Audio Atrocities (TM) :: Stella Deus:The Gate of Eternity (Playstation 2)

Stella Deus is a strategy RPG that features gameplay similar to Hoshigami and a story that would challenge the crappiest Atrocities on this site. Yes, it makes more sense than Castle Shikigami 2, but it is horribly executed with the most tired cliches and zombie-like flat delivery. Add to that terrible character, event, and place names like Dignus, Miasma, Aeque, and Anima (pronounced like Enema by most of the cast), and this becomes not a charming kind of bad, but a soul-sucking, life-draining, bone-numbing level of bad that should never be experienced on purpose.

Fortunately for you, I chiseled years off my life listening to this crap so you didn't have to. The clips below are only a small sample, but rest assured that virtually all the janitors deliver their lines in a tepid wash of vowels and consonants punctuated by an occasionally misplaced Shatner-ism. The result is that any and all possible drama is bled from each and every spoken scene. It's like reader's theatre for the emotionally challenged. Ugh.

Exhibit A: “...this would require us to borrow the spiritual power of the enima.”
One of the worst localization decisions made was not to enforce the pronounciation of Anima with the "a" being pronounced as it is in "father", or better yet, changing the word to something else entirely. The fact that they didn't results in better than half the cast appearing to revere an enima, which made me hesitant to open the Gate of Eternity for fear of what it may be holding back.

And then there's this reference to the epic battle between light and darkness, which wouldn't be funny at all if they just called it something else or pronounced it correctly.

Exhibit B: “...we are merely setting people free from the yoke of apathy...”
Difficult to sell this campaign of release when the hero sounds pretty apathetic as well.

Exhibit C: “One girl, carrying the weight of mankind's sins.”
All the scenes with this character are distracting because it's clearly a 20-something guy doing his best to pull off the worst old guy performance in recent game history. As a result the scenes he's in have the emotional resonance of a labotomy support group.

The Rest:
Haven't had enough? Here's some additional clips for your amusement:
Clip 4, Clip 5, Clip 6, Clip 7, Clip 8, Clip 9, Clip 10, Clip 11, Clip 12, Clip 13, Clip 14, Clip 15, Clip 16, Clip 17, Clip 18, Clip 19, Clip 20, Clip 21, Clip 22

“However, this would require us to borrow the spiritual power of the enima.”