Roger Craig Smith and Kate Higgins are the new Sonic and Tails VAs

Personally, I would be surprised if this new lineup lasts more than five years so it would be quite a problem this time. Hell, in the short amount of time the Adventure 1, 2, & Heroes voice actors lasted, Tails' voice actor was one of the only characters who switched actors. Hiring another 8-10 year old to voice Tails would be a very bad idea.

 

I have tried to defend my post to you via PM so as not to pollute the thread—I hope you don't mind. In short, I thought expressing one's reaction to the news was a legitimate use of this thread. I do have an opinion about some of the conversations that have taken place.

I agree with the person above that it is better not to have children voicing children,. Filmmakers and actors, even in "realistic" films, rarely try to capture realistic inflections in dialog—it would be too tedious and unrefined. Instead, they simulate the experience so that we have the illusion of realism but still the immersion and pacing necessary for a film.

I don't doubt that there are some good ten-year-old voice actors, but in my experience adult voice actors, even in child roles, are superior. It's very easy to forget one is listening to an adult voice actor when the character on screen looks and acts like a child. I've never heard anyone complain about Bart Simpson's voice.

 

...So what would be the smart thing to do, Nitro, since "listening to the fanbase" (which in this case sounds more like "listening to general criticisms both inside and outside the fanbase") is such a fucking retarded thing to do?

I mean, how can SEGA possibly win? They ignore their fans, they get lampooned for being greedy, incompetant, catering to the kiddies, not caring about quality, blah, blah, blah, and then people expect them to cater to their loyal fanbase with some fantastic classic-styled game, and when they do things that make it look like they're listening, suddenly listening to the fanbase is "fucking retarded?" What?

Incidentally, "listening to the fanbase" in that "fucking retarded" way you seem to be thinking of probably would have meant Ryan Drummond would be voicing Sonic again. Not that I would mind this, but when a good portion of the fans—and non-fans—all share a common complaint that the voice-acting is bad and SEGA should feel bad, I dunno, somehow "getting better voice actors" strikes me as a pretty good answer, even if at the end of the day doing so is just another kind of pragmatic business decision that just happens to be taking a slightly different path to the ol' ka-ching.

Incidentally, would listening to the "fans" who thought that Sonic Unleashed would have been better if it were just Day Stages, or expressed the opinion that there just wasn't enough platforming, be "fucking retarded" too?

Or is your entire opinion on the matter so hung up on some overgeneralized feeling of OH MY GOD THIS FANBASE IS FUCKING INSANE that you've lost the ability to discern the difference between sound, objective criticisms and fanbrat whinging?

 

We're too busy arguing over whether or not this is "franchise changing," to be botherd about the voices. :specialed:

Anyways, I embrace change. This switch of voice actors could be the start of a new era of Sonic games. We had the "Drummond Days" which gave us Adventure - Advance 3, the "Griffith Generation," which gave us Shadow - Unleashed, and now we have the "Smith Saga," starting with Colo(u)rs. The quality between the Dummond and Griffith eras seemed to differ quite a bit, so what if this is SEGA's way of saying "time for a new start?"

 

Because sega won't stop promising the world and then failing to deliver unless people complain about it. I agree, the news is pretty meh and the whole "OMG ITS A BIG DEAL COMING SOON EVERYBODY GET EXCITED AND GET YOUR WALLETS OUT!" bullshit is getting old. sega needs to shut up and deliver.

 

He was good, personality-wise. He was shit, accent-wise. He was never sure whether or not he was trying to do British.

 

Fix'd. Pet peeve (and even then there's multitude of accents in this crappy land).

Humphrey did very good Shadow, but I'm sure someone can do better. Silver is the guy I'm most worried about though. I just loved the guys voice, especially since I expected it to sound dark and moody. Capella made him sound like a young guy who wanted to be older, which is a pretty good example of what the character is. It'll be hard to fill those shoes.

 

I think his point was that this topic (once we found out it was voices) consist of, oh I don't care about the voices... so why post, if it doesn't change your opinion on anything why tell us this in a topic that is talking about the voice change.

 

I heard there's going to be an announcement some Wednesday or Saturday this month, at an unknown time, about something that will rock Sonic's socks! Discuss until the time comes! ...Except not.


I just hope that SEGA is not planning to announce any more announcements, ever again. Seriously, the only thing they're seeking is for us to keep expecting something good from them, even if there's not really anything to talk about in the meanwhile. In the end, whatever is finally announced, relevant or not, will have sprouted a lot of positive comments from thin air; comments that some people might keep hoping about, but will never materialize. That's not only free advertising, but free marketing campaigns at our expense (okay, viral marketing, whatever you want to call it)... And I really wouldn't want this board to become the "SEGA Forums Mk.II", we are something more than a big advertisement.


If you ask me, I'd just get rid of any announcement topics that don't have any actual info about the announcement itself (kinda makes sense, doesn't it?), if only for the sake of this board's + - "   sanity + - "   .

 

While I love the new voice actress for Tails, I really don't care for Roger Craig. He has that douchebag look too =P

I hope he can do a great voice though. Only time will tell.

 

Umm...he looks like a douchebag?

Anyway, I think he'll do a good job.
His acting in roles so far as been very good and it will be interesting to see what kind of voice he gives Sonic.
I just hope that he tries to create his own unique Sonic character, rather than trying to imitate Griffith or Drummond.

 

Roger, unlike Griffith and Drummond, actually has range as a voice actor. Listening to his voice reel, I think if he can get the second voice to be a little less bratty, he'll make a great Sonic.
I'm more happy about Tails though, Palant "Kinda sorta sounded like a boy in Unleashed", and that irked me to no end. Not to mention his older, male voice actors had absolutely no talent whatsoever (with the exception of the Dic cartoon voices, those actually sounded fairly decent). Kate's voice reel showed that she can do a fine "boy" voice, so I'd say this was fairly good news.
Best of all, Pollock is staying. He was the only great 4Kids voice actor, in my opinion.

 

Drummond actually has range, he's just terrible as Sonic. Go listen to one of his voice demos on his site.

 

I just realized Dan Green is no longer Knuckles.

Damn it, there went the obnoxious Yugi one-liners.

 

Hm. I take it back. If he's that good of a voice actor, why the hell did he have such forced emotion in Sonic Adventure 2? He must have improved quite a bit over time. How old is that clip?
Although, the Sonic voice in that voice reel was ear grating, maybe he just couldn't come up with a decent voice for him.

 

A lot could have to do with direction, and the fact that they had to line up the lines with the Japanese mouth movements, I believe. Same reason a lot of Anime voice acting comes off as hammed up or off-kilter.

 

So new VAs huh? I've been longing for this moment for 5 years! My inner 13 year old is giddy with joy over this, but my inner 18 year old could honestly give two shits at this point. Franchise changing my ass. Good thing I didn't hype this up for myself.

 

Well, hopefully the sound director is replaced as well. He was probably the cause of all these problems.

 

That's the case with SA 1, with SA 2, he didn't even see the footage, it was just an instruction like "this line needs to last this long".

 

Yeesh. That's actually kind of worse. You can't even see what the character's face looks like to match up how the voice should sound.