Lucina

@RetroPokeFan I honestly have a headcanon that they play two different variants now. Laura is the one who grew in hell while Alexis is the one that got to live a happy life with her family.

@TheAdapter Denied. Laura was easily 1000 times better. Alexis...well I have nothing against her (her voice is the reason I love Clair so much), but her voice isn't heavy enough and she keeps on switching between doing an impression and doing her one thing, which makes it a mess and her performances somehow mange to get worse and worse each time she stands in. Bottom line, she's a good temporary stand in, but if Laura is to be replaced, I hope that they try and find someone who fits the character a little better and doesn't try to just do an impression and focuses on doing there own thing (and actually has a voice that fits, which she lacks). My top three choices for a permanent replacement would be Christina Vee, Brina Palencina or Kira Buckland.

@Soul-dragon I'm denied from my own opinion?

@TheAdapter I never said that. Well, I guess I did. All i did was say that you were wrong.

@ErronDio "Kind of wish Cristina Vee doesn't get as popular as she is now."

E-excuse me?

https://ci.memecdn.com/4451057.jpg

@huzaifa_ahmed

He's saying he doesn't want Cristina Vee to start getting recast in smaller/dubbed roles.

@NCZ I think she's more likely to replace the actresses that can't return to their older dub works thanks to how popular they've gotten.

@Shaun Ince Yeah I could see that. If anything Mercer is going to be next in line to lose roles.

@Soul-dragon And to an extent losing Mercer is the equivalent of a relief school filling up. Just hopefully we get another Baker-Mercer type VA in the near future.

@Unknownsage13 Well there is Ray Chase and Ben Lepley to consider. Both of them can sound a bit like both Baker and Mercer at times... but it would be kind of a waste if they both just became an understudies.

@Soul-dragon Hypothetically, if Matthew Mercer ends up in something like Uncharted or a really big AAA game with performance capture, where it ends up taking almost all of his time, then I could see him losing his former voice roles. Imagine if that happened. We would have a voice compare for Chrom.

@Shaun Ince I wish I could say that I couldn't see that happen in the future. But I can see it quite clearly TBH. He's gotten pretty famous over the years and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets offers like that soon.

@HylianBelmont I'm not liking her performance based on what I heard in the trailer. Yet again she sounded extremely cheerful and cutesy, which fitted Clair and Palla, but it just doesn't work for Lucina, considering her tragic background and past. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and wait for the game to be released before I give my full review, but I really hope that she takes the characters past into consideration and tries to use a deeper voice like she did for 'Marth' because she sounded EXACTLY like Laura Bailey.

@Soul-dragon I suppose, although it's still a tad too soon to judge IMO.

I do think she'll probably also use the "Masked Marth" voice in Warriors as well, though.

@HylianBelmont Just saw the trailer of Lucina's gameplay in FE Warriors , and Alexis has done an AMAZING work. Her voice fits nicely , it has that elegant yet tough touch when she says her lines and her battle cries are very heroic. Honestly , i get Laura captured Lucina with her very particular voice but Alexis is doing great as well , not to mention being completely honest her tone is not THAT far from Laura's , in fact she pulls out a very similar voice so it really doesn't feel like it's a drastic change , so she deserves props for that as well. I honestly don't get all the complains considering she is doing just fine as Lucina. Believe me there has been other characters in the same series with way worse Fate (get it? lol) than Lucina when it comes to voice actor changes.

@Swiftie Muggle Definitely, she sounds very heroic and seems to understand the character quite Well!

Ah, yes, the "Fates" were indeed cruel to certain other VA replacements in the series. I mean, I'm sure a certain retainer of Xander is most certainly inclined to agree with that as well. The poor girl...

@HylianBelmont Yeah poor Peri. Don't get me wrong, Cindy Robinson is a great VA, but her voice for Peri honestly didn't fit. I do admit that I was a little bit too harsh on Alexis though. As long as she does a good job, I think I might be able to adjust.

