i know that things are more complicated than this overall, but since no games came out between his departure tweet and his return tweet, the pomp and circumstance feels a tiny bit silly. "roger craig smith returns to sonic games after a maligned and dreaded 0-game gap!" :p that said, though: hey, good for him. i've always liked his voice work as sonic! (i feel like a hypothetical "ryan drummond but with competent/good vocal direction" would probably be my all-time favorite voice actor for the series, but that's never happening.)
I think this falls clearly into the category of... "We've decided we're not going to renew your contract so we can use new local talent. Bye." "Darn it." *fans screech* "We've decided to review our options and we'll be renewing your contract after all. Why fix what's not broken?" "Woohoo." That's likely all this ever was, some sort of behind the scenes pay/union/contract issue that Sega decided was worth the extra cost to resolve. I'm betting both Mike and Roger will return. Harder to say with anyone else, but there's a much higher chance of keeping them all now.
Its not confirmed, but a recent interview with Rebeltaxi implied they weren't working on the series anymore as they spoke in the past tense. Now obviously things can change as we see here, but as of right now, everything points to them not being around. BUT, anything can happen.
Ah i see, thank you. I really think the series will benefit from having a new writter, preferably someone who has worked in other sonic media in the past or someone who actually knows the lore.
Yeah just watch their contracts get renegotiated because of fan outcry too. "They must've sure loved "extra large clobbering""
Do we know for sure that Rodger coming back was due to backlash? Because there was some but there where a lot of people who were happy to see him gone. As evident in this thread.
This is a truly silly thing. Seemingly replaced, and then not replaced. What's going on?! Smith is a good actor, though if they ever move to a slightly more serious story I wonder how well he'll do when his Sonic is basically always in wisecracking snarker mode. Still, his voice does fit Sonic quite well, so I'm not too shaken up about this. Can we please have a Shadow actor that doesn't actively dislike voicing the character though
I have to admit, I was a bit confused when I saw his tweet, but I'm kinda glad he's sticking around. I think the most important aspect here is that we're seemingly having consistency with the VAs for the games which has been a major problem since the first recast in 2005. This series needs to retain the same voice actors as SoJ has done so we have a baseline to work with. Changing actors every few years just makes things messier for both them and for brand recognizability. In that sense, I think it's wonderful he's managed to work something out with Sega. I'd say his voice has been passable, I certainly thought he had a lot of potential when that first clip from Colors was shown off, but I'll echo the sentiments here that the direction and writing he's been handed has kinda made his sonic fall a bit flat. With it seeming as if P&G are gone, that has the potential to change and we may be seeing the first signs of that with the next game which is exciting to me.
If P&G are gone I just hope whoever the replacement writer ends up being doesn't swing back to the early 00s writing again, frankly.
If the current stewards of the franchise are really dedicating themselves to addressing fan feedback, I wouldn't be surprised if we got Flynn writing the game scripts. I know he's not everybody's cup of tea, and I hold nothing against anyone who doesn't enjoy his work, but ultimately there has been a lot of demand for him to fill that role.
Eh could be worse, I'll take stories that at least try to develop characters instead of them devolving and becoming one note.
Quite frankly, even if I do personally prefer the writing from the 2000's, the fact is Sonic has not really had standout writing in any sense no matter which era you prefer. I think we can all agree that we should strive for something better than what we've gotten before. Think we can strike a good balance between being too melodramatic or too corny to satisfy people.
The pendulum has swung very hard in the opposite direction to the way it used to be back in the 2000s, and that kind of whiplash means that people will inevitably look back on those days with a warped perspective sometimes. Forces is the only game to try going down the more serious, story-driven route since then. It tried to go for a "best of both worlds" approach, but ended up being the worst of both world and struck a bum note with swathes of the community. I think that one of the main differences between 2000s Sonic stories and recent Sonic stories is that the old ones at least had the capacity to leave an impression. They were bold and memorable whether you liked them or loathed them. The newer games are uninterested almost any kind of plot, continuity and development. That even applies to Forces. The writing was hardly standout in the past and I'd argue it's more or less as bad as what we have nowadays in a different way. And I personally feel a huge sense of loss for every the series doesn't do anymore.
RCS is a great voice actor. I think a lot of people in Sonic fandom have a misleading view of him because they only know him as Sonic. He puts in stellar performances in other games (I bet most won't even know he voiced Ezio in Assasins Creed). I agree his performances haven't been great more recently, but I put the blame in the voice direction. I'm happy to have him back!
It all comes down to preference at the end of the day. No matter what Sonic does, somebody is going to be upset, its just a fact at this point. That said, I'd rather the series leave an impression, good or bad, rather than the emptiness we've had for a decade. If some people hate the 2000's and never wanna see them again, welp, sorry. I want Sonic games to leave me with something to think about again regardless of the outcome. I don't want something that merely does as little as possible so as not upset people, because that's not what Sonic was founded on. Sonic leaves an impression for better or worse and I think the series needs to embrace that regardless of how anybody feels about it.
