Voice Acting in Sonic.

[Chaos Incarnate]

 

I couldn't resist, voice acting in the Sonic series is such a touchy subject, and the whole entire fanbase is split on the issue. You'll find a few people here and there that would have preferred Sonic and CO. stayed silent, whereas most still engage in discussion on which voice cast is their favorite, and who voiced their character best. Honestly, it's not something I feel is something to get up in arms about, but everyone has their preferences. Every Sonic voice cast has had its pros and cons, but I felt it kept getting better as the series went along.

 

Original Cast:

Pros: 

• For a first start(kinda), everyone who was voicing their characters were all fairly good fits. When I look at Sonic and I have no idea how he's going to sound, Ryan Drummond delivered on that and really suited his character.
• They had their fair share of really good VA's who were my favorite for the characters they were voicing, like Scott Dreier, Lani Minella, and David Humphrey.

Cons:

• The voice direction was fucking awful most of the time, and it really showed. Some VA's were experienced and had the acting chops most of the time, Lani Minella and Deem Bristow especially, but Drummond's hammy delivery really showed and prevented him from being a perfect Sonic.

I feel fans tend to over rate the original voice cast, at least they did when 4kids took over. It was a decent start, but the awful voice direction really harmed it.

 

4kids:

Pros:

• Voice direction was a significant improvement later on, despite taking all the way up until Black Knight to fully show.
• Again, there were a lot of good VA's to come out of this cast for me(Griffith as Sonic, Mike Pollock as Eggman, Lisa Ortiz as Amy, David Willis as Espio). Most of the actors hired had prior acting experience, so I felt like they were casted for a reason.

Cons: 

• Jesus christ was the direction again fuckawful for a while, mainly in Sonic X and 06. Griffith could not act his way out of a wet paper bag until Secret Rings, and performances really tended to go over the top a lot of the time.

I feel like the 4Kids cast was an overall improvement over the original actors, but it clearly shows how it was everyone's first time voicing the characters, and it took a while for everyone to fully adjust and become fully adjusted to their roles (Mike Pollock being the sole exception, he really seemed to enjoy Eggman from the get-go and get into his shoes). I feel like if 4Kids had stuck around longer after Black Knight, their reputation would have improved. I grew to like a lot of VA's by the end of their tenure, so at least they left at the top of their game.

 

New Cast:

Pros:

• Had a much better start than either casts from the beginning acting wise. Nearly everyone seemed to immerse themselves in their characters and be really good fits for the most part.
• The acting improved tremendously, everyone is having fun with their roles and giving it their all with the script material.

Cons:

• Not everyone really has the chance to do much with their characters, as Sonic's friends are being shoved aside. There's so many talented actors being casted, like Quinton Flynn as Silver and Vic Mignola as Omega, but they're kind of wasted due to barely getting any lines. This isn't really a complaint with the cast itself, but it's a shame we barely get to hear them.
• Cindy Robinson as Amy. Good god, she's such a talented actress, but why the hell is she still using that Minnie Mouse voice everyone is complaining about?

The current voice cast is my clear favorite, almost everyone is easy on the ears and they are a delight to hear. Just about everyone fits their parts well, witn really good direction, it's like everything I ever wanted to hear from a Sonic voice cast.

 

There's also the Japanese voice cast, not to mention AOSTH, SATAM, the OVA... whatever, feel free to ramble on who your favorite voice actor for any character is, your thoughts on the changing casts, etc. Just try not to get angry if someone likes a certain actor's take on a character, it's called an opinion after all. I know the subject of voice acting in the Sonic series is such a polarizing issue, which is exactly why I wanted to hear everyone's responses. Try to keep it civil, everyone.

[Lady Soniko]

I fucking hate the new cast with a passion, Roger the most of all, just... Really grates on me, especially with the writing they have him cover, is just cringe worthy. It's obnoxious because he is a talented voice actor, I had no idea he was the voice of Ezio in Asscreed 2, he can sound so different with loads of characters, yet with Sonic he falls flat in every aspect for me with his scratchy voice, I just hate it.