@Swiftie Muggle Your right! She did sound quite heroic and elegant. I think her voice for Lucina might just grow on me!

@Soul-dragon I would've preferred someone like Karen Strassman to take over as Peri. She could've matched EG Daily's voice as that's particular character better IMO.

@HylianBelmont Yeah... they should've gotten someone who could do a good Tommy Pickles impression. But instead we got this-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdttheuP_vA
Not going to lie this does make me terrified as to what Selkie will sound like if she gets in Heroes.

@Soul-dragon I'd prefer someone like Erin Fitzgerald for Selkie I guess, I mean I love Cindy Robinson overall but she wasn't exactly the ideal choice to match EG Daily's voices IMO.

@Soul-dragon To be fair, FE Warriors is probably going to be in much more serious context. So I am curious to hear how Alexis Tipton would pull off Lucina's voice there.

@Soul-dragon You will change your mind when you hear her new lines as "Marth". Her performance on the character was great!

@HylianBelmont I guess... but honestly it's a bit more of the fact that Laura Bailey is Lucina to me and hearing another voice just feels wrong to my ears. I'll give Alexis a chance, but he sad thing is some people will give her performance a lot of hate (like when Sarah Nanochenny replaced Veronica Taylor as Ash or when Ashley Burch replaced Laura Bailey as Rise) because they're used to it as well. But, if they bring her back for Warriors she needs to voice a character from Shadow Dragon (like Fem!Kris or Nyna) so she gets her own character to voice in the game.

@Soul-dragon

Thing is though, in those cases the replacements genuinely didn't do a good job. Ashly's Rise was genuinely quite bad, and as a performance it just lacked dynamism as well as not being very consistent, even or natural-sounding. It didn't really sound like a character and it just sounded more like Ashly reading lines in a high pitch. She failed to effectively convey Rise's personality and the personality she gave off didn't match with Rise's character at all. It was a poor performance in every way from a technical standpoint with flat delivery, bad timing and no emotion. If it was more like the Troy Baker/Matthew Mercer replacement or the Dave Wittenberg/Sam Riegel one, where the replacement still does a good job at conveying the character's personality and captures the spirit effectively, albeit not quite as well as the original, and still gives a solid performance, then I don't think there would've been as much hate as there was.

Sarah Natochenny's Ash is okay but it's very inconsistent, though to be fair part of the problem is that the voice acting quality of Pokemon's dub as a whole basically dove off a cliff once TPCi took it over, as the voice direction of the TPCi dub is rather poor, and the acting as a whole is quite mediocre in their dub.

Alexis Tipton will probably do fine, and generally people are quite open about changes as long as the replacement still does a solid job at portraying the character. And Alexis's work as a whole is quite impressive despite not being as good as Laura in the role (obviously), and she manages to come off as similar enough to Laura's take, I don't think anyone would really care too much or be bothered by it.

@ScraftyIsTheBest Unfortunately you were wrong. People are hating on her performance on the trailer that revealed her. It's quite sad to see, but it guess it's to be expected when a role is recasted.

@Soul-dragon

To be fair though, at the very least from what I saw the reception towards Alexis as Lucina seems a lot more mixed than outright condemned. And a good deal of the reaction seems to lean more towards disappointment that Laura won't be returning than "Oh my god, Alexis's Lucina is so terrible!". Which is inevitable I guess, given Laura did such a killer job over the years and really left a memorable mark on the character, so inevitably not having her back is disappointing. Given it's Laura Bailey, who's frankly very well known at this point, inevitably people would be vocal about her being replaced, since her voice is extremely distinctive, and admittedly while Alexis voice matches well, Laura has her own charm. So disappointment is inevitable there I guess.

