Less Grunting in Cutscenes

So the English dub of Final Fantasy VII Remake was overall pretty decent. But if you're like me, there are some aspects of Japanese media that are just a little bit irksome. Chiefly among those is the obnoxious grunting and reaction noises that are so prevalent even in EN voice overs. While Remake isn't necessarily the worse offender on this front, there were enough places in the game's cutscenes that it was actively distracting for me while I played through on the PS4 version. So I decided then that if it ever came to PC, I would mod out as much of those annoyances as possible just for whenever I get the itch to replay the game. And so, here we are.

So what does this mod actually do?

Since the game launched on Epic I've been going through each and every one of the game's main cinematics and their associated voice lines for the English dub and, bit by bit, began to edit the audio in as tasteful a way as I could manage. At first, my only real intention was to remove the generally unnecessary "reaction noises" from the game, but since I was already in deep with the audio files, I took the time to address a number of other issues (more like nitpicks if we're being honest) I had with the game's dialogue. I'm now calling this project finished with well over a thousand lines edited from Ch1 all the way through to the final cinematics. And yes, I even made sure to address Yuffie's Intermission DLC. But to go into a little more detail...

1. The Reaction Noises

I don't know why so many Japanese media creators feel that its necessary that every time a character appears on screen or does anything in the scene that there has to be a vocal sound that accompanies it. If you're were ever bothered by the constant "Hmm?" "Tch!" and "Uugh!"s of the game, well that's this mod's bread and butter. I silenced or tweaked the audio wherever I felt it benefited to do so. Obviously some of these noises have lip sync associated to them, so I generally left those alone or adjusted the track to make it less obnoxious. And no I didn't blanket delete all of them. I was sure to keep some sounds where I thought it was appropriate to keep them. Usually if there's a grunt or something that is still there that you thought was unnecessary, I probably had the same thought, but either the lip-sync or general flow of the cutscene felt even weirder without it during my testing so I reverted the change. Better safe than sorry imo.

2. Fake Running Sounds

Look, this may just be a me-thing, but it always bothered me how characters sound when they're running in this game. The character takes three steps towards off-camera and they're already panting like they've been sprinting a mile. I couldn't stand it most of the time so I edited it out most of the time. Obviously if the situation or surrounding dialogue supports the out-of-breath fake panting, I leave it alone,