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Lord of Magna – Localisation Blog #3: Elements and Party Members (Part 1)

Just like in most RPGs, there’s different elements in Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven. Each of them has its own strengths and weaknesses, and they can have a significant impact on the outcome of battles.

In localisation blog post published on Friday, XSEED talked a bit about those elements (Flame, Frost, Heaven, and Earth, Void), and the various party members. First, here’s a handy chart showing the strenghts and weaknesses of each element:

1There’s a total of 8 party members in Lord of Magna, and since there’s only four main elements, that means that some of them share the same element. Obviously, they’re not all the same, and they each have their own specificities.

Luchs (Voiced by: Robbie Daymond) – Void

Luchs is a mere inkeeper, and doesn’t have lots of experience in battle, which is why he isn’t really the most physical combatant. But thanks to the Lachryma bracelet, he can use support skills and help his teammates (by healing or giving them buffs). Since he’s associated with the Void element, he doesn’t really have any particular weaknesses.

Fiding the name of the skills was pretty easy for Britanny (Production Coordinator at XSEED): she just had to take the name of the buffs they give, and add the word “Light”: Fortify Light, Remedy Light, Heal Light, etc..

Britanny explains that finding a voice actor for Luchs wasn’t too easy, as he’s voiced by a woman in the Japanese version (and this doesn’t work too well in English). Robbie Daymond was actually suggested by the recording studio. He was the first person recorded for Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven, and he apparently did a great job.

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Charlotte (Voiced By: Claudia Lenz) – Flame

Charlotte is one of the strongest physical fighters in the game. She uses a weapon called “Flawless” (a longsword), which is close-range but with a very wide reach. Therefore, she’s the best character for clearing fields of enemies or racking up combos. When she first played the game, Britanny from XSEED always kept Charlotte in her party (except when the story demanded it, obviously).

3Translating the name of Charlotte’s skills was pretty easy: in fact, the names remained pretty much unchanged from the raw translation. Here’s two examples: “Flower Storm” and “Wreathed in Ash”.

Claudia Lenz is someone who had already worked with XSEED in the past, and Britanny knew she was a great actress. For this character, they needed someone with the right amount of “bubbly energy”, and with a voice capable of making your heart “melt”.

Beatrix (Voiced by: Alexis Tipton) – Frost

Beatrix is quite cool-minded and poised, which is why her element is (unsurprisingly) Frost. Thanks to her Bowgun, called Selbstgemachte Armbrust (lit: Handmade/Custom-made Bowgun), she’s the character with the longest range. Therefore, she’s the perfect party member for players who like to use sneaky tactics… and exploding barrels.

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The name of her bowgun isn’t the only thing in German… pretty much all her skills are in that language. If it wasn’t for an XSEED fan living in Germany (with whom a staff member keeps regular contact), it would have been hard for Britanny (who doesn’t understand a word of German) to pick up the right names from the Japanese version.

Of course, the name of some of the skills was changed. For example, “Schnepfe” became “Volltreffer”: “Schnepfe” was intended to be “Snipe”, but apparently, it can also be used as the name of a bird in German… and a way to call a very annoying woman.

In the Japanese version of Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven, this character is originally called “Beatrice”, but it was changed to “Beatrix” to make her sounds more German. After all, everything about her screams German (like the name of her weapon or her special skills), so it wouldn’t make sense to give her a French or Italian-like name.

Britanny chose Alexis Tipton for this character, because she had already heard her in an anime and thought she’d be the perfect voice actress for Beatrix. However, she was a bit worried because she didn’t know whether she had experience in VA for games, but during the recording, she nailed every single line on the first try.

Elfriede (Voiced by: Kate Davis) – Earth

Elfriede is a very hard-working and smart person, but she’s quite vocal and has the attention span of your typical mad inventor. She uses a long-range machinegun called “OP4 Vulcan” in battle.

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Her skills are all called Operation XXX, with XXX being three numbers. Unfortunately, there is no real meaning behind those numbers, they just sounded cool when said out loud in English. But for the localisation, Britanny chose to give them a meaning:

– Operation 777Operation Seventh Heaven:  an appropriate name that certainly ties in perfectly with the subtitle of the game (Maiden Heaven). The name in English is the same as in the Japanese version.
Operation 101 – 10/1: October 1st the date another game made by the developers (Rune Factory) came out in North America.
Operation 214 – 2/14: Valentine’s Day.

In the Japanese version, Elfriede speaks with a Kansai dialect, so they gave her a German accent in the English version (since the game has German/French themes). Kate Davis is someone Britanny recommended personally for that role. Before recording, she was given pronunciations for the various German words, and during the actual recording, she double-checked them all with a co-worker.

Finally, here’s some screenshots:

Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven (3DS) comes out on June 2nd in North America, and June 4th in Europe.

Source: XSEED

Lite_Agent

Founder and main writer for Perfectly Nintendo. Tried really hard to find something funny and witty to put here, but had to admit defeat.

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