Hey, everyone!
It’s Brittany again, Production Coordinator at XSEED and lead editor for Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven. I was asked to write a new blog approximately yesterday, and since I have an entire novel’s worth of stuff I could talk about, I was ready for the challenge! I’ll be covering each of the main playable characters, their elemental affinities, their fighting styles, and throwing in some localization notes as well, including a few anecdotes about each character’s English voice actor.
In the game, there are five major elements: Flame, Frost, Heaven, and Earth, as well as one nullified “element,” Void. These elements can make or break the fight at times, so it’s important to get to know each character’s respective elemental affinity.
Since there are a whopping total of eight playable characters in the game and only four major elements, most characters share elements but mix them up with different playstyles. In case you’re still undecided on which party members you’d like to try out, here’s some helpful info to make your decision easier:
Luchs – Void
Voiced by: Robbie Daymond
Luchs isn’t the most physical combatant, which makes sense in context since he’s a simple innkeeper with no combat experience whatsoever. He does have the Lachryma bracelet, however, and that gives him excellent support skills to heal and enhance the girls’ stats in battle. He’s also not without his fair share of surprises, so try as many of his skills as possible and see what works best for you. He has no particular strengths or weaknesses thanks to being closely associated with the Void element.
The Lachryma is what gives Luchs his unique skills, and thankfully, giving them English names was about the easiest thing in the world since they were basically just status buffs that I’d already named followed by the word “Light.” Fortify Light, Remedy Light, Heal Light… I’d certainly had a hell of a time naming the buffs themselves, but it made naming Luchs’ skills afterwards a fairly smooth task.
It was hard for me to pinpoint a good English voice for him at first since he was voiced by a woman in the Japanese version, which doesn’t always work quite as well for adult males in English. In terms of voice direction, Robbie was suggested to us by the studio. He was the first person we recorded for LoM, so it ended up being the first recording session I ever took lead on – and he did a fantastic job with Luchs! I’d interpreted his voice while playing the Japanese as being a little hesitant, but far from shy, and I think Robbie balanced that feeling perfectly.
Charlotte – Flame
Voiced By: Claudia Lenz
It’s no surprise that someone with such a fiery affinity would be among the strongest physical fighters in the party. Lottie’s longsword, Flawless, is close-range but has a wide reach, so she’s the perfect choice for clearing the field of fiends and racking up combos. Outside of when the story demanded it, Lottie never left my party during my initial Japanese playthrough.
Lottie’s unique skills were also among the simplest things to name in English, thankfully. In fact, our translator’s interpretations were so perfect that most of the names pretty much stayed unchanged even from the raw translation. Names like Flower Storm and Wreathed in Ash were both cool and cute at the same time, and I couldn’t bear to change them!
Claudia was someone we’d worked with previously, and we already knew her to be an incredible actress, so I had no qualms about working with her again when it came to Charlotte. She always had just the right amount of bubbly energy that was needed—I’d specifically requested someone who had a voice which could make your heart melt at times, and my heart did indeed melt during recording. Charlotte’s voice was among my favorites in the Japanese version, so I wanted to do her justice for the English, and I feel like we succeeded.
Beatrix – Frost
Voiced by: Alexis Tipton
Trixie is cool-minded and poised, making the Frost affinity the most sensible choice for her. She possesses the longest range among the girls with her Bowgun, Selbstgemachte Armbrust (a.k.a. “Handmade/Custom-made Bowgun”), so she’s ideal if you’re into sneaky combat tactics from afar involving barrels that make awesome explosions (everyone loves exploding barrels, right?).
You may have noticed that her Bowgun’s name is in German—this pretty much applies to all of her unique skills as well. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a single word of German, so I was a bit panicked when looking at the names of all of her attacks. By some amazing luck, however, Ken in our office keeps regular contact with an XSEED fan who lives in Germany, and the guy was generous enough to help me pick apart the German names from the Japanese version and suggest alternate meanings when he felt those names didn’t quite convey the right idea. Thank you, Sascha!
That being said, quite a few of her unique skill names have changed for the English version. One of the funniest changes was probably Schnepfe; it was intended to be “Snipe,” but Sascha said he “burst into treats” when he saw it, as it apparently doubles as a bird and as something you would call an annoying woman. After some advice, Schnepfe was renamed Volltreffer.
Beatrix is also the only girl among the main girls to have a slight alteration in her English name. In Japanese, she was “Beatrice.” After doing some research, I’d realized that Beatrice was more French and Italian, while Beatrix was more German. Since everything surrounding her seemed to scream German, I went forward with the change for the sake of consistency. Doesn’t hurt that I absolutely love a certain general named Beatrix from a certain popular RPG that came out back in the day, either.
I wasn’t sure I would be able to work with Alexis for the voice-acting because I didn’t know if she’d ever voice-acted in video games; I had specifically requested her for Beatrix after hearing her voice in an anime I was watching. I thought, “Yes, this is exactly the voice I want!” I was extremely lucky that the studio was able to book her, and she nailed every single line on the first try. During a break in recording, I’d turned to my co-worker and said, “I am so happy we got her, she’s so perfect, she’s absolutely everything I’d wanted for Beatrix,” and heard an emphatic, “THANK YOU!” from the recording booth which made me jump out of my seat. I had no idea she was still in the room! We joked about how awkward it would’ve been if I’d said the opposite while she was still around.
Elfriede – Earth
Voiced by: Kate Davis
One would think of a grounded person if they were related to the Earth element, but Frieda is a bit loopier than your average girl. She’s incredibly smart and a hard worker, but she’s vocal and has every bit the attention span you’d expect from the crazy inventor archetype. She uses a long-range machine gun which she herself invented, called OP4 Vulcan.
In Japanese, Frieda’s unique skills were things like: Operation ___, with the blank being a series of three numbers. Not wanting to have something lost in translation, I’d immediately asked the writer of the game if there was any special meaning behind the three numbers in each of her attacks. Thankfully, I was told that they just sounded very cool when said out loud in English and that there was no special meaning whatsoever (ha ha). I took this as a chance to make some of the attacks she shouts out loud into attacks that have special meaning to me:
Operation 777 – Operation Seventh Heaven when said out loud in English. I thought it very appropriate since there are seven girls and it ties in perfectly with the Maiden Heaven subtitle. This name is actually the same as the Japanese, but they just read the 7’s out loud if I recall correctly.
Operation 101 – 10/1 is the date in which another title from this same developer, Rune Factory 4, came out in North America. Rune Factory 4 has a very special place in my heart and I love Neverland’s works, so I wanted to include it as a special nod to the developers themselves.
Operation 214 – 2/14. Valentine’s Day! Felt apropos and I think the holiday is cute, so there you go.
Frieda speaks with a Kansai dialect in the Japanese, so I’d enlisted our Sascha’s help to pepper her speech with German since it felt like the right interpretation in a game that was French and German-inspired. Her voice actress, Kate, was someone I’d specifically requested. She had all the gusto of the Japanese and had a lot of fun with the German, so I was very pleased with the end result. I was given pronunciations beforehand, though I ended up double-checking them all with a co-worker throughout recording again and again just to make sure we nailed it. I hope I succeeded!
I’ll be covering the other four heroines next week. I actually have them written up already since this blog was originally meant to cover all eight playable characters, but Ken told me his poor wittle eyes were hurting from reading too much text, so we decided that splitting the blog in two might be better.
P.S. Don’t forget, Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven comes out June 2nd in North America! All first-run physical copies will be coming with the Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven 28-track soundtrack at no extra cost, too. Fancy!
