#aaaannnndddd does have a picture of him and yuri hanging up in his room sooooo

[goldentigerfestival]

Time to start sectioning my points off because they're so long! :D

Localization etc:

I feel like the dub didn't put as much importance in the fact that they've been friends most of their lives. Not textually, but by nuance. The text is all there - them always saying this that and the other thing that they know about each other, but it just sounds... more plain in English, like matter-of-fact speaking. Less heartfelt I guess? And yeah, half of their "arguments" in English are more just... them talking in JP. They're used to each other's behavior and habits enough that it really isn't that serious.

Oh yeah that was totally Rays lmao my bad. I sometimes get the two mixed up just on the sheer fact that I consumed content for them pretty much simultaneously. That doesn't change the fact that Asteria did give us Yuri and Flynn as knights together to start off Yuri's story though (and they literally fuckin' went "oh and here's Asbel... and Richard. in Yuri and Flynn's part." woof. real subtle, that one!), so Asteria still stuck to the usual guns. I can pretty much guarantee any side story Yuri would've gotten in Crestoria would've heavily involved Flynn and him being completely distraught over Yuri being a transgressor. I can't imagine there'd be any other way for that to go; it's more of a matter of what they'd do for Yuri from there, and I'm sure Flynn would come to an understanding with him.

See you having a degree in JP and me having very on and off understanding (you could say entire sentences I won't understand squat of, but then sentences I completely understand) makes it even more wild to me LOL. Just like, how much of a noticeable difference everything is, not just in tone but in text. Even someone a lot less proficiency in the language can pick up on how vastly different some stuff is. I'm sure some of it was due to crunch time originally, but the fact that they didn't go back and fix anything when they re-released the game from the remake is just pure laziness.

They also clearly didn't check with the original script at all, so things just don't match up (Flynn saying "good luck out there" after Yuri learns Final Gale is like... wait but you're going with us). That plus all the grammatical errors, textual dialogue not matching up with vocal dialogue, and the weirdly worded stuff that was almost certainly put in as a placeholder but forgotten about just tells me they really didn't put a whole lot of care into the DE localization.

It's been a couple years since I watched a walkthrough of Arise (my computer couldn't handle it even from the demo LOL, I had to watch it), but I recall some similar issues like that popping up there too? Apparently Berseria skits toward the end of the game very clearly used text to speech too and released as a final product that way? I don't know if it's been updated since I haven't played the game, but I feel like western Bamco's care for Tales games is pretty miniscule at best. Hearts R was a mess and it killed me hearing the vocal dialogue and seeing the nonsense text (it wasn't even grammatical etc so much as just... what were they even trying to do other than be quirky?), and that's on top of the fact that they didn't even bother giving it English voiceover period.

Part of me is glad for it if only because I wasn't locked into English dialogue (COUGHS ON GRACES which ironically had a pretty close tl/loc from my understanding (I started with a fan sub when it was out on the Wii, so it was only later that I watched a YT playthrough dubbed, and now there's a playlist of an undubbed version using loc text and JP audio) but the voice acting was sub par and the skits sounded like compressed audio files) where I couldn't hear the difference if I had been, but the other part of me is clawing chalkboards over the huge disconnect of what I'm hearing and reading.

I think all of that on top of the fact that they for some reason refuse to call voice actors back just puts me off so much more on localized Tales. Part of me wants a remake for Legendia, but I'm also like... there's no way they'd actually bring every voice actor back, so they'd either have to keep the dialogue like with Vesperia and just add new parts, or they'd change everything and all the actors (which the latter I think they'd do for all the new stuff anyway). Considering they literally replaced Shiloh Strong in ToS2 despite that he'd also recently voiced Moses in Legendia (and he, like Troy, told a fan they never even contacted him to return as Zelos), at this point I have no high hopes or faith in how much they care about bringing VAs back.

And really, that's a huge disconnect I think in how something like Vesperia is so differently understood in the west. Our VAs don't get the same direction or dedicated to their role (as in, they're not given the same life commitment someone like Toriumi has because he voices Yuri pretty much regularly due to gacha games and every other goddamn crossover he's been in LOL). With western Bamco in particular, other companies aside, it's especially bad. Vesperia got lucky with how many people they brought back, as absolutely jarring as Leblanc and Don are to listen to in the DE. ToS2 got like, one or two voice actors back.

