Fatal Frame whee~
I'm horribly fond of the first Fatal Frame, even though, in its own way, it's just as bad as the first Resident Evil. (I mean, the graphics. The blocky, horrible graphics. You've never had so much trouble telling men from women, not since the last Final Fantasy game. And unlike there, it's not because everyone's equally pretty.)
Mainly, though, what kills me is the voice actors. I really want to play it in Japanese just so I'm spared the uniformly hideous performances given by -- at last count -- everyone. It's hard enough to convince me that a group composed of a novelist, his editor, and his assistant would continue researching a haunted mansion for a new book after the first grisley death. But in the English version, it's easy to understand why they keep going, because Takamine, the novelist, is very convincing in not caring about any of the horribly creepy things going on around him. Ho-hum, tomorrow's another day! Oh, the curse of the rope shrine maiden seems to have appeared on my body in a decidedly ominous manner. Could you please pass the e. coli-infested spinach?
And Miku, the main character, is not exactly...exempt from this. I want to check their names to be positive, but even if she's not actually voiced by the same woman, this lady is a dead ringer for Quinn's friend from Daria. This is not exactly a compliment ("glacially-slow, 'vacant airhead'" is how the link describes said voice). And yes, Miku does speak this way when relating the rather tragic story of how she and her brother have been ostracized since she can remember because of their sixth sense.
"I wonder how long it's been since my brother and I began to see things that other people couldn't see," she begins the opening movie for the game, and it takes her about ten minutes to say all of that, and she honestly sounds like she isn't sure how long it's been and is, perhaps, waiting for someone else to inform her.
God.
And yet I love these games.
Mainly, though, what kills me is the voice actors. I really want to play it in Japanese just so I'm spared the uniformly hideous performances given by -- at last count -- everyone. It's hard enough to convince me that a group composed of a novelist, his editor, and his assistant would continue researching a haunted mansion for a new book after the first grisley death. But in the English version, it's easy to understand why they keep going, because Takamine, the novelist, is very convincing in not caring about any of the horribly creepy things going on around him. Ho-hum, tomorrow's another day! Oh, the curse of the rope shrine maiden seems to have appeared on my body in a decidedly ominous manner. Could you please pass the e. coli-infested spinach?
And Miku, the main character, is not exactly...exempt from this. I want to check their names to be positive, but even if she's not actually voiced by the same woman, this lady is a dead ringer for Quinn's friend from Daria. This is not exactly a compliment ("glacially-slow, 'vacant airhead'" is how the link describes said voice). And yes, Miku does speak this way when relating the rather tragic story of how she and her brother have been ostracized since she can remember because of their sixth sense.
"I wonder how long it's been since my brother and I began to see things that other people couldn't see," she begins the opening movie for the game, and it takes her about ten minutes to say all of that, and she honestly sounds like she isn't sure how long it's been and is, perhaps, waiting for someone else to inform her.
God.
And yet I love these games.