Princess Peach's New Voice Actor Has Been Confirmed

Congrats! Welcome to the team!

(there’s gonna be meltdowns though and they are gonna be funny!)

I wonder why Nintendo kept the VAs under such strict NDAs that they couldn't reveal the characters they were playing on launch. Why be so tight-lipped about it(Then again, they didn't tell Samantha Kelly she was being recast until launch day, so I guess it's just bad conduct on their part)?

Anyways. As for Courtney Lin herself, from what I heard, she's doing a good job so far. Her take on Peach isn't 1-1 with Kelly or Jen Taylor's takes(Lin is slightly lower in terms of the pitch), but the specifics of the voice and underlying personality of the character are still largely present - enough for me to not mind the differences too much. While the circumstances behind her casting are less than fortunate, I won't hold that against her - that's entirely on Nintendo.

I wish Lin the best of luck in regards to handling the voice of Peach - She's already doing a better job in her roles than Kevin Afghani is with his, that's for sure.

_{EDIT: I find it peculiar that they got multiple VAs for Samantha Kelly's characters yet they're still doubling down on having one guy (poorly) voice all of Charles' characters.}

Why are they replacing all the VAs? And apparently with Sam Kelly it was in bad faith.

@Aurumonado That's the question, ain't it? Some will say it's because the actors are "gEtTiNg ToO oLd To VoIcE aCt(untrue btw)," but personally, I think it's because it's probably cheaper to hire newer, talent than it is to keep paying the old talent.

I know her as Tatiana from Unicorn Overlord which is so funny considering that character's personality.

Happy to have her on board. Hope she doesn't get any negativity over Nintendo's decision making.

Looks like a VA who's growing in popularity and roles. Only game I have see her in that I played is Unicorn Overlord and the character she plays is nothing like Peach haha.

@JR150 I feel as if my comment was copyright infringed

It's going to take a while to get used to the new voices. Honestly, I'm surprised that they hired Kevin Afghani for all of the bros. when they're not doing the same actor for Peach and Toadette, because honestly... while Kevin Afghani does fine... some of his voices do need a bit of work, especially his Mario one in particular. 🤣

I really dont notice the difference, nintendo voice actors dont really have a large role. I think Zelda and Pauline are the only examples I can think of that have what I'd call large roles

What she doesn't even have the right hair color? What a load.

I have to wonder why Samantha Kelly's roles are being split across more than one replacement voice actor, with Lin making no mention of Toad or Toadette, and yet Kevin Afghani's a universal replacement for Charles Martinet. I'm guessing it's a matter of cost, but it would've been nice if they tried to find 4 VAs that could really nail each of Martinet's characters instead of one that can do a decent approximation of them all. I personally think Kevin excels as Luigi but is inconsistent in every other role he's taken on, especially Wario. It's not the replacement I'm most annoyed by - I think Giselle Fernandez's Daisy regularly misses the mark and it actively makes me like the character a bit less, and I'm also not fond of Toadette's new voice (whoever it is seems to be much better at playing Toad because you could tell me that was still Samantha Kelly in World and I'd buy it) - but it doesn't feel like they've been handling the recasts particularly well. Courtney's Peach is up there with Kevin's Luigi and the new Toad for me, but it feels the most egregious given Samantha Kelly didn't find out until after World launched, hot off the heels of Showtime. At least it'd been a while since Deanna Mustard recorded for Daisy (maybe it happened with Super Rush, but I feel like it'd been close to a decade before Wonder).

I hope they're at least willing to keep Kenny James as Bowser. I don't think anyone could replace him and not sound different.

I get the frustration about the replacements and wish luck to Charles and Sam. But at the same time they're giving opportunities to new blood as well. Its give and take. Also at least it's not the movie actors, they got enough with the movieverse.

@GinMiguel Movie actors would've been too costly for Nintendo in this context.

With how little Mario characters speak, 99% of gamers won't even notice. It's not like they're reading 3000 lines of dialogue. I think this has more to do with internal politics than the quality of acting itself (I never noticed the change.)

@Aurumonado In bad faith on her part?
Cause if not, it's absolutely in bad faith on Nintendo's part!

Much as I can appreciate someone getting a chance to voice an icon, Nintendo should not be cutting these ppl off.

@BinaryMessiah
What sorts of internal politics?

I personally agree with the comment prior yours.
Nintendo would not have done this under Iwata/Reggie. Not any of this bs we've seen since switch 1 came out.

At bare minimum, there would have been measures taken to lighten the load on the consumer.

It’s interesting Nintendo has been so secretive about it. Not really sure what to make of that.

PANTY ANARCHY?!

I'm not too familiar with her work but I did realize she voice Trish in Triangle Strategy so that's cool.

