Hiku said:
Atlus have been good with the dubs for the Persona games, yeah. There were a few questionable castings here and there (Fuuka in P3 and Yukiko in P4), but overall I still feel it's high quality. But subtitles can be pretty accurate as well. While it's not literal, it can properly carry the meaning of what's being said.
It just depends on the localization. Getting English VA doesn't guarantee that you'll get the proper translation. I've experienced quite the opposite, where I was only able to notice how they changed the characters personality, among other things, inEnglish, thanks to me playing in Japanese audio.
For example, in Mana Khemia, the main character is a rather docile and shy person in Japanese. When one of the other students challenges him during a class vs class test/race, he says in Japanese (voice) "Roxis... why...?"
But in the English text below he said "Roxis, your blind allegiance will be your downfall!" (He says this in his English voice as well if you switch to English VO's.)
Now this was a very very strange translation for two reasons. For starters, the character never acts like that at all. But more interestingly was the "blind allegiance" comment. It implied that the main character already knew that Roxis had alligned himself with someone, and for no good reason. Info that the main character has absolutely no clue of at this point in the game, but finds out about a few hours later...
So the localization team really screwed up the English story, and implemented their own prior knowledge of the story before it was actually applicable. Personally I never trust anything but the source material due to this and experiences like this that I've encountered over the years.
But in #FE's case there's also the music to consider, which seemingly plays an important role in the game. It's often even more difficult to not let things get lost in translation when it comes to translating lyrics. Not sure if that's important in the game though.
One other reason for why I've prefered Japanese audio, even before I knew Japanese, was because it often times sounded more professional and conveyed certain reactions and expressions in a more natural way, that get a bit lost in translation when they're attempted in English. The former is due to the fact that voice acting is a real career in Japan. Even among the top voice actors in the US, if you ask them how they got into voice acting, you'll generally hear "I saw an add in a newspaper, and thought I'd apply". While in Japan, people quit their regular schooling to go to voice acting school for years, and dedicate themselves fully to the profession.
|
I don't mind if the translation isn't accurate. I mind if what the character is saying matches what I'm reading, which can never be the case with the sub.
Fire Emblem Fates had a song, and it was dubbed fine. I'm a musician. I understand music. The actual lyric translation isn't difficult at all. People have been translating music for literally centuries. The only difficulty is in casting someone who can sing and act, and people with both skills are a dime a dozen. Very many voice actors are trained singers.
I think that voice acting has come a long way since the 90s, and specifically looking at the voice acting in SMT4, it's some of the best VA I've ever listened to in a japanese game, if not then the best. I thought Persona 4's was much campier, but it was still very good. I was actually looking forward to this dub specifically because their track record with voice casting has been very good.