 

If I were to choose a VA from what we have for Sonic, I'd preferably want Ryan back, simply from Nostalgia for his sort of, Cool Radical Sonic attitude again, but ideally Jason was really hitting it well in the final games before they got rid of him, so It's a shame we didn't get much more out of him.

 

I still adore Sonic's Japanese voice actor after all this time, but Roger is one of the reasons this new direction of Sonic's is turning me off the franchise.

[Soniman]

Im mixed on the new cast. But by and large I prefer them to the 4kids cast.

 

Knuckles and Shadow have the potential to sound better if the actors could fit into the roles more. Tails is the perfect for Tails and easily the best voice we had for the character, the Chaotix are all fine to me though Vector needs work, Rouge is perfect and sounds actually kinda seductive, Eggman is perfect as always, Amy needs a lot of work though I don't hate it, and finally we have Sonic. Roget has the best voice to me over Griffith and better acting skill over Ryan. He actually gives energy back to the character that I felt Griffith largely lacked and I really felt that in SLW he could use other emotive tones if he wanted to (his "no" at the cutscene were Zavok threatens Tails actually sounds really pained and desperate).

[Ryusuke]

I'm starting to realize how my thoughts on the voice acting of the series, particularly the English version, have been going back and forth consistently through all three casts.

 

The first cast had to work with some pretty wonky direction, and they just didn't sound too good to me. Though, I did like Knuckles, Rouge, the Chaotix (minus Charmy) and Eggman. Ryan Drummond was annoying at times.

 

The 4kids cast I didn't really dig too much until maybe Unleashed. Jason Griffith improved by then, though he still had this strange way of speaking that still doesn't sound right.  I liked his Shadow though. Amy, Blaze and Eggman were pretty awesome, and I did eventually warm up to Dan Green's Knuckles. Some other casting choices didn't work for me (Erazor, Griffith's Jet, Chip), though. 

 

The new cast are generally better actors, and it has Jack Fletcher directing. I was really excited when they switched. For the most part, the acting is an improvement. Mike Pollock improved even MORE and Kate Higgins makes a brilliant Tails. I dig Roger for his Colors performance, though for Generations to recent I'm starting to think he tried to push his voice to sound younger and, in Lost World, it really sounds strange and not in a good way. This is a shame, because he's a really talented voice actor. 

 

Lately, I've just found a newfound appreciation to the Japanese cast. Well....I've always thought they were pretty good, but just particularly how quirky Sonic is in that version VS the American Sonic who's really loud most of the time, trying to be cool and stuff. The latter kinda dates him. Maybe I'm just getting old or something, but I can't really stand it anymore. But, I digress. Who knows what forth cast would do? *shrug* But, I'm going to be sticking to the Japanese cast from here on out.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

I dont care about voices. But I think Sonics new voice is the best. It capture the amazing young man he really is. I like the english voices better than the Japanese, except for Amy.

[Space☆Tomoki]

I prefer the Japanese cast. Most of the English casts so far don't sound *right* to me, with the exception of maybe Mike Pollock as Dr. Eggman. Ryan and Jason were okay (they got better for the most part as they went on), I can't stand Roger (I personally think he gets worse with each game), but Kanemaru is Sonic to me; hammy over-the-top Engrish and all. He just puts more emotion and passion into the character than any of his English voices did/do, though that could be due to bad voice direction that has plagued Sonic games for years. I also prefer the Japanese cast for being more consistent than the English ones, since they don't get swapped out every 5 years or so. I also like the Spanish cast a lot more than most of the English one, to be honest, though the Japanese cast is still my personal favorite.

[-Mark-]

Personally I'm fine with there being voice acting in the Sonic series- it's just the writing as of Colours that I can't stand.

 

I like the Japanese voices best overall, by far. Similarly to Tomoki, playing a Sonic game in English just doesn't feel right to me. I'd chalk this largely in part to the fact that my first exposure to the Japanese voices was through watching Sonic X- bear in mind that, at the time the series debuted, the only games out with full voice acting were the two Sonic Adventure titles (and arguably Shuffle), and there's obviously going to be a greater amount of dialogue in a (at the time) 52-episode anime series than a couple of videogames' worth of cutscenes. By the end of the series run, I was already much more familiar with the Japanese cast than the English cast.

