So Ryan Drummond was supposed to return

I just want to say: half the questions I asked were pretty corny, I know, but, give me some slack. If you got to make a video with your favorite voice actor, you'd probably be less able to think on your feet, too! :v:
(Not that anybody WAS being mean to me; I just wanted to throw that out there, and so that I don't waste one of my 20 posts just to say "I made that video!")

 

The OVA definitely had the best English Sonic voice performance. Nothing in any of the games comes close.

ALL of the fully-voiced Sonic games have had issues with not just voice talent, but writing and direction. None of them have done it right and performances have ended up ranging from awkward at best to schlock at worst.

I actually can't stand the games from Colors to Lost World either when it comes to voice acting. Roger Craig Smith seems to be a pretty decent voice actor (liked him as Chris Redfield and Batman), but his Sonic performances seem unbearable. Sonic ends up being a horribly lame parody of himself and the games come off as very juvenile during the cutscenes. If anyone else did end up in Smith's place things would have probably sucked just as badly, since the decisions made on the writing and voice direction would have done their damage already.

I'm not advocating for grimdark Sonic here, but I wish modern Sega wasn't so dead-set on molding Sonic into something that doesn't so blatantly pander to children. "Pander" is the key word here since this isn't an issue of merely appealing to kids. I'd rather not see Sonic games present themselves like the kind of inane, constantly self-depreciating, one-off cartoons that one might see on nickelodeon or whatever.

There's room for more competent, well-implemented sincerity and urgency with something like Sonic. More cleverness, too. It doesn't have to be so... dumb.

 

To be honest, I feel Black Knight was the game that came close to striking a good balance between performances and writing. Hell, the last part of the game was legitimately good in terms of dialogue and delivery.

 

Solid last answer from Ryan (and really, the best one. Like who you like, but they've all done a decent job.)

Though, it did make me realize that while he was best for Sonic in that era, he'd be pretty awful for how Sonic's being written now unless he subdued the voice some. Though, one thing I caught from this, and I don't blame the interviewer for not knowing, was I remember someone interviewed Ryan and asked him if he could say something in the Sonic voice. Ryan politely declined at the time (this was around...2008-2009?) and said he couldn't do it on record because of something to do with SEGA "owning" the voice.

Clearly, that's not the case here. Did that expire or was he just not feeling it at the time? Mind you, this was during the height of the "JASON GRIFFITH SUCKS" campaign.

 

Man, I totally forgot that this game existed. Like, I haven't even thought about it in at least two years.

Maybe I should look at some videos.

 

Just be glad it isn't Meg Inglima doing Sonic (the woman VA who did Sonic in Sonic Schoolhouse). Now that's got to be hard in beating when it comes to the worst VA />

Also, no mention of Samuel Vincent on here? Actually, I suppose it's probably best if we left him forgotten...

 

Haha, cool. I know you're busy but you gotta do the full thing one of these days Steve.

 

Hahaha yeah! My hero! Love the SFM re-enactment Seems like the voice hasn't changed much from 1998!

To be honest, I prefer Ryan as he just captures Sonic perfectly. He gives the character soul, while Jason and Roger has those ones, but no offence to them, Ryan sounds more genuine and nostalgic while jason tried to emulate Ryan's voice, Roger's voice is too old and sounds too much like the actor. Heck, I didn't even play Sonic Adventure in my childhood, but when I played it in my 17's, I was hooked and loved the voice acting. Except Tails, cause he sounded a little annoying.

Ah, if only Sega would stop being greedy and both parties organized a fair deal, then it would be better for them. Ryan is the TRUE Sonic! And yeah, Ryan you continue being awesome buddy

 

Is it just me or this interview is extremely humiliating towards Ryan? I mean interviewer could show some respect to the guys and ask questions about his career, his inspiration, anything related to his as a person. He's a voice of sonic I get it, but I couldn't care less about him making Sonic impressions and answering stupid questions just to amuse some random guy.
I don't know maybe he's just desperate to get attention (implying that his career is not doing well) but if I was him I'd just tell the guy who's "interviewing" him to fuck off and not waste my time on "lol ur Sonic, do some impressions for me".

 

Well, I know that Ryan still wants to voice Sonic (As of 2012-ish) but yeah, so many questions could have been asked but I think the interviewer just saw Ryan in the shopping center and went to greet him, but time didn't permit asking much questions just not to spoil the day, so they kept it nice and simple. Or the fact that he doesn't want to answer questions yet. In anyway, it would be good to learn more about what Ryan is doing now and that.

Roger Craig Smith's voice, I got used too and the new voice actors are definitely quality considering they aren't a cast of actors from 4Kids, a censorship-aimed company aiming at babyfying anime, and ruining it at the same time 4 TEH KITDZ

 

Very cool to see, not sure if it's the recording or whatever but he does sound quite different to how he used to. Higher pitched, definitely.

Still prefer Roger out of the three though. He just feels more 'right', though it's not exactly something I can put my finger on.

 

I like Drummond's VOICE for Sonic, but Roger's acting feels a lot more natural than either Drummond or Griffith to me.

 

I do have to wonder what it would've been like to have Drummond with today's Sonic game's writing. Perhaps we never would've gotten things like "WATCH OUT, YOU'RE GONNA CRASH, AHH!"

 

No, actually, Ryan and a mutual friend (well, technically not my friend, but my cousin, rather) had arranged for us to have pizza together, on account of me being a fan of both him and Sonic. We had lunch together, then just pal'd around and wandered the mall for a while. He told me about his personal life, about his secondary career as a mime/clown, his experiences with SEGA, and his experiences with voice acting as a whole. He even told me some REALLY cool stuff about the 2010 audition that he hasn't talked about online! And on my side of the coin, we discussed fan things, my personal Sonic-related projects, my own personal life (which doesn't matter to you), and I asked him about non-Sonic roles that I saw him play as, but wasn't sure where they were from. At one point, I brought up that I had my own voice for Sonic, which is actually an impersonation of Jaleel's Sonic (which I'm told is pretty much spot-on). He gave me a prompt so I could ad-lib a couple lines, and those lines happened to be in the second person - and he responded in-character with his Sonic voice. So for about a minute or so, we were having a conversation as classic and modern Sonic - and when our improve came to a deadend, I figured by then it wouldn't be rude to ask him to recite a line for me, so I asked him to say Jason's "You're to sloooow!". He was cool with it, of course. When it was almost time to leave, I thought it'd be totally sweet to have a memento of the day I made friends with my favorite actor, so I asked him if he'd be interested in shooting a quick video with me for my YouTube channel. I gave him the jist of what I wanted to do, and he got a real kick out of it (he also got a kick out of the fact that my YouTube channel is called "FortOfBlankets" lol). So, we shot that vid, said our good byes, and departed.
Some people, like you, say that I should have just interviewed him normally, but I would be DAMNED if I ended a meeting like that by being a stiff and asking him generic questions that he's already answered multiple times.