Hey, everyone!
It’s Brittany again. Last time, I wrote about four playable characters from Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven and said I’d follow up with a second blog featuring the rest of them. Well, not only do I have that, I have our swanky SUPER COOL NEW WEBSITE:
IT’S CUTE, GO LOOK AT IT.
It’s actually got a lot of neat stuff in there. It has new screenshots, character profiles, voice clips, cute art, wallpapers–pretty much anything you could want. It also features our third trailer for the game! Just go to the “Souvenirs” section and you’ll find it.
Now, without further ado, here are some details on Gabriele, Diana, Francesca, and Adelheid.
Gabriele – Heaven
Voiced by: Christine Marie Cabanos
With the only Heaven element in the party, you would expect Gabbie’s attacks to be something holy-related, but they’re more just…weird. She’s considered the healer among the party members in the game, but while playing her, I’d never really come across too much in the ways of healing. Her range with her boxy weapon,Pandora’s Box, is about as small as Luchs’, and her various skills ranged from interesting to just plain strange. I’ll admit, I didn’t have her in my party all that often outside of checking her unique skills just to make sure they were described correctly, but I do encourage everyone to try her out in combat since her abilities are among the most colorful of the whole cast’s.
Naming her skills also turned out to be quite fun, since they had names that were less flowery. Good Luck, Everyone! is one (I had initially named it Good Luck, Girls for space, but that would’ve left out poor Luchs), but my favorite has to be the ever-so-eloquent SHUT!! UP!! Gabbie’s English voice actress, Christine, had me giggling with just about every take because she sounded so adorable, but I burst out laughing when hearing her takes for that particular skill.
My co-worker was sick of me saying how cute every single take was by the end of Christine’s session in recording, but I cannot tell a lie—every single take was super, mega cute. When recording battle voices, it’s customary to play the Japanese voice first for the voice actor so that he or she can mimic the intensity of the original. Of all the English voice actors, Christine’s voice is closest to the Japanese. That was unintentional, but it made for a few fun takes when Christine would hear the Japanese battle cries and thought that it was actually her.
Diana – Earth
Voiced by: Stacy Okada
Di’s the second character in your party to have the Earth affinity, and she was one of the party members I used quite frequently. Her spear, Kirin, is about mid-range but not particularly wide, so she’s best for enemies that are standing in a line. She’s a physically strong character, but that didn’t matter much to me—I tend to use characters I like as people most, so I used her a lot because her character design was my favorite and her personality charmed me.
Because her four main unique skills were the Four Beasts Genbu, Suzaku, Seiryu, and Byakko, I’d actually wanted to give all of her unique skills Chinese names. I’d enlisted the help of a friend who was also a translator to make sure everything was accurate (she’d also translated games, so the skill names weren’t too difficult for her) and everything was set to go. Unfortunately, character limits prevented me from using them in the end, but it wasn’t a huge loss. The original names for her skills were intended to all be read out loud in Japanese anyway, so all of her skills should match the Japanese exactly.
I was actually very surprised when I’d heard Di’s Japanese voice at first. Looking at her design, I thought she’d have a very girly, gentle voice, but she actually turned out to have a very deep voice compared to the rest of the cast. Stacy was a natural choice for me, as I wanted a more realistic-sounding voice as opposed to something “anime-ish,” if you catch my drift. I love that Stacy added a subtle, unintentional sexiness to her voice in the English at times. Di herself is a bit oblivious, so I feel like having that edge enhanced parts of her personality.
Francesca – Flame
Voiced by: Amanda Miller
Francesca is the second character with Flame affinity, and like Charlotte, she has incredible physical attack power. I switched between her and Diana constantly since I couldn’t choose which character I wanted more in battle. Her range is small, but she’s the only character who can attack multiple times in one turn, so she’s perfect if you’re into close-quarters combat. Her weapon, Scar of God, is a pair of claws.
Admittedly, Fran was the character I understood the least when playing the game in Japanese. Our translator did an amazing job getting across the personalities of each character, but even with visual context, I just wasn’t feeling her at all. One of my goals during editing was to figure her out and make sure that she had a personality that came across just as clearly as the other girls in English.
Her voice in Japanese was very girly and high-pitched, but something about that didn’t feel right for the English version. Instead, I’d specifically requested a huskier voice from the studio, and they suggested Amanda, who completely blew me away with every single take. I can’t express how happy I am with the end result—Amanda’s voice-acting made it so that Fran went from being one of my least favorite characters to one of my favorites. When doing a second editing pass, hearing her voice and associating it with the character really helped me find her personality and bring her dialogue to life. She’s still the same energetic, workout-loving girl from the Japanese, of course, but now I’m much more satisfied with her dialogue thanks to her English voice.
Adelheid – Frost
Voice by: Natalie Hoover
Last, but certainly not least—in fact, she’s my favorite among the girls—is Addie. I fell in love with Addie as a character immediately, and she never left my party once she joined. She, like Beatrix, is associated with the Frost element, and while her weapon is a giant shield called Scutum Absolutae, high defense is just one of her many strong points. I found using her Latin-inspired skills much more useful than her physical attacks since they have a whole lot of range and hit enemies pretty hard. It was easy racking up combos with her, too, so I often earned extra turns thanks to her.
I’m not very familiar with Latin, so I’d asked the dev team what the intent behind her Latin names was instead of just assuming. After that, I’d asked my co-worker who was much more familiar with the language to help me come up with some appropriate adjustments where needed.
Natalie was another voice I’d specifically requested for the English dub, and I am so very happy we were able to work with her! Like Alexis, her voice immediately stood out to me as the obvious choice, and she nailed that sexy, confident, older sister vibe that Addie possesses.
My only regret with Addie is that I apparently did not know how to properly pronounce her given name during recording! Certain names had interesting pronunciations and spellings, so I’d decided beforehand to add a “pronunciation” button beside each character’s name on our Lord of Magna website. While never spoken audibly in-game (and at this point, I’m SO glad that’s the case), Adelheid was the one German word/name I’d somehow forgotten to double-check beforehand, so I’d only learned that the pronunciation was wrong after recording… I’m so sorry, Natalie! That was totally my fault. At least it’s just on our website? (ha)
And so ends part II of my longest blog yet. They just keep getting longer and longer, don’t they? Maybe I should make a third covering the non-playable characters…? Still, I hope you found everything interesting and entertaining, at least! Thanks for sticking around!
Brittany
P.S. I said this before, but 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!