Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - "Die, Monster!"

[ColecoFan1981]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3llBqByNOUk

The famous opening lines from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, as in this conversation between Richter Belmont and Dracula. In the video description, though, the uploader says this may be poorly dubbed, meaning, flubbed.

Here is the conversation between Richter and Drac:

Richter: "Die, monster! You don't belong in this world!"
Dracula: "It was not by my hand that I am once again given flesh. I was called here by humans who wish to pay me tribute."
Richter: "Tribute!?! You steal men's souls and make them your slaves!"
Dracula: "Perhaps the same could be said of all religions..."
Richter: "Your words are as empty as your soul! Mankind ill needs a savior such as you!"
Dracula: "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk... have at you!"

Would you think this iconic dialogue was actually not properly dubbed?

~Ben

[Darkwing]

I'm sure he meant to say that the voice actors did a terrible job. It's one of my favorite pieces of dialogue in any game....BECAUSE of the horrible voice-acting.

[j1e]

Thanks for posting! Needed that ;)

[JSoup]

What gets me more is the punctuation in the text.
"Die, monster."
Like, he's not yelling that, see that period? He's just saying it casually. And the overly dramatic voice acting doesn't make it any better.

[Aussie2B]

There's no "may be" about it. It is poorly dubbed. The acting is terrible, and the translation of the writing isn't good to begin with. It's clear that the translator (or editor) was putting in effort, but it falls completely flat on its face with how silly it sounds and the awkward flow of the lines. Add a terrible delivery on top of that and you got one hilarious mess, although I honestly can't imagine even the most talented actor being able to save this disaster.

[JakeM]

I was trying to show off how cool the game was to my mom, but even the horrible dialog between The Grim Reaper and Alucard made her not take the game seriously. :/

[Satoshi_Matrix]

The lines and the voice acting were fixed for the PSP's Dracula X Chronicles release of Symphony. THAT is the version to play.

[Double Ugly]

I was trying to show off how cool the game was to my mom, but even the horrible dialog between The Grim Reaper and Alucard made her not take the game seriously. :/

This is gold!

[LaughingMAN.S9]

what a kawinky dink this thread is created on the same day i just got this game for saturn, im having fun so far but scenes like these are lost on me since its all in japanese, are there alot of cutscenes like this in the game that i'll be missing if i dont have a translation guide or something?

im liking this game but i dont want to miss anything story wise

[JakeM]

what a kawinky dink this thread is created on the same day i just got this game for saturn, im having fun so far but scenes like these are lost on me since its all in japanese, are there alot of cutscenes like this in the game that i'll be missing if i dont have a translation guide or something?

im liking this game but i dont want to miss anything story wise

Honestly, the only time you have to worry about communicating with people is when youre buying stuff in the library.

Theres a story, but not too much. And no one ever says "you gotta use the silver and gold rings you find here and there to unlock the center of the castle after you see Maria after you get the spike breaker armor which are located in the forgotten mines, youll need to be able to turn into the bat and have echolocation to make it through the tunnel of spike which will kill you basically after one touch.."

[JSoup]

And no one ever says "you gotta use the silver and gold rings you find here and there to unlock the center of the castle after you see Maria after you get the spike breaker armor which are located in the forgotten mines, youll need to be able to turn into the bat and have echolocation to make it through the tunnel of spike which will kill you basically after one touch.."

Which honestly helps to make the game better, really. The solutions are spelled out for you, if you bother to read item names and descriptions. Really makes you feel dumb when you can't figure something out, but you'll only make that mistake once before you start reading every damn thing the game tosses at you.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

The PSP's Dracula X Chronicles redub of the famous scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf_ck-O3LyU

[Haoie]

Very few games of that era had good voice acting! Can't really fault them, right?

[jperryss]

The awful voice acting is more than redeemed by the game's amazing music.

[Aussie2B]

Very few games of that era had good voice acting! Can't really fault them, right?

I'd argue that very few games that originate in Japan have good English dubbing these days either.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Everyone cites Resident Evil, Megaman 8 and X4 and Symphony of the Night as examples of bad voice acting, but you guys haven't heard anything if you haven't played Chaos Wars for PS2.

Everything about it is PURE GOLD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAtC1SzWSXg

[Aussie2B]

The acting in Chaos Wars is so bad that I think my reaction is one more of pity than amusement, haha. I mean, it was localized by a rinky-dink publisher that was only around for a few years (O~3 Entertainment), Chaos Wars was their last release before going belly-up, and if you look at the staff credits, it's clear that most (all?) of the voice "actors" are just friends and family of the localizers (and a couple of the localizers themselves). I'm guessing none of them had any real acting experience whatsoever, and, who knows, maybe O~3 couldn't afford real actors. At least they were wise enough to keep the original Japanese voice track in the game as an option, which is more than I can say for plenty of other poorly dubbed games.