I'm hoping something changes with that going forward (i.e. they actually make more effort to brings VAs back in a similar fashion to how JP VAs keep their roles almost permanently save for retirement/death/a huge scandal that doesn't get roped in quick enough - which like, Takahiro Sakurai broke my heart with that scandal having been a dedicated fan of his most of my life lol), but I'm sad to think Troy may be off the role for good.

Troy's direction was pretty much wildly incorrect in a lot of spots, but he at least did the part well and did it justice for what he had to work with. Grant George sounds extremely emotionless as Yuri and based on what I've heard of his acting in other roles, they really tried to force his voice to mimic Troy's and it... sounded like he was trying too hard, because he doesn't sound quite like that in his other roles.

I personally think his voice just doesn't work for Yuri (it's even deeper than Troy's and even more serious, and if we thought Troy was a giant step away from Toriumi's acting, Grant's is even further away), and if Yuri ever appears in anything dubbed again, I really hope they bring Troy back. It's ironic how First Strike brought Sam and Troy back only to replace every single other VA... and then do the exact opposite for the DE. Sam is the sole survivor lmao (and he's quite good at his role at least, and a lot closer to Mamoru like you said, than how Troy and Grant are with Toriumi).

I gotta be honest, if they won't bring Troy back, I'm probably never willingly listening to anything Vesperia related dubbed again LMAO. I won't be able to deal with Grant voicing Yuri, much less with the direction he was already given as a hint of how that would continue to go. I also haven't really seen any love for Yuri from Grant so like... it's a huge bummer. Troy at least loved his role and Toriumi's a lifer, but I've never seen or heard anything about Grant really just going through it as a passing job (which would be valid given his very limited time in the role and was more of a fill in, but we don't know if that would change and if he'd keep the role going forward if Yuri had more dubbed appearances). I guess for me Yuri is too precious of a character and memory for me (man was my resident idol as a teenager LOL) to have someone voicing him who may not really care about him as a role or have that same passion.

All that said about the localizations, I have no idea exactly who localized Crestoria, but they did a relatively good job with it (Mileena in Rays, at least from what I've heard in any voiced stuff I could find online, had some pretty big flavor text additions/changes and I don't know why or why they went so hard with it). Unfortunately I don't know that the same people would be localizing any main entries going forward, but I want to at least hope it's a decent sign that maybe they'll care more in the future... but again, since it was a gacha, I'm not so sure they'll have that level of commitment for a mainline entry that's going to have a lot more text to work on.

Queerness + modern Tales:

As for the queerness, I agree! Tales at least has kinda always had the queer coding (I would not consider Dhaos "manly standards" from his time, and they followed that up with Leon, eventually we landed ourselves a Zelos and arguably a Mao, had Jay thrown right into our faces, and so on... and eventually we ran into Richard which. Well. ...Wait most of my faves are queer coded I think I'm onto something LMAO), but Vesperia was a lot more front and center with it.

Funny thing is, when I first played Vesperia which had to have been like 2008/2009 because I was going into highschool/just starting out in highschool (mainly just that I'm not sure how quickly I got it when it came out), I was completely under the impression that Duke was in love with Elucifer. Looking back on it now, my impression is... still exactly the same LOL. For real though, seeing Duke and hearing him was the best whiplash I think I've ever experienced in my life (even in the dub I'd say they did well with the casting, because it's not too much deeper than his JP voice, which is still not what you'd have expected from a man THAT pretty back then LOL).

The NPCs are that traveler and guy from Zaphias, right? I remember some dude complaining right before you get Estelle back that he was "stuck there" or something and I believe that's the pair you mean that was traveling? I see them together in various inns so I am guessing that's them.

