Do you skip voice lines in games?

[Zhao_Yun]

I just completed AI: The Somnium Files (I think it was okay, nothing too great but also not too bad) and while playing I ran into the same conundrum that I always have in games like these. Whenever voiced lines are also presented in text boxes that I can advance manually. I usually try to listen to the full voiced lines before I advance to the next snippet, but after some time I usually get impatient because I am a fast reader and I just start advancing the text when I finished reading it.
I really don't dislike voice acting, but I also don't have the patience to wait for it to play out all the time. It's probably most common in Visual Novels, but it also happened for me in Persona 5 and Hades although the voice acting is great in both of these games.

So, do you guys listen to all voice lines or do you skip parts of them as well?

 

[BasilZero]

I listen to the entire voice over.

 

[Le Dude]

Yup I rarely listen to the entire voice line, especially in large open world games like Cyberpunk and Assassin's Creed.

 

[Bradford]

I often turn off voices entirely in games with heavy reading so I can read at my speed.

In action oriented or cinematic games I'll listen to the whole line.

 

[Faenix1]

Assassin's Creed Odyssey is probably the first game I skipped all non-main story dialogue. Got to a point where I wanted this shit to end. lol

 

[Mukrab]

I always skip when i finish reading.

 

[Joni]

It depends on the voice-acting.

 

[Tolby]

I always listen. It's such a pleasure that games are voiced nowadays.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Depends on the emotional weight of the scene. If it's just some random shit, I'll skip it if I finish reading the subs before them. If I'm at a plot critical point, I'll let the entire dialog ply out.

 

[rpm]

Not if I'm hearing it for the first time. If I keep dying at a boss fight or something and it has some dialogue beforehand, yeah, that gets skipped

 

[Deleted member 79517]

I feel your pain. I read much faster than the VA (understandably), and I end up missing a lot of voiced content as a result.

It's why I'm more than okay when a smaller game or a Nintendo game foregoes voice acting altogether.

 

[Vitet]

Always.

 

[Gelf]

Depends on the game and the conversation I'm watching. I often do skip especially if its sidequest related. I really miss the option in games that don't have it and are very wordy.

 

[Borgus]

Usually, yeah. I find voice acting in video games to usually be pretty mediocre so I don't really feel like I'm missing out on a performance most of the time. Hades was the first game in a while where I spent probably the first 20-30 hours of the game actually listening to the voices but as good as they are, even then I had to skip at some point.

 

[Laserbeam]

Depends on the game/scene and what mood I'm in, but I've been known to read ahead and skip the dialogue.

 

[Kapten]

Bearer Seek Seek Lest

 

[Zhao_Yun]

I feel your pain. I read much faster than the VA (understandably), and I end up missing a lot of voiced content as a result.

It's why I'm more than okay when a smaller game or a Nintendo game foregoes voice acting altogether.

Click to shrink...

Having no voice acting at all at least takes away the choice for me and I feel less bad for reading quickly. But then again, I really like the fact that characters have voices now so it's always a trade-off.

Depends on the emotional weight of the scene. If it's just some random shit, I'll skip it if I finish reading the subs before them. If I'm at a plot critical point, I'll let the entire dialog ply out.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, at critical junctions I usually listen to the whole voice line as well.

 

[joffocakes]

I'll skip most of the time if I've finished reading unless the voices are particularly good, like Grim Fandango or something. I'm occasionally guilty of mashing X through without reading it in some games where the conversations aren't as important. Demon's Souls most recently or the story stuff in fighting games.

 

[Kapryov]

Sometimes.
Interesting scenes I definitely don't (like story beats), but mundane stuff like thanking me for finishing the mission. Yep I already read it thanks please stop talking.

 

[Enduin]

Depends on the game, story and quality of the scene direction.

Often times a lot of games just say shit they don't need to say and it's easy to infer and assume a lot of things and move on, or the direction of a conversation is just not very interesting and engaging and it's easier to quickly read the subtitles and move on.

Great games though have well written dialogue that is both interesting and important without being too verbose, while also delivering that dialogue in an entertaining and engaging way. Both in terms of VO and in framing. Not a lot of games have very good camera work when it comes to dialogue and that's a major draw back that can really stifle your interactions.

 

[JoeNut]

Yeah,I just read them. Done this with Hades and wasteland 3 recently

 

[Deleted member 4262]

Depends on the game. I skip a lot of stuff in MMORPGs.

