Sonic Dream Team (New 3D Game from Hardlight, coming to Apple Arcade December 5)

I'm gonna take faith in the word of mouth the game is getting from people who have played it.

Remember frontiers was the same exact way just a year ago where the footage didn't look promising but it just clicked when you actually played it yourself.

 

No you just have a different perception of age than I do I guess. His voice is pretty similar (although the direction itself varies a bit) in everything but Frontiers.

 

I feel like this mostly comes from Frontiers having actually good lines for him to read as opposed to the absolute trash they gave him for Colors/Lost World/etc.

 

I know y'all are genuine, but both of these quotes just hit like opposite day to me. RCS had always been my favorite VA for Sonic, but the way he was directed in Frontiers makes him sound way too old, and more specifically, lacking in energy or attitude. Even some of the lines I actually like in the game are held back by how fatigued and frankly bored he sounds.

 

I think that's exactly why RCS sounded older in the old games to me. His voice sounds too deep for a character that is supposed to be a teenager, so him trying to voice Sonic in an energetic and playful manner only makes him sound like an adult trying too hard to sound young and hip, aging him more than when he talks normally for me. Funny how that works.

 

Huh, yeah, to me it was always just the opposite. One reason I liked RCS so much was because his Sonic voice sounded so natural, whereas Drummond and especially Griffith usually sounded like they were putting on an over-the-top cartoon voice that was, like you said, trying too hard. Whereas his Frontiers voice hits me as anything but natural. I played the whole game wondering when I'd get used to it, and I never did.

Sonic voice preferences are like musical tastes, aren't they?

 

I think it might be Strassman herself tbh. I've been fairly familiar with her work since 2013 since she's a mainstay in Fire Emblem's cast of VAs and has done a bunch of work for Fire Emblem Heroes in particular. She was delivering that smokey, sultry tone not only as Rouge in Generations but Anna in Fire Emblem Awakening (peep the profile pic!) but, since around 2016 when Fire Emblem Fates rolled around, maybe a little before that, her performances have gotten a lot more high pitched and...scratchy, for like of a better word. I really think she's fallen off a cliff in terms of VA quality and wouldn't be at all upset if her roles were to start being recast and given to younger actors better able to deliver in the future.

Well that's definitely Strassman. Whether these are reused clips is another question. If this is just bait, I'd say the most likely place for the clips to be reused from would be TSR and the Olympics games.

 

That channel has videos for all six characters, and some clips are definitely reused. I don't know if that makes them entirely fabricated (nor how the hell they got their hands on these voice clips if they aren't), but either way I'd rather Karen Strassmen in specific be replaced. Even before I knew about her dogshit horrible politics, her performances never sat well with me, always too overacted and fake-sounding. I dislike Kathleen Delaney's voice for similarly sounding too old, but past a certain point her actual acting is just way more natural-sounding and less outwardly unpleasant so much as just regular unfitting. I'd rather have a miscast doing their best than an OK sounding voice with a totally unlikable performance and personality.

 

I didn't even care for Strassman's performance in Generations, honestly. It felt too sultry, even for Rouge (and a bit too young, though maybe that's the 4Kids whiplash talking).

Y'know what recent Rouge performance I do like, though? Her Prime iteration, played by Kazumi Evans. She strikes a good balance, sounding just a tad older than the main crew and leaning more toward suave than... bimbo-y, for lack of a better term. Hell, I still say I wouldn't mind if the entire Prime cast took over for the games. (Just maybe don't bring that Sonic's personality along for the ride.)

 

Absolutely. I mean, I think Dave Mitchell deserves a little more of a chance as Knuckles, but everyone else I'd be happy to take (okay, letting go of Pollock's Eggman would be pretty hard, but at least he's got a huge resume), Mack and Evans especially (no shade to Roger, just preference).

 

I have noticed this too actually, especially after 3H where I thought her Anna voice work was really iffy. Was a relief the new Anna in Engage got Monica Rial but then Strassman came back for the recent Halloween Anna alt in FEH, and the delivery is still just as odd as it was previously.

Maybe she just needs to start getting roles that don't need her to pitch up her voice, cuz it seems like its taking more effort for her to do that

 

It's actually my most insane hot take with regards to Fire Emblem. A lot of people didn't hear it between Awakening and Fates but it completely changes the vibe of the character for me. It's also creeping into her Rouge peformance at this point, evidently. To be frank, between this and her reprihensible attitude towards various issues, I'll she's one of the few recasts I push for without sympathy for the current actor. She's clearly past it at this point and would be doing a poor job even if she were the nicest woman on earth.

 

I feel like Rouge has been MIA for so long in the series that there's no real direction for her character... which kind of influences her voice acting to me. Like how is she is supposed to sound? She hasn't had a major role in anything game related since 06, so I can imagine the actor struggling to even get an understanding who the hell she's even supposed to be. I don't think getting a new VA would really fix that.

 

She’s been absent no more than the Chaotix, whose VAs all do fine in Forces and TSR.

 

My lack of interest for Dream Team due to being on a device I'll never buy made me forget that Karen is the voice of Rouge which hearing that she's in Dream Team makes it a bit more appealing now. I don't share the desire to boot her because of twitter opinions.

 

I dunno, Vector still has that "gargling" part of his voice.

 

That's been the case for Vector the whole time he's had a voice. It was the least obvious in Heroes, granted, but it seems to be an intentional part of the voice direction.

 

Animated intro cinematic


Guess there's more to Cream than just being here

 

Looks pretty great. Surprised Cream is central to the story after so many years of being missing or irrelevant

 

This continues to prove SEGA's best recent decision was giving every game some form of animated tie-in or intro cutscene. I love this new trend and I really hope it keeps up.