PISS I never even knew about that Heliord guy. Or I just completely forgot because I may have spoken to him in the 360 version and just missed him while playing the DE, but basically my sister lent our copy of Vesperia at one point to one of her friends who never gave it back who she is no longer friends with so our 360 copy is long gone and I haven't been able to play it since. I should still have my data since I have my save data hard drive for the 360, but I can't do anything with it without the game. OTL

Also on that note, when I was younger first playing the game, I went into it fully trying to prepare myself for the expectation that Yuri and Estelle were going to end up together, because every Tales I'd played prior went super hard on the main m/f pairs (including how awkward it was to have Senel/Shirley implications after he'd been with Stella and fully considered Shirley his sister, which JRPGs for some reason really love leaning into blurring the lines between sibling love and romantic love). I was pretty much trying to force myself to like their dynamic romantically out of the expectation that it would exist (basically Zelloyd existed and was technically possible but I was also aware they were trying to say your choices didn't matter all that much because Colloyd was still canon anyway, which thank god Innocence didn't pull) as early as the Quoi Woods.

Mind you, this was when I only had access to the dub, and that's what I mean by the original JP's context still got through to me/was still strong enough that even the localization couldn't erase it completely, because I still ended up walking away from Vesperia with Fluri-Determined-Canon. That's on top of me going into it having completely resigned myself to "I have to force myself to like this het ship because it's going to happen anyway". Blessed be when I walked out with Yuri and Flynn instead. I recently introduced a friend to Vesperia who is playing the DE dub and is still primarily recognizing Fluri as canon but likes Yuri and Estelle's dynamic too, so it seems like a tier of would ship Yuri and Estelle but recognizes Fluri as canon and ships them more.

Yeah see like, I truly do find it wild that nobody can write a man and a woman as siblings because of romance. Like, is it really so odd for an older brother to want to rescue his younger sister, be distraught about possibly having to kill her, or catching her when she's falling toward him? No, because that's actually quite literally what many if not most older brothers would do. It's not uncommon to have a protective older brother.

But since they're not actually related, you know, no such thing as found family if you're a man and a woman or the main gender leads in a Tales game (unless you're Graces where you still can't write romance where you try and can write it where you don't try). If you care about the opposite gender very strongly, you are only allowed to be romantically involved! No such thing as "best friends" when you're a man and a woman! ...But you know, if you're two men, there's no such thing as romance. If you're two women, it's just 'girl things". It's honestly crazy to me how people don't realize how extremely heteronormative those viewpoints are and how borderline if not outright homophobic they are.

As mentioned I only watched Arise because my computer isn't capable of playing it and I don't have the other systems for it. I didn't mind the main m/f couple this time since it wasn't poorly written, but then I had to put up with Law and Rin which irritated me to no end and was a purely trope based romance that seemed to only exist to pair another guy and girl (because for some reason Tales likes to pair as many m/fs as possible instead of just... not doing romance at all for some characters. Still to this day have no idea Zelos and Sheena are so popular as a couple when I literally never saw them romantically, and that's having literally grown up with Symphonia since like, grade school. It feels like another case of "pair the next closest guy and girl you can think of even if it's not romantic). No idea how he could fall in love with her when she treats him that way and she's one of the most vexing Tales characters for me to date, and that's not because of her pre-development personality, but because I just can't stand her by and large. The forced romance and how she treats her apparent love interest and how it's mutual was just the nail in the coffin for me.

Suffice to say I also have really no interest in more modern Tales games. I've been putting the newer entries off very hard since ToX2. I don't think Zestiria is inherently bad so much as it holds very little to no interest to me and I watched the anime (which I fully recognize is a big departure to game canon) without even completing the game, which I still to this day have not done. I know some major details about the game from looking stuff up intentionally, but... my interest just isn't there. X and X2 weren't bad but they were very mid for me (and tbh I like Ludger more in his non-canon appearances, probably due to the silent protagonist being really heavy with him. I think that was more an experiment on Bamco's part too). I didn't get too attached to the story or the characters.

Same with Berseria, which is in part because I'm so horribly sick of the "emotionless and/or revenge driven cool girl main character" trope. Again, I know some spoilery details, but it didn't help my investment and it's also hard to get through when I actively dislike the main character I'm dealing with (the amount of mental thundering applause and drunken slamming I did in Crestoria when Senel basically politely, in a sense, told Velvet off was one of the most interestingly wild things I've ever felt LMAO. Especially bc he's the lead of my favorite game, so that was... an experience).

