Hello, everypony! We’ve got some more stuff for you that you might like. At times when they weren’t busy with Case 2-related matters, our team has been working on putting together a sequel to our Meet the Voice Actors video from case 1. As before, we’ve put our new characters in a situation that lets each of them in turn have a spot where their voice actor gets to whet your appetite for case 2. And as a special bonus, we’ve also released the second piece of background music from case 2, that being Philo Reed’s theme, which is featured in the Meet the Voice Actors 2 video.
Enjoy!
Very nice theme for Philo Reed. I wasn’t sure how I’d take to him at first, but strangely enough, he’s now one of main reasons I’m looking forward to this case.
Is it too late to offer constructive criticism to the voice actors and/or designs of the characters?
Voice actors, no, not really; character designs, well, those are pretty well-entwined in the script at this point, so there probably isn’t much we could do to change something that fundamental.
Shoot! I still don’t like the fact that Dim Delite is wearing a means of electronic communication, especially since you mentioned it wouldn’t even play a role in the story. But alas.
As for the voice acting, here is my unprofessional assessment:
Heather Feathersong needs a better microphone. She also needs to put more oomph into her acting, especially where Applejack and Sapphire Shores are concerned. Sapphire Shores needs to sound SEEEENN-SATIONAL!
PrincessRil’s acting has improved. She even had a pretty convincing Wisconsin accent with Jenny Juniper, or whatever type of accent that’s supposed to be.
GloryOfTheRainWings’s acting is good, but…I just can’t get over Royal Ribbon as a character. In all of her show appearances, she’s been a refined, cultured, high-class pony with a low-toned voice, and now she’s a high-toned, excitable ditz working as a waitress? …While still wearing her upper-class outfit? What’s more, she doesn’t have her horn. She’s a unicorn. In all of her appearances, on the show and in merchandise, she’s a unicorn. I don’t understand anything you did with this character.
As for GloryOfTheRainWings’s performance as Spike, well… He sounds muffled, somehow. I’m not sure what I can suggest in order to fix that, since I’m not sure what’s producing the sound in the first place.
Both of DaWillstanator’s characters are executed well enough. Gustave is a tricky one to nail, so kudos to that, and “Caesar” as a character succeeds wherever Royal Ribbon fails.
Carmen’s performance as Fluttershy is spot-on…except for that squeak at 14:35. That was forced, both acting-wise and writing-wise. I can’t complain about her take on “Masquerade”, except that, like with Royal Ribbon, I don’t see how this take got imposed on this character. Once again, we’ve got another upper-class pony mostly seen in Canterlot now working as a waitress in Manehattan. I also don’t see how her show appearances translated into a sleepy, valley-girl type of pony.
Philo Reed, as I’ve implied, is not only the most interesting character so far (yes, even more interesting than Trixie and the others), but also has some of the best delivery, although I suppose this may be partially due to the fact that he has no in-show counterpart to compare to. Still, props to ThatCanadianDude. If there’s one piece of constructive criticism I can offer him, it’s this: speak up. There are parts where I can barely hear him over the music, whereas it’s not a problem with the other characters.
The timid Dim Delite is portrayed very nicely by TheHeroOfMobius, regardless of what cosmetic grievances I have with the character.
AnnaChloeM sounds great as Princess Celestia. No complaints. …Wait, she got Palutena’s theme music? …Huh. I’m pretty sure none of the music in this video will be in the actual case, so it’s probably not worth remarking about.
Lyrica Lilac sounds baritone…which fits her character in the video, I suppose, but not for those who remember how she sounds in the show, like me. She actually has a slightly higher tone than Royal Ribbon’s show-voice, if you can believe that. (See Green Isn’t Your Color for the best comparison.) I wouldn’t object to Cerridwen raising her tone a fair bit.
Mickwhitefire28 sounds good as Uncle Orange. The character only had one line in the show, but I recall it was slightly lower in tone. It wouldn’t hurt to try.
Icyfire888 as Aunt Orange also sounds great, with one improvement I can think of: speak faster. I think her speech drawled more than any other character in the video.
That’s about it. Yeah…I strive for accuracy, and I understand that wasn’t exactly the priority with the auditions. Still, those are my two bits, for what they’re worth.
Regarding the characters like Royal Ribbon and Lyrica, we basically felt that those characters have seen so little airtime that there was effectively no point in trying to cobble together what scraps we could from the show to divine what their personalities were like, and instead more or less treated them like OC’s with a pre-defined appearance. The show has never particularly been concerned about consistency with background characters (see: Bon Bon getting a completely new voice every single time she has a speaking role until the show finally caught up to her fanon), so we didn’t see any reason to do so, either. Much more important to tell an interesting story with interesting characters than to needlessly constrain ourselves by something that ultimately doesn’t matter, we figured.
That’s not to say that that’s the only correct way to approach things, obviously. But, that’s the direction that we went in, at leat, for what it’s worth.
