1 Month in impressions/criticisms...

[Noxifer]

"koori no miko" would be a ”shrine maiden of ice"

Yes, but not only would that be a mouthful to name someone (especially when you have to keep voiced cutscenes in mind as well), like others have said the 'average' western person doesn't automatically get what that means. And sure, priestess would have been a better term, if not correctly translated, but the point was that there's a lot more (or at least a lot different) subtext to miko than to priestess.

And I'll admit that in retrospect, it's relatively clear what Iceheart is intended to imply, but the first impression? "Is she called that because she's a cold-hearted b****? Or are they trying to allude to the snow queen fairy tale, in which case, is it because she's been brainwashed into a cold-hearted b****?" *shrugs*

I can read one line and know "that's tataru, only tataru speaks like that". In the English version? Nope. Tataru, Minfilia, Haurchefant, all the same. No soul, no personality. And worst of all, all those subtle nuances are gone that help transport the bonds they share.

I know D: It's made so very obvious in the voiced cutscenes how differently they all speak, but in the text boxes? No, not really ;_;

Also, for any one who is saying there is no originally intended dialog, yes there is, the primary source for the game is written in Japanese. That is the originally intended dialog, that is where the story is framed that is where the original dialog is written. If that was not the case then why do all the language versions (except English) stick faithfully to the original Japanese dialog?

Well, since some(?) of the localization team are in the lore group, and thus are responsible for making up certain parts of the lore -- as far as I've understood things -- I can buy that some bits have been either written first-hand in English or fleshed-out from the basic 'this is what should come out in this dialogue' skeleton, before being sent to the other language teams (including the JP one) for localization. But as far as I know, the majority of the story and dialogue is originally written in Japanese.

Maybe, if I didn't have the Japanese audio activated, I wouldn't bother so much. But it's too late now. I like the characters for what they are in the original. Switching to the unpersonal English now is like replacing your soup with water.

I know O.o
I've actually gone through some of the voiced cutscenes (either via the inn or in those cutscenes that end with a "complete quest?" window, where you get reset to before cutscene if you click no) in all languages. I understand barely a handful of words in French or German, but I wanted to hear the voices and the emotions (or lack thereof). It was interesting, but I quickly switched back to Japanese xD