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

[ColecoFan1981]

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.