Xenoblade Chronicles

http://lozbotw.tumblr.com/post/165436462760/some-other-comparisons-between-the-first-xenoblade

More graphical comparisons for Xenoblade 2

I thought all the XB 2 accents were UK accents of different kinds? I can't speak to anything more than that though, it's just the impression I've gotten.

Last two shots are nicely improved. Though, are we sure that the picture of Pyra is the same still frame?

Most have UK accents, but a few antagonists have American accents as well.

I want more dubs to take cues from this series. Having more diverse accents is amazing for making the world more believable and the characters more memorable.

For practical reasons this is quite difficult. Hard to collect accent from various countries.

Even in this day and age with the power of the Internet? If I knew the right people/had enough friends, even some nobody like me could get high-quality audio of people with accents from all over the world saying stuff. Surely international companies could do the same.

It's because that you generally have to rent out a booth, have the audio director come in and direct the voice actors. With various countries, you have to go to the actors, so that's multiple places to rent out and fly the director to. You also need to pay mind to whether or not you'll be using union actors, and if you're using union actors, you need to get permission to use a different union's actor (since there tends to be a different union per country), and so on.

edited 19th Sep '17 2:14:21 PM by burnpsy

So, basically, red tape bullshit makes it far harder than it needs to be.

Yes. Unions are necessary to protect the actors, but a double-edged sword when wanting to do an international production like that.

edited 19th Sep '17 2:16:01 PM by burnpsy

I'm not too sure about that. Every time I hear unions be mentioned in this day and age, it's always about how terrible they are. I'm pretty sure even prominent VAs have complained about unions.

Even when you're only focused locally, I'm pretty sure union BS is one of the reasons why a single character may have five different voice actors in English dubs.

People don't report good things about unions because it is assumed as the norm.

Yeah. Look at places that get rid of unions. It's generally not pretty all around.

Anyway, apparently the rare blades were all designed by guest artists—Tanaka did one. In the Japanese version at least they have guest V As as well.

So that Nomura-designed character may be a Blade.

I thought he designed the guy with the mask?

He did, but also at least one other character. The credit he was given is for "Torna" which is one of the factions.

edited 19th Sep '17 5:07:46 PM by TheAirman

Ehh, in the world of voice acting, plenty of stuff works fine without unions.

For instance, one of the things that lets Funimation consistently put out solid anime dubs is that every single dub they do is non-union. That and they're really good at being cost efficient when it comes to using V As from a variety of cities in the same dub.

Also, in regards to using people from multiple cities or countries, its FAR easier if you're a big company (like Nintendo) and thus can own multiple recording studios that are far away from each other. Still more effort than doing everything all in one place, but way easier/cheaper than flying V As across the country.

Unions are generally a good thing, but there can be times where they cause problems. As an example, I’m pretty sure there are times where teachers’ unions made it a lot harder to fire genuinely bad teachers if they’ve had the job long enough.

If it gets to the point where a union’s members are complaining about the union getting in the way (assuming the comment a few posts up is accurate), then something’s gone wrong.

Yep, can attest that my high school definitely had problem teachers, including a guy who was accused of inappropriate sexual relations with one of the students and ultimately held onto his job because of his union connections. There's also the risk of trade unions falling prey to cronyism, tribalism, and organized crime like what happened with the Teamsters, though that's not something exclusive to them.

http://xenoblade.wikia.com/wiki/Vasara_(XC2)

A new Blade is revealed. Vasara is designed by Yasushi Suzuki. Looks like a Fire type.

That dude looks sick. Wish Suzuki designed the main characters, or at least Rex. His style is more in line with the spirit of the first.

I would have been more than fine with Nomura and Tanaka too honestly.

True, people like to bag on him but I actually like the design of the guy Nomura designed. At least they're mixing it up with the character designs as a compromise for people who don't care for Saito's art.

Hmmm not feeling that one. Least it looks like there'll be an awesome cross-section of Blades to choose from.

I have compiled the maximum agility of every characters (not counting Battle Affinity and agility boosts at 50% health).

Dunban: 238

Riki: 214

Fiora: 213

Shulk: 207

Reyn: 192

Melia: 191

Sharla: 186

The formula for physical hit rate is

100 - Level Penalty + (Art Level x 5) + (Character Agility x (1 + Accuracy Bonus %)) - Enemy Agility

The formula for ether hit rate is

100 - Level Penalty + (Art Level x 5) If you link Melia’s “Enlightenment” still, then Level Penalty is halved.

Note

• Despotic Arsene has 120 Agility + 180 Penalty when you fight it at Lv 99, but if you fight it at Lv 98 or lower, then it’s 120 Agility + 200 Penalty.

• Avalanche Abaasy will have 80 Agility + 200 Penalty no matter what.

• If you level up Melia’s Spear Kick to Lv. 7, then she can prioritizes the Passion skill branch (176 Agility -> 98% chance to hit both Spear Break and Starlight Kick).

• In order to reach 214 Agility, Riki must either wear light armor or sacrifice Steel Protection in favor of Equipment Expert. That said, he can reach 208 Agility with Master Glasses + Lancelot Armor.

• Reyn is the only physical party member who isn’t guaranteed to connect auto-attack against Despotic Arsene, but his auto-attacks are so slow that it doesn’t matter.

• Fiora can't link Enlightenment, so her Final Cross is dicey on Superbosses that aren't Toppled.

• You need Ether Art lv. 9 in order to 100% hit on Despotic Arsene, but the best you can hope for when fighting Avalance Abaasy is 95%.

edited 23rd Sep '17 9:38:07 AM by RAlexa21th

You forgot about Shulk.