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  • Lara Croft of Tomb Raider has had four voice actresses over 12 years and 8 games, each one bringing a totally different spin on Lara's personality. She even changes in appearance, and has been played in live-action promo shots by at least five different women, not even counting Angelina Jolie. She pretty much MUST be a Time Lord.
    • This is done deliberately so that no actress will be able to dominate the character.
    • Sofia Vergara played what is essentially the Angelina Jolie version of the character in this TV spot for Visa credit cards.
  • Max in Sam and Max: Season 1 was replaced after the first episode, though the voices are so similar it's not really that important - some of the original actor's voice clips have even been retained.
  • In an extreme case, the entire American voice cast of the next-gen Sonic the Hedgehog games were replaced with the one for the anime Sonic X. Notable in that even the original cast didn't know they were being replaced until after the change. This came about because Yuji Naka- at that time the head of Sonic Team- made a comment that he would like for the voices for the characters to remain consistent across all media (as it was in Japan), either not knowing or not caring that this meant firing the previous US cast.
  • Dante of Devil May Cry has had three voice actors, four if you count the one in the anime's original Japanese. Only between games 3 and 4 did his voice-actor (who, incidentally, is also his Ink Suit Actor) remain the same.
    • The same could be said of every recurring character bar Lady (who has kept Kari Wahlgren as her VA since 3). The aforementioned Dante example is muddled further if one considers Dante's Special Guest appearance in the Play Station 2 version of Viewtiful Joe. Although it came out a year after Devil May Cry 2 (where he was voiced by Matthew Kaminsky), Dante is instead voiced by his Devil May Cry (Drew Coombs). Thus, the VA progression went from Drew Coombs, to Matthew Kaminsky, then back to Drew Coombs, and then finally to Reuben Langdon, who has stayed as Dante's VA since the third game.
  • Cartoon Network's Bug Punch Time video game replaced almost every voice actor since the game makers wanted to have a small cast. Only Grey DeLisle, Tara Strong, Keith Ferguson, and Yuri Lowenthal got to keep their roles. Some of the recasts were quite interesting. Grey DeLisle got to take over Blossom from The Powerpuff Girls, and Mac from Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends. Tara Strong voice both Bubbles AND Buttercup, and also took over Dexter. Quinton Flynn took over Billy from Billy and Mandy (Grey DeLisle reprised her role of Mandy), Yuri Lowenthal took over as the voice of Numbah One from Codename: Kids Next Door, Keith Ferguson took over as Samurai Jack, and Nolan North took over "Father" from KND. The entire game only used a pool of eight voice actors.
  • Much to the chagrin of most fans of the franchise, the voice of Carmelita Fox in Sly Cooper was replaced in each game. She was played by Roxana Ortega in Sly Cooper and the Thevius Raccoonus, then by Alesia Glidewell in Sly 2: Band of Thieves, and finally Ruth Livier in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves. It didn't help that each voice actress gave Carmelita a different accent.
  • Etna from Disgaea was originally voiced by Amanda Winn-Lee (Gunsmith Cats, the Read or Die OVA), but Michelle Ruff (Ai Yori Aoshi, Kannazuki no Miko) took her place in pretty much every other NIS game.
  • In an unusual inversion, when the original Lunar game, Lunar: The Silver Star, was being remade into Silver Star Story, the original five English actors who did the original returned (along with other local talent from the area the Working Designs studio was), while all four Japanese voice actors from the original were replaced with an entirely new cast. The most notable change was Alex originally having Kikuko Inoue, and then going to Akira Ishida.
    • This occurs again in the Silver Star Harmony remake for the PSP, which was localized XSEED instead as Working Designs had long gone out of business. The story as to why depends on who you talked to - Victor Ireland, the former head of Working Designs, claimed the entire voice cast was loyal to him, aside from Jenny Stigle who "broke rank". XSEED, on the other hand, stated that most of the old cast wasn't actually in the business anymore, hence they hadn't tried to find them. Accordingly, Stigle got involved because fans of the original games put her in touch with XSEED. So which story you believe depends on who you trust more, though it was no secret that Ireland had a very bitter falling out with XSEED during the localization process.
    • The sequel, Lunar Eternal Blue, maintained consistent casts for both languages, on the other hand. The only change was Hiro's English voice going from Mark Zempel (Eternal Blue) to Chad Letts (Eternal Blue Complete), but they sound similar to the point that they're almost indistinguishable.
