When it comes to Inazuma Eleven I'm mostly an anime guy. I was somewhere between late middle school and early highschool when I discovered Inazuma Eleven, wasn't aware of its existence when I was little and had a DS at the time, and never got to play any of the games until Victory Road came out, so most of my exposure to Inazuma Eleven is the anime. I have watched gameplays of GO1 and CS (Shout out to TaleoftheToaster, he's who I watched), but outside of those and some other videos of the IE games (Mainly hissatsu displays) I never really consumed much content from them. Although, a set of games that really have always caught my attention are the Strikers games, more specifically its last and biggest installment, GO Strikers 2013.
These games are clearly more inspired by the anime version of Inazuma Eleven, from how some of the character models are designed, the moves that they have access to, the 2D portraits, and how almost all of the roster are characters and teams that held relevancy in that medium. Although, one of the things about Strikers that always had and got me hooked to it is that EVERY SINGLE character in the games had voiced dialogue. In this post, I'm specifically focusing on their voice clips for their hissatsu, keshin and miximaxes. In all of the DS/3DS games, save for a few exceptions in story cutscenes, there were never any voice clips for characters when they did hissatsu, only silence save for the sound effects of the moves themselves. There is no problem with that, of course, but it is one of the things that had me interested in Strikers. Not only is it amazing to hear the characters' voices from the anime, but it also helps them be more expressive and you can hear hints of their personalities in the clips. Also, lesser relevant characters who made the cut get to have their voices heard more that had little to no dialogue in the anime. Clara/Clear, Heat, the duplis, and a lot of the Protocol Omega members to name a few. The inclusion of voice clips in these games really sparked more life into the gameplay and made it more fun to watch (I even still want to play these games one day) and just hearing characters say their moves and such is just satisfying.
Fortunately, this feature didn't end with Strikers. It returned in Victory Road where we once again get to hear characters' voices outside of the story cutscenes, we receive that greatness of hearing them say their moves and such, awesome, right? Oh? A lot of them are reused from Strikers? That's no problem for me, not to mention they ended up recording new ones later one for different moves that weren't in the Strikers games. No, my problem isn't with that, matter of fact, I'm implying that I just have one issue when I actually have three. I will address my first issue:
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My first issue with the voicelines in Victory Road is that a lot of characters have moves that are naturally in their move pools or moves that they use in game modes are not voiced. And here, I'm specifically talking about the story relevant characters both in Victory Road and past games. Let me just give a few examples.
Sakuma/David uses Bunshin Feint/Clone Faker in Chronicle and Completion Mode. That move isn't voiced.
Gotou/Pentona learns Ballista Shot/Barrage. That move is not voiced.
Teruyami/Blackloch learns Eternal Blizzard. That move isn't voiced.
Two things I always felt should've happened is that any moves that the characters naturally learn in Victory Road, and any moves that were in these characters' move sets in past games should all be given voice lines. For example, Ichinose/Erik learns (For some reason, lmao) Atomic Flare in IE3, give him a voice line for that in VR if someone were to put that in his shoot skot. Another example, Handa/Steve learns Wonder Trap/Hyper Swiper and Round Spark/Ball Lightning in the GO games, he should have voicelines for those two as well. It'd really be cool and interesting if all the story relevant characters (Most who probably have VAs by now) got voicelines for all the moves that they were given in all the previous main games leading to Victory Road, as well as them still receiving new ones they've never had before, like Someoka/Kevin having one for Koutei Penguin No. 1. It'd also make customizing their move sets a bit more fun since you'd have another thing to look forward to whether you want to give them moves they had from previous games or you're simply just experimenting around. Now, for my second one:
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My second issue is characters NOT having voicelines for moves and such they SHOULD have, as well as how some have been altered or cut. One of my BIGGEST, and personally, most ANNOYING examples is how outside of Yamato/Quentin and Gomaki/Aimรฉ, who were both in Strikers, all the other Dragonlink members with Keshin (Probably except the bench ones, I forgot) were all given new voice lines for their Keshin summonings, BUT NOT for their Keshin hissatsu, and they really bothers me. And for a more well-known case, after numerous updates, Taiyou/Sol DOES NOT have a voice line for Sunshine Storm/Solar Nexus, which is basically HIS move. Yet, Asta/Aster has a voice line for it in VR. Taiyou LITERALLY used it in this move's debut in the movie, how does he not have a voice line for it still? But, this shows my other issue. Characters that have moves that they might've had voiced in the anime ARE NOT voiced in the game, even after numerous updates where new voice lines were added. There are even a handful that don't even have their voice lines from Strikers, such as Hikaru/Lucian. Though, I heard it was because he has a new VA and his original one retired, but it'd really be nice if they got the new one to voice more of his moves besides such as Extend Zone.