At the very least there are still plenty of people there from what I saw who are more accepting of the change, and it's not a drastic "ALEXIS SUCKS WE DON'T WANT YOU" uproar. It's certainly not anywhere near as drastic as that Pokemon anime recasting, thankfully. I guess vocal reaction is inevitable, given Laura left an impressive mark over the years, but at least we're not looking at a total outrage of condemnation...if that's anything...at least...

I will admit that at least for me it's still a bummer nonetheless. It's hard to outdo Laura Bailey here and it still makes me kinda sad that she won't be returning for Warriors, and I'll probably still end up missing her performance a lot, really.

@ScraftyIsTheBest Yeah, it's no where near as drastic as when Pokemon or Berserk was recasted. But your right about it being a bummer. We all knew that Laura wasn't going to be Lucina in Warriors the second it was announced, but we were all hoping for it anyways, It's the same thing that happened with Palla really.

@huzaifa_ahmed Nah. If anything she sounded a bit like Jamie Marchi.

@Toon Angel

Well, it might not be permanent. Laura probably just wasn't available to do the new lines for Spring Festival, but the fact that she came back for everything since Awakening shows she still feels committed to the role overall. Plus they didn't redub her lines from the base game. It's more like Alexis is filling in rather than replacing her, at least for now.

@NCZ

Damn.

@NCZ I'm guessing Alexis replaced Laura again judging by that response.

@Shaun Ince Looks like it. It's so sad to see this happen. It'll be hard to adjust because I got so used to Laura Bailey, but I'll try my best to get used to Alexis.

@1dbad She focuses more on the performance than doing an imitation. Which is much better IMO.

@HylianBelmont Agreed! Unless you can do a pitch-perfect imitation, the replacement can come across as second-rate at best. Better to just relax and perform the role to the best of one's capabilities.

@1dbad She is definetely one of the best replacements by far , even her laught sounds like it comes from Laura on this clip. Props to Alexis for doing it nicely , even though Laura makes this character shine , Alexis did a very good job for the few material she had.

@1dbad Well, that's the thing. Alexis Tipton is regularly called in to sub for Laura Bailey because, in the same fashion as Mercer to Baker, they pretty much share a voice timbre (although their speech patterns may differ). There's an expectation that they *do* sound similar - the voice is part of the character & the whole point of sound-alikes is that they can get similar performances without straining their voice, right? So the difference here is kind of odd, in that sense...

One thing to note is that this is a real example of Laura's range. In Japanese Lucina had a pretty deep voice & Laura's voice is usually much higher. I think Alexis is generally much less involved in that heavy/intense realm of performance that is video games, & that may be why her Lucina is so much higher despite Alexis being a straight-up vocal replica of Laura Bailey. Patrick Seitz even has a notably higher voice than Fred Tatasciore & he can still do a good voice-match for Fred.

@1dbad @HylianBelmont Hope my last comment wasnt too incoherent.

@huzaifa_ahmed I suppose it should be worth noting that Alexis Tipton is voicing Bunny!Lucina for the DLC. Which is probably also why the tone of her voice is "lighter" here as well, because of the context (David Stanbra made his voice for Xander sillier because of the same reason) but I do get what you mean.

But yeah, Alexis Tipton's performance is still solid regardless IMO.

@HylianBelmont Oh, it's certainly not bad, just wasnt what I was expecting. Although I've not gotten to Lucina's part in the game yet so what do I know? XD

@huzaifa_ahmed Well she actually shows up in the story early on IIRC (unless you're talking about her recruitment) but either way.... I hope you're ready for one of my favourite characters in Fire Emblem, period!

@huzaifa_ahmed I understood it perfectly! That does make Alexis sounding noticeably different here stranger. But it might be due to how Laura's Lucina is deeper than than usual here. HylianBelmont also brings up a valid point that the more light-hearted context here might be another factor.

@1dbad Yeah, I mean Lucina in Alexis Tipton's voice clip isn't currently trying to prevent the resurrection of the Awakening world's equivalent of "Satan" so it makes sense she'd sound a bit more cheery!

