I'm curious what Rich Evans has to say on the production end of things.
Krile and Sphene sound more similar this time because Krile forgot how to do the voice, doesn't care, or the studio lost the presets they used to get her voice that way. I could see her just not giving a shit, since the rest of the team has clearly started phoning things in and I think Sphene's VA is still having fun with it.
I'm basically of the opinion that the old cast shares the same disdain for the direction the entire playerbase has, and doesn't see a point to try if they're anyways second-billing to the most obvious nepotism-baby in the world, Wuk.
I don't know how to describe Wuk Lamat's cadence up til about now but it just this weird delivery that went up and down into different registers.
That was the actor "trying." I still have no idea what accent they were emulating, but Sena was convinced that it was great. It warbled up and down because that's Sena's impression of how the mediterranean languages sound. The best pattern that I found was that he would locate a word that might have a
trill in it, he would begin speaking differently. Every single time he says "Tuliyollal," you can hear how he pronounces it differently than does the rest of the cast. I believe this is because pronunciation guides weren't standardized across the two studios, and he wanted to sound cultured. But anyways, there's always more energy in any line where he says shit with a trill, because it's an opportunity to "sound authentic."
The post-game performances have been much, much flatter. I think Sena realizes this wasn't the big break that his buddies arranged for him to have - how else could you explain a no-name getting the third-most-spoken lines of dialogue in a decade-old franchise, after all? Shit like the "let's go" that I recorded earlier is like... yeah, homie doesn't give a shit anymore. They didn't retake it probably because he threw a fit - and for the number of lines he had to retake in the MSQ, he probably threw a fit too. I was meaning to check if they fixed "MURDERER!" or "PEEPHOLE!" or "BAKOOLJAJA!!!" (in the bird-people zone, when wuk is leaping at BJJ with the axe and yet is whispering??), but I can't really do that anymore.
The exposition dump explaining how the game is going to be referring to the 3 Sphenes, for example, just feels really jank even when accounting for XIV's tendency for expo dumping.
It's incredibly unnatural and stupid, as no person alive would go "endless-sphene, impostor sphene, and real-sphene" and just remember it. This is why I think it wasn't a rewrite - I think Hiroi got confused when he was doing early drafts and he just threw it in to keep himself from getting mixed up. Instead of exploring characters having a bit of funny dialogue tripping over which Sphene is the real Sphene (maybe making a false-gemstone joke or two?) it's completely dry. Yet another instance of "prime cut of writing opportunity overcooked to the point of dry flavorlessness."
You're the second person I've seen say that, did I miss something with her?
A concept I'll term Hiroi's Razor: I can't tell if it's intention or incompetence. Shale has had and continues to have direct access to the things that could cause all of the bad no-nos and is conveniently off-camera when they're triggered. In the cutscene where the fake-sphene's crown is left on the seat, Shale doesn't even regard it. The camera angle is cut in such a way that we pointedly see that she doesn't even look at it, which a competent individual would use to imply something is up - especially since a few moments later, she just knows that it's a regulator.
Hence, Hiroi's razor: did he just want us to notice the crown and thought we would miss it, and used Shale walking by as just an opportunity to zoom in on it? Does Shale know it's a regulator because she's just so darn smart she doesn't even need to look at it? Why would fake-Sphene have a regulator, if Endless-Sphene didn't need one? Why would Calyx stop using fake-sphene as an asset, when it's patently obvious how stupid it is to to do?
Hiroi's razor: maybe it's intentional, maybe he's just a fucking idiot who believes shounen is the highest form of art. Doesn't help that he obviously is a fucking idiot: Why does the rest of the world not exist, and as such is totally uninformed about the recently-averted world-ending threat that was in this city... and won't know about the new world-ending one? Why wouldn't you use this as a plot thread for the grand companies and the alliance to occupy alexandria, because it's twice now in a couple months threatened to end all of existence?
Do look forward to real-sphene being possessed by endless-sphene through the regulator that she insisted on carrying (for no reason except hiroi's razor) and thanks to wuk lamat going REMEMBER HOW YOU LOVE YOUR PEEPHOLE she sacrifices herself or something and Alexandrians go "I'm not afraid of death anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!"