What do you think about the voice acting in Civ 6?

[sonicmyst]

Here is the list of all voice actors for the civ leaders:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5989308/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

 

[halfhalfharp]

Edit: Adding the DLC leaders.

Tamar (Georgian):
A deep voice for another queen in central Asia. Although she sounds like Tomyris' long lost sister, Tamar's acting doesn't impress me too much.
Is it supposed to be spoken so slow in Georgian? It seems like she prolongs every word to an extend that I once thought she was an old auntie without looking at the scene.

Seondeok (Korean, a modern one with some classical words I guess):
Her voice acting is firm and fueled with strength, rising and falling naturally, although not sounding too intimidating like the korean news reporters.
The problem is her in game model. Is it necessary for her to do this duck face?

Spoiler Her facial expressions and eyebrows are too much :

Poundmaker (Cree language):
He seems to pause a bit at every syllable in his lines, like he is reading a poem or sth.
I am not sure how Cree language sounds like but those pauses do not sound too natural for me.

Shaka (isiZulu?):
He sounds natural and fluent. And he is surely rising and falling in his dialogues, although I feel a lack of enthusiasm in his sentences. At least, not a warlord type of feel.

Genghis Khan (Mongolian):
Calm and threatening, like an office boss rather than the steppe warlord. Although I am not sure of his language accuracy,
Mongolians usually can speak with a more fluctuating tone in my impressions.

Chandragupta (Sanskrit? Or other varieties of indian dialect?) :
With strength and full of certainty, Chandragupta's words are well delivered and rightly toned for me.
He doesn't sound like a warmonger, but a rightful ruler of great authority, as if he is declaring everything in name of justice.
(With reference to indian dramas, like Mahabharata, he sounds really well.)

Wilhelmina (Dutch):
Ohhhhh, hello auntie Wilhelmina, how is the weather today? Actually she sounds pretty similar to the real queen Wihelmina, taking the Radio Oranje as reference.
Thus I think she delivers the lines well.

 

[Zaarin]

Tamar (Georgian):
A deep voice for another queen in central Asia. Although she sounds like Tomyris' long lost sister, Tamar's acting doesn't impress me too much.
Is it supposed to be spoken so slow in Georgian? It seems like she prolongs every word to an extend that I once thought she was an old auntie without looking at the scene.

I think she sounds fine, but a Georgian poster mentioned she speaks a Medieval form of Georgian so it's very likely she's not fluent.

Seondeok (Korean, a modern one with some classical words I guess):
Her voice acting is firm and fueled with strength, rising and falling naturally, although not sounding too intimidating like the korean news reporters.
The problem is her in game model. Is it necessary for her to do this duck face?

Spoiler Her facial expressions and eyebrows are too much :

View attachment 489489

To me, Seondeok sounds to "average girl on the street"; I really don't understand why they can have Tamar speak Medieval Georgian and Cleo speak Middle Egyptian yet finding an older form of Korean was too much trouble. Also I feel like when they updated her model it screwed up her lipsyncing, because there's something very weird and unsettling about the way her mouth moves...

 

[Kimiimaro]

Edit: Adding the DLC leaders.

Tamar (Georgian):
A deep voice for another queen in central Asia. Although she sounds like Tomyris' long lost sister, Tamar's acting doesn't impress me too much.
Is it supposed to be spoken so slow in Georgian? It seems like she prolongs every word to an extend that I once thought she was an old auntie without looking at the scene.

Seondeok (Korean, a modern one with some classical words I guess):
Her voice acting is firm and fueled with strength, rising and falling naturally, although not sounding too intimidating like the korean news reporters.
The problem is her in game model. Is it necessary for her to do this duck face?

Spoiler Her facial expressions and eyebrows are too much :

View attachment 489489

Poundmaker (Cree language):
He seems to pause a bit at every syllable in his lines, like he is reading a poem or sth.
I am not sure how Cree language sounds like but those pauses do not sound too natural for me.

Shaka (isiZulu?):
He sounds natural and fluent. And he is surely rising and falling in his dialogues, although I feel a lack of enthusiasm in his sentences. At least, not a warlord type of feel.

