The group quickly led Debbie to a recording studio.
This place is usually where they record environmental sounds like collisions, explosions, friction, and so on.
It is equipped with quite professional equipment.
Debbie was a bit surprised when she saw the equipment.
Being familiar with voice acting, she knew the value of these recording tools.
To have such luxurious equipment for game voice acting made her suddenly a little nervous.
What if she messed up? Could she lose her job because of that?
However, there wasn't much time for her to think about these things. She had to prove herself first.
...
In the initial interview, Takayuki had mentioned that she would need to be recognized by her colleagues to join Gamestar Entertainment.
This was also an experiment by Takayuki; he wanted to bring professional game voice acting to this world.
As games began to reach a bottleneck in many aspects, the experience of sound and visuals became increasingly important.
By now, Gamestar Entertainment had produced a large number of renowned music works.
Now, they were simply expanding the scope of audio-visual effects.
Debbie sat calmly in the center of the recording studio, took a deep breath, and silently recalled the details of each line in her script.
Although it was just a script, it had detailed notes on the emotional changes at key points.
In fact, the script alone was enough, but Debbie still hoped to make it even more perfect.
At this moment, several people stood by the window outside, their curious eyes focused on her.
They too wanted to see the effect of professional voice acting for themselves.
Debbie slowly began speaking, and a female voice filled with a bit of weariness and heroism emerged.
In that instant, it felt like everyone had been transported into the world of Metroid—it was as if Samus was right beside them.
They stared, their surprise hard to conceal.
Not only were they the responsible team for the Metroid American branch, but they were also big fans of the Metroid series.
It was because they loved Gamestar Entertainment's games, especially the Metroid series, that they had the courage to apply to the company.
For people who loved games, Takayuki saw this as a plus, and given their impressive qualifications and abilities, they naturally became Gamestar Entertainment employees.
When they first heard Debbie's voice acting, they instinctively thought, "That's Samus's voice!" There could be no voice more fitting for Samus.
Was the effect of voice acting really this powerful?
Previously, they had always seen games as pure entertainment, never expecting that with great voice acting, a game could gain so much more depth.
They had even thought that hiring professional voice actors was a waste of time and money.
But now they felt that it was absolutely worth it.
After performing a section of voice acting, Debbie tried to calm herself down.
She did have a small talent for this, and this time she was giving it her all, hoping to gain recognition from everyone.
But when she looked up again, she saw the people outside staring at her in a daze.
This made her nervous instantly.
What were their expressions?
Was it awkwardness?
Did they think her performance was bad?
Or was her voice just not good enough?
Debbie suddenly became a little flustered.
Could it be that she was about to lose another job?
"Fantastic! This is the Samus voice we wanted to hear!"
The door to the recording studio opened, and the head of the American branch came in excitedly, expressing their admiration for Debbie.
Debbie was a bit stunned.
She... was she welcomed?
It seemed like it was going pretty well.
She also breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that she had secured her job. These people clearly recognized her.
The feeling of being accepted was truly wonderful.
...
In Tokyo, Japan, Takayuki held the phone.
On the other end of the line, the head of the Metroid American branch was showering him with praise and compliments.
He was calling Takayuki a visionary, saying that the game with professional voice acting sounded completely different.
This was no longer just a game; it was a whole new genre that combined film and games.
This was something they hadn't anticipated.
Takayuki briefly congratulated them, complimenting them on hiring such an excellent employee.
Then, he hung up the phone.
Well, it seemed there was no need to worry about the development of Metroid.
Next, he needed to focus on Dragon Quest.
By now, Dragon Quest had reached its tenth installment.
In the original works, Dragon Quest was an online multiplayer role-playing game, and it was an attempt by Square Enix to succeed in a new market.
However, the results were not great, and the game remained lukewarm.
Originally, Square Enix didn't have the genetic makeup to develop online role-playing games. Many of their RPG projects ended poorly, and Final Fantasy XIV was one of those that only came to life after a major revival.
The credit for that goes to the later producer, Naoki Yoshida, while Square Enix had been somewhat lucky.
So for Dragon Quest's tenth installment, Takayuki didn't set high demands. He simply instructed the primary development team to maintain the original game's features and move the style of Dragon Quest 11 to the tenth installment. Afterward, Takayuki planned to put Dragon Quest on hold for a while, not developing this title further, but instead exploring new directions.
This series, in the current wave of new trends, was becoming less and less mainstream. Player preferences were constantly changing, and Dragon Quest was one of those games where changing the gameplay could easily result in backlash from loyal fans. Takayuki didn't want the game to turn into a yearly, unchanging product or just a tool for making money.
Takayuki also didn't hide the fact that the reason for not developing the next installment was simply because the era in which he worked had ended with Dragon Quest 11. He couldn't create any further.
If he truly wanted to create something, he would create a new IP, not exploit old ones.
After all, there were so many other games to develop.
Therefore, this generation of Dragon Quest would be a short-lived swan song.
Hmm, perhaps this could be used as a marketing gimmick to attract players to buy?