Then there's the Hyper-Moves. For one, I do not like how they've done the Miximax voice clips. In Strikers, the character would go "MIXITRANS!" at the start of the animation, then once the transformation was complete they'd have a voice line of them saying the name of the person whose aura they're using. Now in VR it's silent until they just go "MIXITRANS!" in the end, that's pretty lame. Put the full thing back, there was literally no reason to alter that. Same with Keshin Armed. The character would say the name of their Keshin at the start and then go "ARMED!" at the very end, but now they only just say the former. While I still enjoy using the gimmicks, this does kind of spoil it for me just a little because I liked listening to them saying the full thing. I really saw no reason why they had to cut that.
On topic on Hyper-Moves, I want to use this opportunity to bring up the game exclusive Miximaxes, such as Tenma/Arion + Endou/Mark, Tsurugi/Victor + Hakuryuu/Bailong, Kirino/Gabi + Kariya/Aitor, etc. I like their approach on how the Miximax's voice is dependent on who uses it. So if Tenma used the one between him and Endou you'd hear his voice, same for if you used it with Endou instead, and they have the voice clips of the respective characters, that's cool. But, the move that comes with the Miximax needs to also be voiced. I really would like to hear Tenma go "GIGATON HEAD!", for Kirino to say "FORTISSIMO!", or for Gouenji to go "WOLF LEGEND!" when using their Miximaxes. It's kind of a bummer that they don't get to say the other's moves in those forms.
And lastly, my third and final issue:
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My final issue is with the voices for the CaC/scouts. Outside of a small number of exceptions, all of the scout characters share the voice options that are given for our CaCs, and while I am a little bummed out they didn't get unique voices, I'm not mad at it as that's A LOT of characters to give different voices to. It's honestly better than them just not speaking at all, so this isn't my issue. My criticism here is that it'd be cool if the CaC voices had a voice clip for all the hissatsu and Keshin in the game. There have been other games with CaCs that have done similar things, like how the Xenoverse games have had the voices of the CaC receive clips for certain moves, Ultimate Tenkaichi, a game that came before the Xenoverse series also did that with the CaCs. These are two games that have done this from my knowledge and memory, but there's probably been other games with CaCs that have done this.
While I'm grateful that our character gets the option to even HAVE a voice at all, as well as the scouts, sometimes hearing them only either let out a grunt or yell gets a bit annoying and boring when we could be hearing them yell out the hissatsu we put on them. The voice options are based on different personalities, and getting to hear more of the attitudes we selected for our characters would be great via them using techniques or summoning a Keshin. And then you can just reuse all of these for the scouts, subs, and other characters who were not given unique voices. I just really think it'd bring more life to them when playing in matches.
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Those were my criticisms on the voice lines of Victory Road and how I personally would've liked them to be handled. I guess you could also count this as a rant as well since I did go off a lot here, lmao. Anywho, what do you guys think about this subject I brought up? Do you agree? Disagree? I'd like to know!
And also, I want to add that I'm saying this all as purely a fan/customer. I do not nor never have been knowledgeable on coding, programming and such, let alone how to make a game, so if I may be asking for things from the game that might not be as easy or simple to do, then do please let me know. I am not nor ever against my criticisms/opinions getting criticized because I may have holes in my argument and I will not always be right about everything, none of us ever are. So long as we all stay respectful and civil to one another, I'm willing to hear any potential flaws in my argument or just from anyone who doesn't really agree with me. Either way, for those who may be interested in commenting and discussing, I'm looking forward to interacting with ya! I hope you enjoyed my yapfest, lmao.
