Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven VA reveals the difficulties behind recording the English voices for the game 

Sean Chiplock, an American voice actor famous for providing the English voices for anime characters like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s Guido Mista (and his Sex Pistols), as well as video game characters like Persona 5’s Yuuki Mishima, recently took to social media to discuss his work on voicing Bokhohn in Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven. According to Chiplock, Square Enix was extremely strict about matching the timing of the characters’ English lines to the movement of their lips, going so far as to re-record entire lines, even if they were only off by a small amount. 

Chiplock elaborates, saying that voice actors are usually given a window of frames in which their deliveries can be slightly shorter or longer than the movement of their characters’ lips. Sound engineers can come in afterwards, adjusting the audio to match the animations. 

In Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, however, voice actors were told to match their timings to the frame with no digital editing whatsoever. Chiplock gives a shoutout to all the voice actors who played roles in Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, stating that “not only did they give that performance, but they did it within a restriction that’s extremely rare in this industry.” 

Romancing SaGa’s Bokhohn is generally calm and collected, but Chiplock mentions that there were times when the character got a bit wild. Despite the character’s mood swings, the actor reports that he was able to maintain both the technique and quality of his vocal performance. He isn’t shy about mentioning his mistakes either, stating that he had lines with “upwards of half a dozen” retakes before he got them done perfectly. Despite all the work, he is happy that he completed the job to the standard that he expects of himself. 

Difficulty is nothing new to the Romancing SaGa franchise, as both the original Romancing SaGa 2 and the remake include some pretty powerful enemies. Who would have thought that the difficulty extended to voice acting work as well? 

Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is available on Nintendo Switch, PS4/PS5, and PC (Steam).