Yuji Naka Cuts Ties with Sonic for Good

I think what he's quoted as saying in the first post is completely reasonable. Sonic is getting good again and he must be inspired to make new games, it's better than having to do work with the same thing forever while having a bunch of new ideas that never get to surface.
Is this new news? I thought it was generally said, at least around Ivy the Kiwi's announcement that Naka had no intention of doing anything with Sonic.

 

I never thought Naka could do shit with Sonic with the shite state it's in now to be honest. Ivy the Kiwi sounds like a stupid title, but it may turn out to be a legendary franchise in the making. Good luck Yuje, and thanks for everything!

 

Wasn't Oshima's in charge of the character design while Naka's in charge of the game mechanics. It as if they formed the basic layout of the Sonic Franchise, which is good enough for me. Besides all we need is the layout and that's it, then anyone can make a good Sonic game.

 

Oshima was in charge of design in general, not just character design, along with Rieko Kodoma and someone else. Naka programmed the momentum physics, but the actual "he runs fast and gets rings and loop-de-loops" stuff, along with rolling into a ball, was mostly Oshima and co. and the higher-ups ("We need a game that takes advantage of BLAST PROCESSING! Make it fast! Really fast!").

 

.....If that's the case, then why wasn't Oshima the president of Sonic Team in the very beginning.

QUICK EDIT: Now that I looked at the credits pages, Naka only serves as the Lead Programer for the Sonic Games during the Genesis era. How he's promoted to Producer is beyond me.

 

.....Because Sonic Team wasn't newly formed especially for Sonic. It was just AM8 renamed. And Yuji Naka was head of AM8. And Yuji Naka was/is a game designer as well as a programmer, he just didn't have as much input into Sonic as Oshima.

 

.....You got a point there. Though it makes the most sense when Oshima did the majority of the "Make SeGa a new mascot" works, when Yuji serves as a project manager since he was the head of that department and therefore promoted to Producer when AM8 is renamed. But that was during the start of SeGa's decline.

So yeah, he quit ties with Sega like the majority of the original Sonic Team. But hey, after the rest decided the perfect time to past the torch to the fans who knows better, then the only guys who complains are the purist.

 

Hmmm....I saw this coming a while ago. I wish him the best!

 

I view this in the same vein as if Shigeru Miyamoto abandoned Mario or Hideo Kojima leaving Metal Gear. The reason those franchises are still good is cause the original creators are still passionate about making the games. With nobody is charge of Sonic, its just an incoherent mess that barely represents what it used to be. However, Im still holding judgment for Sonic 4 and Sonic Colors. Whether Naka was involved with Sonic's creation or not, he was there to ensure the product was of high quality. Cause after he left Sega, the series went downhill.

 

Actually, it started going downhill after Yasuhara left, and he did that because he saw it coming. The quote is in the wiki if I recall correctly.

 

I honestly think this is a good thing, but not because I hate Naka or Sega. I just think that Naka deserves freedom to do what he wants, on his own terms. From what I understand, Sega was really restricting him and his overall influence and creativity.

And without him, Sega seems to be doing just fine anyways. Of course, that depends on who you ask, but hey, the Sonic 4 reviews are pretty good for a Sonic game, so far. And Colors looks amazing. Also, in my opinion, Unleashed was great, and so was Rush Adventure.

 

I think you'll find the series was going downhill long before Naka left. Although the rest of your post stands if "Yuji Naka" is replaced with "Naoto Oshima" or "Hirokazu Yasuhara". Well, unless you consider Shadow the Hedgehog to be the absolute pinnacle of the series.

EDIT:

Also this.

 

wait, didnt he leave after Sonic Heroes?

 

I'm fine with this. ... actually I thought he had left XD So yay or something?

 

I'm pretty sure his name is in the '06 credits.

 

You know, guys, it seems like we're avoiding the bigger picture here: SEGA as a whole company didn't know how to handle their success. Hell, they hardly knew how to handle each other what with the sibling rivalry between the Japanese and American branches. Sure, Sonic was born out of that heated deliberation, and so was his soaring success and popularity; but it's probably that same heated rivalry that tore him apart. It's no wonder Yuji Naka and the rest of Sonic Team wanted to leave before long: SEGA was going nowhere but down with the SEGA CD, the SEGA 32X, and the SEGA Saturn, and all the rather subpar Sonic games coming out for them after the Genesis; and unfortunately those failures doomed what could've been a longer richer lifespan for the Dreamcast and for SEGA as a console publisher.

It seems more like SEGA failed Sonic back then. Now they've depended on him almost exclusively for the past 10 years, and only now do we seem to be getting better mainstream games. That Yuji Naka has nothing to do with it anymore doesn't necessarily matter, since his role became less of what he started working as—a talented programmer—and more of a producer-director sort of guy. What matters is what SEGA decides to do with Sonic now, and with what kind of hands they want to put him in. If it's DIMPs, fine. If it's Sonic Team, fine. If it's Platinum Games or Sega WOW or some other internal department, great. The point is SEGA needed to get their shit together back then, and now that they've made it this far, take control of the situation and takes some calculated risks. Make a great new franchise or rebrand and resell Sonic as the hot new thing for the next two decades; either way, make money without putting out garbage games.

 

I'm glad Nakas moving on to make more ideas personally, it was being creative that brought out Sonic and his best in the first place.
Keep staying original Naka.

 

Yuji Naka already left months ago, remember? This is him just reaffirming that he has no plans go to back.

Non-news.

 

Sorry, but this is just wrong. The basic gameplay concept of Sonic was born from Yuji's love of speed (he races cars, remember?) and his experience coding platform engines that he ported from arcades and other systems. Sonic spin attack was probably something they hashed out together as they tried to conceive of ways to make Sonic attack without having to stop. As such, it would be silly to try and say with certainty which of them thought of it.

Heck, he even said in a recent Nintendo Power that trying to rush through World 1-1 of Mario was part of his inspiration for a "fast platformer". Naoto is the artist, and wasn't as significantly responsible for the main concept. If anyone can share credit for that with Yuji, it's Yasuhara, who apparently did more for the series than most people know.

Also, why do I keep hearing "Blast Processing" chucked around in respect to Sonic 1? It was a Sonic 2 marketing thing, a buzzword invented to flog the newly removed speedcap. Unless I'm terribly mistaken, it wasn't in use in the Sonic 1 era. I'd love to know one way or the other about this, because I keep hearing it and it bothers me.

...Damn, this is another one of DigitalDuck's posts, too? I don't live to contradict you, honestly.

 

This.


Also, since he left on good terms, at least from what he said in the interview, this whole thing doesn't seem that damn sad.
At least not as sad as some of the idiots on this forum are trying to make it out to be...