Voice Acting in Sonic.

[Blue Blood]

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.

Yeah, nothing more than a matter of what you feel comfortable hearing. To me, a foreign language makes something sound a bit alien. To others there's no such issue.

And miss what's happening on screen? Books are for reading, shows are for watching. (My point is serious, this particular argument is not entirely serious)

[Chaos Incarnate]

Honestly, I don't see what the big deal in not caring about a voice cast that speaks in a language you don't understand. It's kind of hard to judge delivery and whether or not they fit when speaking in a completely different language. I hope I'm not offending anyone, but I couldn't honestly give two shits about the Sonic Japanese voice cast. I have no idea what the hell they're saying, so I couldn't really give a concrete opinion on them. However, I do think it's nice the same overall Japanese voice cast has been kept since 1998, it allows for nice consistency. It's also cool they got a different voice actor for the Werehog, it would have been interesting if they did the same in the English version of Unleashed since Griffith seemed to have trouble pulling it off. 

 

But yeah, I could honestly care less about the Japanese voice cast, and I wouldn't be offended if Japanese or any other language Sonic fans felt that way about the English VC.

[Chaos Incarnate]

I'd just like to give a short reply because I think I bitch enough about Roger 24/7. 

 

I personally think Roger just isn't Sonic. Roger is fine as a voice actor, but Sonic is not for him. Roger is best as bigger and broader characters. His Sonic voice is just a mess. It sounds very forced, too deep, and almost every line ends with a breath which is not a very good sign. It doesn't help he's aided by really bad writing.

I'll have to respectfully disagree and say Roger Craig Smith is my favorite voice actor for Sonic the Hedgehog to date.

 

Jason was my favorite voice of Sonic for the longest time, as he was the actor I grew up with, but his voice felt incredibly inconsistent and lacked the acting chops until Secret Rings. When he started out in Sonic X, he sounded like he was trying his hardest to impersonate Ryan Drummond, albeit sounding incredibly forced and more geeky than anything. By the time of Black Knight, he really grew into the character's shoes while making the role his own: he got the age and heroic aspect of the character down, while having a range of passionate emotions that really fleshed out the character due to improving material. It's just a shame it took all the way up until his exit to get the delivery down.

 

When Roger was announced for the character and I heard him for the first time, I basically had the same reaction as you: it was just too deep and something about the voice made his Sonic sound like a bit of a surfer douche to me. However, after a few years I've really warmed up to his performances. He's easily got the best voice direction of the three game voices, and he's like the perfect mix of cocky, rebellious, and heroic teenager. I think he sounds a little too old to be playing a 15 year old, but I don't know, he just seems the most consistent and he sounds like he's having a blast voicing the role. I don't think he's 100 percent perfect (christ his death screams are forced), and there's tons of actors that I'm sure would do even better in the role, but Roger's Sonic voice is real easy on the ears and it's hard for me to cringe listening to it.

 

Oh, and you're BalenaProductions, correct? If you're the guy that does the voice for Sonic in your videos, major props to you, I really enjoy your unique take on the character, it's definitely one of the better Sonic fan-voices and I really enjoy hearing you do the voice.  

[SlickEvan]

(Cracks knuckles) Okay, I might offend a lot. But when it comes to opinions I think Ryan Drummond was the best, the Transit from Ryan to Jason was okay because when I was a kid I didn't really know what to think, but now... Well let me start by saying, Roger started off great! Awesome, really. In Free Riders, He sounded like well, Deeper voice Sonic. Then every game afterward he got worse, and worse. In my opinion. Tails, well he's good. Now he sounds like the average boy, so not much I can say, but good voice talent.. meh. Knuckles. Every voice he's had was great In my opinion, some delivered well while others didn't but a majority of the time, the voice talent was good, the voice direction ranged from good-to-decently bad. All other cast, well. Not to much to give opinions on. They're either very rarely shown or when the where/are shown they wasn't much to judged all around. Example, I could give an opinion on Blaze, but her voice has changed his her first appearances and I don't have much to compare it to with the new titles.

 

Overall Casts:

 

Adventure Era -

Well, I think they're the best, give or take a few. But overall they didn't have much time to develop nor good writing to back up their voice talent. Lines were drowned out due to in-game problems and overall by the time they were getting to their prime they were canned. They developed the faster than the 4kids voices, mostly and really had captured the "Sonic" universe characters, in my opinion.

