What language should Marth speak?

[Commander]

If anything, he really should speak some European language. As someone said before, I think French would likely be most fitting; it fits his character, keeps the mystery, and the completely non-Japanese prince no longer speaks a language he has no business speaking.

He has no business speaking French either. There is no stated official language of Altea so he should speak English. Marth isn't a mysterious character and languages don't add or take way from any character unless they actually match that character's nationality. Marth, like any other character without an official language, should speak the primary language of the audience.

 

[UltimateWario]

By keeping the mystery, I mean, letting him say inane crap like "EVERYONE LOOK AT ME" without him sounding like a child.

 

[Commander]

By keeping the mystery, I mean, letting him say inane crap like "EVERYONE LOOK AT ME" without him sounding like a child.

I've always felt that line was better translated as "Everyone, look to me!" or something along the lines of "Follow my lead!". That is something a leader would say to get his soldiers' attention and fits Marth fine. There is absolutely nothing odd about his victory quotes either.

 

[Substitution]

Honestly, while I don't mind if the changed his voice, there was just that certain charm which I'd miss if it was gone.

 

[Sonicguy726]

They could have done it in Melee and Brawl, is not going to happen.

Marth hadn't spoke english at that point

 

[Roy-Kun]

Unless the English VA sounds like a girl.

Gasp, I didn't know Spike Spencer was a girl.

And thinking about the translated lines got me thinking, does Marth really say "Everyone, look at me!" referring to the fighters? Or his actual comrades on the battlefield. As in "Everyone... watch over me."? Marth doesn't feel so out of character to me now.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Because Spike Spencer is totally confirmed to be Marth's new VA.
/s

Nintendo could get a girly-sounding VA for all we know.

 

[Commander]

Because Spike Spencer is totally confirmed to be Marth's new VA.
/s

Nintendo could get a girly-sounding VA for all we know.

Why would they get a girly VA?

 

[Cereal Bawks]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm just saying that since somebody else thought Marth's Japanese VA sounded girly (which I don't agree with), getting an English VA wouldn't fix that since it's possible that Nintendo could get an equally "girly" sounding VA (or at least it would sound "girly" to some people).

 

[Xavier :D]

I honestly think that Marth will speak English. I mean sure, he will lose some charm, but hey, at least we'll understand him.

 

[Roy-Kun]

Because Spike Spencer is totally confirmed to be Marth's new VA.
/s

He did voice him in the Fire Emblem OVA. If Nintendo had the consideration to remember that Hikaru Midorikawa did voice him in the Japanese version, and bring him back to Smash, why not?

Plus, Spike also voices Excellus in Awakening.

 

[Commander]

He did voice him in the Fire Emblem OVA. If Nintendo had the consideration to remember that Hikaru Midorikawa did voice him in the Japanese version, and bring him back to Smash, why not?

Plus, Spike also voices Excellus in Awakening.

The Fire Emblem OVA was probably a bigger deal in Japan than it was in the U.S., so Hikaru Midorikawa's voice would probably have been wanted more. The U.S. OVA was not able to ride on any kind of popularity based on the hit video game so it doesn't have any nostalgia factor for anyone really. Of course I have no idea how popular that OVA actually was in Japan, so who knows how important it was to actually having Marth's voice. Nintendo did not choose to use Lou Albano, from the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, for Mario's voice so they don't necessarily need to use Spike Spencer's voice for Marth either. Lou Albano's voice was the voice that identified Mario for a long time too.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

That's true, but they could still get some other VA if they felt like it. Nintendo is pretty un

He did voice him in the Fire Emblem OVA. If Nintendo had the consideration to remember that Hikaru Midorikawa did voice him in the Japanese version, and bring him back to Smash, why not?

Plus, Spike also voices Excellus in Awakening.

True, but they could still get a different VA for whatever reason. Nintendo is pretty unpredictable.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Japanese is almost a tradition at this point, though. Much like Marth's inclusion in pretty much every Smash game but the first, I think he may be up there in 'guaranteed to be in' with Fox and the rest.

I would look forward to what his quotes would be in English, though. I don't think he'd say "Everyone, look at me!"

 

[Commander]

Doing something twice is not a tradition. Both times the only reason they gave for not dubbing Marth is that he had no English games. That isn't the case anymore so that excuse doesn't work. If they don't dub him it comes down to laziness and nothing more.

 

[XenoUltra]

Japanese voices should stay. subtitles would be a great addition i guess

 

[Morbi]

It doesn't really matter to me so much, tradition versus practical application. I would probably just say that it is more logical for him to speak English in the English version, but I will miss his random incoherent babbling.

