In Japanese, there's nothing about her VA that indicates that she's from Tuliyollal, an isolated part of the world with a separate culture. Wuk Lamat sounds too generic and could easily be conflated with any regular Eorzean, which reflects a weakness in the world building through acting and expression, there's simply too much of a discrepancy between how she sounds and where she's from. In English, an effort has been made to make Wuk Lamat sound like she's from a different part of the world to Eorzea, which is a much stronger approach from a world building and narrative perspective. However, the VA sounds more like she's doing a disrespectful impersonation of a foreign accent and because the execution is so bad, it reflects very poorly on the character as a result of a bad casting or bad approach. Wuk Lamat is the first character from the new region we were introduced to and I think the actresses have largely failed to convey that in the approach to the style of VA they have gone for.
I honestly think this one comes down to voice direction. The person doing her ENG voice was fantastic at playing the character for the entirety of the runtime, and then...this happened. "I should be struggling under the weight of a massive robot hand, but I sound like I'm taking a leisurely autumn stroll". It makes me wonder if they had, like...a substitute voice director in the booth that day, or there was some kind of last-minute re-recording before launch.
I'm sorry, if you thought she was fantastic for the "entirety" of her runtime then you weren't paying attention lol. She had several moments like this, I mean you could tell in the trailer that she was just not going to cut it. That said, I think quite a few of the VAs this expac fell a bit flat, it's just that Wuk's was horrendous.
Maybe the sound director was busy with FF16 or something. I know they wouldn't have let this fly. I mean fuck look at the last expansion, it was great. If they kept the same quality standards, they'd at least force a redo. It was so bad. But I'm sure that the EN VA can perform her job, its likely that nobody was directing her.
sphene listen to me. i understand. God i like the english cast but fuck me that killed any hype around the final fight. And that yell at the end. spheeeeene. Its like it was the first time they read the script.
Everyone complains about Wuk Lamat but man all the characters in english felt off. Y'shtola sounded phoned in and I thought Thancred was a different person. Wuk just gets it the worst as the centerpiece of the expac. English VA can actually do some good emotive scenes from their demoreel but -man- the director fucked her over.
Terrible directing at the very least, too. The NA VA clearly was not told anything about the fact that the character would be lifting/straining against a heavy object.
Sora lost it, he was reminded uow he lost his friends and comrades during the vietnam war were everyone that falls turned into heartless and nobodies. Organization 13 led the charge with tanks, mortars, grenades and everything else. Atila the hun was reaerected by maleficent, hades was feeling himself and dancing as he removes limbs and hearts. Jack Sparrow was running and screaming from something big chasing him. Stitch went ballistic and unlockee the ability to transform into a big monster as tall as a refrigerator. Everyone else was doing what they do best.