 

The Japanese cast also has the benefit of having remained almost entirely consistent since 1998. With the exception of Big (whose original actor died) and Tails (who was played by young boys in SA1 and 2 before finally being recast with his current voice from X onwards), the cast has remained exactly the same since Sonic Adventure. Meanwhile the English cast has changed twice in that space of time, meaning the Japanese cast again gains points for familiarity and consistency. 

 

Of course, that would mean nothing if the Japanese voices were bad, but I feel that they fit the characters perfectly and are considerably better-acted than any of their numerous English counterparts. Voice acting is a much bigger business in Japan which is taken considerably more seriously than in the West (for the most part), and more often than not it shows. I'm not going to deny that a handful of the lines in SA1 were horribly acted even in Japanese, but it's really only a couple of instances in the first game to have had voice acting.

 

As for the English cast, I think they’re a mixed bag. The original cast was functional if unspectacular. Ryan has arguably the most ‘accurate’ recreation of Sonic’s Japanese voice. Tails suffered from severe actor rotation (i.e. more or less every game), and even Knuckles switched actors between SA1 and 2 (with Ryan voicing him in Shuffle between the two). Most of the other cast were passable if nothing special, without being particularly annoying, although I do feel that a couple of the performances (namely Amy, Rouge and Omochao) deteriorated a little as the series went on.

 

The 4Kids cast is probably my favourite English cast. To say Jason was inconsistent in his role as Sonic is an understatement- in the six or seven years he spent in the role, he travelled across pretty much the entire quality spectrum and back. Several times. At his worst, he was terribly-acted and ear-gratingly irritating; at his best, he did a pretty damn good job. The odd thing being that he didn’t seem to show any real steady improvement- rather that he just bounced across the quality spectrum at more or less complete random during his tenure. He’d have a good performance one game, then a terrible one the next. You never knew what to expect from him, although admittedly he did show some semblance of consistent improvement right towards the end of his run. The rest of the cast were fairly solid (save for Vector now suffering from severe actor rotation), although I do think Bella Hudson’s Blaze voice deteriorated massively after her roles in Rush and 06- her voice got far too high and chirpy for Blaze, although admittedly I will need to go back and check Black Knight to see if she was back on form in that. 

 

And now we have the current cast… eh. I’m really, really not fond of Roger’s take on the character at all. The first time I heard his voice, I just felt this huge disconnect. It felt like the wrong voice was coming out of Sonic’s mouth. Like Sonic was moving his mouth and someone else was talking off-screen. In my opinion, the voice doesn’t suit him in the slightest. I thought I might get used to it over time, but I haven’t. It still sounds as jarringly unfitting to me now as it did back in 2010. Admittedly the lines they have him read really aren’t helping.

 

Initially I preferred a few of the newer cast, but they seem to have deteriorated somewhat as well. If nothing else, at their best they just sound like imitations of the 4Kids cast, at their worst… well, we have Amy and Shadow’s new voices. I liked Kate Higgin’s Tails initially, in that it sounded similar to Amy Palant’s take on the character, but a little more ‘boy-like’- admittedly her Tails did sound a little too girly at times, despite being a really cute voice.

 

Oh well. This post has got way too long already, so I should probably wrap it up. At the end of the day, I don’t really care what they do with the English cast. So long as they continue to give us a Japanese voice option, I don’t have to listen to it. 

[The Egg WAH]

I am finding it hard to like a majority of the voice cast right now, Mike does a fab job with Eggman especially in LW but the rest of the cast seem incredibly off especially Sonic and Amy which is quite disheartening since the Roger and Cindy are awesome VAs, Kate does fairly well with Tails.

 

When it comes to the previous voice casts some were alright and some were pretty bad, David Humphrey was awesome as Shadow and I much prefer him over Jason and Kirk, when it comes to Sonic it's hard to say who I like the most out of Ryan and Jason... I may prefer Jason just a little bit more, Deem was awesome as Eggman and Mike does a great job as well, for Rouge I prefer her Sonic X voice actor Kathleen Delaney.

 

I do miss Metal Sonic being able to talk even though the only time he spoke was in Sonic Heroes.

[Blue Blood]

The short of it in my opinion...

