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Nia is a perfect character. The Welsh catgirl marched into 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and stole every single scene she occupied with her luscious accent and sharp wit. She was also cute as heck to match, and not hypersexualised like 90 percent of all other female characters in Monolith Soft’s stellar JRPG. For a Nintendo IP this game is weirdly horny, but that’s a deep dive 𒈔for another, much filthier article.
The game is filled with incredible regional accents from across the United Kingdom, characters often boasting specific dialects from small parts of the count✱ry that only the most hardened of localisation teams would be able to pull off. It’s unapologetically stupid, but equally refreshing in how it’s unlike any other English dub out there. You could play in the original Japanese, and much of the drama might land better, but it wouldn’t be the same.
Some of the voice acting isn’t good, in fact it’s downright bad. Protagonist Rex has the emotional delivery of a brick wall, while the way in which Pyra and Mythra simp upon the young boy is creepy in a way that only the most hardened of weeaboos will appreciate. There’s an inconsistency to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - much like its predecessor - that the localisation almost expects you to accept, if only for the little slices of brilliance like Nia th🌄at shine through. She’s one of my favourite JRPG characters ever for so many reasons.
I grew ꧃up in Wales, spending 14 years of my life in a quaint little countryside town called Lampeter (Llanbedr Pont Steffan if you wanna be super Welsh about it) that was a two hour bus ride to the nearest cinema. All we had were local shops, a small duo of schools, and loads of sheep. It was a wonderful place to spend my childhood and I look back on it warmly, laughing at how I’d wake up in the morning and be asked to run to the car because a bunch of horses had escaped during the night and were grazing in the garden ready to kill us.
In 2002 our electricity would switch off at 10pm, and we’d have to navigate the house through coalfire and candlelight, something that thankfully changed once we got the electrici♔ty rewired and weren’t living in some weird Victorian roleplay. We also had a field behind our house which was filled with family dogs buried over a periodﷺ of 50+ years, so I’d hate to be the poor farmer who owns that land now.
ANYWAY - Nia’s accent paints a beautifully accurate picture of Wales. It feels like it’s trying to copy the popular Barry Island accent seen in Gavin & Stacey with Nessa, like each line has the potential to be both sarcastic and confrontational while lined with an obvious blanket of warmth. Nia is like that. She’s a catgirl, so is obviously prone to tantrums while secretly having a crush on the game’s protagonist. Part of me wishes this romance didn’t define a huge part of her character arc, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying an accent that remained adorably Welsh throughout the entire run🔯time. Gosh it’s so good, there’s just something nostalgic and adorable about an accent that reminds me of where I was raised.
With the reveal of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 emerging during this week’s Niღntendo Direct I have but one simple request: Please, please make sure it includes a Welsh catgirl. The English dub is clearly the same mixture of awful and brilliant judging by the debut trailer we’ll see a new cast of characters each with their own delightfully dorky accents. There’s also a new cat girl who appears to be sporting a Welsh twang, while als🥀o bearing a strikingly similar appearance to Nia. She could be our new catgirl, but she’s not the only one if my theory ends up holding water. Hear me out - but I think Nia is in this game.
It would explain the presence of a younger cat-ea🎃red character with the same hair colour, a similar figure, and an ongoing conflict with characte💛rs who are questioning her for siding with an opposing, potentially evil force. I think this force is helmed by Nia, who is also briefly seen in the trailer behind a mechanical mask. At the 1:24 mark we see a feline-featured character raise her arm before declaring “They must be erased without a trace” in a super-duper Welsh accent. It’s Nia, I absolutely bet money on her perhaps being a primary antagonist or even a force of higher power in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. It would make perfect sense, especially given the aesthetic and world design between this game and its predecessor are nearly identical. Our favourite Welsh catgirl is back, and she has brought more with her.
That’s two whole welsh catgirls, which is a boon to the Xenoblade economy if I ever saw one. All the accents found across this series are self-indulgent to the extreme, and I’m so glad they haven’t been abandoned in the pursuit of reaching a larger audience or being perceived as more mature. Xenoblade Chronicles has always been a bit silly, yet rides the wave of anime melodrama to sell its characters and storyline regardless of how over the top they might seem. Nia is a perfect example of that, and not building upon her Welsh prowess in the coming sequel woul൲d be a grave mistake. She’s in it anyway, I promise you.