@HienFan

Maybe it's just me and this specific role, but while their speech patterns are kinda similar, I think their actual voices are pretty distinct from each other. Maybe I'm just that used to hearing Laura in the role but to me the difference is noticeable.

@NCZ

After hearing the two side by side, I also feel the two voices are distinct, namely in the pitch. Alexis's voice here for Lucina is a good deal higher pitched than Laura's. Laura's deep/sultry voice that she uses here is lower in register than Alexis, as it seems Alexis can't go as low as Laura, so her Lucina voice ends up more high pitched in comparison.

@NCZ I still don't have the games she was in yet so...

@ScraftyIsTheBest Mentioned this elsewhere but Alexis can totally go as low as Laura, at least they sound really similar normally speaking. I think it's more about technical skill - Laura's been doing it for ages, & has been in LA (aka the most competitive market on the planet) for *10 years*, whereas I think Alexis hasn't really had the opportunity to stretch her range in more games & especially the really big projects of that nature. Even when Laura was at home in Texas, she was cutting her teeth on *DBZ*, of all things, which is one of the most vocally stressful anime ever, all the native actors were very high-bar & had to take it very seriously. I think that kind of stress - while certainly a negative in its own right - can also provide as training. A lot of actors from dubs of those kinds of shows tend to stress that it does serve as training. Still, I feel like if they wanted a Laura sound-alike, they could've looked harder if Alexis wasnt cutting it. The change is quite obvious here, & I feel like it didnt need to be, because it's Alexis.

@huzaifa_ahmed I mentioned this before, but I do think it's for the best that they had her do more of her own thing with the voice as opposed to trying to initiate Laura 100%.

She's a good replacement IMO..Because her performance also captures the character's personality quite well, despite the difference in pitch.

@HylianBelmont I feel like this would be more appropriate if they didnt have an actual matching voice. Casting replacements should be about the character first & foremost. A voice-match is used to maintain that tonally. In this case, Alexis didnt seem to match that, & there are other talented actresses who could do that.

Off TOMH, Ashly Burch actually might've been more appropriate here, much moreso than *last time*. She can easily do heavy & heroic voices (well, moreso the latter, not sure about former); come to think of it, Lucina's JP VA is also Potato Girl, funnily enough lol.

Also I apologize for my Wall of Text (TM) from last time. This forum tends to condense things, & I've had the opposite problem so I mustve been over-correcting...

@HylianBelmont As we've seen from all the times Laura Bailey has been replaced on former roles by Alexis Tipton & Ashly Burch, the casting directors are constantly focused on sound-alikes. It's what Warner Brothers has done for years when it comes to Looney Tunes. Mel Blanc was that iconic as the Looney Tunes, that all of his replacements have to sound like him. Perhaps it's a similar case here.

@Shaun Ince I'd imagine so, yeah.

@Shaun Ince

With no disrepect to Ashly when I say this, I'm honestly baffled as to what exactly people see in her that make people think she'd be an even remotely good replacement VA for Laura. I mean, even when you put aside how bad she was as Rise and Chun-Li, at least as Rise, the two frankly don't even sound close vocally, and the personalities they gave off were vastly different. Their voices aren't even remotely similar from my experiences and their typecasts are worlds different from one another: there is virtually no overlap in the types of characters they play well. Even as Chun-Li, their mannerisms and deliveries weren't similar at all and the difference between their voices is night and day. It's not even like Troy Baker/Matthew Mercer where they have a similar timbre and sound vaguely similar on the surface, Ashly and Laura don't even sound close to each other and their speech patterns and mannerisms are vastly different. It's honestly baffling that people insist on using Ashly as a Laura replacement, because frankly both vocally and acting-wise, she sounds entirely different from Laura from my experiences listening to their voice works. If sound-alikes are what they're going for, Ashly sure as heck isn't a good one for Laura.