  • In the Prince of Persia Sands of Time series, the Prince's voice actor went from Yuri Lowenthal in the first game, to Robin Atkin Downes in the second, then back to Lowenthal for the third game, but with a slightly different voice and accent. Other characters' voices/accents (Farah and the Vizier) also changed between the games, and Kaileena's voice was not just changed between games, but changed during the game in Warrior Within.
    • Interesting international tidbit: the voice actor for the Spanish voice track was changed between Sands and Warrior, and the one from Warrior remained for Two Thrones. But what's interesting is that the first voice actor sounds younger and more arrogant, while the second voice actor sounds grimmer and older... which fits perfectly with the timeline of the game, since Warrior happens after a noticeable Time Skip, while Two Thrones is immediately after Warrior.
  • In the 3D Zelda titles, Ganondorf was voiced by Takashi Nagasako, but for unknown reasons was replaced by Hironori Miyata in The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess. This is notable because unlike Link, Zelda, and other recurring characters, Ganondorf is confirmed to always be the same person in each game. Then again, a lot of fans probably didn't notice due to the series' lack of extensive voice acting.
    • But they most likely noticed in the Super Smash Bros series, where Ganondorf was voiced by Nagasako in Melee, and Miyata in Brawl.
  • Every Star Fox game has a different American (or in Star Fox Adventures's case, British) voice cast; in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, however, Jim Walker voiced Fox as he did in Star Fox Assault, and in their cameos, Mike McAuliffe returned to voice Slippy, and Alesia Glidewell voiced Krystal (Glidewell also voices Samus in that game.)
    • The Japanese versions aren't free from this; unlike most examples, though, they extended the cast and made more diverse voices (Star Fox 64 had only six voice actors for its many roles). One example is that Shinobu Satouchi voiced both Fox and Leon in 64; in Assault and Brawl Satouchi keeps Leon, but Kenji Nojima voices Fox instead. The only seiyuus who stayed throughout were Hisao Egawa (Falco), Kyoko Tonguu (Slippy and Katt in 64), and Tomohisa Aso (Peppy).
    • When the Star Fox 64 remake for the Nintendo 3DS was released, the entire Japanese cast had been replaced, with Egawa, Tonguu, and Aso finally dropping out.
  • In between Condemned: Criminal Origins and Bloodshot, lab tech Rosa Angel dropped 30 lbs and 20 years.
    • This was pretty common, Ethan and Ferrel also got new voice actors.
  • Many major Warcraft characters have gotten a new voice actor for their World of Warcraft incarnation(although a few have retained their original lines). The most notable example would be Illidan, the Big Bad of the first expansion and many others directly connected to him.
    • At least Illidan's new voice actor sounds quite like his old one. Arthas (the titular villain of Wratch of the Lich King and the focal character for much of Warcraft III and it's expansion) was abruptly replaced after the first teaser for the new expansion, with what sounds like Peter Cullen. His voice actor allegedly thought he was getting the screws put to him and walked away. This is especially notable as the Lich King had previously been represented by two separate voices, one for Ner'zhul and one for Arthas, but now speaks with one reverbed voice that sounds nothing like either of the previous ones.
      • Actually, they got an entirely new actor to voice the lines spoken by Arthas for Wrath of the Lich King. As for the Lich King himself, his new voice is Michael McConnohie, who already plays Kel'thuzad and, strangely, Uther the Lightbringer.
        • There is actually a bit of story to back this change up. A few of the quests in Icecrown show the Lich King basically destroying the part of the good Arthas that is still within him, so the voice change to one, solid voice makes a little sense.
    • Partway through the Wrath of The Lich King expansion, Sylvanas was abruptly re-voiced by a new actress who gave her a more prominent accent. Many fans of the character were upset with this, claiming the accent doesn't fit the character.
  • Ratchet was played by Mikey Kelley in the first Ratchet & Clank, and James Arnold Taylor for the rest of the series.
  • The voice of Sparx in The Legend of Spyro series changes in each game, from David Spade to Billy West to Wayne Brady. In Dawn of the Dragon, when voiced by Wayne Brady, he tells Spyro that "[his] voice keeps changing" when Spyro asks how he feels.