As for Yuri and Estelle, did they have Arise cameos or something? That at least I'm unaware of as I only really watched the main story content and that was a couple years ago (so I haven't even watched the DLC story, which I'd been meaning to do but keep putting off in favor of the gachas LOL). But also, queer removal, especially to force het in, is disgusting and while I want to say that writer should be ashamed of himself, people who remove queer coding don't really seem to have the ability to be ashamed of themselves in the first place and there's a Very Specific Reason for that.

...Well, at least I don't have to be particularly polite about not liking Estelle here LOL. I don't... hate her on the scale I would easily say I hate other characters from other games, but she's a big ol' no from me. Most Tales games end up with that one female character I can't stand with very few exceptions and it definitely grinds my "stop writing females like this" gears.

Yeah, that's also how I see Estelle's crush on him. It feels to me like something that would wane over time. He's this slightly older cool guy who respected her and helps her grow and he's the first person she really met outside the castle (and Flynn half counts in that he didn't originally live there, but he also has a room there so he's technically a castle resident in some capacity. Yuri is fully hands off with any of the stuff Estelle was familiar with). Heck, I'd probably have a crush on him too if I met him.

Crushes can also be kind of complicated in my experience tbh, because having a crush on someone for me didn't ever necessarily mean I'd want to be in love with them, you know? Being in love is a lot deeper and a much more mature level of romance, and I feel like platonic crushing is very much a thing? I mean I guess it has to be if I've experienced it lol; I just don't know how "societally accepted/recognized" that is.

That's kind of what I see from Estelle though - a more platonic crush that would fade with time. I also would like to think Estelle would respect Yuri and Flynn and their relationship, and wouldn't have this kind of... but what about my feelings sort of attitude toward them, like trying to guilt Yuri or something for rejecting her but still being as he always is with Flynn.

Damn, is all this stuff on the Tales of YT channel where they upload stuff like that? I can't exactly go to Japan for any of the festival/anniversary things, so all I can hope for is that things will be recorded and put onto YT.

A summary of Vesperia:

Act 1: Yuri never ever shuts up about Flynn. There is something going on here.

Act 2: Yuri and Flynn broke up so we could force het into the game and ignore everything the previous writers set up.

Act 3: We're erasing everything the previous writers set up and trying to reconnect with Act 1. Just forget everything you just played in Act 2. That aside, anyway fellas, it's the end of the world and Duke is the antagonist!

Honestly, maybe if all the writers actually communicated in the first place, Act 2 would've been a lot better and Okuda wouldn't have wanted to write for it at all when he couldn't have his jolly ol' het way. Like, why do I feel like this guy is the type of person to rage quit if he was told "well you can't do that because we already had these two characters planned for each other". Realizes he can't shoehorn his favorite Vesperia ship in anymore and just walks out LOL.I need a time machine... I have a mission...

Yeah, the het stuff in Graces was a HUGE ol' "gotta put as many m/fs together as possible" (even Malik's backstory), which is probably why people tend to assume Richard/Sophie is canon/the direction they were nudging at, because at that point they're just the leftovers and everything else was het so why not (still not a good thing to do, mind, but I suspect that's a large part of it). I never, ever saw how Hubert and Pascal worked out as a couple. Like... it wasn't written in a way that would lead me to think they'd fall in love? It just... randomly... happened. It's one of those things where I just can't feasibly see it happening with the content we were given for it. Maybe if they developed it better? But like... they didn't, so... I just don't see it.

As much as I know and don't know about Zestiria, I do like Alisha. I also recall there was some kind of outrage at her treatment in the game and how she got sidelined from being the main heroine for Rose because of the writer (which apparently led to people hating Rose less for her actual character and more because of that internal staff stuff). I have heard a lot about how much of a mess Zestiria was, and that could be in part why I've been so putting it off for so long.

