Current Voice Actors

Sonic's voice is far too deep, but otherwise I find it hard to care. Maybe if the dialogue was not always terrible it might be worth listening to.

 

Meh, I voted for the "don't care" option. I think I'll always have a soft spot for the Adventure cast, and think (possibly blinded by rose-tinted glasses) that they all could have been perfect if it wasn't for the extremely bad direction and cheesy lines. But the gameplay is so much more important than if someone's tone is a bit off, or if so-and-so doesn't sound like how you think so-and-so should be.

It would have been awesome if they'd gotten Steve Urkel to play Classic Sonic in Generations though.

Spoiler

And I never liked Martin Burke, he was waay too nasally. There, I said it.

 

Smith is fantastic as Sonic, I think he did a brilliant job in Colors, as he has pretty good inflection and can go from goofy to chillingly cool pretty rapidly; the only true off-part I've seen thus far is that snippet of the first cutscene of Generations we've seen where Sonic's pretending to act surprised, but I think that's more the animation's problem than the voice actor's.

Higgins does an outstanding Tails; she's captured the character perfectly.

There's nothing to be said about Pollock that hasn't already been said, this is the role he was born to play; brilliant.

I haven't heard enough of the other characters to form an opinion, but I've always preferred Knuckles' Adventure 2 voice over what we've gotten since. David Humphrey has always been the best Shadow, as he doesn't try to make him sound too brooding, but more confident and knowing than anything. Amy's always been annoying, but that's chalked up to her character, and I have no issues with her voice actor.

I don't know, that's really all I can comment on.

 

I like their new voices. Amy sounds a bit too much like Minnie Mouse, and Knuckles and Silver don't really sound different, but I can get past those because Sonic, Tails, and Blaze's new actors are absolutely perfect.

 

I like all the new voices except probably Amy. Her 4KIDS VA sounded almost like her Adventure era VA.

 

I think the entire cast is great except for Sonic and Amy.

Sonic is just wrong in every way possible imo. He sounds exactly like his Travel Channel and Pizza Hut voice. I can tell he brings his vocals up front in a forced way that just makes me cringe whenever he speaks. I really don't like him as Sonic, but voices could never ruin good gameplay. Besides, Junichi is the only VA we ever need

Amy just sounds like Minnie Mouse inhaled helium.

 

I was never really too fond of English VAs... but I actually did prefer most of the 4Kids VAs, though I did like William Corkery's Tails, from Sonic Heroes. (WHEE!)

But as long as I can switch the vocals to Japanese, I'll be happier about this game.

 

I have to admit, there's a small part of me that wants John Rhys-Davies to play the part of Robotnik.

He was Man-Ray in the earlier Spongebob episodes and whatnot.

 

I've actually been re-playing the Sonic games on the GCN recently and actually I don't think the voice acting was as terrible as it is made out to be. Yeah it is bad but so were the lines the VAs had read, the cutscene writing is awful and just makes me cringe.

The best game of the original VAs was SA2. Deem Bristow's Eggman was appriately menacing, Rouge didn't sound like 40 fags a day whore and Shadow sounded full of confidence and smug at times, while Jennifer Doulliard's Amy still stands out as probably the better voice for the character, she certainly less annoying than what came after her. If you've ever read one of the interviews with Ryan Drummond (hint: they're on the wiki) you'll know that what they were given to work with wasn't ideal.

The voice acting in ShTH really was just fucking horrific and there was no Japanese language option. Why Sega ever changed to the 4Kids cast is beyond my understanding.

I can't really comment on the new VAs, as I haven't played any of the more recent games, from what I have seen though, it is a great improvement, except for Amy, her voice is too high.

 

Much improvement on the current cast all around. Mike Pollock is an excellent Eggman, able to emote all over the place, sound both menacing and comical at the same time, and doesn't afraid of anything. I'm still getting used to Roger as Sonic, but he's not bad at all.

Higgins as Tails... I only have one beef with this, and it's the fact that she also voiced Prinny Laharl in Prinny 2. CANNOT UNHEAR.

 

Wait a sec. You're saying Don Patch's VA does Shadow now?


HOLY SHIT.