I actually pre-ordered Chaos Wars and bought it at launch for the full MSRP, so yay for supporting a struggling publisher? I thought it might become a rarity since it was a pretty late released RPG for the PS2, although I suppose my prediction wasn't so smart considering it's not particularly valuable these days. And I imagine there's never going to be much demand since people never really talk about it outside of it being the butt of jokes for its dubbing.

[Parodius Duh!]

its really not even that bad of voice acting.

[The 1 2 P]

Castlevania: SOTN is so damn good that I never really paid attention to the voice acting. And this is coming from someone who's played thru the PS1(US and Japanese), Saturn and 360 versions.

[Parodius Duh!]

Castlevania: SOTN is so damn good that I never really paid attention to the voice acting. And this is coming from someone who's played thru the PS1(US and Japanese), Saturn and 360 versions.

Ive played the Japanese ps1 and Saturn version as well. Thats not the English dub though. The Japanese dub sounds infinitely better but the English dub really isnt that bad at all, just a little cheesy....the voice actors sound fine.

[Edmond Dantes]

The PSP's Dracula X Chronicles redub of the famous scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf_ck-O3LyU

... I'll be honest, I kinda wish they had kept the voices and dialogue as-is.

The original lines were quick, catchy, quotable, and conveyed much the same point. This re-translation just sounds kind of pretentious, to be honest.

I had the same problem with Final Fantasy VI on the Gameboy Advance.

[Aussie2B]

The re-translation and dubbing was pretty pointless. The acting is still cringe-worthy, and they didn't change the translation in any meaningful kind of way. The script is saying basically the exact same thing, just slightly rephrased, so it's still painfully cheesy and silly sounding. I don't really care which is more literal; they both sound unnatural. Although it could be argued that being cheesy would be in line with the original goal of the series, to be a silly parody on old monster movies, rather than the serious, gothic tale of the occult that newer, younger fans seem to think Castlevania is (and the recent games reinforce that view), but SotN takes itself pretty seriously so I think the Japanese developers were going for a serious, dramatic scene here, which the US versions just kill. I think Konami just didn't care to put much effort into the localizations, not the original one nor the newer one. I mean, the English dubbing in the PSP remake of Rondo is cheesy and awful too. After I heard a couple scenes in English, I promptly switched the voice track to Japanese.

[Rev. Link]

Funny, I just got done playing through this again on 360. It had been a few years and I got the itch. When I first fired it up I had to apply an update. I thought, "What could they possibly be updating in this game?" Well, I just beat it and I found out.

They changed the ending music! Instead of the glorious "I am the Wind" I got some medley of classic Castlevania tunes. Fortunately I have the original soundtrack on my PC, so I just played "I am the Wind" on that. But what's the point of changing that? I'm sticking to my PSX original version from now on.

[Aussie2B]

Probably because "I am the Wind" was just as much the butt of jokes and received just as much criticism as the intro's voice acting. Which is a shame because as cheesy as the song is, there's nothing technically wrong with it. Cynthia Harrell is a great singer (same lady who did the main theme of Metal Gear Solid 3 [which is also pretty cheesy as far as the lyrics and all go]), and there's nothing wrong with the work of the musicians either, assuming you don't have some bias against jazz, which I guess is the main problem people have with it since they feel it's out of place (but, really, it's not like all of Yamane's tracks are in a single musical style either). Personally, I think it's nice when a credits theme does something unique, different from all the other music in the game.

[JakeM]

I Am The Wind wasnt too good of a closure to the game to me. Having different themes from other games sounds great. That said, I freakin love this soundtrack.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlINixVh_DA

[TonyTheTiger]

Probably because "I am the Wind" was just as much the butt of jokes and received just as much criticism as the intro's voice acting. Which is a shame because as cheesy as the song is, there's nothing technically wrong with it.

I think the issue most people had was that it's ridiculously inappropriate. It came so far out of left field that it was jarring. The acting, on the other hand, I don't think is inappropriate at all. Given the game's visual presentation, the acting makes it seem like you're watching a hammy stage performance. Which is actually brilliantly meta. It's not like Castlevania was ever all that serious to begin with. The first game's end credits listed names like "Vran Stoker" and "Christopher Bee." And Rondo of Blood was practically a straight up satire. SOTN had an awful lot of gags itself. I'd say the original acting nailed it better than the PSP version.

So I don't get what the big fuss is about the dialogue. SOTN is one of the most quotable games ever for a reason. A really awesome reason.

[JakeM]

I don't get what the big fuss is about the dialogue. SOTN is one of the most quotable games ever for a reason. A really awesome reason.

The real question is.....do you think its grrRRREAT!?

[BlastProcessing402]

I wonder if there was some sort of licensing issue with I Am The Wind, because I remember hearing it was originally used on the XBLA version, but a later updated replaced it the same as on the PSP version.