SA1 - Advance 3: Mostly decent voices, if not poorly acted. Tails sounded terrible from Heroes onwards though (he's not a toddler!), while Knuckles improved with each change of actor. None of the voices beyond Tails particularly bothered me. I quite enjoyed most of them.

X - All Stars Racing: The absolute worst of the bunch. We got incredibly generic anime dub sounding voices, which lo and behold originated in an anime dub. Tails sounded like a girl talking into a fan at the best of times, Bella Hudson voiced about 99% of the cast and made them all sound exactly the same, any robot sans ShTH Omega lost all character and several characters had voices I was too familiar with from other mediums (Amy, Knuckles especially). Sonic was one of the worst offenders, essentially sounding like a drunk Drummond, Drummond with a blocked nose or just like every single other voice Griffith has ever done. Pollock's Eggman was the saving grace of the bunch.

Free Riders - Present: A pretty good set on the whole! Sonic sounding older with a deeper voice was a big surprise, but it actually works really well. It suits all sides of his personality, which is supposed to include easy-going and warm as well as energetic and cocky. Rouge got a huge improvement now that her playful side and young age have been remembered too. I still dislike Knuckles for sounding virtually identical to before, and Amy suuuuuuucks. In general this cast sounds a LOT more natively American, as opposed to something I would expect to hear in a Japanese dub. And that's what the series is as of Colours anyway.

Japanese Cast: It's Japanese. I don't have a clue what they're saying. The voices are so totally alien to me. None of them sit right at all.

[Dizcrybe]

Adventure cast: Other than I don't think they're as bad as a lot of people say, I don't have much of an opinion on them.

 

4Kids cast: Sonic managed to sound consistently terrible in the first handful of game, excepting maybe Sonic Rush. Everyone else ranged from decent to subpar until about Secret Rings when everyone starts improving. The cast reached their peak in Black Knight, which happened their last game. All in all, Unleashed-Black Knight Griffith is my favorite Sonic voice  and Lisa Ortiz is my favorite Amy voice.

 

New cast: I don't think I'll ever quite get used to Roger Craig Smith's deep-voiced Sonic, but Tails sounds awesome now and Mike Pollock is still in top form as Eggman. Knuckles sounds about the same, though. Amy doesn't annoy me as much as she does everyone else, but I still prefer Lisa Ortiz over CIndy Robinson for this one. I'm still not sure how I feel about Shadow's voice, besides wishing they had gotten Liam O'Brien to voice him instead (he would've been a PERFECT fit).

 

Japanese cast: Junichi Kanemaru's Sonic is kinda entertaining, Rouge sounds like a mouse. That's all I have to say about them.

[Blue Blood]

Lisa Ortiz did do an awesome voice for Amy, but the downside to it is that so many of her characters sound exactly the same. It sort of breaks the immersion when a character's voice can be recognised in lots of other mediums.

[Kuzu]

Its mostly because she plays the same character most of the time, bratty little girls. I think the one time she does someone pretty different was Sabrina WAY back when.

[Soniman]

That's a main issue with Griffith and Lisa and Dan Green and such, even if they do have decent voices they don't really have much range, they usual give the same voices to all the in other characters the voice in other shows and such.

[Dizcrybe]

Lisa Ortiz did do an awesome voice for Amy, but the downside to it is that so many of her characters sound exactly the same. It sort of breaks the immersion when a character's voice can be recognised in lots of other mediums.

 

I didn't recognize her in Eternal Sonata as Salsa and March.

[Mr Loopone]

Voice acting in games don't actually bother me since personally most of the time can't tell the difference between a good delivery, inexperience or someone who didn't sound like they took the role seriously enough unless it is obvious since it is mainly playing for the games rather than the story. Despite that some games were last played literally years ago so it might be the case of faulty memory.

