What do you think of the voice actors of this Expansion?

DJKajuru

I loved SoD. I did!

My only complaint is about the voice acting of mundane npc's . All I can remember is the dwarf's fake scottish accent, or the "old female soldier" with a badly acted old person's voice. BG1 and 2 had way more natural voice acting.

Or could I be wrong? Share your opinions!

TheArtisan

This is funny since 90% of the answers you'll get will be about Grand Duke Entar's horrible fake accent. Not that it's entirely unjustified, mind you.

I think it's overall decent. There's something about it that sounds more modern but that's to be expected. There's actually enough variety for it to be entertaining.

smeagolheart

Artemius_I said:

This is funny since 90% of the answers you'll get will be about Grand Duke Entar's horrible fake accent. Not that it's entirely unjustified, mind you.

I think it's overall decent. There's something about it that sounds more modern but that's to be expected. There's actually enough variety for it to be entertaining.

GRAND DUKE ENTAR SILVERSHIELDS ACCENT IS LE TERRIBLE.

Hate the Pepe Le Pew accent.

As I've said elsewhere, it's all well and good to add a worldly accent to a character but they went overboard into fake stereotype territory. I don't buy that a real person fluent in French speaking in English would sound like that and that takes me out of the game.

Mr2150

You mean zat all Frrench peepalls do not spick like zis?

It reminds me of the French English Policeman from 'Allo 'Allo

smeagolheart

Mr2150 said:

You mean zat all Frrench peepalls do not spick like zis?

It reminds me of the French English Policeman from 'Allo 'Allo

Exactly

Oui Oui.

DJKajuru

Entar's accent didn't bother me much, but I felt like most characters were overracting. I mean, in my bg2 korgan is a grumpy dwarf and aerie os a sad elf, but I remember them sound natural bacause their voice actors were very good.

batoor

I felt Safana was a little off in some banters, but that could be some of the nonsensical shit she started with other party members as well.

I'm kinda surprised she didn't start any lethal npc conflicts.

argent77

The voices of several Flaming Fist members bother me somewhat. They sound more like today's special forces members than medieval city guards. Corwin could also sound a bit more "medieval", imo. The voices of the remaining new NPCs are great though.

ajwz

Pretty good overall to be honest.

Ayiekie

Two more voice sets for Neera? All of my money.

Everything else I heard was okayish with a few standouts both good and bad. My main problem with Entar isn't his accent, it's that his daughter sounds nothing like him. M'khiin was actually really good.

spacejaws

Pretty good through and through. Some characters actually have some great voices that I really like. Mostly fits in well with the already exisiting stuff

Nimran

Not all voice work in old BG1 was good. I still cringe every time I hear the farmers.

Outrang

The only painful part was Entar Silvershield. Otherwise, I found it fine. It seemed to have some of that old school quality where they just got "Steve from QA" to voice random NPCs because they didn't have budget for big voice actors. I actually find that sort of charming.

The "animation" in various cutscenes bothered me much more. I remember one at the start of Chapter 10 where Caelar is supposed to be pacing back and forth talking to Ashatiel, only she is walking back and forth in a very narrow space so it just looks like she is having a spasm. It's the Infinity Engine, guys. We aren't in it for animated cutscenes.

DJKajuru

Perhaps I point at the exact target of my complaint. I think that most of voice actors are quite good, specially the ones who voice Baeloth and Caelar. But here is my exact complaints:

- The woman who voices the old woman soldier (coalition camp), the rashemi wizard and the female ogre. She may jave tried but they all sounded forced. It's nothing personal, just don't hire her anymore. Please.

Please don't take me wrong, I really appreciate the fact that you have voiced many many characters and hired top actors such as david warner . It's just something that bothered me because if not done properly it breaks immersion and nobody wants that.

batoor

The cobalt moss lady in the first dungeon also comes to mind as someone who sounds a little awkward.

semiticgoddess

Minor NPCs? Kinda weak. A few characters would be better off without it.

Major NPCs? Fantastic. SOD voice sets were better than both the BG and BG2 versions.

UnderstandMouseMagic

Just putting this down here eventhough I know it will be an unpopular opinion.

Corwin is the worse voice acting I think I have ever heard.
The lines she has to say don't help, but she could have made some effort to sound less like a schoolteacher being unecessarily rude to NPC.
The worst of Jaheira on steroids.
And her accent is dreadful.

Mortianna

The more I have Safana in my party, the more her voice actor's (Stephanie Wolfe) performance grates on me. Nearly every line is overacted and doesn't sound natural or in character, especially when my party is in the wilderness and she loudly (and slowly) announces, "What I wouldn't give for a cozy inn and a hot bath!" Ugh, it just sounds so awkward! I really wish they could have gotten the original actor, Diane Pershing, to do the voice overs. (Pershing did the voice for Adalon in BG2.)

AndrewFoley

Mortianna said:

I really wish they could have gotten the original actor, Diane Pershing, to do the voice overs. (Pershing did the voice for Adalon in BG2.)

