreed

[@TheRogueRenegade]

Thank you

[@hillaryclintonsleftboob2143]

amen brotha pokemon games have needed voice acting since the gen 7 game at the very least

[@SockieTheSockPuppet]

It's is just downright shocking that in almost nearly 30 years, the only voice acting that Pokémon has ever had was the band performing in Roxie's Gym, the chanting in Ghetsis' battle theme, and the various grunts and gasps for Rei/Akari.

[@spamtongspamton7878]

I mean there's New Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Masters... which are all spinoffs

[@SockieTheSockPuppet]

@@spamtongspamton7878 ............which weren't created by GameFreak, but by outside companies.

[@ALEXTHECAMELEON]

I feel like a good example of using beeping noises implying talking is in Undertale and Deltarune where they change the tone or sometimes the entire noise of the dialogue depending on the character if it’s a side character or a sign then it’s just normal sounds. My question is how did a now world known indie game figure out how to do dialogue before Pokémon!?!

[@EverGreenTaiga]

I think the reason why people want voice acting in mainline Pokemon games is because of the style of character animations in the games. They were able to get away with no voiceover in gens 1-5 (and partially gen 6)AS WELL AS Colosseum + XD for one simple reason: The charachers' lips *don't move*. However, in Gen 7 the majority of their cutscenes had characters with lips moving. And the fact that NOTHING comes out of their lips makes the games feel unfinished.

[@RipplyAnemone67]

What baffles me most is how Scott cawthon got voice actors for most character in fnaf ucn which was free with no monotization and he’s an indie dev. Yet a multi billion dollar company can’t get any voice acting.

[@NuMbA1AnGeLOFDeSTinY]

ESPECIALLY the S AND V scenes with the dog bro that could have been so much more emotional with VA.

[@DavidRycan]

I'm not normally one to go with "Game Freak is being lazy" when "Game Freak is being crunched by The Pokémon Company" is a valid explanation, but your final point makes me think that this might be the rare time that the former is true. Either way, though, I really hope _whoever_ is holding Pokémon back from mainline VA lets up

[@TKDPandaa]

Pokémon has NO excuses fr. Literally Pokémon masters ex has voice acting before the mainline and it makes me so frustrated 😭

[@captaincz5763]

The only times I recall any sort of voice acting in these games is when N summons the legendary Pokémons in his castle (listen very closely), that 2nd gym leader from BW2, and when you do some fucking dives or sprinting in Legends Arceus.

[@iluvyurbles]

like in Splatoon when any of the groups are preforming you actually hear them singing, they're singing in gibberish yes, but singing still

[@makeeeveeacupcake]

Imo pokemon doesn’t need voice acting. If and when we do finally get voice acting, yall going to complain that it doesn’t sound like how you wanted it to sound like lol

[@J4yza984]

the music voice in the second b2w2 gym is also in the fourth gym

[@countwizard5675]

Especially with the amount of jarringly silent cutsenes like the one in the train or the opening chairman rose theme

[@katiesanders9158]

Splatoon has voice acting it’s just not of any real language I mean, I understand the controversies around, not letting certain languages hear your voice acting specially because so many people were upset that they weren’t having a dumb option for some language. I don’t remember for legends Arceus, however, I have noticed, especially in scarlet and violet, where Ed Sheeran plays at the end, was very jarring, and I was thinking in the middle of the game G I wish this had voice acting.

[@felipesilva3732]

They don't even need to voice every single dialog in the game. Just the main storyline dialog. You know, like 95% of videogame nowadays do.

[@MiYuuki.DFP1]

You speak facts, it’s exactly what i was thinking especially the excuse of : we want people to imagine what the characters are like themselves, also pokémon: gives them a voice in the anime and other games

[@glxylunk]

4:21 - don't worry way ahead of you. I was sold on the topic of fire emblem and smash bias representation haha

[@colorscales4269]

I found the cutscenes in S&V offputting because of no voices, but they had sound effects

[@littlefish2944]

Hmmmm... I don't know. For a LOOOOONG time in Brazil we didn't even get subtitles for Portuguese so it seems like a storm in a cup. But I got the point.