Peach went through five voices just across the N64 and Gamecube. Samantha Kelly was in the role for a long time and should've been informed they were going a new direction but it's not like Nintendo never changed anyone's voices before 2023.

I've never understood why Nintendo is so hush hush when the characters voice maybe 3 complete sentences in a game like Mario Kart.

Never mind the fact the majority of fans don't even notice the change nor care who voices them in the first place.

@Coalescence i mean...

Its not like youre gonna see her in the games

@N00BiSH @Dee123

Because when they have let people know in advance, that person received life altering amounts of death threats and other threats of violence, public shaming, cyber and sometimes physical stalking, and just about any other horrible thing you can think of from a community that's normalized that as part of fandom. A shockingly high number of people see that as a completely acceptable way to express your dissatisfaction at a change like this, or to show support for the pervious voice actor. Jennifer Hale is still getting death treats to this day, for example.

By waiting until discussion of the game starts to leave the public discourse after launch, you minimize this. You don't eliminate it, because we live in a dystopia and everything is awful, but you do reduce it by quite a bit.

They further mitigate this by limiting when and how the pervious voice actor is allowed to say they've left the role. This again is born from experience. Using the same example, Hellena Taylor spent a lot of time implying (or, basically flat out saying) that Jennifer Hale had stolen the role from her by offering to work for less money. That obviously made things much, much worse.

Does anyone know if Bowser Jr have a different choice actor too? He sounds so different to me.

The current Nintendo resembles the Nintendo before Iwata had become CEO.

People who don't know, Nintendo used to be quite rutheless in how they tackled business. This isn't news. Miyamoto used to go to Cabaret Clubs with his bosses and, even before his time the companies entire focus was on production rather than any kind of "ethos of fun"

People want to pretend that all the folks at Nintendo are good family focused people, when in fact they have a history of rutheless capitalist practices. They didn't get into games due to passion... hell they tried a ton of different avenues to make money.

Nintendo is at the end of the day a very money driven publisher who has always used it's talent to try and capitalize on ideas.

Iwata being a developer himself brought a level of empathy into his role as CEO. He was a creative. He always saw creativity as something to protect. Before him all the other CEO's ruled Nintendo with a cold rutheless business regimine.

The Nintendo you see now has always been there... it's just that the golden years of Nintendo are over. They still hold onto some of their creatives... but like... much of what used to draw creatives to that company is gone.

Nintendo is no different than say... Konami. It doesn't foster creativity like it once did. There are sparks (DK is an insane game) left... but overall Nintendo might actually be cooking itself. The value of talent and creativity has begun to bleed away. What we're left with is a cold, calculated company who wants all of it's customers to only think of Nintendo when they buy and enjoy their products.

They have no interest in valuing and fostering talent in a healthy way. The talent "IS Nintendo" not the people who actually matter.

@HeadPirate very good point the internet definitely cares far too much about things like this (the average gamer will probably never notice or care tbh) and often leads to campaigns of intimidation against the replacement va whose only taking a promising job offer.

I wish her the best, but let me be brutally honest.... I would care more if this series had more dialogue than "Oh Yeah!" every few minutes! Makes sense that Nintendo is getting new talent (or, um, a lack thereof, for some...) but IDRC either way.

@Roibeard64

I mean, nitpicking here, but I would argue the problem isn't that we care too much. I care a lot about some voice work. I cried real tears when Megumi Hayashibara retired, and if they tried to replace Rina Itou or Alice Peralta I might have a legitimate breakdown.

But I don't think a reasonable way to express these opinions is to tell another human being to die in a fire. The problem is that as a natural result of how the dehumanization of groups of people for personal or political gain has become common place and completely acceptable, a lot of people stop seeing anyone outside there immediate circle as human beings. When role models are telling people to treat there neighbors like sub-human animals, what the heck chance does an anonymous person on the internet have?

@Lizuka exactly. And Nintendo's not the only company that does it. Literally every company has done this at one point or another. And a lot of the time, it's usually because they "decided to go in another direction." Companies aren't as loyal to English VAs like they are to Japanese VAs.

She's adorable! She does a good job, so she makes a good replacement.

Seeing all the consternation over cast changes when Sonic has already gone through three and will probably have another one soon is never not hilarious. And yes I do have to wonder the union status of these new actors considering we just got out of a SAG-AFTRA strike. E: Website skin changing to pink for Peach, blue for Sonic etc. is a cute feature, wonder how many characters you've designed it for.

To be honest it’s not that hard to voice toad. Just do a high pitched grating voice and boom! You got toad.

One day all your beloved characters will be voiced by pre-recorded lines stitched together with AI like James Earl Jones.

Anyway, shame Charles Martinet is no longer voicing Peach but I guess all things come to an end.

@Mariotag we don't know, obviously.