Nothing shows off the modern cinematic qualities of video games like the advances in voice acting. We've gone from simple text speech and the occasional "Wise fwom you gwave" to performances that can rival a Pixar flick. Did anyone else start crying when Balthier was cavalierly fixing the Bahamut while the now-united forces of good and evil seek to keep to from falling on Rabanastre in Final Fantasy XII? If you didn't, stop reading. I don't write for soulless lizard people.
You only have to look at the nod to GLaDOS in Ellen McClain's role in Pacific Rim to see just how wonderfully our video game voice heroes are making their way out into the more traditional entertainment venues. Yet as they emerge sometimes we run across some very strange coincidences and quirks that are a little confusing. Here's five of them.
Flashback Reviews For The Easily Distracted: Pacific Rim
Quick, what's the first Final Fantasy that featured voice acting? X, right? All that horrible laughter scraping our souls from the inside? No, it was actually VII. As the Diamond Weapon makes its way towards Midgar near the end of the game an unknown and uncredited voice actor says, "Radar system is go. Sister Ray target confirmed. Entering discharge preparations. All workers should evacuate from the designated area." This constitutes the first known voice acting in the series, and it isn't even part of a grand ending or intro. It would be two more entries in the franchise and another step up in the console wars before voice acting would return to become a staple.
Speaking of Square Enix titles, they are responsible for one of the biggest returns of an original voice actor to a character in history. In 1951 at the age of 13 Kathryn Beaumont landed the lead role in Disney's Alice in Wonderland (She was also Wendy in Peter Pan later on). After Peter Pan Beaumont almost completely disappeared from acting until the Disney/Square Enix crossover Kingdom Hearts came calling. Suddenly, she found herself once again voicing Alice and Wendy a half a century after she did so on the big screen.
