Audio Atrocities (TM) :: Gotcha Force (Gamecube)

In the long tradition of stripping the meaning from Japanese cultural phenomenons for US consumption, Capcom completely left out the big clue that Gotcha Force is based on Gatchapon Toys, the capsule toys sold for 200yen in Japan. Without knowing that at the start, it's all downhill from there trying to make sense of the story mode of this game in English.

Fortunately, the muddy mess the story became in English is of little concern because Capcom went for the distraction play by making the voice acting some of the worst in recent memory. The only saving grace is that the speech mostly comes in small bursts before/after battle or during the fights.

Flat voice acting, bad writing, poor editing, bad voice effects, it's all here. NONE of this has been edited together here, so if it sounds strange in the clip, that's just how it sounds in the game. The single weirdest, most wretched design choice is to have a representative sound accompany full text bubbles. Whereas a game like Banjo Kazooie made gibberish sounds to give the player the idea the characters were talking as the text bubbles filled up, Gotcha Force does annoying sounds like this through most of the intermissions instead of real speech. And, no, that wasn't edited, but an actual sequence. Ugh.

The saddest thing of all is that the game itself is really fun, and doubly so if you're a fan of Japanese Gatchapon capsule toys. Unfortunately, Capcom fell down when localizing this, and in the final slap in the face, made it so you can turn the horrible voices DOWN, but NOT off in the game.

Exhibit A: “We are the Gotcha Borg Corps of justice, known as Gotcha Force.”
This is supposed to be a robot voice effect, but you'd have never known if you weren't told. In an era when you can get powerful sound editing software for less than $100 would it have killed Capcom to demand the engineer drop the coffee and danish long enough to punch up a decent effect? Of course, 'Corps' (pronounced Core by most) is mispronounced throughout the whole game, a mistake a real robot would be shut down and reprogrammed for making.

Exhibit B: “...this is impossible from the point of cultural anthropology...”
No, it's only impossible to bear hearing over and over since it makes no sense in the story and is delivered badly. Of course, the fact that the line is prefaced with a bad laugh from one of the other characters just makes it that much better/worse.

Exhibit C: “It's clear how thiiis is going to eeend.”
She got that right. It's going to end with a misunderstood game saddled with crappy acting for a system nobody bought in the bargain bin. Nice work, Capcom.

The Rest:
Haven't had enough? Here's a ridiculous line of additional clips for your amusement, that still only scratch the surface:
Clip 4, Clip 5, Clip 6, Clip 7, Clip 8, Clip 9, Clip 10, Clip 11, Clip 12, Clip 13, Clip 14, Clip 15, Clip 16, Clip 17, Clip 18, Clip 19, Clip 20, Clip 21, Clip 22, Clip 23, Clip 24, Clip 25

“It's clear how thiiis is going to eeend.”