So I gave Mario 64 another try over the weekend...

[KitsuneNight]

I'm not sure dialogue would do much to enhance a game like this. And I've always found Mario's voice (and those of the other characters in the Marioverse) to be annoying anyway. I prefer the game as is.

it would not have added anything
and do we really want pointless drawn out cutscenes to stretch out and belabor a "story" that fits on the back of a postage stamp with room to spare ?

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Exactly, Mario doesn't need full voice acting and i thank Miyamoto for not allowing such a thing. Sonic Team should have done the same.

If Miyamoto truly didn't allow any voice acting there wouldn't be any voice overs in the game at all, just like with Ocarina of Time. Not only do we have narrations and voice overs in Mario 64, but they actually added more in the US version. I think that's evidence enough that they wanted voice acting in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if they just say they didn't allow it now because people thought it was intentional and praised them for it.

[Soulis]

I think that's evidence enough that they wanted voice acting in the game.

They just added a few voice overs and one liners. Mario was never intended to do full conversations. In a game like this there was no reason. And i'm sure that the only reason they added these few voice overs, like Peach reading the letter, was because things like voice overs (along with FMVs and 3D graphics) were the new trend. But still, generally, the voice overs in Mario are like the voice overs in Wave Race, Blast Corps, F-Zero X etc. Just "woohoo" "alright, first place" "keep moving" and stuff like that. Full conversations is a completely different thing.

Here is an interview with Miyamoto. Its about Zelda but you can see how this man approaches his franchises: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/1...-transcript/2/

My opinion is actually against that. I mean, by having the voice actor speaking out the main character’s opinions and messages, I’m afraid that they are going to narrow down the actual characteristics that people can imagine or apply to each character they are controlling, for example. But after all, it depends upon how much work the developer has to show, how many things the director can do, and is it going to do anything good to expand the charm or attraction of The Legend of Zelda? So once again, in terms of all these, if you ask me, isn’t it important for Link and other main characters to speak? I just cannot think so, because of, in terms of what I can do and what Zelda should do.

[KitsuneNight]

the only fully voiced part of mario 64 is the part where peach reads a letter
the rest are all just yells and grunts the kind you'd find in a 16 bit title only with better sound quality

if nintendo really wanted voice acting peach would not be the only one talking
at the start of the game
the lakitu bros woudl have been give a voice for a start

[TrekkiesUnite118]

The ending also has voice overs when Peach appears. Honestly aside from Bowser's lines and Toads Lines the game is fully voiced.

[KitsuneNight]

they have voice snippets
its not fully voiced
fully voiced ( to me anyway ) means the characters would have had conversations
and the parts with text such as bowser taunting mario toad explaining or mips doing his white rabbit impersonation all woudl have voice overs instead of text boxes

[Soulis]

The ending also has voice overs when Peach appears. Honestly aside from Bowser's lines and Toads Lines the game is fully voiced.

What about Bob-ombs lines? Or these little pink bombs who open the cannons for you? The turtle who tries to outrun you? The penguins? The countless other NPCs in the various levels? You get the idea.

We already established how voice snippets and "ahhs" and "oohs" and "press start to play" is a different thing than having full conversations between NPCs (who also don't have a voice ingame), during cutscenes etc.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

The only two cutscenes in the entire game are fully voiced:





Yeah bosses lines and the Bob-ombs lines aren't voiced, but there's still quite a bit of voice acting for a game who's creators supposedly said absolutely no voice acting. Again, if Cart size wasn't an issue, I wouldn't be surprised if the game would have had full voice acting.

[old man]

So why aren't there voice overs in Gamecube games like Mario Sunshine and Luigi's Mansion?

[kool kitty89]

If Miyamoto truly didn't allow any voice acting there wouldn't be any voice overs in the game at all, just like with Ocarina of Time. Not only do we have narrations and voice overs in Mario 64, but they actually added more in the US version. I think that's evidence enough that they wanted voice acting in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if they just say they didn't allow it now because people thought it was intentional and praised them for it.

The ending also has voice overs when Peach appears. Honestly aside from Bowser's lines and Toads Lines the game is fully voiced.

Yes, and those giberish text-only voices probably would have gotten fully acted if not for ROM space constraints . . . same for Star Fox 1 and 2 on SNES. (you had very limited streaming speech in the end cutscenes and a couple other places . . . with another MB of ROM, they could have used real speech for all the dialog)
Granted, you need a higher budget for decent voice acting too.