    • Also Spyro himself has had many different voice actors as well: Carlos Alazraqui in the first game, Tom Kenny in the second through fourth game and later in Reignited Trilogy, Jess Harnell in the fifth and sixth games, and Elijah Wood in The Legend of Spyro even though he sounds nothing like the others, he may be an entirely different Spyro than the previous incarnation like his partner Sparx who originally spoke only gibberish in the original games.
    • Cynder also got different actresses for each Legend of Spyro game. First was Cree Summer, who made "possessed" Cynder sound menacing. Next was Mae Whitman, who sounded suspiciously older (despite Cynder being returned to normal - the same age as young Spyro). Last was Christina Ricci, who was higher-pitched and added Chickification to Cynder.
    • After Spyro left Insomniac, each new game got a cast change for pretty much every recurring character, and often along with it, changes in personality.
  • The Xenosaga games had three entries in the series, and mixed and matched their actors throughout; for example, Episode 2 replaced Lia Sargent as Shion with Olivia Hack; Bridget Hoffman as KOS-MOS with Colleen O'Shaughnessey; Sherry Lynn as MOMO with Christina Puccelli; and Derek Stephen Prince as chaos with Joshua Seth. Episode 3 replaced Shion and KOS-MOS with their original voice actors while keeping the rest of the main cast from episode 2.
  • Although most of the Final Fantasy VII cast is reused among the sequels and spinoffs such as Crisis Core and Kingdom Hearts, several actors have been replaced. Most notable is Aerith, who was voiced by Mandy Moore in Kingdom Hearts, Mena Suvari in Kingdom Hearts II and Advent Children, and Andrea Bowen in Crisis Core. Leon was voiced by David Boreanaz in Kingdom Hearts and Doug Erholtz in the sequel. Sephiroth was Lance Bass in Kingdom Hearts and George Newbern everywhere else. Yuffie was voiced by Christy Carlson Romano in Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts and Mae Whitman in Kingdom Hearts II and Dirge of Cerberus.
    • In addition, Robin Atkin Downes provided the English voice for Genesis Rhapsodos in Dirge of Cerberus, while Oliver Quinn played him in Crisis Core.
  • Speaking of Final Fantasy, the Dissidia series had Keith Ferguson and Keith Szarabajka respectively substitute for Michael E. Rodgers and John DiMaggio as Gabranth and Gilgamesh.
  • For Scarface: The World Is Yours, Al Pacino could not reprise his role as Tony Montana as his voice had been altered by years of smoking, so he hand-picked Andr é Sogliuzzo to do the voice acting, although the likeness remains Mr Pacino's. The difference in the voice is very difficult to notice.
  • Most of the English voice case of Tales of Symphonia was replaced for the sequel, Dawn of the New World. Of the original nine plus Yuan that reappear only Colette[1], Presea[2], and Kratos[3] (who's the narrator) retain their original VAs.
  • Keira, the hero's main love interest, suddenly and inexplicably changed voice for the third Jak and Daxter game. They decided to try and cover this by only giving her a handful of lines, and shifting Ashelin into the love interest position, despite Ashelin's obvious relationship with Torn providing A KEY PLOT POINT in the previous game.
    • They fortunately fixed this for the racing spin-off game, new actress or not.
  • This has occurred with at least 3 characters in the Monkey Island series. Most notably, the character of Elaine Marley. In the 4th game, she not only has a completely different voice actress, but she has also inexplicably dropped her British accent from the previous game. Oddly enough, she has both her original voice actress and her accent back again in the new game: Tales from Monkey Island.
  • Also in Kingdom Hearts II, David Warner was invited back to voice his Tron characters Sark and The MCP, and apparently was very enthusiastic about revisiting the roles, but was unable to do so because of previous commitments. The parts were instead voiced by veteran voice actor Corey Burton, with many fans not even realizing it wasn't Warner.
    • Corey Burton also replaced Christopher Lee as DiZ for RE:Chain of Memories, though this imitations is not as good as others of his. Strangely, Christopher Lee came back as DiZ in 358/2 Days.
    • Also related to Kingdom Hearts, but not Tron, they had replaced Naminé's Brittany Snow and even Kairi's (of all characters) Hayden Panettiere, with Meaghan Jette Martin and Alyson Stoner respectively, in Re: Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days. Alyson Stoner also voices Xion (it's significant later in the game).