 

[dimensionsword64]

Hopefully English. Or Japanese with subtitles.

 

[finalark]

Japanese is almost a tradition at this point, though. Much like Marth's inclusion in pretty much every Smash game but the first, I think he may be up there in 'guaranteed to be in' with Fox and the rest.

I would look forward to what his quotes would be in English, though. I don't think he'd say "Everyone, look at me!"

Slow down there, bucko. Marth's inclusion in the games has nothing to do with tradition. Tradition is doing something a certain way just because that's how its always been done. The three starters in Pokemon games being fire, grass and water types is tradition, Marth's inclusion is not. Marth has been in 2/3 games in the series because in Japan he is a very, very popular character since he was the protagonist of many of the early FE games, which hold quite a bit of nostalgic value for FE's Japanese fans. That is why he is in every game, it has nothing to do with tradition.

Its the same reason why Charizard is so popular, many people's first Pokemon game was Red/Blue and many people started with Charmander, thus most people feel a special attachment to Charizard.

 

[Loachy]

Doing something twice is not a tradition. Both times the only reason they gave for not dubbing Marth is that he had no English games. That isn't the case anymore so that excuse doesn't work. If they don't dub him it comes down to laziness and nothing more.

But what if they want it to be tradition? If they recycle his voice clips from Brawl/Melee AGAIN, then it would be laziness and nothing more.

I'm all for an English-speaking Marth if just because it would be different, though I won't be disappointed if they keep him Japanese for whatever reason. As long as he gets some fresh new voice clips for once. His down taunt is cool and all but after like 12 years or whatever, it'd be nice to at least hear him say it differently!

 

[Commander]

But what if they want it to be tradition? If they recycle his voice clips from Brawl/Melee AGAIN, then it would be laziness and nothing more.

I'm all for an English-speaking Marth if just because it would be different, though I won't be disappointed if they keep him Japanese for whatever reason. As long as he gets some fresh new voice clips for once. His down taunt is cool and all but after like 12 years or whatever, it'd be nice to at least hear him say it differently!

It would be a tradition built out of laziness. Ike, Fox, Wolf, Falco, Snake, and Sonic don't speak English in the Japanese versions of Brawl, so why should Marth speak Japanese in the English version? They only had one reason for Japanese and that reason is gone. A tradition of speaking japanese is just an excuse for laziness.

 

[Shaya]

Basically, a game having an ongoing "unique" thing isn't that farfetched, especially in localisation. I'm still under the impression (?) that Marth has never had a non-Japanese official voice, whilst just about every other character who has multiple voices throughout languages already do. Ike's games had cutscenes with voice acting for example.

Saying it is lazy is a bit rude. If he's had his voice officially dubbed then he's likely going to have them in the game brought to our shores, if not, if they keep it to a single voice for him I don't see anything inherently wrong about it. Chances are they're going to give him a voice now, but I think it would be swell if they didn't. And Sakurai is a man of tradition.

 

[Loachy]

Sure it's only been two games, but it's also been over 12 years. Not only do a lot of people expect it already, but they identify his language as part of his Smash incarnation's character (and a rather important one to some). I could totally understand if they wanted to keep him Japanese just because it's been a trait unique to him for so long and don't want to or even feel it's necessary to take it away.

I don't think I can agree with the logic of "This idea hasn't changed because the devs are lazy."

 

[Superyoshiom]

Why would they get a girly VA?

Because Marth looks girly

 

[LF2K]

They could get Cindy Robinson to voice him. Her voicework with Libra in Awakening was good.

 

[Commander]

Basically, a game having an ongoing "unique" thing isn't that farfetched, especially in localisation. I'm still under the impression (?) that Marth has never had a non-Japanese official voice, whilst just about every other character who has multiple voices throughout languages already do. Ike's games had cutscenes with voice acting for example.

Saying it is lazy is a bit rude. If he's had his voice officially dubbed then he's likely going to have them in the game brought to our shores, if not, if they keep it to a single voice for him I don't see anything inherently wrong about it. Chances are they're going to give him a voice now, but I think it would be swell if they didn't. And Sakurai is a man of tradition.

Marth's Japanese voice has always felt odd to me and felt that it was lacking in character, especially since I can't understand what he is saying, and when given translations I can't really tell what his tone of voice with each part is since I can't just translate word for word. This is probably a more on a person by person basis, but I feel it is much easier to relate to a character when I have a full understanding of what they are saying, rather than a translation.

