Gamasutra: Sega's Takashi Iizuka on Sonic's Future

Haha, wasn't one of those Mighty the Armadillo?

 

It's the exploration factor for me. The same reason I love the capital wasteland in fallout3. In fact, if a sonic game had a hub world that large I think I'd die and go to heaven. You'd need quick travel obviously though.

 

I just read the interview with Iizuka, and it seems to me like when he says "a new standard Sonic" he's not referring to reinventing Sonic to make a new standard for the character--- he's just saying "I want to make a new Sonic game that's just a standard storyline and gameplay, without any gimmicks like the werehog, Wisps, revisiting old levels, etc." Just a new regular Sonic game. Cause we really haven't had one of those for a while, as fun as the recent stuff has been.

 

It's more of using small gimmicks that work with what he call "stardard" Sonic, like wisps, that more extreme gameplay changes like the werehog.

 

Please note that I didn't say others did a bad job. I am encouraging the positive feedback that Mr. Webber has done for the community. I have read your rules about attacking people working at Sega, and the damage it makes, and were careful not insulting anyone. I just wanted to promote the positive, and very much visible side of Sega rather than attacking the bad sides. You see, Aaron Webber choosed to give his Community Manager career away to work directly with Sonic Generations (as far as the media told us). And that was just one game. How much of a sacrifice was that move now when Generations is out/over? I have no clue, but I don't want his potential to just vanish because Iizuka wants to move on with the Sonic franchise after Generations.
Mr. Webber gave us a voice for once, and I hope that we can give him support to go up the ranks in Sonic Team. We need to show support for the right people, even if that people may just be a face to something bigger, behind the public scene. And on top of that, Mr. Webber has been able to understand Sonic even without feedback from most of us, making him a true Sonic fan.

Please notify me if you feel I have gone too far, and I will be more careful in the future about what I post!

 

Classic Sonic had the 90s, Modern Sonic had the 00s, maybe the 10s can have their own Sonic?

Personally, I'd quite like to see a new visual design for Sonic introduced. Will it actually happen though? I doubt it.

 

I don't know if it's even possible to make a new design for Sonic that won't suck.

For modern they basically lengthened his quills and limbs, and made him lose weight. Doing either of those things again would look super retarded, and undoing them would just give us Classic back. All I can think of would be to add more quills or something. Maybe get some new eye color again.

 

Uh uh, fuck that shit. They already tried that in 2006, remember?

 

Well I hope the next phase of Sonic games involve rolling.

 

... why?

It is not like rolling has anything to do with Sonic games or hedgehogs. Weirdo. I hope the games continue to be QTE speedrunners about a tall man in a blue suit.

This view Sonic Team is pressing sort of irritates me. Modern Sonic is Unleashed and Rush Sonic, perhaps a bit of Advance 2 and Heroes. It has nothing to do with Adventure 1 or 2, Sonic 06, Advance 1 or 3, Pocket Adventure, et cetera.

 

I shouldn't have laughed at this. Fuck you XD

 

Modern Sonic would be anything onwards from Sonic 2006. Sonic Rush ushered in the Modern Sonic, and Shadow The Hedgehog left it all behidn with the closing of the Adventure themed story. The fact that Sonic Heroes' Seaside Hill is a Dreamcast era level in Generations shwos what Sonic Team are pushing for.

Basically, anything new this gen or with the boost is what's classed as Modern.

Question; what's your favourite era?

Personally, I'm torn between which era is my favourite. The 'Dreamcast' era is a definite contender, as it contains both Adventures, Sonic Heroes, Sonic Advance 1, 2 and 3, Sonic Battle and Shadow The Hedgehog. It's when Sonic really kick started and when the characters were quite defined. Eggman was a real bad guy, you still had a lot of destruction and a lot of self contained continuity, also referencing the past games. Having said that, Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Knuckles and 3D Blast are also amazing, so I'm hard pressed.

Modern era falls short because 2006 was utter rubbish, Secret Rings and Balck Knight were just random spin-offs, Unleashed felt too real and less Sonic-like. However, Colours, Sonic 4 and Generations have really made up for it. It's a shame they felt the need to veer off tangent in the first place though. I also rpefer the classic 2D formula over Sonic Rush's style. I've also not heard a lot about Sonic Rivals lately- does Generations even reference or acknowledge this? It even acknowledges Sonic Battle.

 

This generation is more of an artistic overhaul than a quality enhancement. After Iizuka trailed the series so far off of its original source material, it seems refreshing to have anything related to what Sonic used to be. Sonic Generations' Modern Sonic is just as poor as Unleashed is (naturally, it is the same thing), but having proper art and sound really makes it interesting. You can at least pretend to like it for awhile (I will forget the game as soon as Sonic 4 Episode 2 comes out I am certain, just like I did with Colours quickly).