      • Hayden Panettiere plays Xion in Kingdom Hearts 3D, making her the Other Darrin to Alyson Stoner. Confused, yet?
    • Perhaps most notable of all was the replacement of Ansem's VA Billy Zane with the decidedly less hammy Richard Epcar.
    • Plus in general the characters voiced by big stars had their original VAs not return such as Genie, Mushu, and Phil in Kingdom Hearts (or really any Disney property aside from the original film) Some of them such as James Woods (Hades), Angela Langsbury (Mrs. Potts), and David Ogden Stiers (Cogsworth) did return however.
      • This became interesting in II, where two actors (Tate Donovan and Glen Shadix) reprised roles they didn't do in the first game (Hercules and the Mayor of Halloween Town respectively). In other words, they became the other Darrins to their own other Darrins.
    • Almost the entire cast of Lion King had new voices in Kingdom Hearts II with the exception of Pumbaa and Banzai and Ed who did have their original voice actors return. Young Simba and Mufasa had their original VAs return by way of reusing audio from the original film. Also the entire cast of Pirates of the Carribean were replaced as the original cast was shooting the sequels and couldn't return (although they did want to).
    • All the Organization XIII members introduced in Chain of Memories (who were voiced by staff members), gained different voices in the remake and later appearances. The exception to this was Axel, but only in the Japanese version--since they didn't bother dubbing the voices, we have an interesting case where an English voice actor plays the other Darrin to his Japanese counterpart.
  • The English version of the spinoff series Dynasty Warriors: Gundam had to recast all the characters, since Bandai couldn't get ahold of the men and women at The Ocean Group to have them reprise their roles. Also, one of the actors had left a long time ago.
    • In the second game, the voice for Judau changed from Sean Broadhurst to Andrew Francis.
    • Most of the original Voices did return for DWG. The only notable replacements were Heero (who's VA refuses to reprise the role after bad convention experiences) Domon (whose VA is now a dentist and no longer does voice acting).
  • Between Halo 2 and 3, the voice for Miranda Keyes changed from Julie Benz in the 2nd game to Justis Bolding in the third game. Although, they do sound pretty similar.
  • Princess Peach of Super Mario Bros. has had a multitude of voices, whereas Charles Martinet voices most of the male characters. For Peach, there is:
    • Mami Yamase: The Great Mission To Rescue Princess Peach! OVA.
    • Miyako Endo: Amada OVA series.
    • Jeanne Elias: Super Mario Bros Super Show.
    • Tracey Moore: Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World.
    • Jocelyn Bedford: Hotel Mario.
    • Leslie Swan: Super Mario 64 and its remake, Super Paper Mario.
    • Asako Kozuki: Mario Kart 64, Mario Party 1 and 2.
    • Jen Taylor: Mario Party 3 up to Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games.
    • Nicole Mills: Mario and Luigi Partners In Time and Mario Smash Football.
    • Samantha Kelly began in Super Mario Galaxy and is Peach's current actress at this time. She also voices Toad and Toadette (who were previously voiced by Taylor) and Baby Peach as of Mario Kart Wii.
  • Princess Daisy from Super Mario Land has had Kate Fleming for her return in Mario Tennis, Jen Taylor for Mario Party 3, 4, and 5, and, starting with Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, Deanna Mustard, her current actress.
  • Rosalina had been voiced by Mercedes Rose in Super Mario Galaxy and Mario Kart Wii, but she is voiced by Kerri Kane in Mario Kart 7 and Laura Faye Smith as of Super Mario 3D World.
  • Any Resident Evil character that has been in more than one game will likely have a different voice actor per game due to Capcom's habit of changing casting agencies. One exception is Claire Redfield, who has been consistently voiced by Alyson Court since her debut in Resident Evil 2. An exception was almost made with Resident Evil Code Veronica, when Capcom considered using a local talent agency from Japan, but the Canadian studio that provided the voice acting for RE2 and Resident Evil 3 Nemesis successfully lobbied for her return.
    • Some characters have switched back and forth. Richard Waugh voiced Wesker in Code Veronica, but was replaced by Peter Jessop in the GameCube version of the first game, only to return in Resident Evil 0 and 4, then he was replaced by D. C. Douglas in 5 and Umbrella Chronicles.
