Actually, that's not true, the English voices in XII were game-breakingly annoying.
Not really, I rather enjoyed laughing at engligh Kim "The Vaccum Cleaner" Kaphwan's "HangetZUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!" As well as the ridiculously deep voice Andy had for "SHO-KENNN!". English Iori seemed to be the same voice from Maximum Impact 2, and Chin wasn't too bad at all; sounded like an old man, lol.
At any rate, yeah, I'm glad they're spending money on "game stuff" and not VA work, but I'd still love to hear Jamieson Price as Maxima some day! XD
This is also the best confirmation we have of Story mode being seperate from the Arcade Mode's pre-existing dialog. Quite interested to see how that turns out...