Genghis Khan (Mongolian):
Calm and threatening, like an office boss rather than the steppe warlord. Although I am not sure of his language accuracy,
Mongolians usually can speak with a more fluctuating tone in my impressions.

Chandragupta (Sanskrit? Or other varieties of indian dialect?) :
With strength and full of certainty, Chandragupta's words are well delivered and rightly toned for me.
He doesn't sound like a warmonger, but a rightful ruler of great authority, as if he is declaring everything in name of justice.
(With reference to indian dramas, like Mahabharata, he sounds really well.)

Wilhelmina (Dutch):
Ohhhhh, hello auntie Wilhelmina, how is the weather today? Actually she sounds pretty similar to the real queen Wihelmina, taking the Radio Oranje as reference.
Thus I think she delivers the lines well.

You've missed Lautaro and Robert the Bruce

However, I guess I might add my view on R&F voice acting soon...

 

[Zaarin]

You've missed Lautaro and Robert the Bruce

However, I guess I might add my view on R&F voice acting soon...

Lautaro is fine. Robert is, IMO, the worst voice actor in the game.

 

[halfhalfharp]

To me, Seondeok sounds to "average girl on the street"; I really don't understand why they can have Tamar speak Medieval Georgian and Cleo speak Middle Egyptian yet finding an older form of Korean was too much trouble.

I think her tone sounds fine. A lot of korean girls can sound more street-like. Take a reference in korean historical dramas.
She doesn't sound too low-born compared to that.
It can always go this way for political korean, but it will be screwed up in the game, right?

Also I feel like when they updated her model it screwed up her lipsyncing, because there's something very weird and unsettling about the way her mouth moves...

Yeah, I always wonder if she had a failure in plastic surgery.... maybe due to the rushing changes in her model?

 

[Zaarin]

I still don't see why they couldn't have had her speak an older variety of Korean. She even refers to her kingdom as Hanguk.

 

[halfhalfharp]

You've missed Lautaro and Robert the Bruce

However, I guess I might add my view on R&F voice acting soon...

Ooops, my absent mind. I shall add them back later. But it will surely be lovely if you can provide some insights too.

 

[Kimiimaro]

Lautaro is fine. Robert is, IMO, the worst voice actor in the game.

Why do you dislike Robert the Bruce's voice actor?

 

[Katakanja]

Why do you dislike Robert the Bruce's voice actor?

Well, personally, for one thing he's speaking the wrong language - but that's not the VA's fault really.

 

[Eric Guimarães]

Seondeok's voice is song to my ears

 

[Zaarin]

Why do you dislike Robert the Bruce's voice actor?

I've heard high schoolers and undergrads recite Chaucer with more feeling and better pronunciation of Middle English. I cringe every time he opens his mouth. Gilgy's VA may slaughter Akkadian (which he shouldn't be speaking in the first place...), but at least he speaks with some conviction. Ideally, though one finds a VA who 1) speaks the right language (sorry, Gilgabro and Robert); 2) speaks whatever language they're speaking correctly (sorry, Gilgabro and Robert); 3) and delivers the lines well (sorry, Robert). But yeah, all that completely aside from the fact that Robert should be speaking Norman.

 

[Kimiimaro]

I've heard high schoolers and undergrads recite Chaucer with more feeling and better pronunciation of Middle English. I cringe every time he opens his mouth. Gilgy's VA may slaughter Akkadian (which he shouldn't be speaking in the first place...), but at least he speaks with some conviction. Ideally, though one finds a VA who 1) speaks the right language (sorry, Gilgabro and Robert); 2) speaks whatever language they're speaking correctly (sorry, Gilgabro and Robert); 3) and delivers the lines well (sorry, Robert). But yeah, all that completely aside from the fact that Robert should be speaking Norman.

Ah. I know I'm going a little bit off topic now, but what do you think about Darius I speaking Aramaic, Ramses II speaking Egyptian Arabic, Boudicca speaking Welsh, Montezuma using Spanish loanwords and Attila speaking Chuvash based gibberish in Civ V?