    • Another aversion. Sally Cahill voiced Ada Wong in both of her appearances.
      • She was replaced by Megan Hollingshead in Umbrella Chronicles, but returned to voice Ada in The Darkside Chronicles, and was then replaced again by Courtenay Taylor for Operation Raccoon City. Most of the regular VAs from the time of 4 onward (including the aforementioned people) also reprised their roles in The Darkside Chronicles, although most of characters from the games before 4 were given new voice actors.
    • Leon S. Kennedy is also a notable partial aversion. He has been consistently voiced by Paul Mercier in all of his appearances after his debut in Resident Evil 2, where he was voiced by Paul Haddad... until Operation Raccoon City, where Christian Lanz took over.
  • In Star Wars Rebel Assault, Ru Murleen was originally played by an actress with the same name, but recast with Julie Eccles in the sequel.
  • Mortanius from Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen was originally voiced by Tony Jay, who would voice the Elder God in the sequels. To prevent confusion, they had Alastair Duncan voice Mortanius in Defiance.
  • After a contract disagreement with THQ, Richard Horvitz and Grant Albrecht were replaced as Pox and Crypto for the spin-off game Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed. The fans did not take to well to the replacement actors, but the originals came back for later games in the series.
  • In Metal Gear Solid, all the English voice actors from the original game reprised their roles with one notable exception: the voice of the Cyborg Ninja was changed from Greg Eagles (who was credited as George Byrd in the original) to Rob Paulsen. Eagles still reprised his other role as the DARPA Chief for the remake.
    • In the Japanese version of Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots, Ryotaro Okiayu, the seiyu of Vamp from Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty, ended up being replaced by Shinya Tsukamoto, a film director.
    • When Solid Snake and Roy Campbell appeared in Ape Escape 3, the localization staff were too lazy to track down David Hayter and Paul Eiding to reprise their role, so they got Peter Lurie (incidentally the voice of Vulcan Raven) and Michael McColl respectively.
      • Similarly, in Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater, Raiden in the Secret Theater's Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser was voiced by Charlie Schlatter, the same voice actor who voiced his Expy, Raikov.
    • In Metal Gear Solid 3, EVA was voiced by Suzetta Minet (although, given the recent reveal that she was actually an alias for another actress, exactly who played her is a subject of debate). However, in Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops, her voice actress was replaced with Vanessa Marshall for some reason (although to be fair, she never actually got any actual voiced scenes and at best did grunts), and in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, EVA was voiced by Suzetta Minet again.
      • In Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots, Liquid Ocelot's voice actor in the Japanese version was Banjo Ginga (the voice of Liquid Snake), not because of the fact that he was possessed by Liquid (hint, he was faking all along), but because Revolver Ocelot's original Japanese voice (Koji Totani) died before Metal Gear Solid 4 began production.
  • Backyard Sports has had four voice casts: 1997-2001, 2002-2003, 2003-2005, and 2006-present. All except 2002-2003 were made up of mostly the same people, but playing different characters each time.
  • A very odd example is Tenchu 2. Compare the US version to the Japanese and you'll see that Seiryu looks different in each.
    • In a more straightforward casting example, the whole cast changed from game to game (because they changed studios for each game).
  • In the Syphon Filter series, Mara Aramov has a different voice actress in every game, along with her appearance changing at least twice. Lian Xing has been voiced by three actresses; Ava Fang in 1, Zoe Galvez in 2 and 3, and Kim Mai Guest (the voice of Mei Ling) in all subsequent games, complete with different looks and personalities. Gabe Logan also switched voice actors from John Chacon to James Arnold Taylor starting with Omega Strain (contrary to belief, Michael Bell was not Logan's voice in Dark Mirror).
  • Magneto and Colossus lose their well-known voice actors (Tony Jay and Earl Boen) for the X Men Legends sequels, in which they were replaced by Richard Green and James Ward respectively. Cyclops and Pyro (both voiced by Robin Atkin Downes) were also recast so Josh Keaton and John Kassir took his roles.
    • This trope carried through to the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, though more noticeably in the second. Some actors stayed on from X-Men Legends, though by the second this became far less frequent and often actors staying on were cast in new roles. By Ultimate Alliance 2, the only actors reprising roles from previous games were Steven Blum as Wolverine, John Kassir as Deadpool, April Stewart as Ms Marvel and John DiMaggio as Juggernaut. Fred Tatiascore reprised his role as Hulk from elsewhere, replacing Peter Lurie from the previous game.
