Hiku said:
Well, as my Japanese improved, I became less motivated to replay games again in English. Not only due to the language, but also because I find it less motivating to replay games in general today, rather than moving on to one of the many games I still have left to play.
If we're talking about playing through games (with voice acting) that have an actual story and fleshed out character development (not fighting games, or Dynasty Warrior's-esque type of games) from start to finishin in both languages (not switching audio mid game), then the number might be around 7 games.
Suikoden IV, Suikoden V, FFX, Kingdom Hearts, Xenosaga, Tales of the Abyss, Persona 3. I might have forgotten something.
I'm playing Lightning Returns right now, and switched audio midway through. But that's not quite the same thing, as I don't know how I would feel about the earlier events in a different language until I experience it. FFX taught me that.
For FFX it was the only time I felt that I was playing a completely different game the second time around in terms of atmosphere and story. Several voice actors felt innapropriate. Yuna sounded sedated, lacking passion/conviction in her delivery. Similar to Aeris in the english version of Kingdom hearts II, though not nearly as bad. Seymour got a latino voice actor that sounded like he had something stuck in his throat, and didn't sound villainous at all. This was in huge contrast to the very soft/calm and cool villanous voice he had in the Japanese version. And then there's Tidus. Since he had Ichigo's VA in Japanese, he was always the squeeky type, but the delivery of James Arnold Taylor was attrocious. And the voice was much less plesant to my ears.
Among the few characters they managed to re-cast correctly were Rikku and Auron. Following Itachi's Japanese VA might not be an easy task usually. But in Auron's case all they really needed was a deep voice speaking calmly, since Auron isn't very expressive or emotional in the game. However, in the English versions, most characters pronounced his name "Oren", which bugged me, since that's clearly not what アーロン (Aaron) is refering to.
There were a lot of other localization changes as well. High Summoners were now called Meisters. All the final weapons mysteriously changed names for no apparent reason. (Tidus' Ultima Weapon for example was changed to Caladbolg. Now that's a name that rolls of the tongue easily. Caladbolg...) The font of the numbers that appear when you damage enemies also changed into a thicker and quite different font. Etc etc. I can go on and on about all the changes. But in combination with the (for the most part) poorly casted main characters, it all resulted in me feeling no empathy for characters I previously liked. And made it feel like I was playing a completely different game in terms of atmosphere and story. And that was a very strange experience for me. Because while I've certainly felt differently about characters or the story when experiencing them in two different languages in games or anime, it was never this extensive.
Which games have you felt like this about, and why?
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