 

4Kids -

They were not to well at the beginning, but near the end were awesome and really close to pulling me to feel that same "Sonic" that AdvEra did. The problem here was they took too long (not all of them mind you. Some were great even from the beginning.) By the time they were well rounded, they were also canned. Not much to say about these guys as I was only fond of them as a kid. That's in the period when my TV didn't have much variety. So Sonic X and my Dreamcast and Gamecube were the only source of video stuff. So yeah. I do like some of their performance though.

[ShadowSJG]

Of the three voices, who do you think does it best: David Humphrey, Jason Griffith or Kirk thornton? Personally as much as I dislike the 4kids voices in general, I have to say Griffith does a good job as Shadow.

[Hyp3hat]

Kirk Thornton's the guy who voices Shadow in Rise Of Lyric, isn't he? Oh my lord, that is a terrible performance (not that he gets Shakespeare to work with, but). Is he better in the cartoon?

IDK, when I think of Shadow, Griffith is the voice I hear. As much as I enjoy Shadow sounding like an aristocratic villain from a BBC Dickens adaptation in Adventure 2, it's not quite right for the character.

[Drawloverlala]

does spanish (latin america) voice  actors count on this ? XD

i haven't reviewed each of Sonic's spanish (latin america) voices.. but i've heard the one for Sonic X and Sonic boom's

you know,,, now i know Sonic X was dubbed in Argentina and Chile..with two voice actors.. i though it was just one.. the chilean one, with Paulo Aurensi.. he made the voice of Prince Zuko , Shadow the hedgehog  (called as Sombra on the series XS ) and Sportacus from lazy town (how crazy. XD)

 

i really liked his job.. too bad some of the other voice actors on that Series sometimes were a bit flat.. :/  but ehh... XD

for Sonic Boom its a venezolan dubber..^_^ .. and i think it does a nice job! too bad i still can't find any latin spanish episode on youtube.. i only find fandubs...

 

-- now.. i'd wish they can dub the games too.. only since Sonic Lost world it has Spanish (from spain) dub.. wich its nice! but  dunno.. even games like Uncharted have latin spanish voice actors.. its so cool..

 

 

[Lord-Dreamerz]

To put it short. As soon as I turn a Sonic game on nowadays I change it straight to the Japanese cast if possible.

Now to go into some detail. I do LOVE Dr.Eggman’s English voice I gotta admit, and the actor is a great guy… honestly I’m not sure there is any Robotnik voices I disliked. Tails current English voice is nice too… The English AOSTH & SATAM voices I’ll always be fond of. But after that I pretty much stop liking most of the English voices. Amy’s current voice is still bad even in Sonic-Boom to me and made me start twitching in pain with how terrible it was in Lost-World. Most of the whole Japanese cast sounds nice to me, and rarely ever has rotten voices like the English voice Chip did on Unleashed.

Spoiler

As a note. I never saw a problem with Tails sounding semi like a girl, He’s 8 and not very manly. And actually it bothers me greatly how often English  cartoons or dubs give children or cute characters deep adult voices…*CoughGravityFallsCough… Might be why I’m not fond of Sonic’s current English voice I think, however I would not call it bad, it‘s fine… it just feels unfitting to me… like it’s bit to deep or something, it makes me feel like Sonic is 30 something years old instead of 15 like he’s suppose to be. Just my personal nitpick.

 

[CottonCandy]

I'm not crazy about voice actors so much, so I don't have a strong opinion about the subject. However I will say that Ryan and Roger are good actors for sonic. I think they can voice the character pretty well. Griffith is probably my least favorite. His voice for sonic always sounded strange to me.  I don't know how to describe it. -_-'  Like his delivery of lines always sounds like it belongs in a cartoon for toddlers.  I dunno, it's weird. I do have to admit he did improve in the last two games he voiced in but it's still off for me. 

[Green Eyes]

Direction is a pretty big issue, and I'm fairly sure voice direction in the Sonic series hasn't really been all that great.

Both Ryan and Jason probably weren't all that good to begin with, but it didn't seem like the direction helped.

There isn't much to compare with. Jason features In a fair amount of VAing but seems to only be cast as very high-pitched characters,which he can't do, and I'm pretty sure it's an unusual talent.