@ScraftyIsTheBest
Agreed. Alexis Tipton should be Laura's stand in much like Matt was Troy's sound-alike. Now I'm starting to imagine what it would be like to have Alexis Tipton to voice as Rise.... while Laura will always be the best Rise, Alexis could at least come a bit close. Maybe comparable to how good of a stand in as Matt was for Troy.

Casting directors should just go with whoever they think is best for the role on a case-by-case basis. The whole Alexis as Lucina's understudy thing is kind of a myth to begin with to be honest.

@NCZ I agree that Alexis as understudy is probably a myth, and yeah, casting directors should not look for, say, 'A Troy Baker' type for a new character and instead look for whatever's best. I do think though that for established characters in a narrative-focused and singular universe (as opposed to superheroes who are constantly given new series), having someone who sounds like the previous actor makes sense. If Lucina sounded suddenly _completely_ different, it'd be disorienting because she's supposed to be the sane incarnation throughout. Just look at the backlash for Burch as Rise, Part of it is because she doesn't sound enough like Bailey despite being the same incarnation of the character. For consistency, getting a voice match makes sense.

I meant Laura, not Lucina. Lol.

That being said I'm not a big fan of voicematches except obviously in instances like Looney Tunes or Mickey Mouse where the affected voice is a huge part of the character's identity. If a character's voice is pretty much a natural speaking voice, they shouldn't get too hung up about that. It's more important they hire someone whose actual acting can convey a similar essence, or provide their own spin.

@Bookman230
I agree that voicematches work better than a completely different sounding voice which doesn't retain the spirit of the original.

@NCZ
"The whole Alexis as Lucina's understudy thing is kind of a myth to begin with to be honest."

I don't get it. Why would it be a myth? Aside from the obvious factor that Alexis and Laura have similar sounding voices, Alexis has stood in for Laura in at least two cases - as Kid Trunks and Lucina.

@MizukaS

With Matt and Troy the situation is literally that Troy tells casting directors to get Matt if they can't get him. That isn't the case with Laura and Alexis. It only happens with Cup of Tea and Funimation (the two major studios that work with Alexis).

Alexis has only taken three roles from Laura. Kid Trunks (funimation), Lucina (Cup of Tea), Platinum the Trinity (both). On the flipside, there are a ton of roles she was replaced in where the relevant casting people simply hired whoever.

Diana (Zero Escape) - Eden Riegel (PCB)

Sarada (Naruto) - Cherami Leigh (Studiopolis)

Lagoona Blue (Monster High) - Larissa Gallagher (don't know off the top of my head)

Rise (Persona 4) - Ashly Burch (PCB)

Chun Li (MVC Infinite) - Ashly Burch (New Generation Pictures)

Alexis replacing Laura has only been the case in the minority of roles Laura has been replaced in for availability issues, and has only occurred in dubs done by the companies that work with her.

@NCZ
Good points.

However, I believe that it turned out for the better that Cherami and Eden took over the roles of Sarada and Diana, respectively.

Given that Laura's voice is highly recognizable, it would be a dead giveaway that Diana is somehow connected to Luna. Since Diana ended by being played by Eden instead, players were in for a shock when it was revealed that the basis of Luna's design was Diana. Laura only did one Diana line in VLR; nobody would have known that Diana was the one that called the distress call until you hear her say the exact same line in ZTD. In that sense, I never really considered Eden to have "taken" the role from Laura.

Also, Laura was already multi-cast as plenty of Naruto characters, and her role of Sarada in a Naruto video game was a highly condensed version of both the manga and anime. Cherami, whom had no Naruto credits prior to being cast as Sarada, is an excellent choice. It's refreshing to hear a new voice for the new generation of Naruto characters.

I do realize that I've gone off topic about this whole myth thing, but I just wanted to express how some of these replacements ended up doing more good.

@NCZ That is an interesting point. Which leads me to a question I had in mind when you were talking about you not being the biggest fan of voice matching, even though there are exceptions to that with certain media.