 

[Basileus Rhomaion]

Tamar (Georgian):
A deep voice for another queen in central Asia.

But Georgia is in the Caucasus ._.

OT: The Greek pronunciations are slightly off for 2 reasons:

1) They are trying to speak reconstructed ancient Greek, but the voice actors are native Greeks so they are consistently messing up phonemes that modern Greek doesn't have (mostly aspirate consonants).
2) They pace themselves similarly to modern standard Greek, so the intonations don't match the length of phonemes.

It's still closer to ancient Greek pronunciations than what most people can muster obviously (and the dialects/choice of words are flawless for the most part), but compare that to a near-perfect Attic Greek pronunciation like this:

 

[Guandao]

Ah. I know I'm going a little bit off topic now, but what do you think about Darius I speaking Aramaic, Ramses II speaking Egyptian Arabic, Boudicca speaking Welsh, Montezuma using Spanish loanwords and Attila speaking Chuvash based gibberish in Civ V?

I wouldn't call Attila's language in Civ5 "Chuvash based gibberish". "Grammatically butchered Chuvash written without a fluent speaker's help" is more accurate....

 

[Zaarin]

Ah. I know I'm going a little bit off topic now, but what do you think about Darius I speaking Aramaic, Ramses II speaking Egyptian Arabic, Boudicca speaking Welsh, Montezuma using Spanish loanwords and Attila speaking Chuvash based gibberish in Civ V?

Darius speaking Aramaic is fine--Aramaic was a court language for much of Persian history, and it's better attested than Old Persian (Cyrus's Middle Persian with Old Persian peppered in sounds very unfluent to me, incidentally). Ramesses speaking Egyptian Arabic is pure nonsense; would it be so hard to find a Coptic priest? I think I've ranted about Boudicca and her Welsh enough times that I won't even touch it. Monty and his Spanish was another bizarre one; Classical Nahuatl is well attested. Attila shouldn't have been in the game in the first place and probably had nothing to do with the Xiongnu--but I forgive him for "Li Ling Si Han."

 

[Guandao]

Darius speaking Aramaic is fine--Aramaic was a court language for much of Persian history, and it's better attested than Old Persian (Cyrus's Middle Persian with Old Persian peppered in sounds very unfluent to me, incidentally). Ramesses speaking Egyptian Arabic is pure nonsense; would it be so hard to find a Coptic priest? I think I've ranted about Boudicca and her Welsh enough times that I won't even touch it. Monty and his Spanish was another bizarre one; Classical Nahuatl is well attested. Attila shouldn't have been in the game in the first place and probably had nothing to do with the Xiongnu--but I forgive him for "Li Ling Si Han."

Geoff Knorr's beautifully composed themes for the Huns almost makes up for their inclusion. Li Ling Si Han would be a good musical source for a potential Xiongnu Civ though. I blame Disney's Mulan for making Americans confused about the Xiongnu and the Huns.

 

[Kimiimaro]

Attila shouldn't have been in the game in the first place and probably had nothing to do with the Xiongnu--but I forgive him for "Li Ling Si Han."

I have something similar with Shaka being added as the only African Civ instead of Morocco, Mali, Benin, Ashanti or Carthage. I'd much rather have any of the Civs I've just mentioned, but Zulu themes justify their inclusion

Btw. Agreed. Li Ling Si Han is great

 

[Guandao]

I have something similar with Shaka being added as the only African Civ instead of Morocco, Mali, Benin, Ashanti or Carthage. I'd much rather have any of the Civs I've just mentioned, but Zulu themes justify their inclusion

Btw. Agreed. Li Ling Si Han is great

The Civ6 Zulu themes (composed by Geoff Knorr, with Legato's help), makes me feel hopeful for future African Civ themes.

 

[heinous_hat]

Lautaro is fine. Robert is, IMO, the worst voice actor in the game.

Robert's voice gives me the impression that the guy they had lined up cancelled, and they had to settle for a stand-in who could do the accent. This really needs a do-over... he's way too young sounding for the characterization.