so umm. 1 month passes between zero and Azure... is there reading material I should know in between? I'm kinda getting the impression there is. I don't remember randy being injured, I don't know why Bond/Sunita's Dad is now broke, I know where Tio is yet, I don't know why Jona was re-hired by epsitein. Feels like I'm missing s omething, kinda like the reading material between cs1 and 2.
I believe there's a drama CD covering some events between the two games. As far as Randy's concerned, he's not injured, the translation's just a little shaky when referring to what he's up to. It'll be clearer soon enough.
Yeah, the LE edition of Ao's original release came with a drama CD called Road to the Future that covers some of the intervening gap. The rest gets filled in during the game.
I can't edit posts... or I don't know how?
Bottom-right option in the post should say Edit. If it's not showing up for you I'll go digging in the settings and see if something weird has happened with the software, but it should be there since other people have edited theirs in the past.
Thanks, I see it, It just wasn't there for that one post for some reason. Not sure why yet. I noticed it even on my next post as soon as I made it, and I checked for edit on the previous post before I made it. so it wasn't like a derp moment. It really wasn't there before, and then it was for the next post. wut.
edit: AHH I figured it out. So I went to see if I could edit my LAST post, and I can, AND the post before. So I look at the one where I complained I couldn't. annnnd... I can't. But wait... I can if I expand the spoiler section!.
So I guess the post edit/reply/etc buttons 'hide' in the spoiler section if you say no thing after it.
I'm guessing this does get answered in Ao, but you never know which details may not get answered. In Zero there is that quest where you get the flowers for three graves that were close to a specific character, and one of the graves is hard to read so we don't know who the grave belongs to. Does this get answered in Ao, and if so is it pretty plot relevant or just a small detail?
Also, planning on taking at month or two before possibly diving into the current Ao translation that is available. With the Geofront patch of Zero out now, I've seen people more critical of the current Ao translation and heard there are inconsistencies with either terms or names. I also spoiled myself recently on what would probably be some big reveals, and I am worried a botched translation could make me more negative towards certain things than I should be. Is the translation good enough that even if rough I could still find it enjoyable? I understand this can be highly subjective.
In Zero there is that quest where you get the flowers for three graves that were close to a specific character, and one of the graves is hard to read so we don't know who the grave belongs to. Does this get answered in Ao, and if so is it pretty plot relevant or just a small detail?
Yes and yes, it's pretty relevant.
I started playing some Ao. It definitely doesn't seem to be the same level of quality. Just recently I did a quest where you're helping out with 2 little girls who accidentally stole each other's pink umbrella's, Meiling being one of them (you may recall her being the girl often on the west side of east street who is frequently talking about playing with her big brother). Throughout all of Zero she seemed like your typical little girl character. But in Azure, when you tell her she has the umbrella she says 'I screwed up'...Which isn't OFFENSIVE per say, but it does seem a little more crass than little girl fare.
Then yeah the terminology isn't perfectly lined up. So far it's not that bad though. I'm actually having a harder time getting past the lack of a text log button. noooo.
One thing I realized is that Azure is the 5th game in the Kiseki-verse, but it's very much like sky, just like every game before it. My brother thought it WAS sky when he saw me playing it for a minute. But the very next game (cold steel 1), huge evolution. Not just by going 3d though, but the partial status ailment resists, combo meter thing, etc. It's really dramatic. I just wish CS games had quartz mechanics more like Azure.
Personally I wish the kiseki games had more armor than just armor, boots, and 2 accessories because at end game, after you put on the 'must-use' ones like grail locket, gladiator belt, etc, your choices are actually quite limited. It would also make it so it wasn't prone to having a 'all your best items in one basket' problem that it currently has, provided the made it so the other armor choices gave you flexability with resistances and such too, not all in the accessories while the armor is generally strictly for base stats.
Definitely with you on hoping for an Orbment system that has more of the earlier mechanics in future games. We know they're going to introduce a new one in the next arc and it's safe to bet each future arc will also feature a new-model Orbment so there's always room for changes and refinement. One thing I'd kill for in a future arc is Ensemble and/or Spirit Magic from the Gagharv Trilogy. The former let you combine two spells to create a more powerful effect and the latter was (in the original games, not in Bandai's PSP remakes) a summon that acted independently and with its own moveset.