I also want to point out how much of a hypocritical turd Iizuka is. In this article he mentions that Sonic is poor because random people spoiled the direction. This is so 'surprising' to read, as if he thinks we are all too stupid to know he started this and is the worst offender of them all. Not only is he a liar, but he also seemingly enjoys insulting his fan base and the people who built his career. He is a genuine awful person with no respect for others and has a huge, undeserved ego. At least Yuji Naka had an excuse to be a dick before (actually made some good games).

This all makes me uncertain if Sonic Team is capable of making a quality product still. I am not sure how long they can milk the 90s Sonic image before it sinks in that the gameplay quality is still lacking. If Sonic 4 Episode 2 is another stinker, then there needs to be a serious change in Sonic Team's staff before anything worthwhile will be seen again.

As for the best 'era', I would say anything in the first 10 years. Once the series went to Iizuka, every game ranged from 'OK at the time' to some of the worst video games ever designed. Sonic Adventure 2 through to and including Sonic Colours really need to be killed off, with a new 3D Sonic taking its place - built entirely from the ground up and using 2D Sonic as a basis for style (ie: rolling) and atmosphere (it should feel like Sonic's world, like Generations did in the first half of the game).

 

While I never quite understood why Sonic doesn't roll anymore, I don't have any problem with the gameplay. I mean, what's the slide but rolling with more friction? It's useless. I blame SA2 for the introduction of the somersault. All went down hill from there as far as the whole "slide vs rolling" thing is concerned.

Also I don't see why everything not classic Sonic is considered crap by some people. I mean, I like how he looked and played back in the day too but what's so bad about modern? Plus hell if generations is any indication now we might have both. I see nothing wrong with that.

However rolling does not always equal great. Remember the spin dash in Sonic 06? Ya you don't want to do you. Perhaps that was a bad example due to how poor the game was. Ok how about heroes. Sonic could roll there too, but I never quite understood it's purpose.

 

Sonic's roll ability in Heroes was to charge up for the boost that Tails and Knuckles gave him to slide under things and also to take out enemies and crates. As well as that, it was good for spamming to get good times on zones.

I sorta agree, though am fine with his abilities in Generations. I'm glad they changed the slide to the spin, because Sonic was seriously lacking the spin, which is his signature move. I still prefer the style of Sonic Adventure 2's Sonic levels, allowing him to spin and feeling like I had a lot more freedom (I suppose this is mostly due to the camera), but I do love the Unleashed/Colours/Generations style.

I guess they changed Sonic's style and gave us a fixed camera because the negative thing always picked upon with his previous 'Dreamcast' era outings was that the camera wasn't brilliant, even though I only felt this was the case with Adventure and Shedhog.

 

I don't see how rolling is such a bad thing though. Honestly I was hoping Sega would have done some reverse trolling with the unlockable items. Classic Sonic unlocked the homing attack in Planet Wisp, so I was hoping Modern Sonic would have unlocked rolling or the spindash or something. I mean, take the rolling, jumping, and momentum of classic Sonic and combine it with the boosting, homing attacks, and bounce move (I liked the bounce better than the stomp honestly), and you got yourself a damn fine combination of moves I tell ya hwat.

Fuck while there are it make a combination model to represent the two, something like what Archie did with Sonic in the Genesis story ark.

 

This is exactly the problem with the fan base. Sonic Team made alienating trash no normal gamer likes, then an internet cult developed around it. They need to fully abort it to get Sonic back on proper track, then try something completely new for 3D.

 

Internet cults revolve around everything. And whose to say those who play Cod aren't the strange ones? Yes a metric fuck ton of strange people.

Regardless at the end of the day I still have a life so I really don't give a fuck.

Oh and I miss Tom R. Toe. Oh so that's aknotholeresident in said diaper? That makes it all the more intriguing actually. Perhaps he went insane after the Metallic hoedown.

 

I'd like to see a lot of the good aspects of Generations' modern gameplay to remain, but bring back some of the iconic elements of the series like the spin dash, monitors, making the really early levels in the game be less linear would be nice, add more emphasis on platforming and exploration, etc. I think if they got rid of boosting, it could probably really help level design in future titles.

Edit-

I doubt Iizuka will completely start over again, but it's pretty obvious future titles will have some major changes. I don't view that as a bad thing. The Unleashed/Colors/Generations formula without some major changes would likely get a bit stale overtime.