Imagine Chris Redfield's voice gravelling - "Feel the wind through your hair!"
As expected, ArchangelUK announced on the Sonic Blognik today that “just about everybody on the ‘active’ cast” of the Sonic franchise has been recast with new voice actors. Since so few of Sonic’s buddies are going to be present in the upcoming games, we won’t be able to meet them all right away, but the Blognik at least introduces us to the three voices we’ll hear sarcastically quipping, nasally whining, or angrily growling in Sonic’s next voiced adventure, Colors. Brace yourselves people, this is interesting:
SONIC – Roger Craig Smith
Roger is donning the red sneakers as your new voice actor for Sonic.
Sonic is not the first big name character for Roger’s to voice either; he is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Chris Redfield in Resident Evil 5, he voiced Ezio Auditore da Firenze in Assassin’s Creed 2 and tortured protagonist Siegfried Schtauffen in Soulcalibur IV. Anime and manga fans will also recognise Roger’s vocal talents from the Naruto series where he voiced the character Deidara and from Bleach where he leant his voice to both Shinji Hirako and Noba/Nova.
He’s no stranger to SEGA fans either- though you might not know it.
In the last couple of years he’s been heard in Valkyria Chronicles where he voiced Ted Ustinov, Vyse Inglebard, Johann Oswald Wisen and other additional voices. In MADWORLD where he specifically voiced the Greys,the younger son of “The Masters” and more. In Resonance Of Fate he was the voice of the Barman and going back a bit further Roger also voiced several of the passengers in Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars for the PSP.
TAILS – Kate Higgins
I think it’d be fair to say that in Kate Higgins, we’ve got a potentially great vocalisation for Tails. I was VERY pleased she was chosen. The name may not be familiar but once more you have heard her in SEGA games – again Valkyria Chronicles (Cordelia gi Randgriz, Martha Lipponen, Freesia York) and MADWORLD (Naomi / RinRin).
Perhaps her biggest voice acting role though is as the English voice of the character Sakura Haruno in Naruto. But voice acting isn’t the only significant string to her bow.
[…]
DR. EGGMAN – Mike Pollock
I’m pleased to say the awesome Mike Pollock will be staying on as Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik, Mike has been voicing Sonic’s arch-nemesis since 2005 and the untimely passing of the late Deem Bristow. Mike has in the five years contributed to an impressive array of Sonic titles as well as voicing Dr. Eggman through Sonic X – in fact he could well be the most prolific voice actor ever to be attributed to the series.
He’s also worked on TMNT, Bleach, Yu-Gi-Oh! and in a fact I didn’t know until recently is the Narrator on the Pokémon cartoon series. Now every time you see it you’ll think of Dr. Eggman delivering the lines!
Woah woah woah woah woah woah woah… The new Sonic is Chris Redfield? Really? I have a hard time imagining that. It is cool to see that we’ve got some folks coming from past Sega games (like Madworld or Valkyria Chronicles). What do you guys think? Happy to see Robotnik retaining his place? Frankly, my head is spinning.
Sonic is being voiced by… Eddy Gordo from Tekken and Noba from Bleach. What the hell. Those characters have some fucking deep voices, and I just have a hard time imagining Sonic with that kind of voice.
I’m cool with Higgins as Tails though (love her work as Karin from Bleach), and if they can’t get the guy who played Robotnik in the OVA, Pollack is a good second choice.
Now, if they can get David Hayter as Shadow, to complete the joke…
That is actually interesting. I wonder what their first games will be?
That said, I’m glad the Sonic X voice actors are gone. Hopefully the scripts will improve with the new actors! I can’t wait to hear them. Also, who is Knuckles now?