Graha Voice Actor Change?

[pandabuddha]

I feel like G'raha was still voiced by Jonathan Bailey this patch, but likely exhausted from all the stuff he could've been doing around the time 7.4 was being recorded. I, personally, hear it in the inflection sometimes. Like yes, he sounded strange at the beginning of the patch and it was immediately jarring, but towards the end G'raha's voice sounded like himself (just exhausted).

Regardless, Square Enix really should tell us whether or not they've recast G'raha--permanently or temporarily. It's about closure for fans that want to know if this beloved character has received a new voice actor or not. JP fans would never get this treatment if they recast Uchida Yuuma. It's really disrespectful.

[Lady_J]

The fact that multiple gaming news outlets started talking about this the very day that 7.4 went up is incredibly telling on how stark the difference is, like nearly everyone has noticed and this is clearly so much more important then the developers think if they choose to not at the very least address it.

I know I personally would go through the rest of the next few msq updates feeling at odds with playing in general, because Bailey as G'raha does make so much of the overall characters charm and persona, and if in the end all our worst fears were found true by the end credits, and that's the only time we find out, then this'll only blow up in the worst possible way. I really hope we get some form of an answer, skirting around it with sneaky edits is disrespectful to the fandom that's invested so much into the game already.

[Pommy]

i really dont mean to put down everyone's feelings or worries about this situation but i have to be honest i think some of you are assuming the worst possible scenario

maybe its just because im a casual player but i do also very much love g'raha and when i played this patch i noticed he sounded different but not dramatically so- if anything i really enjoyed a lot of his lines. it still sounded like bailey to me, just vocal fried.

bailey has said he enjoys voicing g'raha AND i doubt square enix would give up The Sexiest Man Alive 2025 as a voice actor for one of their most popular characters.

[claustromania]

I'm aware of his work in Richard II, but the thing is, even he had his tongue inflamed and swollen because of his work in Company, he at most sounded lispy, not like an entire different person. Raha's voice lines in 7.4 do not sound like Bailey with a sickness, they sound like someone else entirely — or like Bailey mysteriously being directed to do an entirely different voice and inflection for Raha.

To me, he sounds both horribly lispy and like his mic wasn't capturing any of the depth of his voice. His first few lines even sounded like a completely different person, down to pronouncing words in an entirely different accent, though the later ones sounded closer to his usual accent and inflection, even if the pitch and tone never recovered.

Insane how divided the playerbase is on this. I've seen people saying they couldn't even tell the difference, or that it's very clearly JB and just under the weather. Which, come on now...I'm glad I caught wind of the change before playing or I would have died of shock when he first spoke, and even then I still wasn't prepared for how off he sounded. Some may call it an overreaction to care so much about a character voice, but to many players, Jonathan Bailey is G'raha and his performance went a very long way to endear the character to us in the first place. Nobody likes to see their favorite characters suddenly become a stranger.

If it was Bailey, the voice lines are bad enough to warrant a rerecording. If it wasn't Bailey, we deserve to know why and if it's temporary. And if it's not temporary, we deserve to know why they'd chose to part ways with him now of all times, when he's less busy than he was when he still came back to record for 7.0 through 7.3.

Agreed on all counts. SE's silence on this is unacceptable. You'd think they'd have more respect for their product and playerbase (ha).

[claustromania]

i really dont mean to put down everyone's feelings or worries about this situation but i have to be honest i think some of you are assuming the worst possible scenario

maybe its just because im a casual player but i do also very much love g'raha and when i played this patch i noticed he sounded different but not dramatically so- if anything i really enjoyed a lot of his lines. it still sounded like bailey to me, just vocal fried.

bailey has said he enjoys voicing g'raha AND i doubt square enix would give up The Sexiest Man Alive 2025 as a voice actor for one of their most popular characters.

This is the take I'm hearing from a lot of casual players/non-G'raha enjoyers, and I sincerely hope you're right and we're all just very sensitive to the idea that our favorite character could be drastically altered out of the blue. That said, it's important that SE is aware of their playerbase's feelings on a potential G'raha recast. It's been a big fear since JB rocketed into ultra-stardom.

[peachsyder]

i really dont mean to put down everyone's feelings or worries about this situation but i have to be honest i think some of you are assuming the worst possible scenario

maybe its just because im a casual player but i do also very much love g'raha and when i played this patch i noticed he sounded different but not dramatically so- if anything i really enjoyed a lot of his lines. it still sounded like bailey to me, just vocal fried.

bailey has said he enjoys voicing g'raha AND i doubt square enix would give up The Sexiest Man Alive 2025 as a voice actor for one of their most popular characters.

