I don't know how many of you have heard of the site "You're the man now, dog!" -- my friend introduced me to it -- but it's apparently a place where the user contributions are essentially little snippets of images and/or voices that loop over and over. My friend pointed me to these gems that made fun of some video-game voice acting:

Mega Man 8 Voice Acting Sucks!
http://mm8voiceacting.ytmnd.com

MegaMan 8 Voice Acting Sucks Even More! (Be sure to read the background image)
http://doctawawy.ytmnd.com

Shining Force 3 Voice Acting REALLY REALLY Sucks!
http://shiningforceacting.ytmnd.com

I loved Shining Force III!  It was a wonderful game, despite the fact that the voice acting was horrendous!  I especially remember the line "Now bear my arctic blast", and thinking to myself, where the hell do they get these guys?? 

-avatar!

Dr. Light aside, I never had an issue with the voice acting in Megaman 8. I think that one was blown out of proportion at the time(and moreover, I think Megaman talked a lot different than people were expecting...I was in for a shock when I heard him in Marvel vs Capcom and the only other time I heard him speak was in Captain N). Bass was voiced really well, but he only had a couple lines.

But man...Shining Force 3...That is pathetic. Star Ocean 2 has some wretched lines and actors (ugh...f---ing Precis and Ernst), but at least they were delivered with some degree of enthusiasm.

Thankfully, things are much better off nowadays and a lot of ingame voice acting feels natural.

Wow. That is some truly putrid voice acting.

Girl, you have no idea. Bad voice acting doesn't really bother me, nor does it detract from the game (at least not in my opinion), but Megaman 8 was the worst. In fact, aside from Resident Evil 4, I don't think I've ever played a Capcom game that had really good voice acting.

PS: If you're looking for the best of the best . . .

http://www.audioatrocities.com/

Conn and I cannot get enough of this site. It's gotten to the point where we will make direct references to some of these lines in our speech when we correspond.

This is one of the best threads in the univarse.

No joke!  Castle Shikigami 2 is unbelieveable!  I think this is my favorite:

http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/ca … /clip9.mp3

Although lots of good ones

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The game's voice acting is crazy!  But the game itself is quite an old-school styled shooter.
The publisher even screwed up by not translating all the voices.  There are a few voice clips that are still in Japanese, if you play in 2-player mode.

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There's a bunch of SO2 clips that they should have sampled.

"REEEEEEEEEEEENA!"

"That's somewhere around 50 points!"

Ys III for the Turboduo - that was definately an appalling level of voice acting, considering it's predecessor.
SO III I also found hard to listen to made me cringe in parts

Well, if you're delving into Duo games, might I recommend Last Alert?

Some dude:  Hey Guy!  Why don't you let my baby Betty blow you a kiss?
Guy Kazama:  You're some weirdo, naming your helicopter!

And then there are the bosses in Valis II (Haisen the Ruthless, the Red Salamander Zaruga, etc.), whose monologues are...well, bizarre is the only word I can use to describe them.

Ys III does not have the worst voice on the TurboDuo.  I'd say it is on par with Valis II.

I hear Last Alert and Final Zone II had worse voice acting.

Ys Book I & II had the BEST voice acting on the TurboGrafx CD.  For some reason, NEC and Hudson (since they liked Ys, they might have had influence) hired very good voice actors for that game.  Most of the people in the credits were professional voice actors, who did numerous animated TV shows back in the day, many of which were Disney productions.

"You animal...You know well I cannot let you do that. Ys is now back where it belongs. Don't you forget about me. I am the bandit...Goban!"

Classic stuff.

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It's also in the 10th Anniversary Best of Ys CD

cheers,

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Good old Thomas Hayden Church...I wonder what he's done since his role as Goban (other than Ned & Stacey and Wings).

I don't have that album or the 10th Anniversary one.  They actually used that English sample...geez. why didn't Falcom/Hudson just release the TurboGrafx soundtracks instead of what Falcom actually released.  Ryo did a very good job on the music.

Actually, Legend of Heroes I in its US iteration has the worst voice acting I've personally heard in a Turbo CD game.  I remember not even being able to tell who was who because it took me a while to realize that the 16 year old hero was the booming 40-year-old man voice.  And all of the voices were most definitely recorded in a closet.  *hiiiisssssssssss*

Sandman, baby.  Dig.

http://altpop.com/stc/forum/thread.mv?f … read=32630
http://www.sknr.net/index.php?option=co … &Itemid=30

I'm gonna have to disagree. Back when Working Designs was golden, they were golden because of 3 games (in my opinion): Cosmic Fantasy 2, Exile and Exile: Wicked Phenomenon. Valis 2 and Ys Book 1 & 2 are close runners, though.

We agree to disagree.

Cosmic Fantasy 2 had excellent voice acting for the most part, but I didn't care much for Exile.  I noticed that the first 3 games you mentioned were all Working Designs productions.  I don't always agree with their casting and dialogue scripts.

I felt Valis II did not have good voice acting. 

Of all the TurboDuo CD games, there were very few that had good voice acting.  I think the Working Designs games and Ys I & II were pretty much all the good dubs.

I quite like the voice acting in Dragonslayer - Legend of Heroes. even if it was sampled in game. The humour made it worth the laborious levelling up between chapters to hea "You witch!", and something along the lines of 'rescuing his royal higness out of the pig sty!'

Valis II and III definately were crap - I preferred the Japanese voice overs - and at least they didn't get the chance to ruin IV or I!

never heard Last Alert of the other one though!