How do you feel about X's voice in the new Marvel vs Capcom?
A mixed bag, but...honestly, mostly positive.
Here’s the thing; they were never getting Mark Gatha back. Gatha’s retired from VA work, and Lucas Gilbertson (the VA who gave Zero the epic surfer-esque voice that’s become iconic for him) has reconfirmed this several times. Someone new had to step up to the plate, but unfortunately, X is actually a fairly rare type of protagonist. Soft-spoken and youthful, but still strong. In the Anime VA usual suspects, there aren’t many who can fit the bill.
It’s not like JYB with the angsty or cool guy swordsman, he goes through those roles like a duck through water. Zero’s just another walk in the park for him. And this isn’t another situation where you can just throw Yuri Lowenthal in to play off him like so many bits in the animesque gaming sphere; his voice just doesn’t work for X.
Even this is not the main issue, however. The main issue is Capcom made this game with an extremely small budget compared to MVC3, so they were sticking to their in-house VA team.
Thus we have Ted Sroka...aka, Dan Hibiki. Yeah, this-- this wasn’t taken with the most care.
Here’s the important thing to note, through: while Capcom corporate clearly didn’t give a shit, Sroka clearly did. You can tell he’s doing his best with what he’s given and what he understands about the character, and he’s not just phoning it in. When he has to do one of X’s quieter or introspective moments, he nails it; the only problem is the aggressive/battle gameface dialogue, where the inflections are just too immature for X; they’d suit Rock fine, but X should sound nobler than that. (Though to be fair, most of this was the scriptwriter’s lack of ability on display throughout the bulk of the campaign; Sroka’s working with what he’s got.)
The tone sounds right, Sroka respects the role, and with the character moments that X is known for, he already sells it nicely. Given a little more practice, he’ll fit the part like a glove.