Ryan was kinda flat in the SA games, then Sonic Heroes comes around and he's completely hamtastic, that doesn't just strike me as just bad acting, if he can do both there must be an in-between right? I mean when he had a calmer line he sounded pretty good, no real telling what emotive lines might have sounded like once he'd gotten that down. I'd definately say he sounds 15

I'm more familiar with Sonic because I'm ridiculously biased.

Jason Griffith is asked to effect a very high-pitched voice for Sonic... why? Was it really necessary considering the amount of voice-cracking that ensued?

Jason does put an "accent for emphasis" on every word when he voice-acts, which is kind of his fault, it's not a manner of his natural speech, it's clearly not intentional, or a just a problem with pitch because Shadow does it, pitch issues just makes it much worse. I do think he made a good Sonic in the end of things. He was decent in SatsR,really good in Unleashed and really good in Black Knight. Would say he sounds 15. Sonic's calmer tones in Black Knight are really pleasant to listen to.

Roger, In the games he sounds like he's going too low and can't get proper range as a result, so that direction for his voice is double-silly, Roger is a grownass man and his voice is not supposed to go that low. Rectified in the Sonic boom series, but still sounds too old, 18-20.

Junichi

No idea how I'd adress direction but he's here for good measure

Is a good voice for Sonic but I actually have mixed feelings about him too, he's the best at actual acting, he has a brilliant range of pitch and emotion, the vocalisations are really believable too, he has an energetic sound and makes Sonic out to be quite young but I would say he sounds more 17/18 ish.  Junichi's voice is quite odd though, in a way that I find slightly distracting. It's very pleasant to listen to, but strikes me as very quirky,dorky and a tad camp rather than cool.  I don't really know what I'd suggest to curb it however, even I don't know how I'd react if he sounded different.

 

 

[Writer's Blah]

Oh goody, a voice acting thread!

Well, let's see. I've always had really strong opinions when it comes to voice acting in Sonic games (which goes to show you how much of a dork I am) but basically, unless I mention otherwise, I probably preferred the OG voice actors from the late 90s/early 2000s. Ryan Drummond is thus far, the only voice that really captures what I perceive Sonic as sounding and behaving like. It's a huge shame that he never really got a chance to experiment more and practice a larger range of emotions, because I feel like given the proper direction and script, he could be the definitive Sonic. Aside from Drummond though, I do really enjoy Kanemaru's performance, as he does voice Sonic at a similar range as Drummond, although I think as a whole, Kanemaru is a better actor. He sounds like a teenager without sounding too high-pitched or annoying; he's a really smooth, dramatic Sonic that I think really suits his character. I'll admit though, I have never cared for Jason or Roger at all. Both of them were way too distracting performance-wise to even consider them seriously. Even as a kid, when I first picked up Sonic Riders, the first game that traded the OG actors for the 4Kids cast, I knew something didn't seem right with Sonic's voice. And Smith, to me, just straight up sounds like a thirty year old man trying to sound like a cool teenager. I don't really get what people mean when they say he's the best actor either; Drummond may not have been a great actor, but at least expressed a wider emotional range than Smith, who seems constantly set to "funny guy" or "tantrummy funny guy who's trying to sound depressed."

Tails I'm a little more split on. On one hand, I did like the fact that they actually hired young boys to voice him during the SA days, but this came at the cost of one, puberty being a thing that happens, and two, not really having the best idea on how to act. At all. It's not like it would be impossible though; both Disney and Pixar have worked with the same age range of actors in the past, and as a whole they end up acting way better. I guess it's unfair of me to compare Tails from SA1/2 to Nemo from Finding Nemo, but that's really all I have to say about that. In terms of post-child actors though, both Colleen O'Shaughnessey and Kate Higgins have done excellent jobs voicing the character with voices that sound child-like and masculine enough. If I didn't mention an actor here, it's probably because I found their voice to either be too effeminate or annoying (though I guess I should say here that the Tails from the DiC-produced Sonic shows were pretty good too.)

Knuckles, then. I'll make this one easy too. Scott Dreier is my undisputed favorite. He had a deep enough voice to show his no-nonsense, tough guy character, while still being emotive enough that his trope wasn't musclehead, but lone guardian. Of other English actors, I should give special mention to Bill Wise from the OVA for also capturing a good Knuckles, and Michael McGaharn, though not a very good actor, still had a suitable Knuckles voice. His Japanese actors are all excellent as well. I really don't dig Dan Green or Travis Willingham though; it might be more part of their direction than anything, but they do sound like stereotypical tough guys with muscles more than anything else.

