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- Nov 28, 2005
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When KH1 first came out, it was remarkable for (amongst many other highlights) being 1 of Square's 1st voice-acted & the unprecedented level of acting talent involved. Many classic Disney characters had their VAs from their original films come back, even going to the lengths of bringing back Kathryn Beaumont as the voice of Alice & Wendy for the 1st time in 50 years!
& then there was the rather surprising amount of celebrity voices in the game, virtually unheard of in 2002. We had Haley Joel Osment kid as our hero, David Gallagher as Riku, David Boreanaz as Leon, Mandy Moore as Aerith, Billy Zane as the final boss, & even Sephiroth was voiced by Lance Bass of all people! & then of course there's the twofers: the celeb voices of Disney that returned for KH like James Woods or Gilbert Gottfried. Not every Disney character had their authentic voice mind you but the number of them that were was still impressive.
As the series went on there has been some recastings (mostly in the FF crew) but Disney/Square continued pushing for more & more star power. Pat Morita, Ming-Na Wen, Bruce Boxleitner, & Jason Alexander all reprised their respective Disney film roles. Even Jonathan Taylor Thomas & James Earl Jones got snuck in via archived audio. & so too did some of the new original characters with Jesse McCartney, Mark Hamil, Christopher Lee, Leonard Nimoy joining the ever growing cast.
But in KH3? Well it looks a bit stagnate if not outright receding. True that Sora/Riku/Aqua & one would presume Ventus/Roxas are still the same actors but even Kairi's been recasted & there hasn't been anything in the way of a new big name star being attached to the game. As for the worlds of Disney:
Tangled-Unconfirmed if Mandy Moore's returning
Frozen-Unconfirmed? Or did I miss the confirmation?
Toy Story-No Tom Hanks, no Tim Allen, maybe R. Lee Ermey, at least there's John Ratzenberger
Monsters Inc.-No John Goodman or Billy Crystal, likely no Steve Buscemi even if Randall shows up
Pirates-No ANYONE.......AGAIN
Hercules-Well there's James Woods at least, I think. We've only heard Hades' japanese voice so far right?
In no way am I saying the new voices wouldn't do a fine job mind you. & frankly if there are no new additional original characters I'd be thrilled, there's too damn many of those as is. But I do find the current casting to be...."out of sync" with the rest of the game. This is easily the biggest, most expensive KH to date & Disney has been more involved in it's promotion than they ever have before. The graphics are almost Pixar-level, the worlds are massive, Even the music department is bigger & more bombastic than before. & yet, the voices have not yet risen above the feeling of "more of the same". It's the one area of the game that seems underdeveloped compared to everything else.
& then there was the rather surprising amount of celebrity voices in the game, virtually unheard of in 2002. We had Haley Joel Osment kid as our hero, David Gallagher as Riku, David Boreanaz as Leon, Mandy Moore as Aerith, Billy Zane as the final boss, & even Sephiroth was voiced by Lance Bass of all people! & then of course there's the twofers: the celeb voices of Disney that returned for KH like James Woods or Gilbert Gottfried. Not every Disney character had their authentic voice mind you but the number of them that were was still impressive.
As the series went on there has been some recastings (mostly in the FF crew) but Disney/Square continued pushing for more & more star power. Pat Morita, Ming-Na Wen, Bruce Boxleitner, & Jason Alexander all reprised their respective Disney film roles. Even Jonathan Taylor Thomas & James Earl Jones got snuck in via archived audio. & so too did some of the new original characters with Jesse McCartney, Mark Hamil, Christopher Lee, Leonard Nimoy joining the ever growing cast.
But in KH3? Well it looks a bit stagnate if not outright receding. True that Sora/Riku/Aqua & one would presume Ventus/Roxas are still the same actors but even Kairi's been recasted & there hasn't been anything in the way of a new big name star being attached to the game. As for the worlds of Disney:
Tangled-Unconfirmed if Mandy Moore's returning
Frozen-Unconfirmed? Or did I miss the confirmation?
Toy Story-No Tom Hanks, no Tim Allen, maybe R. Lee Ermey, at least there's John Ratzenberger
Monsters Inc.-No John Goodman or Billy Crystal, likely no Steve Buscemi even if Randall shows up
Pirates-No ANYONE.......AGAIN
Hercules-Well there's James Woods at least, I think. We've only heard Hades' japanese voice so far right?
In no way am I saying the new voices wouldn't do a fine job mind you. & frankly if there are no new additional original characters I'd be thrilled, there's too damn many of those as is. But I do find the current casting to be...."out of sync" with the rest of the game. This is easily the biggest, most expensive KH to date & Disney has been more involved in it's promotion than they ever have before. The graphics are almost Pixar-level, the worlds are massive, Even the music department is bigger & more bombastic than before. & yet, the voices have not yet risen above the feeling of "more of the same". It's the one area of the game that seems underdeveloped compared to everything else.