Based on what I've seen, their actions aren't enough to be called caricatures imo, even with the skits playing everything up (as per normal). Also, the game main page + YMMV tab completely lack the Flanderization trope, properly or in-mention of the characters behaving anywhere near caricatures - if enough people thought it was true, it would have been mentioned somewhere in the years since it came out, but it hasn't. Not to mention it isn't true: Zelos does flirt, but he also immediately pegs the fake Lloyd as fake because of his smell, knowing the real Lloyd wouldn't wear something like that (not to mention instantly becoming guarded when Emil and Marta mention Lloyd early on, being careful about finding out their motives); Raine is the one who explicitly forms the theories about Emil's 'modes' and presents them to Regal in that so-called 'love letter'; Presa is considerably more open and even trolls that solider with the iron maiden scene (as opposed to being an emotionless girl), and the list goes on.
As far as 'Richter', the pronunciation is different between German and English - for the former, it's 'rich-ter' essentially, but the latter has stated it to be 'Rick-ter' (and made it well-known with the officially-established Richter Scale, named by the American and German-American seismologists behind it). Japan choose the German pronunciation, while the localization team seemingly chose the well-known English pronunciation for the English version. rather than the more-obscure 'correct' pronunciation that few might know - it was basically to be expected, I think, and isn't a lack of respect on the correct pronunciation.
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This Should Never Have Existed
This game is bad. Now, not bad if it were to stand on its own. But it's marketed as a sequel, which means it will be compared to the prequel and, hence, sucks in comparison.
Pet Peeve first: why the name change? The original title was Knight of Ratatosk. It made sense, the game was big on Ratatosk and Emil being the knight. Why the Dawn of the New World? The 'new world' plot was done in the prequel and was not the focus in this game.
Also, I find it appalling that the Japanese version can pronounce the German name 'Richter' correctly, when the English version keeps messing it up.
The new characters are horribly bland, Richter is only cool because he's like Jade's and Luke's lovechild. And even then, he pales in comparison to either fo those characters. The old characters were stripped down to nothing but caricatures of themselves. Remember how Zelos was more than just a flirt? Well, he now does nothing but that. And Raine only has Ruin Maniac mode. Nothing else.
And even then, the old characters were made pointless to add to your party, since they don't gain EXP but only increase their level at certain points. And even then, not beyond Level 50. All, just so that the mons will be used by the player.
The dungeons and puzzles are annoying, they don't have the charm of the previous game's dungeons. The battle system is alright, but severely downgraded the usefulness of Hi Ougis or Unison Attacks. You cannot alter the strategy of your party members beyond a vague Do This or Do That. And the pointlessly shoved in Motion Control segment (One segment! Not several) is pointlessly shoved in and could've been removed.
The voice acting is alright, it's nothing amazing. Some of the old characters got new voices in the English version, which I didn't find fitting.
This game was obviously lacking a proper budget, since it was created the same time as Vesperia and that ate it all up. But I can honestly say, if this game had been a stand-alone spin-off, with no connection to Symphonia, I would've found it okay. Not a good game, but decent. But as what is supposed to be a sequel? It crashes and burns. Far as I am concerned, this game doesn't exist.