Reen Omara's voice got changed?

[Daemonjax]

The old voice was better imo.

[LameFox]

It's funny because Reen was always one of those voices I thought was especially weird, but although this one is clearer, it does actually manage to sound worse. Any emotion in it seems to have evaporated, and each line feels totally disconnected from each other line in an unnatural way. It's like someone recorded a bunch of individual sentences and I'm playing them back one at a time in winamp or something.

[zakaluka]

I agree with you, the english VA wasn't good but she seemed human and I found her at least somewhat relatable.

The new reen is mousey and bland. Also her cues are really uncanny.

There are definitely plenty of people who feel otherwise though, absolutely hated reen's original voice lines and prefer the new ones. I got torn up pretty good on reddit posting the same thing.

[Daemonjax]

She had a perfectly normal Somali accent. To some people I guess that sounds weird.

[alt3rn1ty]

I think there are a few characters that got some voice changes, I just did the Yaki "Save them from themselves" missions, and the Yaki woman Ocanic sounds quite a bit different to how she used to, the end of sentences she speaks is a bit weird.
But try listening again (redo) and taking the voice as it is now, its not actually bad, its just different to what were used to. For anyone who hasn't heard the old voice I dont think they will think anything of it and accept it as the way Yaki women speak.

[Axeface]

I'm sorry but something had to be done about the voices that were changed. I am glad they have done this and it can only get better.

[LameFox]

She had a perfectly normal Somali accent. To some people I guess that sounds weird.

From what I remember of it, it sounded like the emphasis was often in weird places for the lines. I get that feeling a lot from voices in this game, seemingly at random (some turn out fine). It makes me wonder if they are not providing enough context to the VA or something.

Don't remember much about the Yaki voice tbh. Which makes me surprised they bothered to change it, since the poor ones are usually memorable. Guess I'll see (hear) what it's like when I get around to that plot in my current game.

[thedavid]

Reen's old voice didn't have the correct emotional response for the situation the character is in. The line that most stands out to me is "You told them, didn't you?"

It is asked as a question but actually it was an accusation. The delivery of the line was not correct but that was likely the director's fault, not the voice actor.

The new voice isn't much better. It also didn't say the line correctly. So apparently a computer can't figure out that it was an accusation either. Shrug.

If they are going to use Text to Speech for X4, then maybe the best place to use it would be for a ship's onboard AI. Imagine if after you get the Geometric Owl, that weird AI can be your companion for any other ship you fly personally. It would take some programming and a writer to write a bunch of lines for the ship to say and then you can use TTS. No one expects the ship to sound natural because it is already an AI.

TTS could also open up a non Xenon humanoid robot faction and letting you staff your ships with expendable robots instead of human lives.

As for Reen, guys, just hire a voice actress, let her read all of the lines, not only for her own character but for the others around her so she can understand the situation, and then give her a good director. Why is that so hard? Reen doesn't even have that many lines. You can use an AI voice changer to turn someone's voice into Reen voice and then I'll do the lines for you for free.

[alt3rn1ty]

I'm just doing the missions now, she also sounds very much like the Yaki woman Orcanic.
To me she sounds like a Swedish or Danish woman with very good english.

Would love to hear her read some lines from the Austin Powers films, "Schmoke n a pancake?"

[Falcrack]

After having just completed the Hatikvah storyline yesterday, I think the new English voice was not an improvement over the old voice.