 

Would I be alone in thinking that Shadow's VA is trying to do a Dirty Harry impression?

 

This current voice cast is the best we've gotten so far, but I wouldn't say Smith is my ideal choice for Sonic. There's something about his voice that puts me off. It's like he's trying to imitate Drummond's personality just a tad, but comes off as a somewhat dorky surf bum. I'd prefer performances more like the Japanese and English VAs for Sonic in the OVA, and not just because of the writing.

Mike Pollock is a tough contender for Robotnik, but he's too high pitched for my taste. I'd prefer a little more depth and growl to my Robotnik VA.

Kate Higgins does a great job as Tails, both young and old, but I think my ideal choice for who should voice Tails is Cathy Weseluck. Here's why.

That's pretty much it. Judging from Free Riders, still think Vector sounds way too silly, and Shadow's Hispanic lisp comes off a tad odd.

 

At first I thought Amy's weird new voice was to match her Japanese one, but after watching some videos of her Japanese voice now I'm not to sure.

 

Shadow only had one voice until the 4Kids cast, actually. David Humphrey, a personal friend of Ryan Drummond's.

 

So from the spoiler-y cutscene clip I've watched, Amy's voice has changed a lot. It's miles better, the right kind of annoying, a perfect compromise between the new and old take on the character.

Actually the way she sounded in Sonic Free Riders would have been perfect for a classic Amy, but alas, no show.

 

Eh, I really liked her voice in the Sonic Adventure games. Sure, she pissed me the fuck off, but that was by design. I haven't been watching the Generations spoilers, so I can't speak for them, but the voice heard in Free Riders pissed me the fuck off because it was bland and poorly acted, rather than because the character was simply annoying.

As for Sonic, I honestly think that Jason Griffith was better than Roger Craig Smith, at least by the time he did Unleashed. He was finally really starting to get into the groove of the character, and they replaced him with someone whose voice is far too deep and generally doesn't seem to get it. Assuming Sonic's vocal cords move as fast as him, his voice should be HIGH. White, Burke, Drummond, and Griffith all got this to varying extents, but Smith completely missed it.

 

I still prefer most of the original japanese voices. Liking these better is no animu faggot trend (in my case anyway). The japanese voice actors will make their voices sound more cute, cartoonish and fun than your regular west voice actor and that complements the Sonic characters and franchise very well. It's a matter of direction. I wouldn't like to hear cute voices in a serious franchise. The ones I don't prefer either have no significant difference (japanese and west Eggman are both practically the same in interpretation) or that are way too serious (Shadow and Rouge).

However, Craig is doing an excellent job. He sounds more serious than Junichi though he still retains some boyish tones. He is somewhat between Junichi's interpretation and the japanese Sonic from the OVA. It will take awhile to adjust, but Craig will be good as these two, perhaps better, because he combines the coolness of one and the playfulness of the other, in just one interpretation. I did like Griffith towards the end though. He could have been kept for Shadow at the very least (LET'S - GET - MOVING - FFFFF- was masterfully delivered).

Higgins is doing an excellent job as well, though her interpretation could be a little cuter. It seems like she changed it a bit for Generations and I liked it more, so she might working on that.

Pollock has always been perfect. Whoever says otherwise is delusional.

Rouge's new voice is the greatest I have heard from her, across all territories. She doesn't sound like a 40 year old woman after waking up anymore. Knuckles and the Chaotix seem very decent as well, from the little that we've seen (Charmy the most), close to their past english voice actors which I always found to be good as well (though Knuckles' voice in the Adventures takes the cake). Blaze and Silver also seem decent, but I'd like to hear more, especially in dialogue and conveying emotion.

Amy was horribly pitched in Free Riders, but it has toned down a lot in Generations. It's still not cutesy enough, but her voice actor is talented so it might get better in the future (either an interpretation to her original english voice actor or better, the japanese one).

Thornton isn't dragging his words as much as he did in Free Riders, but there's something about his voice that doeesn't sit well with me. It sounds sleezy. Oh well, he didn't talk much this time either, I can't really say. I did like Humphrey the most of all Shadow's voice actors. It was a charming voice.

Cream will always be the worst of them all.