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Is Anyone else getting sick of Troy Baker?

Nah I'm pretty okay with hearing him in my sleep everywhere, but I do wish directors would give him a bit more to do instead of using his normal voice. Closing my eyes, it sounded like Snow Villiers got into Jake Muller's skin in Resident Evil 6. It's the exact same problem Nolan North had a few years ago, being cast as Nathan Drake in every role. Baker's fantastic as say, Talion and The Joker for example, and Joel obviously, these are great examples of how wide his range is.

I don't mind all the facial capture he does, he's a handsome dude. Plus did you know he can sing? He can sing.

I've actually grown more fond of Matt Mercer over the course of this year, and would love to hear him in more things.
 
The gaming industry does this more and more now (over exposure) and it sucks. Yes he's a great VA but I can almost always tell his voice, unless he's doing something over the top (like Nolan North as penguin). But if he's doing a normal character it's going to sound very similar to his other normal characters. It's jarring and kills my interest in the character/story because I only associate his voice with one particular thing (in his case it's FF13's Snow).

I wish devs would stop picking one random good person and keep using them over and over, but I guess they don't care enough to find new different sounding people. Anyone here who isn't sick of it has to be fanboying, there's no way people would tolerate Leo Dicaprio being in every major film, it's the same thing.

None of that is Troy Baker's fault though obviously, he's a great VA that's getting work, good on him, nobody should blame him.
 
I've been sick of his generic voice for a while, yes. He's fine when he does different voices like The Last of Us and Shadow of Mordor, but he's like Nolan North in the way that more often than not they want him to do the voice he's known for.
Angry Fork said:
The gaming industry does this more and more now (over exposure) and it sucks. Yes he's a great VA but I can almost always tell his voice, unless he's doing something over the top (like Nolan North as penguin). But if he's doing a normal character it's going to sound very similar to his other normal characters. It's jarring and kills my interest in the character/story because I only associate his voice with one particular thing (in his case it's FF13's Snow).

I wish devs would stop picking one random good person and keep using them over and over, but I guess they don't care enough to find new different sounding people. Anyone here who isn't sick of it has to be fanboying, there's no way people would tolerate Leo Dicaprio being in every major film, it's the same thing.

None of that is Troy Baker's fault though obviously, he's a great VA that's getting work, good on him, nobody should blame him.
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Well, it probably depends on what games you play. I play a load of different types of games, so for me it becomes noticable that he is in everything. For someone who only plays a certain subset then it may not be as noticeable.
 
I don't mind the voice acting but all his characters do seem to be starting to have similar facial features and wish they'd change them up more.
 
littlegrasshopper said:
Qa0r8HN.jpg
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This is missing Kanji from Persona 4, Matt Baker from Brothers in Arms and Pagan Min from Far Cry 4. Dude has amazing ranges. His Pagan Min voice does sometimes sound like Kanji's shadow, but even then it's not too often.

whitemex88 said:
He has amazing range. more so than Nolan North, who I am personally tired of.
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I never would've guessed David from TLoU is Nolan North, so it's not like it's always the same voice either.
 
mdubs said:
So what I'm getting out of him is you're sick of him because you see him too much rather than basing him on his actual performances. Alright then, great criteria for judging a voice actor. So basically they should cast other voice actors just because they have too many roles regardless of their performance quality. How ridiculous can you be.
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Dude, my opinion , deal with it, and without ad hominem if possible. I would care about making MY character sound unique. For someone who doesn't play a lot of AAA, Troy Baker is fine, but for someone who has played Personas/Bioshock/Second Son/FF XIII/Cod/Mgs/Mordor (and the list goes on) it definitely gets tiresome. It's like there's only one dude in the world who can voice characters.
I don't care if he's the best ever VA, if suddenly every action character is voiced by him, they lose their own identity. At certain point in mordor I was like, ok, this is British Booker. There are a few roles where he exceeded himself, Joel being one, but most of the time it's the same voice with slight changes here and their but the mannerisms stay. You can hear it everytime he screams, that's in his voice; he can't change it.

Some people may dislike always seeing the same dude in the same part, even though they're more than qualified. Those two concepts aren't mutual exclusive.
He's good but he's not the only one out there. Give more people the chance.

I get that I may sound a bit extreme, but I consider myself to have a good ear and I can *almost* always recognize a voice. I hear someone in a show or a cartoon and immediately point out a recent game or he/she has been, even if I don't know the actor. I never cared for Adventure time but it took me 2,1seconds when I saw an episode a few months back to figure out the dog was Wakka, for instance. Troy Baker has range, but Nolan North beats it. He's the only one who could fool me not once, but twice.

Last edit: Someone cast Mike Patton for a leading character ffs. It would be amazing.
 
He's fine for now. Nolan North is the one voice actor that really breaks immersion for me, as his voice sounds the same in 99% of the games he's in.
 
Absolutely not. He is a fantastic voice actor with excellent range. Too bad if you don't enjoy his work.
 