I mean it from the bottom of my heart when I say that I hope you're right and it's still Bailey, even though I personally believe the voice lines were bad enough that even if it was him, it deserves a rerecording. But as someone who's embarrassing levels of obsessed with Bailey's performance as G'raha, who has listened to his cutscenes multiple times over the years, and who has watched plenty of Bailey's other works, the more I played through the 7.4 MSQ the less I could ever believe that G'raha was being voiced by Bailey. Everything felt wrong, from the pitch to the inflection to the accent and intonation. It's just not him.

I firmly believe Bailey wouldn't give up on G'raha, my doubts are on whether Square Enix would. Their silence and intentional omission of G'raha's voice line only in the English 7.4 trailer make all of this look so odd and concerning.

Jonathan Bailey's performance simply is G'raha to me, and clearly from this thread and many other places over the internet on the past couple, to many others too. It would be devastating to see him go. I think the uproar is warranted because Square Enix needs to know that this matters to people.

Edit: Editing to apparently make clear to bad faith, low literacy people that I obviously don't think Bailey is, literally, a fictional cat person in my mind, since this post has got people calling me "parasocial and delusional" lol.

[ZephyrMenodora]

i really dont mean to put down everyone's feelings or worries about this situation but i have to be honest i think some of you are assuming the worst possible scenario

I don't feel like we are assuming, we just have ears.

I could just as easily tell people that they too easily assume when they are telling us that Jonathan was just tired, or forgot how to play the character he said he loves and has played for 7 years now.

That said we are all making some assumptions here, since SE has refused to confirm anything despite game outlet articles, threads like this, and people asking them on social media directly.

[peachsyder]

Insane how divided the playerbase is on this. I've seen people saying they couldn't even tell the difference, or that it's very clearly JB and just under the weather. Which, come on now...I'm glad I caught wind of the change before playing or I would have died of shock when he first spoke, and even then I still wasn't prepared for how off he sounded. Some may call it an overreaction to care so much about a character voice, but to many players, Jonathan Bailey is G'raha and his performance went a very long way to endear the character to us in the first place. Nobody likes to see their favorite characters suddenly become a stranger.

Agree on all counts with this, especially with the sheer shock that it was hearing his lines the first time. Dying of shock is real lmao. Personally, I was having high hopes for it feeling better on the latter parts of story as I heard many saying it sounded more like him later on, but to me it actually got worse. His short lines gave more plausible deniability of it being a very off sounding Bailey to me, but the longer his lines were, the more noticeable the difference was to me. It was incredibly jarring. I just got more and more upset the longer I played, which was a shame because the story was good. But without G'raha's voice, I just couldn't enjoy it at all.

I have to believe anyone calling this is an overreaction on the fans' part isn't too familiar with many video game fandoms, because recasts have always been an extremely touchy topic. Like yeah, it is serious enough that people quit or pass on games over it. This has and always will matter to people, even if some happen to be an exception.

[EdgyFloral]

From the very first line it was noticeable that G'raha's voice was different. If it's still Jonathan but his voice is hurting from singing/overuse/cold or if it's a different voice actor altogether the SE localization needs to let us know. There is no reason we should all have to be on here debating who is voicing him or what happened. We just need an official statement and deserve one.

[Lara_Kotzji]

To me, he sounds both horribly lispy and like his mic wasn't capturing any of the depth of his voice. His first few lines even sounded like a completely different person, down to pronouncing words in an entirely different accent, though the later ones sounded closer to his usual accent and inflection, even if the pitch and tone never recovered.

Insane how divided the playerbase is on this. I've seen people saying they couldn't even tell the difference, or that it's very clearly JB and just under the weather. Which, come on now...I'm glad I caught wind of the change before playing or I would have died of shock when he first spoke, and even then I still wasn't prepared for how off he sounded. Some may call it an overreaction to care so much about a character voice, but to many players, Jonathan Bailey is G'raha and his performance went a very long way to endear the character to us in the first place. Nobody likes to see their favorite characters suddenly become a stranger.



Agreed on all counts. SE's silence on this is unacceptable. You'd think they'd have more respect for their product and playerbase (ha).

For me, Jonathan knew how to bring Raha to life, and seeing this abrupt change left me in shock. It feels so different, as if he isn't the same character.
I think people who are really attached to G'raha and loved Jonathan's performance will notice the difference right away... We grew up with his voice for a long time...