And more than that, I'll bet Rare would have used voiceovers for their Nintendo titles much more than they did. They finally did just that with their late gen N64 titles using large ROM sizes, and there's no reason to say they wouldn't have done that earlier if that bottleneck had been removed.


Now Zelda I'm a bit less positive about given the eventual styling of the game, but I would rule out that potentially having a full voice cast if technical limitations had been different back then.

One other note though: using giberish voices does allow one other thing: common "speech" in all localizations, so no losses in emotion or such (or what can be conferred through such "voices") with different translations. (albeit, GOOD translations with GOOD acting would be much better in any case)

Honestly, I could seriously see a full voice cast (at least for some scenes) actually benefiting some of the 3D Zelda titles if executed well, but that's the big "if" right there.

So why aren't there voice overs in Gamecube games like Mario Sunshine and Luigi's Mansion?

By then it was a fairly solidified stylistic choice . . . though that didn't stop them from expanding upon the existing style of giberish sound byte "speech" and in-game voiceover SFX. (which do get unduly annoying at times, more so in some of the Party and Sports game spinoffs -and some of the Kart games)

Given how silly and at times annoying some of the gibberish voices are, I really think a lot of the games would have been fine with voice acting instead for most of the dialog. (even with average acting quality, it shouldn't be more annoying than what's there, unlike with Zelda)

Actually, it's kind of interesting to compare the real lack of any speech recordings (giberish or not) in the Paper Mario games . . . and the actual gimmick or in-joke of Mario never speaking at all, even in text. (they make a point of only allowing him gestures)
Now that style makes a very real point.

[bultje112]

Mario 64 has taken tons of flack for its camera. That is usually the first thing people knock. Then they say its overrated and not that innovative bringing up other 3d games of the era like Tomb Raider. Granted a lot of its success has to do with it being released at the right place and time and being the other game worth playing for months on the N64. It was like a storm had hit. It is what it is, an early 3D game and they were still experimenting. I personally enjoy it but it can be hard not to be annoyed by some of the fans, like many other games, bands, movies TV shows etc.

no it hasn't mario 64 is considered one of the best games ever made to this day.

I find the game boring. It was boring in 1996, and it's boring now. The only reason I'm brining up Sonic Adventure is because of the Camera. Sonic Adventure gets so much flack for it's camera system it's ridiculous. Yet Mario 64 has a substantially worse Camera system and you almost never here people complain about it. In fact the game is praised for it's crappy camera system on sites like Wikipedia. My question is why?

And honestly aside from the hub world I didn't find it that innovative. NiGHTS came out around the same time and I find it's camera system to be much better. And it's Camera System is almost identical to what Sonic Adventure uses. Control wise Sonic doesn't feel floaty to me in Sonic Adventure. Mario however feels pretty loose when running and stiff when trying to slowly position him. The way you control Sonic in Sonic Adventure, Sonic Jam, and the kids in NiGHTS feels much better if you ask me.

You can praise the replaying multiple levels over and over again all you want. But I see it for what it is. An attempt to stretch a small 8MB game out so gamers don't realize there are less levels in the game than previous Mario games. Mario 64 has 15 unique levels not including the bowser stages and bonus stages. Considering Mario 3 beats that after less than 1/3 of the game is complete that's pretty sad. Yeah you can try the excuse of "They want you to explore each level!" but I've pretty much fully explored it on my first visit. Having to visit it 7 more times is pretty boring.

you must spread some reputation around before giving it again to trekkiesunite118. could not have agreed more. nario 64 was a boring game upon it's release as well. you move around like you walk on soap. the camera is not good yet was somehow revolutionary and great you read reviews they actually claim that. the level design is nothing new for mario excep it's 3d now. the overworld thing was only done because the cartridge was too small yet it gets somehow praised yet it makes the game ridiculously short and then we have the graphics. praised to the moon like almost all n64 graphics back then yet to me I felt I needed to squint my eyes looking through the fog and simple textures. basiclaly the whole game looks the same. I also had a pc and psx at the time and felt the chance wasn't much with psx and nothing with pc. all in all enough to hammer the game.

Nonsense. I guess you think Sonic Adventure's floaty controls are better, right? I bet you do.

