RE4 Voice Acting Power Rankings

[๖ۣۜMk137]

1. Ashley

Performance Nickname: "Vocal Ballistics"
Overall Rating: 9.5/10
Justification: Genevieve Buechner crushes the more mature writing for new Ashley. She expertly delivers the appropriate emotion for each situation. Her screams and voice inflections are believable and consistent. She excels at conveying both fear and the more lighthearted side of Ashley.
Best Line: "THIS SUUCKS!"

2. Leon

Performance Nickname: "Good at Parties"
Overall Rating: 9/10
Justification: Nick Apostolides mostly succeeds at giving Leon the on-screen Chad voice he deserves, even leaning into the cheesier lines in the game to everyone's benefit. You feel as if Nick understands the context of each situation he is reading for, and he has practiced each of these lines until they feel great.
Best Line: "What are you, my mother?"

3. Luis

Performance Nickname: "That'll Do Donkey, That'll Do"
Overall Rating: 8/10
Justification: André Peña puts himself on the map with a slick performance for part-time researcher and full-time clown Luis Sera. André's voice is a great fit for this character, and he is able to deliver plenty of emotion (it's not easy to sound so sly) as well. Overall, new Luis sounds less like someone playing a character than OG Luis, and that's a great thing.
Best Line: "People can change...right?"

4. Wesker

Performance Nickname: "RE5 Confirmed"
Overall Rating: 7/10
Justification: Wesker manages to sound like the power-hungry psychopath he is... without injecting steroids and snarling into the microphone like every scene is his magnum opus supervillain monologue (looking at you, RE5 Wesker). He doesn't have much time on the mic, but it's a win nonetheless.
Best Line: "I...am expediting, that change."

5. Merchant

Performance Nickname: "Chatty Wombat"
Overall Rating: 6.5/10
Justification: Merchant's voice actor had a lot to live up to, and he sort of succeeds, sometimes. Some lines have great delivery and are reminiscent of the classic Merchant. Other lines are odd and are delivered in an unsatisfying way. All of his lines happen way too often, which is a discredit to the voice actor. And unfortunately, new Merchant's voice just doesn't have quite enough grit.
Best Line: "Got some rare things on sale, stranger."

6. Mendez

Performance Nickname: "Amish Ironman"
Overall Rating: 6/10
Justification: Perhaps the best instance of an over-the-top character with a voice that fits in this game. He looks big and scary, and he sort of sounds that way too. Only having a few voice lines was an excellent choice for this character and probably good for the voice actor too, because his delivery is nothing special. Bonus points for sounding like a COD zombie while in monster form though.
Best Line: "Your soul...requires cleansing."

7. Krauser

Performance Nickname: "GI Joke"
Overall Rating: 5.5/10
Justification: You know the 5 seconds immediately after a person snorts a line of coke? That's Krauser every second of every day. It's a bit much. The voice actor is great at conveying emotion, IF the emotion happens to be drug-fueled cartoon anger.
Best Line: "I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU WRITHE."

8. Hunnigan

Performance Nickname: "Dial Tone"
Overall Rating: 5/10
Justification: Hunnigan's voice acting is decent throughout the game, if a bit annoying when she gets stressed. Unfortunately, she leaves one of the worst final impressions in all of gaming. Her desperate screeching in the final scene goes on for 10 seconds longer than it needs to and only establishes her lack of value as a character in the remake.
Worst Line: "Where ARE you?!?!?! COME ON!!!!!!!"

9. Saddler

Performance Nickname: "Lord Middler"
Overall Rating: 4/10
Justification: More than any other character in this game, Saddler needed a deep and intimidating (perhaps effect-altered) voice. Instead we got grandpa who is off his meds and just slipped through the bars on his bedroom window again. You're supposed to feel disturbed when you hear Saddler, and you will, but for all the wrong reasons. His monster form voice ain't all that bad though.
Best/Worst Line: "You FOUL RENEGADE!"