Sakurai is hardly a man of tradition. He is known for writing columns in Famitsu criticizing the game industry for pumping out too many bland sequels that hold so closely to the originals that they do not branch out and experiment and thus they all start to feel the same. The entire reason Sakurai left Hal Laboratories and started his own third party was because he was sick and tired of constantly being put to work on the same Kirby games all the time and he wanted to do different things(which included making a third person action shooter for Nintendo of all things). This is also evident in his design in Smash where many characters are constantly changed. Luigi started out as an almost exact clone of Mario with just different textures, but as Smash continued to build, Luigi and Mario grew to be further and further apart to the point that there is very little that they share in Smash now. Sakurai is also not above changing vetreans, giving Marth a different Shield Breaker, changing Game&Watch's recovery, changing Mario's down special, etc.. He even planned to scrap Ness for Lucas back in Melee but didn't due to issues with Mother 3, which shows that veterans weren't considered special till after Melee when they were noted in Brawl's event matches. Even adding characters in doesn't require following tradition as Pit was radically changed between his incarnation in Kid Icarus, and his incarnation in Brawl, which was designed specifically to exist as if Pit kept changing and evolving over time rather than sticking to Pit's roots. It would be much more like Sakurai to create radical changes, as he did between Melee and Brawl, than it is for him to follow what he did before.

 

[Shaya]

Being traditional doesn't mean having the same design goals/philosophies of the past. Each smash game has had a different target audience in mind (and also had technological advancements to boot). Every smash game has evolved with each iteration. Many characters in Smash don't come from platformer genres, hence it is in Sakurai's general philosophy to have them transformed whilst remaining true to their games in as many ways as possible. He gets as much leeway as he likes in making move sets for characters that don't explicitly have movesets to begin with, although with specials there tends to be a noticeable root. Unlike in comparison to Mario who continually evolves along with his games and he gets updated to keep up. Sonic is minimalist because (roughly) "Sonic doesn't do anything else in his games other than Spin". I'm personally against his choice of being traditional here, but it makes sense (he's also explicitly stated having similar goals for Megaman).

Your opinion of 'understanding' a character stems only superficially. The choices that were made were done so for a reason and acknowledging them is the least you can do before critiquing it. Yes, on a person by person basis there will be different responses to what they think should be done here. But there were reasons for keeping Marth/Roy in Japanese in Melee, they had to have even more reasons for keeping him Japanese for Brawl (remakes of his games were already in the works/released with guaranteed localisations). Nearly none of those reasons have rescinded with Smash4 in any drastic way. His model's been changed to keep up to date with art but he's still explicitly remains in the realms of his original games (as the games he has now featured in were graphic updated ports).

Smash 64 to Melee was an extremely big step. Asides from specials, just about every character's moveset were very similar (like uncanny amounts of similarities).

 

[Commander]

There are many things in Smash that aren't very true to their characters though. When has Luigi ever rocketed himself across the screen? Luigi's final smash trophy says it comes from the darkness in his heart from being second to Mario all the time, but Luigi has only shown love and admiration for his brother, never envy. The star fox characters weren't given jet packs and guns like they were seen with in the GameCube Star Fox games, instead he kept to the largely random move sets they were given before. Why do the mother characters shout PK instead of PSI? I'm not familiar with the Mother franchise, but is PK starstorm even an attack in that series? Rest is clearly designed as a joke move. For many characters Sakurai does keep to that character's history, it would be odd to have Mario using Link's arrows or something, but he just as often makes things up just to fit smash but could have had something from the character's past instead. Sakurai seems to use tradition when it pleases him, but bucks as soon a he gets an idea he feels is better or if tradition starts o not mesh with his vision of what smash should be like.

The only reason ever given for keeping Marth speaking Japanese was that he only had games released in Japan and never anywhere else. Shadow Dragon was released in the U.S. after Brawl. What other reason is there that was ever given? I did say that my thing with understanding Marth's character was more a personal issue than a design issue, but it is worth noting that some people feel closer to characters who speak the same language as them than ones who do not. If there is a big enough group of people who react positively to an English speaking Marth, than he should be given an English voice. We don't have any polls on the matter so we can't really say what would be better received, but it is worth keeping in mind.

 

[Shaya]

Isn't Luigi the bad guy in the latest Paper Mario?

Anyway, the tradition here is simple and is unique to the Smash Bros localisations, which are likely little to do with Sakurai directly nor would he be responsible for. Fire Emblem games did not exist outside of Japan at Melee's inception, but they didn't give voice acting for any of the localisations in melee either. In Brawl they did (Fox, Falco, Wolf, Zero Suit Samus, Ike, MK) whilst choosing to keep Marth without it. This was knowing that a new Fire Emblem game was coming along with a pretty sure fire chance of English localisation. They chose not to. In this latest Smash game their reasons at this point would soundly be traditional if they kept him Japanese, although Marth is still yet to get an English/etc voice actor.