 

Adventure Era Cast - Since this was pretty much the first time that Sonic and co got voices in a game (excluding Sonic's I'm Out of Here from Sonic CD), there does seem to be some inexperience in terms of the direction. Sonic Adventure didn't have a good range of emotions (like Sonic going Ah... instead of AHHHHHHHHH) even though the voices were actually decent from Ryan Drummond's Sonic, Dean Bristow's Robotnik, whoever did Tails and Knuckles and the ironic Jon St John as Big. Even Amy sounded okay. Sonic Adventure 2 from what I remember sounded very rushed in terms of the delivery even though the emotions were better. Sonic Heroes is actually a strange one, I rather liked David Humphrey's different posh English sounding take on Shadow but felt that Sonic didn't sound as good as the previous games in terms of the voice (it sounded forced to me) and Amy sounded a bit more annoying. Tails didn't sound too good either however it could be that it was the first role for the voice actor and lots of inexperience. Apart from the problems, the delivery was better on the other characters since the voice actors were getting better experience.

 

4Kids Cast - Due to tone deafness, it is hard to tell the difference between this lot and the Adventure Era since they sound similar except for Dr. Eggman and Shadow even though there is actually a difference. Mike Pollack did a good job as Eggman even though I personally wasn't as keen on Shadow compared to David Humphrey's approach in Sonic Heroes but it was reasonable. Blaze was okay in Sonic Rush and Rush Adventure. Not played Shadow, 06, Secret Rings, Sonic Riders series or Black Knight to have an opinion on their voices in those games even though Vector's Find the Computer Room sounded phoney and strangely funny yet annoying at the same time.

 

Current Cast - Sonic sounds older and first thought that it wouldn't fit since he has always had a teenager sort of sound in his previous roles however it has worked since it has a perception that Sonic is getting older while trying to keep his youth. Amy Palant is quite good as Tails in terms of her performance, Mike Pollack is still good as Eggman and gave him some funny lines. Knuckles was okay. Not too keen on Amy sounding a bit high pitched even though it wasn't as bad on Lost World. Please note that I haven't played Sonic Free Riders, yet to play Mario & Sonic Sochi and the sound bytes from Sonic Colours DS are too short to get an opinion for the other characters. Honestly forgot what they sounded like on Sonic Generations as well...

 

Japanese Cast - To be honest, I haven't listened to them due to well if someone can't understand the language at all it is very hard to get an opinion. The only time that I have heard of Japanese voice acting is SegaSonic the Hedgehog (the 1993 arcade game) that was decent, liked Sonic's Naughty Naughty Nooooo for some reason (it wasn't what he said but sounded like it).

 

Also even though it isn't official compared to the games, I also like the AoSTH/SatAM cast as well as the AoSTH Spanish cast. Really liked Long John Baldry has Dr. Robotnik in terms of his performance even though it was pretty much his voice (like Robotnik's voice was heard on Captain N and sounded the same). I actually rather like the Spanish dub to AoSTH and from the little understanding of the language it was fairly faithful to the original English version. Robotnik sounds more harsh even though all the other characters are higher pitched, all the characters did a good job with their roles. Surprisingly enough I actually like Sonic's voice just as much as the English one since it sounded really dynamic (even though again Sonic's voice can be heard in the 2000 Woody Woodpecker). As for the OVA, apart from Tails having a cold the rest of the cast sounded decent to me especially Robotnik.

[Vertekins]

I really like Roger but I felt that before SLW, he was a good example of a fantastic voice actor whose talent was stifled by a combination of questionable direction and bland writing. I still think his performance in SLW was exemplary. That said, I'm not perfectly down with the tone which sounds too old for a 15 year old boy to me. But he still has IMO the best actual acting ability of any English language VA.

 

As for Ryan, great appropriate tone but it's let down somewhat by some lack of acting ability.

 

And Jason? Started off rocky and took a while to get a grasp of the role but when he did it was a shame that it was a bit too late. I thought he was excellent in games like Unleashed and Black Knight and I found such a sense of...what's the word for it? Familiarity with that voice that it's the voice I 'envision' when I read Sonic speaking in fanfiction.

 

I still firmly believe that Junichi has the edge over the English VA's because...

 

- As mentioned before, the consistency. Been Sonic's VA since '98, only one instance when he wasn't Sonic's VA when Tomokazu Seki took on the role of the Werehog.

- He can act and obviously takes his job seriously and...

- He has a very appropriate tone for the character.

- Not to mention the charming Engrish which is a quirk of Sonic's character that obviously can't translate.

 

Joyous, angry, incredulous, calm, hyper...man this guy can pull all of these emotions off superbly. Just awesome.

