Armored Core 6: Ayre’s sighing hits different in Japanese and English, but neither feels good 

A certain repeating detail in FromSoftware’s recently released ARMORED CORE VI FIRES OF RUBICON has been grating on the nerves of players bending over backwards in their attempts to combat Balteus, the challenging boss that appears at the start of the game. Please note that the following article includes spoilers for events that take place right before the fight against Balteus.

The autonomous PCA craft Balteus is a powerful enemy that confronts players at the end of Chapter 1, in the early stages of Armored Core 6. In the mission in which Balteus makes an appearance, the player first clashes with the AC Entagle piloted by Sulla, a formidable opponent. In an already exhausted state, the player takes a blast of Coral, and starts hearing the voice of Ayre, a mysterious Rubiconian. Ayre becomes the player’s partner for the grueling battle against Balteus (Related article). 
 

As players take on the unforgiving Balteus, many can’t help but feel their irritation gradually rise as they are repeatedly made to hear the disappointed sighs of Ayre. When the player takes a blow from Balteus, Ayre lets out a sigh, saying “I’m sorry, Raven.” Thanks to the beauty of language differences, Japanese- and English-speaking players get to experience a different kind of sigh, with the Japanese-voiced one being quite beyond words. If I were to attempt to analyze the components of this sigh, it would perhaps consist of 50% sadness, 30% disappointment and 20% resignation. Let’s just say it doesn’t do anything to help how lousy you feel after being defeated. 

Furthermore, as Balteus is far from a one-trick pony, most players are going to have to die quite a lot of times before they get it right, which means having that wretched sigh more or less inscribed into their minds. In the Japanese version, Ayre is played by Ai Fairouz, a popular voice actress known for roles such as Jolyne Kujo from “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean” and Power in “Chainsawman.” Her strong, yet clear and beautiful voice repeating the let-down “Ahhh…” over and over again has had such an effect that players have even made compilations of the sighs using footage of themselves being totaled by Balteus. 

Similarly, X/Twitter has seen a continuous outpour of reactions to Ayre’s lines, with players commenting how “the sighing is more bitter than the battle.” At the same time, those who actually like the sighs are not alone either, with some users even mentioning wanting an ASMR version of them. 

Now, on the other hand, the English version of Armored Core 6 brings a sigh with even more of an edge. Going back to analyzing components, this sigh feels like 50% despair, 40% disappointment, with the remainder maybe even being irritation. At any rate, it’s enough for the whole “I’m sorry, Raven” line to become traumatic for the majority of players, as can be seen on Reddit and elsewhere in the community. In the English version, Ayre is voiced by Erin Yvette, who also voices Alrecchino in Genshin Impact. 

Taking into account that one of the main purposes of voiced lines is to enhance the emotional response of players, Ayre’s sigh has surely succeeded in piercing the hearts of both the Japanese and English audiences. On the other hand, should the sighs happen to become too painful for you, you can always go back to a previous checkpoint before the sigh comes or temporarily turn off voices. I personally tried the tactic of humming the same line at the same timing it comes, but it did not do much to alleviate the effect. 

ARMORED CORE VI FIRES OF RUBICON is available for PC (Steam)/PlayStation 4/PlayStation 5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X|S. 

Written by. Amber V based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-08-29 18:29 JST)