  • Al Pacino did not allow EA to use his likeness or voice for The Godfather game, so Michael Corleone's appearance and voice were replaced.
  • While Street Fighter does this frequently, the most notable cases are...
    • The Street Fighter Alpha series, where in between Alpha 2 and Alpha 3, Ryu went from Katashi Ishizuka to Toshiyuki Morikawa. In Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Ishizuka's sounds were used for grunts and most attack calls, but Ryu's cry of "Shin Shoryuken!" was Morikawa.
    • Street Fighter III. Third Strike replaced everybody save Akuma (Tomomichi Nishimura) and Ibuki (Yuri Amano).
    • In the Japanese version of Street Fighter IV, everybody is recast except for Ken (Yuji Kishi from Street Fighter III: Third Strike onward), Blanka (Yuji Ueda as of Street Fighter Alpha 3), Makoto (voiced by Makoto Tsumura in both of her appearances), Yun (Kentaro Ito in all his appearances as of Third Strike), Yang (Masakazu Suzuki from Third Strike on) and M. Bison (Norio Wakamoto as of Capcom vs. SNK). Curiously, Yuji Ueda does not reprise his role as Vega, instead being replaced by Junichi Suwabe, and Toru Okawa is no longer Ryu, but his master Gouken.
  • In Koei's Samurai Warriors, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's American voice actor portrayed him with a screeching, annoying voice. In Samurai Warriors 2, with Hideyoshi's role in the story expanded, he was assigned a much better actor who was able to convey a great deal of depth and humor, making him much more tolerable. And then Warriors Orochi hit, they went back to his old voice actor.
  • Akoya Sougi voiced Mai Shiranui in Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters. In the KOF: Sky Stage game, she's replaced by Ami Koshimizu, who takes over as Mai in the main series starting in KOF XIII.
    • Athena Asamiya is the uber-example of Darrining. She's had five seiyuus: Reiko Fukai (KOF '94) to Moe Nagasaki (95) to Tamao Satou (96) to Yukina Kurisu (97) to Haruna Ikezawa (98). They've seemed to have stuck with Ikezawa since though.
    • Robert Garcia is an interesting example. His first VA (Eiji Yano in Art of Fighting) was replaced by Kazuhiro Inage for AOF 2, King of Fighters '94 and '95. After that, Mantaro Koichi replaced him for Art of Fighting 3 and King of Fighters '96, and provided Robert's voice for every game up to KOF 2003. Then in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, Inage returned to voice Robert and has done so ever since.
    • Geese Howard's first voice was Katsuhisa Namase in Fatal Fury Special. Kong Kuwata took the reins for Fatal Fury 3, and is now the voice most closely associated with Geese.
    • Overall, however, SNK(P) is a large aversion of this trope, with most voice cast changes only happening when the company has lost contact with a seiyuu, the seiyuu retires, or (unfortunately) the seiyuu passes away. This means that a vast majority of their characters have been voiced by the same person on at least a semi-regular basis for a good period of time, some even approaching 10 or 20 years of voicework.
  • Mega Man Legends 2 changed Mega Man Volnutt's voice from relatively normal something to feminine.
  • Rather irritatingly done within the same game in Heavy Rain for the DLC The Taxidermist, where the character of Madison Paige (the only returning character) quite blatantly has a completely different voice. Obviously the DLC was done after the actual product was complete, so having a different VA was fairly likely (DLC is really not big enough to warrant a return).
    • Actually, it was because The Taxidermist had been created as a gameplay demo a couple of years before release, when the final voice actors hadn't been cast. Quantic Dream just decided to save the trouble of recording Madison's lines again with the actress from the main game.
    • Fans of Quantic Dream's previous games will notice that Madison's voice actress for The Taxidermist is actually Carla Valenti from Indigo Prophecy.
  • Although James McCaffrey voiced the character in both games, in Max Payne series writer Sam Lake modelled for Max in the first game but was replaced by the irreconcilably different-looking Timothy Gibbs in the sequel, owing to the project's bigger budget. Lampshaded in one of the second game's fourth-wall-breaking dream sequences, when one of Max's doubles looks at himself and says "I've been switched! I didn't use to look like this!"