Honestly yes! This is part of why I saw so much potential in him when I first learned he got the role, and why I feel optimistic that he can shine if the quality of direction and writing improves. Though I only have a passing familiarity with the AC franchise (not really my sort of thing) the fact that I knew he voiced a main character in that series left a lasting impression. His work on other cartoon shows and what little I've seen of him in Apex stands out as well. The guy has some serious skill if you look at the body of work he's done.
As funny as it would be if this were a publicity stunt or whatever, I don't that's the case, or that it was even really a thought-out decision at all. It seems Roger's been paid in peanuts the whole time (if there was any truth to that leak a while back, wouldn't surprise me seeing how cheap Sega is), and probably initially accepted it because he seems to just really want the role. Then recently he likely started demanding more money for it , possibly because it was interfering with his work in other better, more lucrative roles considering how he does much more than Sonic. The businessmen went for the power-play option of giving him a hard 'no way, take it or leave it', to which Roger decided to stand his ground and drop the role. What changed now might be that Sega was unable to find a cheaper and/or passable-quality English VA (or really anyone at all considering how little they offer) in time for the next major game/merchandise push, so they were forced to go back and renegotiate with Roger until he was satisfied. ... Either that, or he gave up and accepted their raw deal, which I really hope wasn't the case. But regardless of how exactly it happened, I highly doubt this was a hype-manufacturing social media stunt. Likewise, I also don't think Roger's departure had anything to do with certain fans' distaste for his performances, nor does his recasting have any relation to the "backlash" from him leaving the role. The only people in the company who would even glance at what fansites like this are saying are the PR people, and I doubt they have any meaningful interactions with the business end of the company who actually make the real decisions. As far as I know, it is rare that these sorts of things boil down to anything other than money, or more specifically, investment vs. returns calculations. Sonic games tend to sell their expectations these days regardless of what certain sects of the fandom say about them, after all. Could they do better? Of course, but the executives or shareholders probably don't care enough to invest any more than they've gotten away with thus far. With that in mind, Roger's return could be a temporary thing simply to get them out of a jam for their upcoming products. He could be replaced overnight if Sega finds someone willing to work for less and/or isn't a member of an actors union. I kind of doubt we'll hear Roger in Sonic Prime as well since the studio producing the show probably has their own pool of talent to cast from, which is less headache and probably also less expensive.
I'd imagine they're not going to replace Roger again anytime soon, otherwise they're gonna look really fucking stupid lol. If they honestly could not find anyone else suitable for the role, it's just easier for them to swallow their pride and just pay the man his due rather than just go through the headache of finding a new VA. More than anything, if they've settled on a new contract, it might be a while before Roger has to re-audition for the role or if Sega are willing to replace him. The VA contracts seem to last every five or so years based on the last two changes being around that time frame; Ryan Drummond lasted from 99'-04, and Jason Griffith lasted from 05'-09'. So Roger's new contract will likely last until 2025 or 2026. I doubt Roger would leave the role because, as Tara Strong pointed out, voice actors need as much work as possible and never willingly leave a role unless scheduling is involved. So its gonna be on Sega if they wanna keep him or not. Obviously I'm not expert on this though, I'm just guessing.
I gotta go buy groceries in like 10 minutes so I cannot make a big post about this, but yeah, this is pretty much how I feel. SA2 was the last time Sonic was culturally relevant in the wider gaming community in any way besides 1) cultural inertia from his stardom in the early years of the modern gaming industry 2) a joke. You can, like, say "ROLLING AROUND AT THE SPEED OF SOUND" in a comment online and get 10 dudes/gals doing the lyrics to City Escape line by line. When Super Mario Odyssey revealed a city level, nearly two decades after SA2 came out, "woah that looks like SA2!" was one of the most common responses. And the thing is, when the whole GDQ audience sings City Escape during a Sonic speedrun, or people still make jokes about "I finally found you, FAKER!"...they're doing that with an at least somewhat unironic affection for these things, even if buried under ten feet of irony. People meme about City Escape because they like the song. And I really wish Sonic were like that again. People say shit like "It's no use!" as a scathing mockery, not an earnest silly joke. There's a reason Hbomberguy in his RWBY analysis/critique, when trying to explain how he thought RWBY's vocal tracks were both objectively terrible and yet incredibly enjoyable perhaps because of the hilariously absurd cheese of them, he described them as like the SA2 vocal tracks, and not any other vocal track in Sonic. Because everyone--everyone--remembers Live and Learn, in a way they don't remember like Endless Possibilities or His World or some shit. The moment they stopped just earnestly doing this silly shit was the moment Sonic faded from being a source of quotes and memes literally two decades later to just being...mediocre. So yeah, bring back the 2000's goofiness, I say.
Well Sonic Adventure 2 is going to be 20 in a few weeks; at this point, it's as culturally ingrained as the Classics whether people like it or not. ....Holy fucking shit, Sonic Adventure 2 is going to be twenty....