[@shaunduzstuffs]

There's so many more things that matter more to me than voice acting. Like, actually releasing a polished game that looks good and isn't full of glitches

[@Trixie_Lavender]

I watched a few fan dubs of Scarlet and Violet, I think simply called "Why Pokémon needs voice acting." Don't remember the channel, but they made the scenes so much better

[@bingomachine]

The real question is: Why not set the money aside and just do it? The highest-grossing media franchise COULD dub the game in like 20 languages and set new boundaries for dubbing in video games.

[@mushroomman4152]

I haven’t watched far but one thing I’m think is they added voice acting for the scarlet and violet trailer and then there was now voice acting

[@BlazingZero17Reborn]

For me if gamefreak make a spin-off that has important or crustal scenes of the story voiced i will be happy it doesn't need to be all of it, but if they do a main series game that has full on voiced then wow its gonna be good but again if it had important or crustual story parts voice I'm happy

[@mundodacrianca2147]

1:04 Pokemon Yellow's pikachu: Am I a joke to you?

[@mundodacrianca2147]

Also, I am aware that it takes up most of the gameboy's memory, but that's besides the point.

[@RipplyAnemone67]

I think it can have limits I mean don’t bother with the random npcs. Just for the main characters like rivals, gym leaders, other notable trainers. I mean at the bare minimum make the text like in scarlet and violet that you can’t skip over and isn’t a Mashable text box voice acted. I mean just get some of the developers to do it. The thing that makes it baffling to me is how fnaf ucn a free game had the developer Scott cawthon who is an indie developer might I add. Got voice acting not for all character but a good chunk for a free game. A free game. Yet the company that makes the most money ever can’t get some people for cheap.

[@pwojo9776]

Sword and Shield: - Here's these two characters, as well as an entire villain team, from a town that is stated multiple times to have a unique accent. One of these two characters, who are brother and sister, is a musician. He has multiple cutscenes where he "sings" in musical performances. - Here's this plot-heavy story cutscene of two main characters waxing philosophically that lasts like 10 minutes. The developers before Sword and Shield came out: Hey, so when are the voice actors coming in to do their lines? The game comes out in a few months, we're a bit down to the wire here. GameFreak, counting money from their money-printing franchise: The who-what now?

[@TheShadowMaven]

didnt know pokemon masters ex had voice acting and now im gonna download it out of genuine curiosity for how my fav characters sound (bw my fav characters, which seems weird to some, are Hop, Nemona, Arven, and Kieran. Marnie and Nessa are great too, but not my top faves for sure)

[@snapdragongaming6238]

Honestly, the complete silence that comes from Piers' concert is unintentionally hilarious

[@noxthedremoralord2683]

The lunch scenes with whatshisfuck's mabosstiff that he's tryna heal would've been so much more emotional with voice acting

[@mask7957]

It adds character and makes me feel like I’m actually apart of the story as I’m talking to someone the 3d evolution is bad just cus it makes me feel like I’m apart of the story but from a 3rd person I’d enjoy it more if they added a voice to the character

[@nitro8678]

I hope someday well I'm still playing these games they add voice acting, That would be so cool

[@maravreloaded]

The fact that in Area Zero you have MASSIVE CHARACTER BACKGROUNDS but you can't read it while playing and it just appears for 5 seconds. C'mon. That's the most baffling "no VA" example I've seen so far. Just paired with Piers noncert.

[@jacobjude6319]

They just gotta do what the creators of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom did and push back the release date. They can fix way more bugs, they can polish details in the story, they can add voice acting, etc. it’s a shame that they don’t though, there are so many cutscenes that would be way better with voice acting

[@mariustan9275]

Problem is the people who make Pokemon are different from the ones who make the Zelda and Mario games. Gamefreak is seperate from Nintendo is its own thing which is why it might be different. Where Nintendo is willing to delay TotK for several years Gamefreak is not.