10. Salazar

Performance Nickname: "Middle School Audition Tape"
Overall Rating: 3/10
Justification: What in god's name is this? Salazar sounds like an edgy 13-year old who slipped into the bathroom to record voice lines for his latest YouTube video. The voice actor is trying way too hard and ends up with some extremely suspect delivery. He doesn't seem to know how to speak some words properly, his flow is completely off, and his voice is annoying in a way that is not at all endearing. Huge failure for one of the best characters of OG RE4.
Worst Line: "I must say...she gave us a considrbel amount of truffvle."

11. Ada

Performance Nickname: "Wet Cardboard"
Overall Rating: 2/10
Justification: Not sure why they had Lily Gao record her voice lines on a 2005 Motorola Razr flip phone, but the most expensive microphone in the world couldn't have saved this pathetic effort. There is no attempt at emotion and seemingly no understanding of context within the dialogue. Nearly every line sounds as if it has been read lazily from a piece of paper. This performance could legitimately be a career ender for Lily Gao, and she didn't help her case by failing to take any ownership of her lifeless performance after it was heavily criticized.
Worst Line: "You can stop right there, Leon Ada."

[party pooper]

i would have put Leon in the top spot.
Best Line: "♥♥♥♥, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥." when falling into the fish farm

[Pnume]

Nah Krauser's VA fits perfectly.
A true 80' villain commando

The merchant kind of grew on me. It's so out of place that it's funny.

The merchant and Krauser feel like Capcom remembered Resident Evil's roots for a minute. I mean RE1, the original, had some corny VA and it was gold

[Lughzi]

Krauser sounds like he has the voice tone of a maniac instead of a soldier, unlike in the original, only thing that this krauser has over the other one is expressing emotions better, if he had tried to imitate the voice tone of Krauser 1:1 and said those quotes in the best way possible, he would've nailed it, me personally, think it's more of a voice acting director's fault than the VA's, he was only following the script and wasn't shown the character's scenes or the emotions they convey so he had to act purely out of his imagination, which is how it goes in the industry, mostly.

[Han Daimond]

I agree, Ashley's delivery with the line "This suuucks!" was great and adorable.

[๖ۣۜMk137]

Originally posted by Lughzi:

Krauser sounds like he has the voice tone of a maniac instead of a soldier, unlike in the original, only thing that this krauser has over the other one is expressing emotions better, if he had tried to imitate the voice tone of Krauser 1:1 and said those quotes in the best way possible, he would've nailed it, me personally, think it's more of a voice acting director's fault than the VA's, he was only following the script and wasn't shown the character's scenes or the emotions they convey so he had to act purely out of his imagination, which is how it goes in the industry, mostly.

I'm going to be honest I don't think Krauser's VA is that bad, but I tried to incorporate some of what I've heard from the community. I've seen more than a few posts from people saying they hate his voice acting. For me personally it's like a 7/10, not great but not bad.

[Dr. Atrocious]

I don't think Saddler was that bad. It seemed to me they were going for a more realistic depiction of a creepy cult leader. In that regard, he nailed it.

I mostly agree with your Hunnigan rating, although I would put her lower than Saddler. That last line delivery was soul crushingly bad and interrupts a perfectly fine ending.

With Salazar, I'm convinced the idea was to portray him as not being very fluent in English. If you'll remember, they are in Spain. Either way, it seems to me people exaggerate a bit about how bad he is or are just upset that he's not exactly the same as the original.

[Morgoth]

She gave us a considerable amount of truffle.

Long time no see rookie. Say rookie do you think I could have just a little kiss? It's just that the few people that can talk around here only seem to say glory a las plagas, and I'm kind of lonely rookie.

[๖ۣۜMk137]

Originally posted by Dr. Atrocious:

With Salazar, I'm convinced the idea was to portray him as not being very fluent in English. If you'll remember, they are in Spain. Either way, it seems to me people exaggerate a bit about how bad he is or are just upset that he's not exactly the same as the original.

He's barely better than Ada for me, and some of his lines are even worse than Ada's. Just comes off like he's trying so hard to play a character rather than letting his voice and skill take over. Perhaps an example of overdirection? It's a matter of opinion though of course. I definitely do prefer the original Salazar in every way, one of the few instances of that for me with RE4.