Me too. We tried, but as far as we could tell, she's no longer in the business.

ThacoBell

I always found Safana to be incredibly grating. So kudos to the new va for carrying that over beautifully XD

lunar

I would take overacting over lowacting anyday. I am playing nwn2 original campaign, and some npcs voice acting make me yawn and I quickly read and skip most of the content. They just sound too neutral, casual and uninterested.

BG games always have exciting sound acting IMHO, even if it is over the top. Minsc's battle cries, Xzar's stop touching meee shriek, Jaheira's condescending omnipresent authority figure remark, or her 'fall creature and feed the earth!' battle cry in bg2, and any line of Irenicus, so passionate and alive! They are classics and they are memorable. I smile each time I hear 'it is time for more...EX periments!'

In that regard, SoD does more than okay, IMO better than nwn2 campaign (though frankly I am rather in the beginning) in the voice acting department. I found Duke's fake accent hillarious and immediately pictured him as a fop who is putting on airs. Corwin, a favourite of mine, is a no-nonsense-strong independent and fiercely loyal to law kind of woman but without being boring and too neutral/uninteresting. Returning voice actors do great too, although their voices have changed, most noticably Imoen's, but they slip into their roles effortlessly even after all these years. SoD is a real treat for bg lovers, and it shows.

TheArtisan

I just came back from experiencing about a dozen iterations of the Orlesian accent in Dragon Age: Inquisition and somehow, Entar Silvershield's accent is still worse. That's sort of impressive.

Tresset

Well... They sound a bit older than they did in the originals (I wonder why...). David Warner in particular sounds much older and sometimes sounds like he has dentures. I personally don't care what they all sound like really, though. The fact that they actually got so many of the old voice actors back floored me when I first booted SoD. Hearing Kevin Michael Richardson, Jim Cummings, David Warner, and all those voices again... My jaw practically fell off and needed reattachment surgery! It was amazing!

gmazca

Overall I was really impressed by just about everyone. Silvershield, though, stuck out like a soar thumb. He was just laying on the accent so thick that he sounded like a caricature. Otherwise I was pleasantly surprised. David Warner, while he does sound older, is still awesome.

Abi_Dalzim

Silvershield's accent rivals those in Empire Earth for its over the top fakeness. And Belt is okay to listen to, by himself, but it's clear that unlike Jannath and Eltan, they didn't even try to get him to sound the way he did in the original. And although I despise running a game thiefless (traps hurt like hell and forcing locks is simply impossible), I just couldn't get myself to bring either Safana or Glint along on my current SOD run. The former's voice acting and the latter's dialog just grate on me too much.

Mortianna

gmazca said:

Silvershield, though, stuck out like a soar thumb. He was just laying on the accent so thick that he sounded like a caricature. Otherwise I was pleasantly surprised. David Warner, while he does sound older, is still awesome.

I was waiting for Entar to blurt out "Oui, oui, oui. Huh, huh, huh" at any moment when I first heard his first dialogue.

Overall, I'm very happy with most of the other main character voices. Warner's dialogue with the PC on Boareskyr Bridge and his conversation with Hephernaan in the cave are absolutely amazing.

Arunsun

Entar's accent does not sound French at all, and is extremely unpleasant to hear. Besides that, the voice acting is really quite good in my opinion. It just felt really strange that one of the voice set, the male "commanding" one, was David Warner's as well. It feels like Irenicus is here at every turn.
David Warner's role as Irenicus was once again thrilling.

Wesley

Neera's voice acting has been a highlight for me throughout the EE versions - that's true here too. Glint's character and acting are fantastic. M'Khiin I liked, too. Those, and Minsc, stood out for me as especially well done.

Son_of_Imoen

The voice-acting of minor npc's gets drowned out by how well done the dialogue's between the major npc's are. Especially the talks they have among each other. When two npc's start a dialogue together while travelling the map, they feel real, they feel like true personalities and the overacting, like @lunar say, is far more preferable than underacting to make them feel alive and make me care for them. In the first game, there hardly was any banter but for some selection sounds, but even compared to BG2 where the dialogues are more extensive, of all 3 games we have now, the characters feel most real in Siege of Dragonspear.

LordRumfish

Well, I'm not done with SoD yet, but from what I can tell the voice acting is pretty great except in one or two minor characters (I'm looking at you, Entar Silvershield). There are more party interactions, the added player voice sets are nice additions, and getting so many of the original voice actors back makes it feel right at home. I don't know if it's because I waited a long time before trying SoD or what, but the game feels very polished and stable, and the writing seems pretty top-notch. I will, of course, reserve final judgment until I have played through the entire game and experienced the ending (if I really enjoy it, I might have to do another playthrough or two to see more of the characters in more depth... and I feel like there might be other dialogue trees to go down).

qwerty123456

I think most of the time the acting was all right, but a few cases of forced French, Scottish, German accent are lame. That, and in a few lines Minsc sounds Indian.