[Kuzu]

I guess I should post my thoughts on the whole thing: I can't really say there's a "definitive" voice for the cast, except Eggman who's been the most consistent by far, which is probably why everyone isn't too bothered by him so much. The english side change actors at the drop of a hat, so they never really get time to settle in their role and make them their own, which is generally how characters get "definitive" voices in the first place. You hear a certain voice enough, you'll always associate it with that character. The Joker has had a million voice actors over the media, but can anyone tell me that Mark Hamill isn't the definitive Joker voice? It'd be really hard to convince anyone otherwise. The JPN cast I'm not that much familiar with to give a real opinion on, I didn't really start following them until recently when  I decided to give subbed Sonic X a try, and I hate Sonic X already soooo.....not a good first impression.

 

 

As for each individual cast:

 

The OG's: The best examples of fitting voices, but really lousy direction and scripting. Everyone would seriously  be on point if the voice directors and translators actually knew what the hell they were doing.

 

4Kids: Took real getting used to, particularly Griffith and his extremely weird way of acting, but he definitely nailed it with age. And thanks to Sonic X, he was kind of my definitive Sonic for a few years. I was really sad to see him go. As for the rest of the cast, I really was turned off by how much Tails sounded like a girl. No offense to Amy Palant, but that's not how little boys are supposed to sound, not even in Japanese audio. When Dan Green actually played Knuckles and not Yugi/Yami Yugi, he was fairly decent too. Did Knuckles` wild, yet deep side pretty well...most of the time. Amy was perfect, just how you'd expect a bratty lovestruck girl to sound. Griffith's Shadow...was better when he stopped whispering his lines. Rouge needed to gtfo. Vector sounded like a muppet. Espio was ok, Charmy was less screechy. I really liked Blaze's voice. Silver also needed to gtfo. All in all, some were hits or misses but most of them got better with age, and its pretty sad we saw them go.

 

 

Current Cast: Ugh. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the current cast; in fact some of them are faves of mine. But they are squandering their potential so much, both with the, at times, shitty scripts and the lack of screentime for other characters. You have the likes of Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, and Michelle Ruff and yet you give them roles to characters who barely get any fucking speaking lines. Its aggravating because I've seen what these actors can do, and its really bothersome to see them given the shaft like this. I know Travis can do a damn good Knuckles if he actually a damn role, as well Cindy Robinson as Amy, but they're not going to imrprove if they're never given the chance. ARGH. You piss me off Sega with this shit.

 

May as well talk about the only characters relevant to this portion then; I'll admit to still not being so keen on Sonic having such a deep voice, but I've gotten used to it for the most part. Roger has pretty good acting ability, I don't care how much of a crappy script he has to read, he does it well dammit. So that helped a whole lot. I just wish he had better material to work with...

 

Tails is absolutely perfect though. He sounds like a young boy for a change, instead of a child with no experience doing the voice or a woman blatantly trying to emulate a young boy's(Even tho that's technically what it is, but its less obvious). Tails` best voice a long shot.

 

 

And now to talk about....the messiah.Mike Pollock was the perfect replacement for Deem Bristow, whom himself was pretty good with proper direction(Sa1 my love). Even before that, he had that menacing, yet comical side to Eggman that not many actors could get both of. He could get bombastic and hammy, or really low and quiet and its just so amazing with how he handles it. I don't really think there's another actor that could do the role with as much justice without it being jarring.

 

 

Like I said, I have no real opinion on the Japanese cast(Although I'm pretty fond of Shadow's Jap voice, dat deepness) but I'll probably form one after playing with them for a while.

[Adrian Shephard]

So voice acting...

 

I'll be focusing on Sonic's voice right now as for he's my all time favorite character.

 

I really love Ryan's voice for Sonic. He fits him perfectly and he have got better at voicing Sonic after his first attempt than Roger and Jason. Even if he sounded like he's just reading the lines from the script in SA 1, but he got better and proved that he's a good voice for Sonic.