 

[The Lord of Cereal]

I just finished playing Greedfall the other day, and I have to say, when voice acting is bad, I usually will just read the subtitles and skip the actual voice acting

 

[antitrop]

I try not to, but I can't help it. I'm a fast reader and I'm always itching to get back to gameplay.

 

[MarcelloF]

Absolutely. I'm glad games like Assassin's Creed allow you to skip each line, instead of whole dialogues.

 

[indosmoke]

Yes when the VA is average/bad, and/or when it's too damn long or when there's too much of it.

So yeah, most of the time I do.

 

[dunkzilla]

If it's not plot critical or particularly interesting, yeah.

 

[Deimos]

Always skip. They aren't cinematic/dramatic lines so give me the info as fast as possible and let me get back to the game.

 

[honavery]

Depends, but this is one of the reasons I started turning subtitles off on most games.

 

[Tohsaka]

It really depends on the game.

 

[Quinho]

If I like the voice acting, I don't even read the lines.

In other playthroughs of the game, I usually skip every text and voice lines.

 

[Deleted member 48813]

If the game has a textbox during cutscenes yeah, I can read faster than the characters speaking. If given the option like in DQXI for example, I'll just turn VA off entirely though.

 

[RecRoulette]

Depends on the emotional weight of the scene. If it's just some random shit, I'll skip it if I finish reading the subs before them. If I'm at a plot critical point, I'll let the entire dialog ply out.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much how I do it

 

[YaBish]

It's part of why I didn't mind that Disco Elysium wasn't fully voiced. I could speed read to my heart's content

 

[BriGuy]

Usually no, but there are exceptions. For example, I don't know what the hell transpired during the last 20% of Persona 5. I was so tired of these characters and so tired of their idiotic blathering that I couldn't jam on the X button fast enough. They broke me.

 

[Jedi2016]

Hell no. At least not on the first playthrough. If I keep dying and they keep showing the same cutscene whenever I restart, again and again, then sure.

 

[Deleted member 31873]

I skip them if they're not in English. I don't see the point in listening to voices that I don't understand if I've already read the dialogue. Otherwise I'll listen to it... and disable subtitles if that's an option.

 

[Zen_Master]

I tend to skip them for side quests/more minor content.

 

[Strike]

Nah.

 

[Diogo Arez]

I'll be honest as much as I prefer voice acting to written dialogue in most games when mixed together I usually skip as soon as I finish reading unless it's a critical plot moment

 

[Dogui]

Always skip. Turn voice off if it's an option and the interface makes possible to see who's talking.

 

[kamineko]

yeah, usually. i'd rather read

though i guess if something important is happening i'll listen instead. it's just however i'm feeling at the time

 

[SxP]

If I understand the language, I listen to the voice over before advancing. If I don't (read: it's Japanese) I just read and advance as fast as I can. Which means, hearing maybe 10% or less of the voice line. I don't see any reason at all to listen to the voice line when I don't understand it. Sentence structure is often so different that any emotion carried by the voice is meaningless as I've either already read that part, or haven't yet. It never syncs up, so it's just meaningless.

 

[Etrian Darkness]

I do for maybe the first few hours, but then I get bored and after I read the dialogue lines I normally hit next. I tried to stop doing this in Yakuza 7 because it had character animations tied to the dialogue boxes and I was skipping not only voiced lines but entire animations.

 

[shaneo632]

Yeah I usually skip once I've read it. The Yakuza games have so much chatter and I just can't bring myself to sit through all of it.

 

[lightchris]

Almost never. I enjoy voice acting, so I got no reason so skip ahead.
Even if I don't understand the language I usually listen to everything unless the voice acting doesn't sound interesting.

 

[cvbas]

Yep. I usually let the voiceover play in its entirety in important story scenes, but I have no problem skipping minor dialogue. I read much faster than the VO can say it and there's no reason for me to wait, really.

On that note, I hated how Cyberpunk had a glitch visual effect every time you skipped a line. It was ugly and made skipping a line take much longer than necessary.

 

[zswordsman]

Depends on the context and quality of the game. Something really good with awesome pacing? I'm listening to the whole thing.

Nothing interesting to hear and boring sidequests like Cyberpunk? I'm skipping most of the filler.

 

[discotrigger]

Nah, I never skip it the first time. I skip the fuck out of everything on subsequent playthroughs, though.

 

[Sanguine]

Yes, I'm a fast reading and don't see the point in listening to what I just read (and I'm hard of hearing so I usually struggle to hear what is being said anyway...).