Also, lol at the Sonic Adventure reviews. If you think good reviews are a proof for the game's quality then i must remind you about the perfect reviews Mario 64 got. Heck, according to gamerankings its the 7th best game of all time.

there's nintendo fans and there's sega fans. guess which one's opinion I take more seriously? exactly. mario 64 is reviewed higher than shenmue. a game almost no nintendo fan has ever played probably. sega fans in my experience own and have played many different non sega systems and have come to the only logical conclusion and that is that sega is truly special. sonic adventure is better than mario 64, you know why? because it's more fun. mario 64 is so slow I might as well read a magazine next to it and it's tedious beyond anything. I know repetition doesn't have to be bad in a game but in mario 64 it's no fun. sonic adventure is a fact action packed rollercoaster style of platform game. the speed makes it fun and makes you feel like you really are a boss at gaming because of how fast everything goes and how little you have to do for it. but it looks and feels awesome. the only bad thing I could say is that you have different characters of whom some don't play well at all. but knuckles and sonic play great and that's the core of the game for me. the gameplay with those 2 alone is a lot more than all the gameplay in mario 64.

[Soulis]

there's nintendo fans and there's sega fans. guess which one's opinion I take more seriously? exactly.

So, your opinions are biased. It shows.

sega fans in my experience own and have played many different non sega systems and have come to the only logical conclusion and that is that sega is truly special.

Wow... just... wow! "logical conclusion" I don't know how to comment on that. But please explain to me what does it mean Sega is something "special"? You mean Nintendo isn't? Or Namco? Or Konami? Or Capcom? Or many other developers? They can't do wrong? You play games based on who made them rather than the games themselves? Please, explain to me how Sega being "special" makes SA better than Mario 64 and not the games themselves.

sonic adventure is better than mario 64, you know why? because it's more fun

See, that's your opinion. Your preference. Its a matter of taste. Also, i was a Sega fan myself in the 16 bit days. I have a Dreamcast and both Sonic Adventure and Shenmue. And guess what. I played Sonic Adventure back when it was new, i really wanted to like it but i couldn't (so i played without having a biased, prejudiced attitude towards it). I was so annoyed by it that i couldn't even finish it (played about 3/4 of it). It was just a mediocre game with good graphics (for its time). Mario 64 is just superior for me in almost every way. I don't agree that its the best game ever, not even the best 3D platform ever, but yeah, i agree with anyone who reviews it better than SA.

But thanks for trying to convince me though.

[zetastrike]

So, your opinions are biased. It shows.

That mindset always gets me. Someone's only biased if they don't share your opinion. You're not biased? Gamerankings is ok because it loves Mario 64 to death too? I do think most Sega fans have a more valuable opinion. Most of us have spent a lot of time with other brands. Most Nintendo fans, save Dave, likely can't say that. Ask the average writer at IGN or Gamespot or even most people on Gamefaqs what they think of Sega and they'll mention sonic and not much else.

[Soulis]

That mindset always gets me. Someone's only biased if they don't share your opinion. You're not biased? Gamerankings is ok because it loves Mario 64 to death too? I do think most Sega fans have a more valuable opinion. Most of us have spent a lot of time with other brands. Most Nintendo fans, save Dave, likely can't say that. Ask the average writer at IGN or Gamespot or even most people on Gamefaqs what they think of Sega and they'll mention sonic and not much else.

Who said i care about reviews and gamerankings? I only answered to Trekkies who cares about them. Really, i don't care what others have to say, i don't care what Nintendo fans or Sega fans have to say, or IGN, Gamespot etc have to say about a game, i play it myself and form my own opinions. Why would i care about a certain group's opinions? Should i agree that Mario isn't a good game only because some Sega fans say so? Really? Isn't that one form of being biased?

[zetastrike]

Who said i care about reviews and gamerankings? I only answered to Trekkies who cares about them. Really, i don't care what others have to say, i don't care what Nintendo fans or Sega fans have to say, or IGN. Gamespot etc have to say about a game, i play it myself and form my own opinions. Why would i care about a certain group's opinions? Isn't that one form of being biased?

It's not a form of being biased. Let's say I play Mario 64 for the first time tomorrow and think it's ok, and want to know what other gamers think of it. Do I: A) Go to NintendoAge and read the circlejerk threads, or B) Go here or to DigitalPress? I'd rather hear from people who don't feel they're required to like it.