He was tolerable on Forces, and we hear quite a lot of him in Episode Shadow. Same for Rouge actually; she was tolerable in Forces. But I still think neither of them sounds particularly good in their roles, with the voices being unfitting and the acting sounding forced for both. That's just opinion though.
Fair enough. Forces was just thr only time I felt Shadow sounded like...well...Shadow. If he can sound like that, I'll be satisfied.
Absolutely elated to hear this news. I think perhaps people have an issue with Roger not doing serious Sonic because he's just never really been given the opportunity to do that, but I'm very hopeful that could change if Pontac and Graff are no longer behind the scripts. I do still hope some other voices improve, however. I don't Knuckles has sounded right since he was recast following Heroes, getting a more exaggerated surfer accent with each game. As a Fire Emblem player, hearing Rouge with pretty much the same voice as Anna is very jarring, and Cindy Robson gives a coarseness to a lot of her roles that I just find unpleasant. Kirk Thornton does Shadow well imo - I'm not a huge fan of Griffith in that role, so it's nice for me personally to hear someone a lot closer to David Humphrey. Either way, I suppose we won't be waiting too long to hear what the characters sound like now.
Mixed feelings. On one hand Sonic could really benefit from having a game that is a stark contrast to the days of "oh no." On the other hand I feel like trying to get a solid voice cast these days can be a fool's errand and direction matters as much if not more than the talent you hire.
I mean, Roger did have a stab at serious Sonic in Forces, and his tirades about the power of friendship were widely ridiculed. Maybe it is just a matter of writing, but I just imagine Roger's voice reciting Sonic's dialog from SA2 and I want to bleach my ears.
Forces really shouldn't be a good judge of...anything. That said, I am curious on what direction they take Sonic and how Roger adapts to it. He IS a voice actor, so its not like changing direction is a hard task for him. The fandom are way too personally attached to their personal favorite VA's and kind of forget they're voice ACTORS for a reason. Like have we straight up forgot how much shit Griffith got and how much he improved by Unleashed and Black Knight. It kind of bothers me the fandom seem to have collectively forgotten that.
Are you kidding me? People never shut up about the quality of Black Knight's story and the quality of the voice acting and Sonic's personality therein these days. And I'm of the opinion that Griffith improved as Sonic but was never particularly good. It's subjective.
However you currently feel about Roger's performance as Sonic specifically, I think it's undeniable that the guy has tonnes of range. Just in the past 5 years, he's also played Dr N. Brio, Captain America, Batman, Daigo Dojima, Kylo Ren and a wide variety of bit parts. If this guy can cover the Dark Knight, a talking blue hedgehog and a neurotic mad scientist, I've no doubt he can expand the emotional range of each of those characters to fit the material he's given. I think what is needed is an improvement in direction and writing. I mean, compare Pollock's Eggman over the years. I think what we hear of that character is worse now than it was 10, 15 years ago. I don't think people would argue that Pollock's Eggman is bad, there's a reason he's stuck around so long, but if you don't get the right direction and material, then of course you're not going to hear a range of deliveries for a character.
That's pretty much the majority of fandoms that has been around for a long time, especially in places like Japan where most voice actors are pretty much celebrities. I always liked Griffith, but I also liked Drummond too. But I guess I kind of leaned more towards the former cause I felt pretty bad for the guy, and as said, he got better, even though it was around the time of the recast. That being said, happy to see Roger back. Surprised, but happy nonetheless.
Ugh. Roger's Sonic makes me cringe whenever I hear it. No ill will to Roger, but I'm pretty disappointed.
I'm talking specifically about the hatred he got before that. You're right, people don't shut up about it, but that just makes it all the more jarring at how willing people are to give shit to Roger, but ignore how controversial Griffith was. Id say Griffith was my personal favorite but that's only one the strength of his later performances. Before that, he was extremely rough. It just kind of bothers me how quickly have forgotten that when they're so quick to toss shit Roger's way. I get personal preferences and all, but things like that have always rubbed me the wrong way about this community.
Not shocked. Roger's critics have always been pretty vocal about their distaste for his Sonic, so I'm disappointed but not really surprised that people are acting like this.
Not a critic of Roger lol. I'm not that picky about Sonic's voices, they've all sounded passable to me. I just find this situation extremely weird, but maybe it'll be cleared up tomorrow.
I was sad at first because he became THE Sonic voice for me but the idea of the franchise getting a new voice for the main character with all the other forward momentum towards being fresh sounded nice too. He is a fine voice actor and I can't wait to see what he does next with the character.
Glad Sega and Roger worked it out. He's the most natural out of all the VAs that have voiced the character by a longshot and he's been delivering for 10 years now. He's the last guy in the franchise that deserved a raw deal.
I'm not bothered by people's taste in voice actors I'm just disheartened any time something tumultuous makes headlines and people roll out conspiracy theories. You can safely default to the answer being "No, it was not planned." Sometimes things just go wrong publicly and then get fixed publicly.
