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Various developers comment on Octopath Traveler's decision to go with partially-voiced dialog

by rawmeatcowboy
17 July 2018
GN Version 5.0

Those who are playing Octopath Traveler know that the game uses voiceover for some of the dialog, while things remain quiet for other moments. On top of that, you'll hear a character speak lines that are different from what the text on-screen is. There are also moments when dialog is voiced by simple character utterances, like grunts or sighs. Wondering why a developer might choose to go this route? So was Game Informer, which is why they reached out on Twitter to scrounge up some possible explanations. Here's what Jos Hendriks, a senior level designer at BioWare, had to say.

"1. Money (VO budget) 2. Time (implementation) 3. Memory (loading conversation files) 4. Scalability of content (if every line is subject to VO, less content can be made because of the costs associated) 5. Same filesize (every little bit matters)."

I'm sure all those reasons above apply, but I think there's one that some devs might not be considering. Taking this approach to voicing dialog, where some lines are voiced and others get smaller noises/phrases is a very Nintendo-style approach. Nintendo loves to do that kind of thing. They emphasize certain words/phrases/sounds with special dialog. I wouldn't be surprised if Square-Enix wanted to take that approach to fit in better with what Nintendo fans are used to.

[Link]