 

Jason...I'll be honest with you, I loathe Jason's voice for Sonic. His voice was just so irritating and try-hard, I couldn't bear it, especially in ShTH and Sonic 06. Those were just terrible. He got used to it in Secret Rings and afterwards and tried not to sound bad but it didn't work. But I could say that for the rest of the 4kids terrible voice cast, except for Mike Pollock.

 

Roger is decent. He sounded okay-ish at first to me, but he actually got better in Generations and Lost World. He sounds a little too old for Sonic but he's not bad at voicing Sonic actually. Too bad that nobody cares to give him more decent dialouge and less corny jokes and lines.

 

Junichi sounds the best Sonic though. He most of the time gives enough emotions in his voice and fits Sonic perfectly. I really love how he delivers the lines and listening to his voice is just pure awesomeness. And I adore the moments when he says some English word here and there. He's the best voice for Sonic IMO.

[Gabz Girl]

I agree with everything Blue Blood said. My main gripe with the 4Kids cast is that most of them don't have very versatile voices, meaning you'll hear their voices almost everywhere else! The worst of these is Bella Hudson, but I suppose Jason Griffith counts too since he only has three tones: the Sonic one, the growly one and the squawky one. Not much range there hmm? Also, it's a shame that Jason didn't really have a consistent voice for most of the games. It was only when Sonic Unleashed and Black Knight came out that it started to sound really good...and then he was replaced!

Then you look at the current cast, you have so many amazing voice actors and they don't all make characters sound the same. Roger voiced Ezio FFS! Btw I like Roger's voice even though it's a bit too low for Sonic at times. He is a lot more consistent than Jason ever was. The other voices range from being really good (Mike Pollock, Laura Bailey) to not too great (luckily a minority, in this case Cindy Robinson). But then you have voice actors who we have hardly heard because they're not around much. And why the hell does Travis Willingham, fucking ROY mustang make Knux sound sorta like Dan Green? That irks me.

As for the older cast, I think Ryan Drummond and Deem Bristow were the best even though Ryan's acting wasn't the best at times. And the Japanese cast? They sure sound good but...um, that's it. I don't speak Japanese, I don't understand it, so how am I supposed to know how their acting is? =/

So yah, that's what I think of the Sonic voice casting over the years. I really don't want this cast to be replaced again though.

[Kuzu]

Do you really need to understand a certain language to get how the acting actually is? That complaint never made much sense to me. :\

[TearForFear]

Current Cast: Ugh. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the current cast; in fact some of them are faves of mine. But they are squandering their potential so much, both with the, at times, shitty scripts and the lack of screentime for other characters. You have the likes of Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, and Michelle Ruff and yet you give them roles to characters who barely get any speaking lines. Its aggravating because I've seen what these actors can do, and its really bothersome to see them given the shaft like this. I know Travis can do a damn good Knuckles if he actually a damn role, as well Cindy Robinson as Amy, but they're not going to imrprove if they're never given the chance.

 

May as well talk about the only characters relevant to this portion then; I'll admit to still not being so keen on Sonic having such a deep voice, but I've gotten used to it for the most part. Roger has pretty good acting ability, I don't care how much of a crappy script he has to read, he does it well dammit. So that helped a whole lot. I just wish he had better material to work with...

 

Tails is absolutely perfect though. He sounds like a young boy for a change, instead of a child with no experience doing the voice or a woman blatantly trying to emulate a young boy's(Even tho that's technically what it is, but its less obvious). Tails` best voice a long shot.

 

And now to talk about....the messiah.Mike Pollock was the perfect replacement for Deem Bristow, whom himself was pretty good with proper direction(Sa1 my love). Even before that, he had that menacing, yet comical side to Eggman that not many actors could get both of. He could get bombastic and hammy, or really low and quiet and its just so amazing with how he handles it. I don't really think there's another actor that could do the role with as much justice without it being jarring.

 

Pretty much my thoughts about the current voices.

