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As ridiculously fun as Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is, the lack of voice acting is a pretty glaring issue. When the character's voice actors are just as iconic as their designs - especially in the case of SpongeBob and Patrick - it's pretty bizarre to play as them in silence.
To give us a taste of what could have been, YouTuber ObnoxiousArtist has put together a teaser trailer using voice lines from the TV shows. Despite none of the audio being recorded for the game, the lines fit in seamlessly and breathe more life into the fighting game cast.
It's not yet known why voice lines couldn't be included in the game. SpongeBob's video game outings pretty much always included some dialogue from Tom Kenny, even if it had to be reused from the show. It's possible that copyright issues got in the way of lifting from the source material, and the devs didn't have the time to round up voice actors, especially ones whose shows have already come to an end such as Avatar the Last Airbender.
Fans remain hopeful that voice lines will be included in a future update should the game perform well. At the very least, datamines have shown that we'll be getting some additional content, as game files contain references to two more fighters: Shredder and Garfield. Despite being a pretty surprising addition to the cast, Garfield could even be set to come with his own stage, as traces of that were also found within the game's files.
On top of that, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl actually comes with a tonne of unused announcer voice lines. While some of these were likely recorded just on the off-chance the character made it in, it shows that Jimmy Neutron, Zuko and Squidward could potentially be added somewhere down the line.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is out now, and is available for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.