so I finally found a subbed version of PS3 Vesperia recently (what the DE was ported from), and that means I am now properly enabled to further make my arguments LOL. basically since the DE text is still in English and there are no subs for what's actually being spoken in the JP audio, it's harder for me to make some points since sometimes people will just listen to audio in JP but not really understand what's going on and have to rely on the English text (which again is localized and not genuinely translated, and in a lot of major cases with Vesperia, it's pretty egregiously bad).

idk how many posts I'll end up making about the bigger changes but I do want to cover some of the things that rubbed me the wrong way with unnecessary and even harmful to Yuri's character changes.

for instance, Yuri has a skit with Estelle that was heavily altered in the dub, originally talking about how he can't find himself being grateful to someone like Raven for showing them how to sneak out of the castle. his reasoning is basically that Raven is shady and he's not sure he should be grateful to someone like that, and is confused as to why Estelle would be so grateful when she doesn't even know him (because in his mind, he knows the guy feels somewhat shady from meeting him and isn't sure he wants to trust a guy with those vibes).

in the dub they just kinda... make him sound like an ungrateful jerk and not so much because he's not sure he wants to trust Raven. the dub skit doesn't make it sound like it's an issue of his with Raven specifically and that he just generally doesn't feel grateful for the aid (and that in general one shouldn't feel grateful for aid like this), which gives off a really wrong impression of him that doesn't hold up throughout the game.

Yuri wasn't wholly ungrateful for the gesture itself, but because of who it came from - and let's face it, getting that info from a guy in jail who had to be taken out by the commandant himself wouldn't look good in the eyes of an average citizen.

the dub really hurt Yuri's character in a lot of ways, but ever since I'd first played the game on the 360 yeaaars ago, that dubbed skit rubbed me the wrong way even before I knew the JP audio and now that I can show others the full JP context (again, can't really do that with the western release because the dialogue is still written in English so some people can hear the audio but if they don't understand it, the message they take away from it is still whatever is written in the localization) I really want to talk about some of the more damaging changes (in particular about Yuri because he got the absolute worst brunt of it). the skit is one example of a lot of weird changes that make no sense and unfortunately one of many that changed the entire meaning behind something Yuri meant/was doing.

there are a lot of weird cases of them just adding in entire sentences for no reason that don't really make sense or fit, but I probably won't cover those or at least in much detail. it's some of the bigger things I want to talk about because I feel like there's a huge disconnect in a lot of cases between western fandom Yuri and actual Yuri, and western fandom Yuri is partially if not mostly a result of the dub just yeeting entire aspects of his character out the window at the speed of light because dear heavens we simply can't have a cool adult man show a range of emotion evidently.

...on that note it's very wild to me how often they remove all traces of people calling Yuri an idiot. Karol had multiple but only got like one in in the dub. yeah.

I am still working on getting through my JP Vesperia thoughts and stuff, but I'm either going through the whole game and writing my stuff out first or at least going as far as the maximum image count for a post before posting anything about it.

Mainly posting this stuff because I wanna talk about it but also so people can at least see the changes and appreciate some of the original context. I figure having the subtitled version from YT will be helpful for others to see as well.

This isn't to say I hate all dubs or all Tales dubs btw - Legendia is a very good example of a dub I love (thank you Shiloh Strong for the sheer PERSONALITY he put into Moses bless his heart and soul). There are others ofc, but this post isn't me discussing beloved dubs or other Tales games lol.

That said though, as a more in depth example, while I am in preference to Graces' JP audio, the localization was not jarring (as far as I remember at least. I only went through Graces' dub once so I could totally be wrong, but just from memory, I don't recall it being that far off from the original context). I was not a fan of the voice acting overall and did have a bias preference from the get go with the JP VAs (nor did I like the skit audio sounding compressed as hell in the dub, dunno why that happened), but the overall translation from my memory was not a bunch of changes that changed entire meanings or tones of a scene. My reasons for liking Graces in JP more is not the same as why I prefer Vesperia in JP.

Vesperia's dub just seems very allergic to men being emotionally expressive human beings, and given that Yuri took the brunt of it when he's one of my most beloved characters in Tales, that shit just stings, man. The localization also for some reason had a LOT of weird fuck ups and sometimes felt like they didn't even understand their own job (changing a literal sentence to "haha" to me sounds more like "I don't understand the context of what he's saying so we're going to just throw something in there to fill the space". Even if that's not happened, that's what it comes off like).

Sometimes I just walk into Vesperia's dub and am like what the fuck even happened here.

honestly the basic way I can say it about Vesperia's dub is that like... it doesn't sound that bad when it's all you know for context, but then when you just hear it in the original context (not even also having the original context, but hearing it), you realize just how much tone they changed.

it all makes sense in the dub because of the context they changed to make the tone fit with it, but when you hear the original tone, suddenly the dub context starts losing its foundation. basically the only way, in some cases, the vocal tones work in the dub is because they changed the context itself, and changing context/meaning/the message of what's being said is just a HUGE no-no for me.

I've probably mentioned this before but most of the contextual changing happened with Yuri. in a lot of cases for me like with Raven and Karol I much prefer the original delivery and that's a preference, and in some cases there were little to no changes (primarily the first and second visit to Dahngrest were mostly the same). a lot of them just center around Yuri and given that he's my baby boy, I'm just naturally set off by it lol.

if there is one thing i will never recover from with crestoria's crossover being gone for good, it's that we'll never ever know the story behind transgressor yuri.

if there are two things i will never recover from with crestoria's crossover being gone for good, it's that leon and aegis' loyal friendship will never ever return.

honestly tho i will never get over my RAGE in the absolute WAY the dub had yuri threaten ioder with an actual weapon in a very mean tone

and not just

you know

"i'll punch you" in this joking tone where it REALLY wasn't that serious

this is like half a joke bc im just having fun but also half not bc im totally fckn serious abt it, ya know??