Greetings and Salutations!
I am a lover of Pathologic and anxious anticipator for Tension and usually just lurk when around the internet. I've been active in RPS a bit lately and had an excellent comment conversation earlier today with The LxR. I just wanted to pop in and try to explain about voice overs, for me.
In any work of intellectual and emotional depth, it becomes important to maintain the integrity of the work. The original work, as published, is important. It is a realization of an idea. That idea, or group of ideas, is a piece of art and every bit of it matters. In a game, things like original artwork, textures, voice, music are all part of the original dream. Over time, patches will come up, some things changed, removed, added to, etc. They may improve the textures and have higher quality music. Good Stuff.
When you localize, however, usually a company will actually remove some of the original assets and replace them. A lot of the assets stay the same, but text and voice is usually changed completely. However, many times we won't have art assets changed. A slogan that was in a texture will eternally remain a mystery to this english speaker. That's my failing for only knowing one language well. When some assets get translated, they tend to lose something. Sometimes a joke doesn't go through. Sometimes a cultural reference is lost. When this happens, and the translation is off, then the people reading the translation get off, and it just gets off the original idea even more.
I try to always watch movies in their original language with english subtitles. Something about the way it's done in the original work in it's original language usually just sounds better to me. Sometimes it can be an improvement. Usually though, it's just better in it's native tongue.
Sorry for the rambling. I hope this helps you understand at least my perspective. I'm only one, though.
Take Care
