RPGamer 2019 Awards – Best Voice Acting

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Best Voice Acting

Judgment

First Place

Second Place

Third Place

Judgment gets the advantage of having not one but two excellent sets of voice acting with Sega’s above and beyond localisation effort. The game effectively has two scripts for those following the English dub and those using the Japanese voice acting. And players really can’t go wrong with either. On the English side, the cast does a magnificent job bringing life to the drama. The two leads are fantastic; Greg Chun as protagonist Takayuki Yagami is excellent, and Crispin Freeman is a delight as his sidekick Kaito. They are aided by the rest of the cast, who provide excellent performances throughout. Also worth noting is Sega’s smart decision to not change everything to English in the English dub; its choice to leave incidental elements like greetings at stores and restaurants do wonders at ensuring the game keeps the distinct Japanese feel.

On the other side, incredible Japanese voice acting has always been a key part of bringing the seedy Japanese streets of Kamurocho to life. That has continued to be the case in Judgment as Takuya Kimura’s performance as Yagami brings the character to life and effectively conveys guilt and conflicted emotions over the tragedy that happened three years earlier. Also, Shinshi Fuji as Kaito has a perfect rapport with Yagami, really selling the two as longstanding friends. Even the supporting cast does an excellent job of subverting players’ expectations of who the culprit is. Ryū ga Gotoku Studio is still at its best with Judgment, and the two fantastic voice tracks make it a worthy winner of RPGamer’s Best Voice Acting award.

 

 

The recording studio Cup of Tea Production, Inc. outdid itself with Fire Emblem: Three Houses’s voice acting. The actor choices for the characters are excellent, with virtually everyone fitting their roles to a T. There are a few instances of double-casting, such as Allegra Clark voicing both Dorothea and Shamir, but they’re distinct enough that only the most sharp-eared of players might notice. The voice actors’ performances are a crucial part of the characters’ lovability. The voicework really brings out the subtleties of their personalities, whether it’s Claude’s deceptively easygoing attitude, Edelgard’s balance of strength and hidden loneliness, or Lindhardt’s tired-sounding deadpan remarks. Three Houses has the strongest voice acting in a Fire Emblem game yet.

Although Lab Zero Games’ Indivisible didn’t fire on each and every cylinder, its eclectic voice cast (to bring its equally eclectic character roster to life) succeeded magnificently, and was far and away one of the game’s defining strengths. The actors had some great material to work with, but they can be credited with achieving both comedic and dramatic high notes with ease time and time again. Highlights include talent such as Matthew Mercer, Michael Dorn, and Debra Wilson, and standout performances can be found all over the place from Tania Gunadi’s protagonist Ajna to Stephanie Sheh’s moody Razmi and Christine Cabanos’ airheaded Nuna, and that’s just the tip of the vocal iceberg.

 

by Alex Fuller, Joshua Carpenter, Cassandra Ramos, and Pascal Tekaia