Interestingly enough, I've never really had an issue with any of the Amy voice actresses. Even Cindy Robinson, who sounded like a poor Minny Mouse impression for a while, considerably stepped her game up when Sonic Boom rolled around (that's the only compliment you'll ever see me give Sonic Boom.) Douillard, her original actress, might be the worst overall actress of the lot, but even that's more indicative of the direction she got than her actual talent imo.

Shadow's another one I've never had too many issues with, though preference wise, I do really like David Humphery's performance the most, as he was the most emotive and best acted in my opinion. Kirk Thornton, I don't know, there's something about it that just seems kind of off to me, like he's a little bit too old-sounding, or he's pulling just a little bit too much inspiration from Vegeta.

I tend to not really take issue with any of the other characters really, maybe there'll be one or two voices I don't really care for (Rouge's 4Kids voice for example) but I tend to be pretty content with everyone else.

[Hyp3hat]

I think direction is super important - the direction for SA1 seems mostly non-existent, and really suffers from everyone saying one subtitle card at a time, even if it's in the middle of a sentence. It also appears that the actors aren't quite sure what's going on in some scenes and the iffy translation - "all's well that ends well!" - which all adds up to a weird mess.

That said, and I have no idea whether this is intentional or something Bristow did, the fact that Robotnik sounds a lot more evil in Tails' story than anywhere else is a really nice touch. But that's pretty much the only smart direction in that game.

[Beautiful Duwang-Chewchang]

the voice acting was never a touchy thing for me until they used the new cast, primary because their from the naruto/bleach english dub pedigree. a group of voice actors that get casted in nearly everything these days with a sense of  that it feels like they have a monopoly in voice acting, feeling like their actually forcing studios to cast them while other voice actors outside their naruto/bleach pedigree get ignored and receive less publicly in the voice acting world . i never expected them to make it into a sonic game when sonic team and sega to a lesser extent. as a whole made use of less popular/unknown voice actors that probably wouldn't be heard in garden variety anime/videogame dubs

i actually believe ryan not coming back had more to do with greedy voice actors wanting more publicly than they already have. rather than union problems. because isn't ryan associated with webtone? that other voiceacting studio that was used in sonic and the black knight. along with the 4kids cast. im still curious to this day about the situation where sega used two different voiceacting studios for one game simply to record different actors. 

the whole thing sounds like possible-whistleblowing and coverup from people outside sega if you ask me. and iam not just talking about the new cast ether.

[Kuzu]

1 minute ago, Beautiful Duwang-Chewchang said:

the voice acting was never a touchy thing for me until they used the new cast, primary because their from the naruto/bleach english dub pedigree. a group of voice actors that get casted in nearly everything these days with a sense of  that it feels like they have a monopoly in voice acting, feeling like their actually forcing studios to cast them while other voice actors outside their naruto/bleach pedigree get ignored and receive less publicly in the voice acting world . i never expected them to make it into a sonic game when sonic team and sega to a lesser extent. as a whole made use of less popular/unknown voice actors that probably wouldn't be heard in garden variety anime/videogame dubs

i actually believe ryan not coming back had more to do with greedy voice actors wanting more publicly than they already have. rather than union problems. because isn't ryan associated with webtone? that other voiceacting studio that was used in sonic and the black knight. along with the 4kids cast. im still curious to this day about the situation where sega used two different voiceacting studios for one game simply to record different actors. 

the whole thing sounds like possible-whistleblowing and coverup from people outside sega if you ask me. and iam not just talking about the new cast ether.

So because the new voice actors are from popular Anime franchises, they're some conspiracy going on to prevent other voice actors from getting roles. And the reason Ryan Drummond isn't coming back is because the voice actors somehow influenced the company to get into the roles.

 

well I can say say that I am shocked and appalled by this news.

[AIBOUU]

As for Sonic I think the best voice fot him would be Ryan *gets shoot* I know that in SA2 he was just not okay, but now ? He'd be great. He shows a lot improvement, also I seemed to like his voice at the very begining. Yet, if i had to choose between Griffith and Roger I'd definitely choose Griffith. I mean.. come on ! Roger is terrible for me... he tries to sound so cool,too bad he just doesn't.