Would you have preferred if Alexis Tipton had created her own voice for Trunks instead of imitating Laura Bailey? Personally I think she should have, but it does make you wonder if the FUNimation dub of Dragonball as a whole is on the level of let's say, Looney Tunes or Mickey Mouse library of cartoons, where the performances are that ingrained with the character, every replacement has to sound close or exactly like the original. At this point I don't think it is, because from what we've seen from Colleen Clinkenbeard & Monica Rial & even Chris Ayres, they weren't imitating former actresses, rather they were completely new & conventional takes on the characters.

I'm interested on hearing your thoughts on this.

@MizukaS

"Given that Laura's voice is highly recognizable, it would be a dead giveaway that Diana is somehow connected to Luna."

It's stated outright in VLR that Luna is a robot based on someone Sigma was close to previously. Diana being Luna's basis wasn't a secret in ZTD, it was a foregone conclusion that everybody knew going in. The Japanese version also used the same VA for both parts, and Sigma and Akane were similarly replaced despite having no in-universe reason to be, so it's clear this was an availability issue rather than a creative one. Point being, the pertinent thing here is the "Alexis = Laura's understudy" thing is a bit of a generalization.

@Shaun Ince

I've never really thought about it, but now that you mention it I do think it's a bit unusual compared to the series's usual MO. Even when the Funimation dub started out, most of the VAs were imitating the Ocean ones. I think a lot of people agree it was for the best once they started making the characters their own. I just don't think it's fair to always be looking at one actor or one performance in the shadow of another. I usually think it's best to be as self-sufficient in the casting process as possible.

@NCZ
"It's stated outright in VLR that Luna is a robot based on someone Sigma was close to previously."

And I wouldn't have been able to come to that conclusion until I've played enough of ZTD. I think I'm the only one that was shocked in learning that Sigma and Diana are a couple.

"The Japanese version also used the same VA for both parts, and Sigma and Akane were similarly replaced despite having no in-universe reason to be, so it's clear this was an availability issue rather than a creative one."

I mean, Ali Hills only did a couple of lines for Akane in VLR, as an older adult. Rena Strober did pages upon pages of dialogue for Akane, and is hence the only performance that I recognize as Akane's; not to mention that Ali's lines were also redubbed by Rena in the Nonary Games bundle.

Since I generally don't make a habit of reading character bios, the fact that Diana and Luna weren't played by the same VAs in English ended up achieving better results. I wouldn't want Laura doing both roles, tbh.

I also never considered Troy Baker to have "owned" the role of Sigma. Sigma (as a young adult, or at least, how VLR wants us to perceive him as) doesn't even have any spoken dialogues; the only instance Troy DID do Sigma's voice is in the 10-min trailer, which is technically misleading when you get to the end of VLR. I associate Troy's voice with Kyle Klim, but not Sigma. Matthew Mercer is Sigma to me.

Welp, now that I think about it, this is the Lucina VC thread, so I've gone waaaaaay off topic. But yeah, ZE is one of my most fav VNs of all time, and I just couldn't resist myself.

Essentially, I tend to get attached to whichever performance has more dialogue, rather than one that is only done for a brief moment.

@MizukaS

Errr... Did you play them out of order? Because Diana and Luna, and their connection to Sigma, is not supposed to be a twist in ZTD. It was established in VLR and common knowledge well in advance, even frequently acknowledged by the creator. Even though Eden did a great job and was actually the best of the recasts in that game in my book, it really doesn't make any in-universe sense and wasn't creatively intended for there to be a voice change.

At any rate, the personal handwaves are all one thing but the point is at the end of the day these are all recasts made because the original actors were unavailable. No more no less!

@NCZ
No, I've played the ZE games in their chronological order.

999 -> VLR -> ZTD

Eden Riegel is the only portrayal that I associate with as Diana. Laura Bailey did only a couple of lines for her, so she's Luna to me.