 

[Commander]

Isn't Luigi the bad guy in the latest Paper Mario?

Anyway, the tradition here is simple and is unique to the Smash Bros localisations, which are likely little to do with Sakurai directly nor would he be responsible for. Fire Emblem games did not exist outside of Japan at Melee's inception, but they didn't give voice acting for any of the localisations in melee either. In Brawl they did (Fox, Falco, Wolf, Zero Suit Samus, Ike) whilst choosing to keep Marth without it. This was knowing that a new Fire Emblem game was coming along with a pretty sure fire chance of English localisation. They chose not to. In this latest Smash game their reasons at this point would soundly be traditional if they kept him Japanese, although Marth is still yet to get an English/etc voice actor.

Luigi is used as a tool by the villain in Super Paper Mario, the latest is Sticker Star, but he isn't really evil or anything.

It was revealed that during the design process of Brawl, Sakurai was only made aware of Shadow Dragon by the end of Brawl's production. We do not know how soon localization began during the development of Brawl, but it is easy to assume that it was started somewhat early due to Nintendo wanting to get big name titles like Smash Bros. out as fast as possible, especially with how big they were hyping it up prior to its release. We do not know when the localization team could have ever become aware of Shadow Dragon. In Japan Shadow Dragon was released in August while Brawl was released in January. In the U.S. Brawl was released in March while Shadow Dragon was released in February of 2009. Shadow Dragon could not have been in development very long because being a remake it would not take a very large amount of resources to start making compared to other games. Since the Shadow Dragon design also missed its chance for being in Brawl, we can assume that whatever localization decisions were made, were made before Shadow Dragon was a well known project, or even thought about localizing in he first place.

Ness, Lucas, Roy, and Ice Climbers are characters who have never had voices outside of Smash Bros, yet they add them in. Pit did not have a voice till Brawl and a different voice was chosen for Kid Icarus Uprising. Why wouldn't they add a voice for Marth when they have added and changed vocies for other characters before?

 

[Shaya]

@p1
As I said, they've chosen not to prior. For whatever reason, although Fire Emblem stopped remaining in the realms of Japan only.

@p2
They haven't explicitly announced a non-Japanese VA for Marth. Ness/Lucas/Roy/ICs have nothing to do with the game post-localisation (so it would be nice if you stopped using them as crux' for your argument).

I wonder how many times I have to repeat myself.
"Why wouldn't they add a voice for Marth?"

Obviously because of laziness.

 

[Commander]

The only thing you said was that they had reasons for keeping Marth in Japanese and you tried to tie it to the localization of Shadow Dragon. You never stated what those reasons were. The only ever stated reason was "no english games" and Marth didn't have any guaranteed english games at the time of Brawl. After words he had one english game. What are those other reasons?

 

[finalark]

Whenever I check up on this thread I feel like I've stumbled into a sub VS. dub debate.

 

[Roy-Kun]

Whenever I check up on this thread I feel like I've stumbled into a sub VS. dub debate.

Because that's the point of this thread! All in, I won't say names again, but well I personally hope for Marth to still have an English VA this time. Or for SSB4 to have a way to change to english/japanese voices for some characters.

 

[Jackson]

I would like Marth to speak English- it would make him more relate able to us.

 

[Morbi]

Actually, after some contemplation, I wish for Marth to have his Japanese voice because I really like his down-taunt. Is that the only reason? Yes.

 

[finalark]

I would like Marth to speak English- it would make him more relate able to us.

Here, you're going to need this.

 

[Jackson]

Here, you're going to need this.

Haha
Well, it's just my opinion.

 

[S_B]

Characters should speak the language from the region the game is released in.

Yeah, anime nerds won't mind it, but little Billy will probably be a touch confused by it when his mom buys him SSB games.

After all, this isn't an unlocalized anime that someone downloaded, knowing full well it wouldn't be in english. It's SSB, a game being sold in various countries, localized to a number of different languages.

If you're going to argue "Marth originally spoke Japanese!", then you could argue the same thing for pretty much every Nintendo character who had dialogue on the NES.

Also, you need to remember that the vast, VAST majority of people who will be buying this game don't post here and probably aren't into Japanese culture.

 

[ぱみゅ]

^Your theory falls apart when "localization" doesn't separate Spain, Mexico, Argentina and the lest of Latin America.