Vesperia was already a mess and I can safely say I wouldn't think about it anywhere near as much as I do now if not for Yuri and Flynn (both as characters and as a couple, though I can also say Yuri carries the whole game on his shoulders for me and is why I can play it several times in a row the way I can with other Tales games if I'm invested enough in at least one character). I'd say in Zestiria's case it's also because Alisha falls into "like her for what's available" versus my insanely large hyperfixation on Yuri.

looool so like, Abyss for me was the game I wished they didn't pair the main male with the main female and instead did what Graces did. I wanted Luke to end up with Natalia because the development from where they started went so well and I wanted Luke and Tear to be platonic m/f friends. Then Graces finally did what I wished they would goddamn do and not just pair the main male with the immediate main female... and then they completely botched it by giving them a poor romance and extremely awkward development as previously mentioned, as well as doing that in the worst possible game when they had Fluri 2.0 right there. LIKE. DAMN. I CANNOT WIN WITH THESE PEOPLE.

Yeah, I do feel like now that you mention it that I see people view Zestiria as more queer than Vesperia which is... very awkward lol. I'd have to guess many of them haven't played Vesperia or Graces (because regardless of what they did with Asbel, Richard never actually actively appears to have any interest whatsoever in women and seems more demiromantic toward Asbel). I mean, yeah, the dub for Vesperia could be part of the problem, but if my friend is playing the dub and still sees the queer coding everywhere and if I got past the forced het nonsense when I first played and had no access to the JP dialogue, I think it's pretty clear enough? And they tend to crank that up to eleven in the drama CDs with Fluri at every possible opportunity, or Toriumi and Mamoru will just do it themselves LOL.

I think that's part of why Vesperia still matters to me, aside from Yuri. As they say, I always "knew" I was bi-leaning-women as far as attraction went (basically like, as soon as I started having crushes on "cute girls" before my teen years, so really, I started having crushes on girls before I crushed on any guys). It was never a matter of "when did you realize", but that I kinda always just knew from the moment my brain recognized what a crush was.

That is very likely part of why I've always leaned to the queer rep in Tales. Like I said earlier here, I basically just put two and two together and that my favorites are mooostly the queer coded characters, and I include 13 year old Mao because I was younger than 13 when I first could have been defined as LGBT+. For him it's less outward romance and more his design/personality, but I count it (similar to Cumore in design).

So hey, this conversation made me realize something about myself that I've had going on since Symphonia first came out in the west, so thanks for that LOL. My brain always looked at Zelos and Zelloyd and went "that one. I want that one". Mind you, this was before "yaoi" and all that. It was never "hehe two guys together", because I was both too young to really get involved in that stuff and also, the internet was a fucking pea back then as far as fandoms went. Nothing influenced me except my own brain and interests.

Growing up and still having Zelos written this way is honestly so wonderful and relieving. Even the localization of Crestoria (which, as much as it shut down, is still relatively recent as far as Tales content goes) had Zelos making particular remarks at Lloyd (including "falling in love with me all over again?"). It's like, I guess little me at the time could recognize the relation to Zelos, the queer coding, and that there was something beyond "I like his story/backstory". That was in my formative years for recognizing romance I guess. Probably why I also put a magnifying glass on Mithos' interactions with Genis LOL.

And then in my teen years I had Yuri, so yeah, I totally get you on feeling like this about everything. I basically could say I grew up with seeing parts of myself in Zelos and Yuri, and between that I had Leon too. I was cosplaying the guy at right around sixteen so I have no idea when I got interested in him/Destiny, but evidently I got deep into Tales right fucking quick when the internet properly allowed, because at this point it's honestly a huge blur when I first knew of what game except that I know Symphonia was my first very young, then Legendia my second. Vesperia when I was going into highschool, and Leon happened when I sixteen or so LOL.

god wtf is time anymore

In Tales' case I'm the same way about defending the original content etc, though also because I always defend the original above all other releases/forms of release. Like, the reason I'll defend the JP dialogue in a JRPG or in an anime is because that's it country of origin. Similarly, I would primarily defend a western based TV series based on western related things (writers, actors, etc). For me the original writers' intentions matter most and I hate when things are changed in translation/localization without necessity (language and cultural differences are necessity for example).

