Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out now

People who defend Sonic '06 are like people who say Batman should use his money for charity. It's a great way of announcing to the world that you're fucking stupid + - this is a joke, idgaf if people like 06 lol (I'm not joking about the Batman thing though)  

anyway

A fellow Marinebro? holy balls

 

Glad it wasn't just me who thought that lol, I thought his voice sounded off and "weak" (for lack of a better word) in Frontiers which I just attributed to him aging, but he sounds fine in the history of Shadow video despite that probably being recorded quite recently. Maybe he had a cold during Frontiers' recording or something

 

Nah, Frontiers' voice direction in general was very off, Eggman Sonic and Amy were just the 3 that got the worst of it imo.

 

Eggman (and also Sonic) sounded bored or sleepy in Frontiers. But he is so much better in the new Shadow 101 video, it's really a wonder what good voice direction can do.

 

Ian Fynn is who was behind the writting in this video apparently.

 

Eggman having anything of note to say about Maria would be a...sign of that.

 

Um... Those things that Mike's saying on twitter right now. Is this a good place to discuss it?
I'm asking only because it's like the second comment under that tweet... I wouldn't even know about it
Or are those like old tweets?

 

Just smile and wave, boys... smile and wave...

 

Unless he starts spouting Nazi propaganda or genuine disdain for Sonic, Sega isn't going to do a damn thing over a voice actor's Tweets

Now can we return the discussion to Sonic before this thread becomes a warzone?

 

First of all, the casting director and voice director are usually different people. In fact, most of the tasks you mentioned are usually done by different people.

Second of all, this narrative that the director just barks orders at them and they just follow them is ignorant of how the process actually works. It's a two-way process, and the actor actually does carry some responsibility for their performance. And I do feel that in this case, the actress herself might be having trouble with the voice. It's not usually the actor's fault if a performance is lacking, but sometimes it's not the director's fault either, because miscasts or even just poor chemistry are perfectly capable of happening. The same goes for literally every profession in game development, or film production. We love to criticize poor art direction, bad level design, or bugs, but nobody here responds to that by rushing to a programmer's defense to point out how it's not their fault, do they?

I agree with blaming management over performance by default, but what I don't understand is that when criticizing the voice acting on a character, even if I genuinely believe the actor themselves are the ones having trouble, fans just find that offensive. As if I yelled at a helpless Walmart employee or something. Some of these people are multi-millionaires. They are not blue-collar factory workers. The Sonic cast makes more money than probably 90% of Sonic Team.

 

I believe this idea might've stemmed from how Sonic Adventure's dubbing process worked. Now I don't want to sway this too off course, but basically Lani Minella explained that the dub's voice direction pretty much was that and most people who read her account of the dub's creation assumed that's how most poor dubs are created. It's not, most dubs aren't even made like that, it's just Sega being Sega

 

I think, paradoxically, it's because voice performances are a lot more individualistic in their product, and it's much easier to attribute them to one person. Regardless of whatever's going on behind the scenes, that is Stephanie Sheh's voice, so I think it's understandable that criticism of that might be more readily seen as criticism against her as an actor. Meanwhile, there's next to no way of telling exactly who did what with the code of a game, so any criticism towards it is directed at the developer at large. Which is why I think we don't see people going out of their way to defend programmers - because there's not really a trend of them being singled out in particular.

I think it is also valid to point out that a lot of people just don't know how the process works. Many of us, myself included, can only really go off what we hear secondhand. Personally, I try to keep perspective of that and not get too assertive when it comes to diagnosing these things, I'm just also of the opinion that the Sonic cast is actually stacked with some great voice talents, so I am inclined to believe issues with their performances are largely external, and I think this often is just a case of material.

 

Bad source code is something quantifiable, because it's based on something logical and tangible. So it's pretty easy to point out when that's bad.

Voice acting isn't quantifiable at all, it really comes down to a vibe and many other factors that, quite frankly, none of us really understand. It's not like a lot of people here are in the voice acting industry themselves to speak about it.

That's not to say you shouldn't speak up at all, but I do think people are a bit too quick to make assertive and sweeping statements based on a feeling instead of simply saying they don't like something and keeping it moving.

It's why I can't even really offer much to the discussion beyond saying what I did or didn't like. "Vibes" are an incredibly vague thing to judge.


Voice acting has been such a hot debate in this series when it mostly boils down which actor someone preferred or not.

 

Yup, once Eggman said "I didn't know Maria, but I took that personally" I immediately said "Oh, Ian Flynn wrote this"

Which isn't even a criticism. I actually like that detail, I just know it's the kind of detail he'd add and the kind of way he'd present it as someone who's been reading things he's wrote for... gosh, almost 20 years now.

 

Also something interesting I realized from the Shadow 101 vid is that they called the Inhibitor Rings the Limiter Rings, which is what they're called in Japanese. But idk I've grown kind of attached to the term Inhibitor Rings, it sounds way cooler, imposing. But I'm not too bothered about it, it conveys the same idea. I wonder if that decision was Sega's, or Ian's.

 

I expect that’s a SEGA one, honestly. Ian used the inhibitor term in the comics iirc. Weird that this is being changed though - they both have the same meaning and it’s such a minuscule point of difference.

 

I agree with the rest of your post but a lot of defenses on Retro go like "the team should have had more time", which is a pretty fair defense considering just how rushed Sonic games typically are.

(You can't generally say this to defend bad art direction or level design but you get my point)

 

I interpreted it more-so as a 'colloquially known as' sort of deal. 'Inhibitor Rings', as cool as it sounds, is the cool part. But the actual, more factual term that could describe what the device is doing probably is 'Limiter Rings'. Besides, inhibitors are more an enzyme thing than they are a technological device which can, in fact, limit.

I don't think the two terms couldn't live in the same room together, but for Eggman's purposes of quickly splaying out Shadow's arsenal? I imagine he wouldn't leave a definition of something if it could be vaguely interpreted, kind of goes against 101 guides and their efficiencies. Like how I'd still be willing to call Shadows footwear 'skates' even though they are 'air shoes' (something I think the video is actually attempting to joke about with the text sliding on screen as Pollock says it, rather than simply being typed).

 

It's true that Sonic Team, as video game devs, are inherently paid trash (you won't be catching me doing work in the games industry, that's for sure) but I think it's also not entirely true that voice actors aren't....workers. A lot of them here in the States do get paid like trash, and it's extremely uneven as to who gets paid a lot and who...gets to get mauled by dogs doing an amazon delivery job because Adult Swim pays like shit. Additionally, it was a Big Deal several years back that voice actors here went on strike so they could get basic things such as not suffering workplace injuries, or residuals on their work in video games.

I dunno, that sounds like hard work to me.