 

My favourite Shadow is obviously Griffith. I think i don't have to explain why i hate Kirk Thorton... As for David... i guess i liked him during SA2, although he has strange intonation he kind of fit Shadow as a vilian. Yet isnt his voice one of the main reasons Shadow was mistaken for an emo during his first 10 years of existence ? Also I think he wouldn't fit Shadow, since he isnt (shadow) a bad guy anymore. 

 

My favourite Amy is the one in Sonic X. I just dont like Cindy Robinson.

 

Boom! Tails is great, i like his voice actor wayy more than ones is SA 

 

I dont have anything against Dan Green as Knuckles, although i think i liked his SA2 voice actor more.

 

As for Omega he was just terrible in 06, i understand that the actor from heroes got sick or something and they needed a replacement but srsly ?! 

 

I personaly love Mike Pollock, he is just awesome ! He never lets me down with incredible voice acting. Some may say that he doesnt sound like a vilan anymore but..

 

Im not quite into japanesse staff cuz when i listen to voices in foreign languages they just sound as female or male voices for me.

[AngelSlayerN64]

Here are my choices:

Sonic (Roger Craig Smith)

Tails (Kate Higgins)

Knuckles (Travis Willingham)

Amy (Jennifer Douillard)

Cream (Michelle Ruff)

Big (Jon St. John)

Shadow (David Humphrey)

Rouge (Karen Strassman)

Omega (Vic Mignogna)

Espio (Troy Baker)

Charmy (Colleen O' Shaughnessey)

Vector (Keith Silverstein)

Jet (Jason Griffith)

Wave (Kate Higgins)

Storm (Travis Willingham)

Silver (Quinton Flynn)

Blaze (Laura Bailey)

Dr. Eggman/Eggman Nega (Mike Pollock always)

Metal Sonic (Ryan Drummond)

Omochao (Laura Bailey)

[SBR2]

I feel like Ryan and pretty much all the SA-Heroes VA's (Bar Deem Bristo who was awesome) get way too much praise. 100% of the time they're clearly just reading their lines and don't care if they sound like people. The performances in the Dreamcast Era games were just hard to listen too.

Alternatively I've always felt the 4Kids Cast got way too much crap (Bar Kathleen Delaney because wow that is the worst attempt at sounding sexy ever. Of all time). More often than not I feel like they gave way more solid performances and actually made the Characters sound like characters and not just line reading robots. There's way more personality on display with the characters.

The current cast are my favorites though and screw the haters Roger Craig Smith is exactly Sonic. He get's the laid back snarky Mascot with an attitude down perfectly. There's not really I can say I feel don't fit their characters and I think Boom has really helped them get into their characters way more. While Kirk Thornton's Shadow was kinda Vampirey in Free Riders I think he finally hit his stride with Boom. I do think he maybe should have done his Siax voice for Shadow but I think he's getting the hang of Shadow. Also Karen Strassman is to Rouge what Mike Pollock is to Dr. Eggman so that's also awesome.

[Big Panda]

Kate Haggins Tails' voice is pretty good...but at the same time I can't stand it, and it's primarily because of his direction in recent games, especially lost world.

I now can't think of Kate Higgins' Tails without thinking of the obnoxious little shit that grinded my gears during that games cutscenes.

[ShadowSJG]

How do you think Roger Craig Smith would sound if he voiced Scourge? I think he would sound like Deidara from Naruto.

[ChikoLad]

Not going to go super in-depth, but...

Ryan Drummond didn't get to do enough, he never really hit his stride, I feel. There was that one video where a fan interviewed him as Sonic, though. I think he sounded great there, and he clearly has a passion for the character. I wouldn't mind seeing him come back at all.

Jason Griffith is probably my favourite because he really nailed it around Unleashed. I've been playing Unleashed again lately as I had to do so for an article I was asked to write, and I'm really loving how he sounds. It's like he never left, he sort of is Sonic to me. I wouldn't mind him coming back at all. And he's still got it too!

Roger Craig Smith is great in the Sonic Boom TV show and in certain parts of Colours, but can be a bit meh, otherwise. I dunno, sometimes he's great, sometimes he's just OK. The Twitter takeover recently was great, though.

I'm not bothered to go into other characters but that's my thoughts on Sonic, since he's my favourite character.