    • And Max'll be voiced by a different actor in the third game, due to the Time Skip.
    • Considering the release date from the previous games (development schedule willing,) James McCaffrey has aged about the same rate as Max.
  • In the first Star Trek Elite Force game, each of the main characters was voiced by their original actor from Star Trek: Voyager except Seven, who was voiced by Joan Buddenhagen. Then when the expansion pack was released, Jeri Ryan stepped in to provide Seven's voice, even going so far as to re-record all of Seven's lines from the original game so there wouldn't be an obvious change when going from original to expansion material.
  • One of the changes made for Golden Eye Wii was to replace Pierce Brosnan's James Bond with Daniel Craig. To make the replacement less jarring, all of the other characters in the single player campaign have also had their appearances completely altered as well. They're all new designs rather than being based on recognizable actors, so it does fail a little in terms of polish.
  • For Conduit 2, the sequel to The Conduit, Mark Sheppard's Agent Ford was replaced by Jon St. John. Kevin Sorbo's Prometheus was also replaced.
  • Marty Mc Fly in the new Back to The Future video game is not voiced by Michael J. Fox (for understandable reasons), but by a voice-acting newcomer named AJ Lo Cascio. So the story goes, when AJ first spoke his lines as Marty during a recording session, it was similar enough to Fox that it completely surprised Christopher Lloyd.
    • Biff Tannen and George McFly have been given new voices in the form of Kid Beyond and Michael X. Sommers (respectively, who also voice Kid Tannen and Arthur McFly), replacing Tom Wilson and Crispin Glover.
  • Ulala was the only major returning character in Space Channel 5 Part 2 to keep the same (English) voice actor (besides Space Michael).
  • Video game versions of Mobile Suit Gundam in America tend to go through Other Darrin moments. Among those were any game that used Heero Yuy (as his voice actor hated the character due to how he was treated during recording of the series) and Domon Kasshu (according to the voice actor of Mega Man X character Zero, his voice actor had disappeared off the face of the Earth; Wikipedia claims he's living in Canada as an orthopedic surgeon).
    • A noticeable change was in Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space, which had replaced the voices of everyone from Mobile Suit Gundam 0080 War in The Pocket and Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory both in game and the 0083 cutscenes. This was because 0080 and 0083 were dubbed by Bang-Zoom and the game was using Ocean Group.
    • Also notably weird in Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam: the original series and Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam were dubbed by different groups, the game uses both groups for their specific storylines, and there's a What If route that is, basically, the events of the first in the timeline of the second. Meaning returning characters will switch voices on the fly, depending on what's happening.
  • Averted with Lenneth for Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, but played straight with everyone else. Megan Hollingshead was the only cast member to reprise her role from the first game.
  • In the Broken Sword series the main character George Stobbart's voice is always Rolf Saxon. But Nicole Collard, the second main character in most of them, has been voiced by a different actress in each game: Hazel Ellerby in "The Shadow of the Templars" (also known as "Circle of Blood"), Flaminia Cinque in "The Smoking Mirror", Sarah Crook in "The Sleeping Dragon" and Katherine Pageon in "The Angel of Death" (also known as "Secrets of the Ark").
  • Kasumi was first voiced by Sakura Tange. From Dead Or Alive 3 onwards, she is voiced by Houko Kuwashima - although Dead Or Alive Ultimate 2 had the option to choose between Tange and Kuwashima.
  • Akumajo Dracula X: Chi no Rondo for the PC-Engine starred Jin Horikawa as Richter Belmont, Yoko Teppozuka as Maria Renard and Hiroya Ishimaru as Dracula. In its Play Station sequel Akumajo Dracula X: Gekka no Yasokyoku, they were replaced by Kiyoyuki Yanada, Chisa Yokoyama, and Norio Wakamoto in that order.
  • Between Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age II, a few characters were recast. Victoria Kruger replaced Mika Simmons as Isabela, because there were concerns about the vocal similarity between Isabela and Queen Anora being too obvious with Isabela in a more major role. Adam Howden replaced Greg Ellis as Anders because Ellis couldn't commit to the recording schedule for such a major character. Merrill was a bit part in the first game voiced by Erin Matthews, and when she became a full party member for Dragon Age II, she was recast with Eve Myles.