I have to add something to say about Travis. Which, while he's still "copying" Dan Green for his villanic roles (Zavok and Mephiles sound almost exactly the same), as Knuckles he found his own identity (okay he has 3 lines in the entire Lost World but hey, he still did good)

 

 

About 4kids cast:

I liked all of them, except Rouge (she sounded too old for her age) and maybe Tails (too nice, quite and polite one game, too over-excited and over-amazed the next game)

Jason Griffith was great and versatile (his Sonic and his Shadow really sounded like two dinstinct guys; can't say the same for Jet though) as well as Dan Green (when I was told he voiced Prof. Pickle I couldn't believe that!) As I said I like Travis Willingham, but I think it's a shame that SEGA didn't keep Green along with Pollock

 

 

About the original cast:

I'm indifferent. They were highly penalized by the direction: in SA1 the music was too loud at times and I could not hear them, in SA2 same problem and their lines overlapped each other most of the times, and in Sonic Heroes the script was cheesy to say the least.

Not to mention the bad habit of giving Tails three voice actors one younger than the previous, to the point that Heroes!Tails sounded and looked like he mentally regressed

[Blue Blood]

Do you really need to understand a certain language to get how the acting actually is? That complaint never made much sense to me. :\

 

To understand the acting? Yes and no, depending on the circumstance. Different languages use different tones and inflections. You can generally comes to grips with understanding the acting with only a little time and effort though. The main issue are the actual voices themselves. I remember once when my friend's German cousin was visiting, she sat down to watch the Simpsons with us. She couldn't come to grips with the many of the voices, not because it wasn't what she was used to but because they didn't sound right for those types of characters.

 

I find myself in the same situation with regards to Sonic in Japanese. Tails sounds like a girl. Not a young boy with a not-uncommon high voice, just a girl plain and simple. Or let's take for example a brand new character with which I've no prior familiarity - Zeena. Her American voice is very much what I would expect of character like her. However, hearing her Japanese voice gave me no such impression. To my ear, it could have been just about any random female character. I'm not accustomed to hearing voices in different languages and associating them with certain qualities. It's not something that I find comes easily, either.

 

Also I just like to know what the heck I'm listening to. Bad dub > quality sub

[Kuzu]

To understand the acting? Yes and no, depending on the circumstance. Different languages use different tones and inflections. You can generally comes to grips with understanding the acting with only a little time and effort though. The main issue are the actual voices themselves. I remember once when my friend's German cousin was visiting, she sat down to watch the Simpsons with us. She couldn't come to grips with the many of the voices, not because it wasn't what she was used to but because they didn't sound right for those types of characters.

 

I find myself in the same situation with regards to Sonic in Japanese. Tails sounds like a girl. Not a young boy with a not-uncommon high voice, just a girl plain and simple. Or let's take for example a brand new character with which I've no prior familiarity - Zeena. Her American voice is very much what I would expect of character like her. However, hearing her Japanese voice gave me no such impression. To my ear, it could have been just about any random female character. I'm not accustomed to hearing voices in different languages and associating them with certain qualities. It's not something that I find comes easily, either.

 

Also I just like to know what the heck I'm listening to. Bad dub > quality sub

 

Ok, I had my food. Time for a response.

 

 

 

Alright, I get that because I use the same standards when judging an actor myself, but I never got the feeling that non of the Japanese VA's ever fit the character, Rumi Ochiai(Rouge) does a fantastic job for the character, making her sound mature yet cunning, like Rouge actually is supposed to be. It took them over 10 years to actually achieve that in English.

 

I'm not going to start a dub. vs. sub war, but I think the Japanese can fit the characters just as well as in english, even if the former isn't some of our native languages.

 

a bad dub still a bad dub tho, at least with subtitles you may or may not get a good dub.

[Blue Blood]

I never got the feeling that non of the Japanese VA's ever fit the character, Rumi Ochiai(Rouge) does a fantastic job for the character, making her sound mature yet cunning, like Rouge actually is supposed to be.

a bad dub still a bad dub tho, at least with subtitles you may or may not get a good dub.

And that's the thing. When I hear a voice in another language, especially one as different to English as Japanese, I'm unable to perceive those characteristics. I just hear "female voice".

Doesn't matter. The most important part of it to me is that I can understand what's being said. If there's no dub available or if the dub is legitimately awful (Sonic X's doesn't even begin to qualify as legitimately awful), only then will I go for the sub. Matter of preference.

[Kuzu]

To each their own I guess, I never really had a problem identifying characteristics in any voice...because its a voice, which is easier to understand than language.

 

 

that's what subtitles are for :V.