Voice and Words

In the old days of RPG gaming, there was a lot of reading involved. Beyond that, we only had sprites to work with. Especially with the original Final Fantasy IV, which involved constant marching sprites, everything you could learn about a character was through their dialouge. With the advent of the DS version of the game, we now get to truly these classic characters come to life in visuals as well as sound. This sheds a whole new light on the characters we've become so familiar with.

Character in words

Rosa is always working to support her allies, whether it be through her magic or the things that she says. When there's a problem, Rosa will not hesitate to speak her mind and talk sense into everyone involved. However, her words are always kind and caring. She feels for everyone, and her words show it. Time after time, she reiterates that she is a capable white mage, despite what Cecil and her mother have to say on the matter.

Lost in Translation?

In terms of changes in the dialogue, there's not much that has really been changed noticeably with Rosa's speech patterns. Take a look at these examples from the original English version, the GBA release, and the DS remake:

And another example:

The dialogue was mostly changed to feel more realistic and natural as well as fit in with a fantasy setting. Thankfully, the classic “Spoony Bard” was really the only thing that was kept throughout all the translations.

A gentle voice

Rosa's voice reflects her character perfectly. Her voice is gentle and calm, but remains firm and direct when needed. When she speaks with Cecil at the beginning of the game, you can really feel the worry and sadness within her. Rosa's voice is exactly how I imagined it to be, neatly wrapping the character up into a complete package.

English: Karen Strassman

Karen Strassman (also known as Kirsty Pape and Mia Bradly) is Rosa's English voice actor. She's known for a variety of voices in various mediums. Karen is also a fluent French speaker, who has done several voices for French media including Radio and Film. Beyond that, she has also worked as a dialect coach and is capable of speaking in various accents. She's provided voices to many anime and video game characters including Yuzuki from Chobits, Sougintou from Rozen Maiden, Kallen from Code Geass, several voices for Persona 3 and 4, and many others.

Japanese: Yuko Kaida

Yuko Kaida provides Rosa's Japanese voice. She's from the Kanagawa prefecture and was born January 14th, 1980. She has voiced several characters from various anime series as well as video games. Some other voices she has provided include Soma from Tsubasa Chronicles, Julia from Blood+, Jeane from Suikoden, as well as Hildegard from Soul Caliber IV. She was also recently married to a theater actor in 2008.