That's not to say Tales doesn't have its hiccups in its own writing sometimes (Graces lol), but they at least try. Lowkey just waiting on a Vesperia 2 (no Okuda included, writers not sold separately) that's like, post Vesperia with the same characters and just cements Fluri. Give me like, Yuri when he's 25 or something. Some few years between the games. Make Richard and Asbel an arena cameo just to make a point LOL.

Also I could be reading into the Toriumi going off script a bit wrong here for this in particular, but it felt like kinda... not tense but...?? Like them being polite/professional but there being some kind of tension in the whole "but she's the princess!" (i.e. implication is that she should be Yuri's heroine and he should be in love with her) and Toriumi having to explain they're not like that? It just felt like... one of those, you're trying to be respectful in front of a crowd, but there's a clear spark of kinda-tension because of the blatant "but it's supposed to be this way"/"it's really not like that though". That could just be my read on it because of how I'd feel in that situation of course, but it was veeery awkward and I am so glad Toriumi went with the "fuck it" route and kept things to what they'd normally be. Also, I can't see Yuri ever being in love with Estelle. Even in the localized DE, Rita did say Flynn is Yuri's type and she's... right lol. Which... Estelle does not fit into. At all. I very much see "cute little sister" vibes from him. Makes sure his little sister is adjusted for the night and then goes out all night with his boyfriend and she's too innocent to know the level of trouble they get into it. That he gets into, really, that his boyfriend is bailing him out of. :')

anyway i think zagi and hasta should be romantic in a really violent-toward-other-people way

I am 100 percent with you on preferring the JP line in that cutscene if only because it does feel more powerful (and his voice is SO soft, which is something that frequently gets completely lost in the dub in general. Mamoru carries a much softer tone overall for Flynn, similar to how Yuri's playfulness and carefree vibe got lost in favor of the dub's aim for a more "cool adult guy").

That said, I was not even aware they left the whistle out!!! I haven't bothered with that sidequest because the outfit is readily available for free as DLC.

While I enjoy having Flynn present in the last battle, I wish they'd just had him look back up at the sky and say that right next to Yuri right before the very end of the cutscene (since imo that'd be the best placement for it). No reason not to stick that back in!!!

But removing the whistle is just an outright crime and I am owed a fee from the people who decided that for the devastation I've been inflicted with.

Big same 🤝

I used to be such a fan of the eng dub but tbh ever since I experienced the original japanese (back when we still called it the PS3 Version lol) I never looked back. The wording is so, so, SO much more layered and leaves little room to misinterpret subtleties and subtext. Like you, I've had many gripes about the localization because sometimes they just plain insert stuff that was never there in the first place - iirc Troy Baker admited that apparently they rushed the dub so hard, sometimes the voice actors themselves were asked to chip in for the translation...he said he loved that (I'll bet), but that might explain why so much of the OG english script was already full of weird phrasings and insertions...add to that the even more sloppy and lazy DE localization and you get only half of the richness of the original japanese.

Also yes Mamo and Tori *are* Flynn and Yuri more than anybody ever could be. Sam and Troy do a good enough job but I agree that Troy may have been directed to play Yuri closer to a traditional "cool bad boy", which is hilarious given how the original Yuri is a twist on that very trope. Unfortunately, Troy gave him this uncharacteristically cold/aggressive edge whenever he talks to Flynn that it makes it sound like he's always annoyed to see him, and it strips their relationship of so much of the softness and playfulness that Tori lends Yuri.

Anyway enough about me ranting because I could go on for about 10 more hours about this issue lmao. Honestly yeah they very well could've rearranged Flynn's cutscene to fit in there at the end, like hell if you can change the entire camera angles of whole scenes you can change that one background, no?? Knowing Tomizawa though that might have been more effort than he was willing to grant this remaster - won't be his last time.

Same for the wolf whistling!! They replaced it with a skit that is just as funny...

....but void of the insane flirting the original had. Idek why they went so far as to change it, it would've been less work to just leave it as it was 😭