Yes to having subtitles for me too.
I always use them.

Almost everybody before me has given a thumbs up for subtitles.
I give two thumbs up - and would give more if I had more than two thumbs!

I've claimed for years that they are almost essential -

***** For many people whose hearing is faulty - particularly maybe the not so young whose hearing has dropped off with age.

*(*** For the many players for whom English is not their first language.

**** For the many games where the speech is not 100% clear - e.g muffled; loud music interfering; local difficult dialects; etc.
This is particularly essential when unclear speech contains vital clues for game progress.

I'm a bit late with this thread, but definitley YES to subtitles, especially when the music is loud or the speech is muffled.

Hope you like the Adventure Shop version if you decide to get it, Inland! I think it's a great game.

Cappy, you're right about The Lost Crown! Though subtitles tend to be a distraction for me, I certainly need them for this game! The background sounds are so loud, they overpower the voice actors most of the time.

I am clearly in a minority.
I find them distracting, and find myself reading along to them which is inevitably faster than the spoken word. I then click ahead which breaks the rhythm of the dialogue.
I turn them off whenever possible (and also turn down the soundtrack!!).

Yay, I'm not alone.

Sometimes i need them because I can't always turn up the sound to the required level (I live in an apartment). I work at a lab and the ambient sound level there (while within legal limits) has had a negative impact on my hearing.

I'll have to agree with venus and flotsam. Very rarely when I can't make something out I turn them on to find out maybe one or two words, usually the name of something specific. But otherwise I really don't like or need them, and find them distracting. I don't like games where you don't have the option to turn them off.

When a game world is artfully drawn or created I think it is just awful to see words messing up the scenery. And when I'm into the characters or story, I want to watch them talk and not miss expressions or other things going on by reading.

I love them, have to have them, but I do like to have the option to turn them off/on. That way we each get to play the way we prefer

Hear hear

I need subtitles especially when a character is talking too fast. My ears can't catch up but my eyes can.

I wish that teenagers came with subtitles... and thought bubbles

Thank goodness teenagers don't come with thought bubbles! Though subtitles is a very good idea.

Oh my goodness! I think if I came with thought bubbles, I'd be jobless, divorced and living in a cave somewhere by now.

Ana

Thought bubbles for teenagers would be absolutely horrible. As a former teenage boy, I can tell you that it's not exactly the mysteries of the universe that weighs heavily on our minds