I think I would’ve preferred if you had made them OCs to begin with in that case, or at least less-established background characters. The difference between this rich circle of ponies and the more ordinary background characters is that, for the most part, the rich ponies have been consistent in their portrayals in spite of/because of their smaller screentime. I don’t mind how Lyrica turned out here, with her voice as the only feasible complaint, but “Masquerade” and especially Royal Ribbon…
But I digress. I can see why you made your decision. I disagree with it, but it’s not my call.
AtleastgiveRoyalRibbonherhornback.
We kind of went back and forth on this topic. The fandom can sometimes have negative first impressions of OCs, especially when there are a lot of them, so we thought it might be a good idea to keep pure OCs to a minimum. On the other hand, that does leave a lot of potential roles as difficult to fill, so we came up with the thought of using background ponies with ill-defined-to-undefined personalities as more or less a more familiar OC stand-in role. That may or may not have been the correct choice of action, but at this point we’re sufficiently invested in that design direction that we can’t really turn around the ship at this late stage in development. We’ll see how others respond to the decision. If others don’t like it either and would have just preferred OCs, then perhaps for future cases we’ll just do that.
If it had been up to me, I would have made the sleepy waitress “Strawberry Ice” from Rarity Takes Manehattan and onward. She’s appeared consistently in Manehattan, doesn’t look too rich for the job but doesn’t look like a tourist either, isn’t shown to have a job already, and her half-closed eyes and somewhat surly expression make for an easy transition. (For the record, I only spotted one other pony in the episode that seems to fit this bill, and I dismissed her for having a color scheme too similar to Éclair from the previous case.)
As for the excitable, ditzy waitress, I’d settle for “Spring Fresh” from The Best Night Ever. She’s appeared only in one instance (with the possible exception of Trade Ya!), isn’t any fancier than any of the party ponies in Ponyville and yet hasn’t been seen in Ponyville, and her color scheme doesn’t repeat any colors that “Strawberry Ice” has.
Philo’s theme reminds me a lot of Raymond Shields’ (Tateyuki Shigaraki) theme from Ace Attorney Investigations 2. Nicely done, Trot Pilgrim. Really looking forward to the other new tracks you have in store for Case 2.
I love it can’t wait for case 2 comes out and I did like the voice actores you did
This is great, probably the most impressive fan game out there.
But, Spike’s voice sounds really forced, I know doing a Spike voice must be very hard but it really gave me the chills. Fluttershy, Trixie and Princess Celestia were great, but Trixie (along with Applejack and Saphire Shores) needs a better microphone. Also, will Pinkie Pie appear as an actual NPC you can click on this case? I liked her in the first episode as the tutorial guide but I feel like she needs to actually be apart of a case.
We will certainly be working to fix the issues that some have raised before case 2 is released and out the door, don’t worry. Pinkie Pie will appear briefly in case 2, but is not planned on having a major role.
I know I’m getting ahead of everything here but will there be a case that revolves around background ponies? Like Lyra, Bon Bon or Derpy? I think it would be a good idea, and just like Trixie and Scootaloo, I think Berry Punch, the town drunk, should be the accused. It would make a great story.
We do have one in mind that will involve a background pony, yes. 🙂 Can’t really say much more than that yet, though. It’s still just in the most vaguest stages of initial planning, and no real attention will be paid to it until case 2 is done.
do you guys plan on working on another game after this one? a adventure rpg or some sort
We have at least a couple more cases that we have in mind after this one, and given how long each cases’ development cycle takes, that’s so far in the future that we can’t really speculate on that.
Really looking forward to this one, the improvement is very visible already. I’m pretty biased since I loved the Ace Attorney games and all, but still, case 2 almost being finished hype! The spike voice is realllllyyyy close to the show counterpart, and since i’m not a voice actor I can’t really give insight onto how you SHOULD fix it. The other voices however, are frankly, fucking awesome, great work on that.
I will say, however, the security guard’s gruff character design seems to clash with the shy and afraid personality he has. Intentional or not, it makes me suspicious of this character’s role in the story. Hmm, back to the video, great music choices for everypony in the video. I recognized pretty much every track you used here, and they all fit the situation really well. I can’t wait to hear more of the original music you’re making for this case though. Philo’s theme is nice, nothing too risky in terms of deisgn. But, it’s jammin as hell, and it’s something I could easily listen to again over the length of the case.
Overall, it’s all ‘lookin real good so far, I’m glad this project is still alive and strong. Can’t wait to see your next update!
Glad to see the hype on your end! Hope the case does exceed those expectations you have for it.
The team and I are continually happy to be working on this ongoing fan project!
With Trixie!
I really like Fluttershy’s, Applejack’s and Celestia’s voice actors.
Just two improvement in my opinion:
1. Use a pitch changed to raise the tone of Spike’s voice actor. It’s way too low as it is.
2. Trixie’s voice should be more… grand. I guess that’s the word I’d use. Maybe a bit more dramatic, or overpowering.
That’s it, I’m really looking forward to the case! 🙂
I really don’t know where I can leave feed back, if I’m honest, I’m not so excited about Philo Reed, he’s just too much of a dark shade of purple, and the name Philo Reed doesn’t really sound ponytastic. I think your OC’s should be more realistic instead of having weird wing things or having hair longer than Fluttershy’s. I pray to Celestia that you won’t add any red or black oc’s.