Ensemble could fit with the RAMDA model which already has the funky enemy-only spells that are element-swapped versions of things you have access to, which are kind of similar to Ensemble spells. Spirit Magic would probably be some sort of character-specific thing; I could see that as an Eastern technique like Kurt's Fangshu, which could appear in Calvard or an arc taking place in the east.
Thanks for the info, was able to get Ao to work on my computer so I can start that up once I play through FF7 Remake. Between a rougher translation and getting burned out on all the NPCs I will probably just talk to some NPCs here and there instead of all of them like before.
As for Meiling, are we sure her language is due to the translation, or is Jingo's mannerisms slowly affecting the other kids 🤣
Yeah I skipped talking to every npc midway thru chapter 3, and only spoke to the few I found most interesting in each district. It was hurting my enjoyment of the game to do everyone. Of course doing this I failed at getting all the books, and only got 1 zemurian ore (or was it T-material?) at the end, oh well. I feel bad not reading everything people worked hard on but I can play again another time, and it may very well be more important next time around with those old go back and go 'aha' kiseki moments from newfound knowledge.
Alot of it really did seem to be filler though, crossbell is just too darn big.
How do Japanese people get names like "Noel" After localization? I can read hiragana/katakana, and I know Romanji and all that.. I know it's common that 'r's in Japanese turn into 'L's in English. But every 'r' I know in Japanese is the start of a particle, not the end, so how does one end up with a name that ENDS with an 'r'? Is it actually more like 're', or 'ri' or something, and nobody pronounces it much like the 'u' at the end of Desu?
It's weird too because Noel isn't a very feminine sounding name, but I've seen a few Japanese localized names end up with Noel. So if they modified how it sounds going from Japanese to English, why that?
How do Japanese people get names like "Noel" After localization? I can read hiragana/katakana, and I know Romanji and all that.. I know it's common that 'r's in Japanese turn into 'L's in English. But every 'r' I know in Japanese is the start of a particle, not the end, so how does one end up with a name that ENDS with an 'r'? Is it actually more like 're', or 'ri' or something, and nobody pronounces it much like the 'u' at the end of Desu?
Generally they use 'ru' to end the name since that's as close an approximation of a final '-l' sound as you can get. Adol's name uses the exact same construction and so does Estelle. ノエル, アドル, エステル. Or to broaden that to more situations, any time you have a name ending in a consonant other than 'n' the Japanese rendering is going to go to the closest syllable that starts with that consonant-sound and whose final vowel sounds closest to the proper pronunciation.
The idea is for the end result to be nearest approximation the syllables allow for, though because there's a degree of flexibility you can sometimes have the same name rendered in multiple ways.
An interesting addendum is that for French or French-like words ending in "eille", where the last few letters are silent (Arseille, Mireille), the Japanese write "eiyu" (aruseiyu, mireiyu). This really threw me the first time I played the Crossbell games, which don't mention the Arseille so I couldn't figure it out by comparison.
This series has definitely thrown me for a loop in pronunciation for a number of things. I remember playing Sky and since I have played them so much before Cold Steel I had in my mind how certain names were pronounced, the main ones being off were Agate, Olivier, Loewe, and Renne. Olivier, Renne and Loewe I still find myself pronouncing my way but the actual way at least sounds good. When I heard Agate's name pronounced on CS III it sounded so off that I hate the actual pronunciation. My friend loses his mind over the names, yelling how he pronounces it whenever it comes up especially for Agate. He doesn't understand that English is actually a weird language and that names are based off of other languages so how we spell it may not exactly show the correct pronunciation due to not having certain characters.
Oh yeah, definitely. I've gotten that with my favorite author (Brandon Sanderson) whenever he's mentioned how a character's name is 'supposed' to be pronounced versus whatever I've been using in my head... though he's also said it's not a huge deal for him and even he doesn't pronounce some of the names like he should. xD
