Ys History: Ys Book I & II VA dub features Hollywood stars!

[NightWolve]

While Alan Oppenheimer is fairly famous for all his voice-acting work in 80's cartoons (He-Man, The Smurfs, The Transformers, Scooby-Doo, etc.) and did a great job voicing Darm and the opening narrator for Ys Book I & II, there's somebody else that worked on the game who achieved far greater fame that's worth mentioning when one fondly looks back at a great classic such as this for the NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafx-CD system! Take a look at this credits roll:



Something I once learned from a Game Sack episode (thanks to Joe Redifer) and never was the wiser till it was explicitly pointed out: See that Thomas H. Church credit for Goban Toba ? Yep, that's one in the same as Thomas Haden Church, the Hollywood actor last known for playing SandMan in Spider-Man 3! The Ys Book I & II dub was well-funded after all and still is one of the best that I know of in a videogame!

Thomas Haden Church
As SandMan	As Goban Toba, leader of the Thieves' Den
Ys Book I&II ADPCM Track #02 "Oh I have heard about your bravery... You're going to Darm Tower to the find book, aren't you? ..."

How about that ? I was pretty surprised when I first learned about it! In addition to a high-quality dub, Ys Book I & II sports one of THE greatest soundtracks in videogame history (as does Ys III to Ys IV!) which is mostly thanks to legends like Yuzo Koshiro and Ryo Yonemitsu's post-arrangement magic which is a big reason why I and many others became such devout Ys fans!!!!

The magic of when I first fired up Ys Book I & II on my brand new Turbo Duo in the 90's still remains with me to this day and for better or worse it's what also led me into fan localization projects like the final "Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys" sequel! The partnership of Hudson Soft and Falcom led to some great things in gaming history, but it's too bad Hudson is no longer with us having been absorbed by Konami and mostly sidelined thereafter (not until the PC Engine/TurboGrafx minis at least)...

References:
https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/video-games/Ys-Book-I-and-II/




Ys Book I & II Reviews:
https://www.rpgfan.com/review/ys-book-i-ii-2/
https://www.rpgfan.com/review/ys-book-i-ii/

For a recently translated interview of the Ys IV: Dawn of Ys staff (both from Hudson & Falcom), check this out as well:
https://shmuplations.com/ysiv/


I just remembered my side project of extracting some of these voice-acting recordings/dubs.

-The TurboGrafx CD Ys games are better than anything XSEED Games has put out.

Ha, I wouldn't know boycotting all their product, but funny to hear you say that.

As to the question, because I grew up with "Ys Book I & II" after I bought a Turbo Duo and it's what made me a lifelong Ys fan, I pronounce "Adol" the way Lilia/she (Mea Martineau as Lilia) says it here:

1)

_{► /audio/YS12_01_005E0000.mp3}

Or, here she is again from the redbook audio track 37:

2)

_{► /audio/37-YsBookI&II.mp3}

3) Incidentally, here is Thomas Haden Church's raw ADPCM clip extracted and converted to MP3 below. I wanted the best possible voice-acting samples for my dub research project (which I still wanna finish).

_{► /audio/YS12_02_00620000.mp3}

(His only recorded line in the game BTW.)

[Keith Courage]

Don't forget about Lowell from Wings.