SolVanderlyn said:
Kind of, but I think the problem is more that the VA industry needs more high profile actors. I want to see VAs in America become as prolific as VAs in Japan. I can think of a few off the top of my head I see regularly:

Troy Baker
Nolan North
Laura Bailey
Vig Mignogna
Paul Mercier
Yuri Lowenthal
Steve Blum
Robin Atkin Downes

There's more, but I feel like the list of commonly recurring, recognizable actors is limited to a handful or two at best.

I do want to see more of this guy:

Cast_scott_menville.jpg


Scott Menville. He was Max in Dark Cloud 2, Lloyd in Tales of Symphonia, and Robin in Teen Titans. He was the go to "hero" typecast before Yuri Lowenthal. Haven't seen him recently, and it's a shame, because he always did a great job.

More on topic: Troy has the one-two punch of being both very talented and beautiful, so of course people want to hire him. Especially with mocap becoming a common thing.
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Crispin Freeman is another decent actor, I haven't heard him in any recent roles lately.
 
I haven't gotten sick of him just yet. Yuri Lowenthal, however, is getting there. In the last little while I've had him as Matt Miller from Saints Row and the Disney Infinity narrator, but in the last two weeks he's had two very prominent roles in both Sunset Overdrive and Bayonetta 2.

I gather he's in The Evil Within too, and though he might not be as prolific as Baker, he also doesn't have any range. Every single character of his sounds exactly the same, and although I don't really like the female voice in Sunset Overdrive, I had to switch to her just to get away from Yuri.
 
I never recognize voice actors until someone points it out to me, so... Whatever. Bring on more Troy Baker.
 
AndrewDean84xX said:
He's fine for now. Nolan North is the one voice actor that really breaks immersion for me, as his voice sounds the same in 99% of the games he's in.
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Lol no he doesn't!! There was some games where I would not know it was him if it wasn't for the credits.
David in the last of us is a great example.
 
I don't really play a lot of games he is in. Looking at the list I've played these recently


infamous second son

saints row

halo 4

resident evil 6

darksiders

binary domain

FF13

ninja gaiden

shadows of the damned (huh?)

persona 4


I didn't even know he was in most of these games.
 
If you played 10 games that had Norio Wakamoto voicing a chacter in them, would you be sick of Norio Wakamoto?
 
I've been sick of him since Guild Wars 2. I recognized his voice immediately. When he does other voices he's ok, but when he uses what I assume is his regular voice that's when I start to notice and get annoyed. It just breaks the narrative for me.
 
I'm so glad he's joining the Metal Gear Solid series. I've loved the top notch voice acting since 1998 and I couldn't have asked for a stronger addition! Also Ocelot is a top competitor for my favorite character.
 
I think he's a good voice actor and one I personally admire. But he is in that group of VOs who constantly appear in EVERYTHING. Again, I don't think he's bad at all but he big presence is a tad silly. Especially when you play 5 games containing him within the same year or so. I didn't even like The Last of Us but the voice acting carried that game.

Also, what does DSP think of Troy Baker? :)
 
Persona7 said:
I don't really play a lot of games he is in. Looking at the list I've played these recently


infamous second son

saints row

halo 4

resident evil 6

darksiders

binary domain

FF13

ninja gaiden

shadows of the damned (huh?)

persona 4


I didn't even know he was in most of these games.
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That looks like a lot to me. I've only played 3 of the ones listed on his wiki page.
 
Yeah, definitely, and I haven't even played 80% of the major games he's been in. I respect professional voice talent, being an amateur new voice talent myself, but overexposure is the worst. It's like Tom Cruise in every generic new action movie ever (I spit my drink up the first time I saw a poster for Jack Reacher).

Enough's enough. You don't wanna be the new Nolan North, although you already are. Let some of the smaller guys get some work!
 
I mean, yes, he is in an obnoxiously long list of games, but that's because he's a good voice actor and is probably a pleasure to work with. Why do you hate good hard working people OP?
 
Magnus said:
Yeah, definitely, and I haven't even played 80% of the major games he's been in. I respect professional voice talent, being an amateur new voice talent myself, but overexposure is the worst. It's like Tom Cruise in every generic new action movie ever (I spit my drink up the first time I saw a poster for Jack Reacher).

Enough's enough. You don't wanna be the new Nolan North, although you already are. Let some of the smaller guys get some work!
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Yeah I agree. I'm sure there's plenty of talent out there. It's getting to the point where thery're recognizable enough not to go to the same well every time. It's cool VO work in games is a legit gig, but it's big enough to let others in now.
 
2n2 said:
Yeah I agree. I'm sure there's plenty of talent out there. It's getting to the point where thery're recognizable enough not to go to the same well every time. It's cool VO work in games is a legit gig, but it's big enough to let others in now.
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lmao yeah Troy Baker, arbitarily hinder your career in the interest of fair play. dude gets the work because he does the best job.

i'm tired of his default "slightly haggard dude" voice though. he has great vocal range/talent/variety but everything he does just sounds like versions of Snow.
 
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