Donkey Kong Bananza Credits Confirm The Voice Actors Behind DK And Pauline

Cool, but I prefer more natural sounds. They should've just hid a microphone and tied bananas on an intern's body then toss them to the gorilla pit. Then record the very natural roars and sounds they make as they go ape on them.

I have no strong thoughts, but I'm guessing somebody who shows up in these comments will lol.

As long as they’re voiced by real people I’m happy.

So you're saying it's spelled "Kidd Pauline" then.

It saddens me that the original voice actors of these legendary games were unceremoniously replaced this generation.

They literally brought our beloved characters to life and to see them so swiftly swept away only to have new actors take their place is deeply depressing.

I know actors and actresses age out but not offering them a proper send off is just baffling to me, especially when it comes to beloved characters and games by Nintendo, of all companies!!

@Orwellian87 In the case here, it seems entirely different from the Peach situation. Often times when they bring in a younger version of a character- they don’t often go with the same exact VA.

Is DK too much of a big shot to do his own line readings now? Ridiculous.

@koopababble What does he think he is? A [BIG SHOT]?!

@VoidofLight I was referencing the replacement of Charles Martinet, Samantha Kelly, etc.

I'm unsure what this might mean for Kate Higgins - I know she just did Pauline's voice in MKWorld, and it's most likely they just wanted a younger sounding actress for this younger take on the character, but given how quickly Nintendo's been tossing out the OG VAs for the rest of the Mario cast, I'm a little uncertain.

But as for Jenny Kidd herself, from what I heard, I think she's a great fit as Pauline. The direction she's given isn't doing her any favors, but in the terms of the voice itself, it's (Odd)rock solid - almost a dead ringer for Higgins herself. They did an A+ job finding someone who could successfully match that specific voice for the character. Makes you wonder why they couldn't reach the same level of quality when recasting Mario.

Very interesting. Not sure how old she is, but this is her first credit on IMDb for a game/series/film. As others have said, I think her stock will rise very quickly and her credits will multiply from here.

Indeed, I thought it was Kate Higgins doing this one too. Impressive take! Presuming adult Pauline appears again, I wonder who will voice her going forward?

At least it wasn't Seth Rogan amirite

If Nintendo wanted Kate Higgins gone, they wouldn’t have let her do Mario Kart World. We learned that Bananza was a Switch 1 game just like World, so they could have easily got Jenny to voice adult Pauline in World.

The wording of the article makes it sound like Jenny is replacing Kate, which may not be the case.

…But it does make you wonder why they didn’t just let Kate voice the kid version. It’s not like she can’t pull off a younger voice.

@LazyDaisy Agreed. I wonder if they even tried Kate to see if she could do it, before approaching Jenny. I suspect not, as I, like you think she could have done it just fine.

Peach's voice actor or voice actress?

@Ultimapunch I don't think Nintendo could risk AI slop, they get away with much (I'm looking at you, Pokemon), but AI is almost automatically associated with lowest quality possible

@Orwellian87 McDonalds won’t ceremoniously let people go either.

These are people paid to do contract jobs, when it comes down to it.

Naturally companies will want to keep popular actors around, but eventually the cost compared to fresh talent will cause a shift. Any form of ceremonious send off would be nothing more than a shallow PR play, and at the end of the day — most of the people playing these games have no idea who these actors are.

And they definitely contribute less than the average developer on the team, who won’t get any ceremony either — when they leave or retire.

@Princess_Lilly Pokemon is developed by Game Freak, not Nintendo.

@Orwellian87 How do you feel about the artists, animators and programmers who have worked on these characters and come and gone over the years?

Good voice acting is important, and certainly a real-life human voice actor. But we seem obsessed with it, like they are more important than anyone else? I kinda get it, it's the most tangibly human connection in the whole thing, the art, the animation these are made by a human hand but we don't witness the human behind it but the VO we hear their own voice, so the para-social connection is just that bit easier. But games are made by a team and members of that team come and go and none of them get a 'proper send off', not publicly at least, so why do the voice actors deserve it more?

Could be that younger and less experienced actors will be more likely to sign contracts that are less favourable to them compared to before the rise of AI tools. Fewer actual acting jobs as opposed to selling the rights to their voice to be copied from an initial performance.

Jenny Kidd as young Pauline seems perfect to me. Probably the best casting we've had from Nintendo in recent years.

RELEASE THE ROGEN CUT!!!

@Darthroseman like Kidd Rock !

Why the hell was my comment removed as unconstructive? I'm cheering for her debut.
Nahh... I'm posting it again! Let me know when you find a reason to flag it. Yeesh

"Congrats for her. Her spotify has 37 monthly listeners so I guess that's gonna explode now. Enjoy the game everyone."

@Orwellian87 Well Samantha Kelly wouldn't have had her role if she didn't replace Lesley Swan.

So you can't really call her the original voice actor lol.

I had the same complaint in Mario Wonder with the flowers but I wish there was an option to have Pauline speak gibberish like the rest of the characters (in this game and most other Mario games). Her speaking in full English is uncanny.

@Kingy I haven't played Wonder yet, but I have heard people suggest it can be annoying. Do you know if there a way to turn that off, and if so, is anything worthwhile missed from doing it?

@Ellie-Moo You can set the flowers to mute, and I don't think you lose out on anything because the dialogue boxes should still appear.
I can't confirm that myself though because I played with the voices on.

They don't ruin the game but most of their dialogue boils down to tutorials and inane quips that don't really add anything to it. And they speak in full English, which I think is just a bad fit for Mario games, same with Pauline here in Bananza.

@Kingy Thank you. Think I'll leave them on to start with, and turn them off if they get a bit irritating.

Interesting they allow you to do that though. I wonder if playtesters gave that feedback.

Latin American Spanish voice by Elizabeth Infante, aka Anya from Spy X Family.

I know she's voiced other characters, but that's the only one of her roles I've heard.

Wishful thinking: They're retiring Takashi Nagasako to let him rest to get ready to be the Japanese dub voice of Chadondorf in the live-action Zelda movie.

@Ellie-Moo No problem.

Mario Wonder has a lot of language options for the flowers so I imagine it wasn't much effort to add a mute option too. But yeah I'm shocked there's an option at all, Nintendo has a tendency to force you to play their games one way only.

@Ellie-Moo I set the Flowers to speak French (which I don't know) and it has worked out pretty well

Takeda is Donkey
And LeBron James is Gwa... sorry, wrong thing

Takashi Nagasako also did Ganondorf, has he also been replaced in Zelda?

@Liam_Doolan To be clear, does this include singing? Movies (and I suppose games too) sometimes have voice actors and singers for a character be different people.