  • In Batman: Arkham City, Tara Strong replaces Arleen Sorkin as the voice of Harley Quinn and David Kaye replaces Tom Kane as Commissioner Gordon.
  • The first expansion pack for First Encounter Assault Recon has a brief section where you meet up with Norton Mapes again, who has a different voice actor than he did in the base game. What makes this especially odd is that the other major returning characters (Holiday, Jin, and Fettel) all kept their original voice actors, and the second expansion managed to bring back Commissioner Betters' actor as well (his only lines in Extraction Point were re-used from the original).
  • Blaz Blue has a nasty habit of changing VAs every time there is a new Continuum Shift game. Some were quasi identical (Julie Ann Taylor as Mu-12 sounds like Cristina Vee's Mu-12 and Spike Spencer as Hazama), others were quite jarring (Steve Kramer as Bang in place of Tony Oliver, and Laura Bailey as Rachel instead of Mela Lee) and Doug Erholtz makes a better Hazama than Erik Davies when back then, people thought it was Doug who plays him in Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift.
  • Bishop, Token Evil Teammate for Neverwinter Nights 2, was voiced by Asa Siegel in the first campaign. He, or rather his Wall of the Faithless-absorbed-soul, reappears in a Dream Sequence in Mask of the Betrayer voiced by Dave Walsh.
  • Between Prototype and Prototype 2, Alex Mercer's voice actor went from Barry Pepper to Shaun Paul Piccinino.
  • The voice actor of Mordin Solus was changed from Michael Beattie in Mass Effect 2 to William Salyers in Mass Effect 3.
  • Don Jordan, who played Irving Lambert from Splinter Cell was inexplicably replaced by Dennis Haysbert for Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and then inexplicably returned for the rest of the series.
  • The video game adaptation of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law had the entire cast reprise their roles except for Stephen Colbert as Phil Ken Sebben; he was instead voiced by Stephen Stanton.
  • Between Rainbow Six: Vegas 1 and 2, every voice actor except for Jung Park's was replaced. For some it's not really noticeable (Michael Walters sounds pretty similar across the two games), for others it's blatantly obvious (Logan Keller's Texan accent in the first game disappears entirely in the day or so between its missions and the final one of the second).
  • For Persona 4 Arena and Persona 4 Golden, Erin Fitzgerald will voice Chie Satonaka in place of Tracey Rooney, who played her in the original game. Sam Riegel is also taking over for Dave Wittenberg's Teddie.
  • Midway replaced half of the digitized actors from the first two Mortal Kombat games in Mortal Kombat 3. The only ones who returned were Tony Marquez (Kung Lao), Richard Divizio (Kano, Baraka and Kabal), John Parrish (Jax) and Brian Glynn (Shao Kahn).
    • Eddie Wong replaced Ho Sung Pak as Liu Kang.
    • Kerri Hoskins replaced Elizabeth Malecki as Sonya Blade.
    • John Turk replaced Phillip Ahn as Shang Tsung and Daniel Pesina as Sub-Zero. Turk would go on to play all of the masked ninjas in 'Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 as well.
    • In Ultimate, Becky Gable was brought in to replace Katalin Zamiar as the female ninjas (Kitana, Mileena and Jade).
    • Johnny Cage would be the last character whose actor was replaced. Originally Midway was planning to leave him out of Mortal Kombat Trilogy due to the Creator Backlash that resulted when Dan Pesina posed in character as Cage for an ad for BloodStorm. But then they decided to bring Cage by replacing Dan Pesina with Chris Alexander.
  • The Fushigi Yuugi Dating Sim Suzaku Ibun changed the whole cast. ie, these are the VA's for the Suzaku Warriors:
    • Tamahome: Hikaru Midorikawa -> Mamoru Miyano
    • Hotohori: Takehito Koyasu -> Katsuyuki Konishi
    • Nuriko: Chinatsu "Chika" Sakamoto -> Junko Minagawa
    • Tasuki: Nobutoshi Canna -> Kousuke Toriumi
    • Chichiri: Tomokazu Seki -> Kouki Miyata
    • Mitsukake: Kouji Ishii -> Kenta Miyake
    • Chiriko: Tomoko Kawakami -> Akiko Kimura
  1. Heather Hogan
  2. Tara Strong
  3. Cam Clarke
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