Would you like to see Yuji Naka return to Sonic Team?

I'm mixed on the thought.

Naka always seemed a little bent on "make Sonic as cool as you possibly can", "give him a human love interest" and other out-there concepts, so someone would probably have to watch over his shoulder and tell him no now and then.

Buuut ultimately if he were to ever return, we'd probably get games with less complex controls and more mechanical depth again, which would be very nice. I've always liked his philosophy to use as little buttons as possible, even if it had mixed results. It leaned itself in favor of that really arcadey 'classic Sega / Sonic Team' mindset.

He's probably enjoying his current time at Squeenix though, so I'd rather him enjoy himself doing original ideas lol.

 

I actually disagree with this, particularly with SA1. Amy was pretty much the only character in that game that wasn't so slippery that slow platforming was a headache - I think it's telling that most of Sonic's platforming in Death Egg requires you to be at a total stop (rather, the game forces you to be at a total stop) or has you floating above fans, instead of running jumps like in most other platformers (think Crash or Mario), and the other three characters suited for it are those that can save themselves if they miss a jump (Tails with flying, Knuckles with gliding, Gamma with the Jet Booster).

It's less awful in SA2 but even then Sonic had the major issue of the light dash and bounce being mapped to the same button based on context, making you miss jumps to your death as you plummeted straight down into a pit, and the only platforming that worked in the mecha levels was Cosmic Wall, where the gravity was reduced so it felt like jumps weren't so dicey.

Also, following from other discussion, the Adventure games did not have the pretense of physics. at all. Sonic's spin dash can absolutely break most of his levels and cause hilarious deaths in the overworlds because there is absolutely nothing stopping you from getting massive, ridiculous height from spin dashing up a slope, instead of, you know, it being harder, like it would be in a sane momentum system. Going downhill in Windy Valley didn't really matter very much because you could easily hit the speed cap just from spin dashing or even running around normally, far faster than you ever could in the 2D titles.

 

If anyone needs to go back, it is Naoto Ohshima and just make him the fucking art director and none of this classic/modern bullshit. Yuji Naka is fine where he is unless the next game winds up having an A-Life system in which case sure bring him back.

 

Admittedly, most of what you're saying is true, but I feel these are more flaws with the engine that could have been improved than fundamental defencies that would require and overhaul to make right. Like, yes, the speed cap is annoying, but it could be removed. Mapping everything in SA2 to one button was dumb as shit but that could effortlessly be fixed.

Second, your last paragraph...is physics. Like, the fact that you can gain massive airtime with the spindash on slopes is literally because of the exact same kind of physics that lets you do that in the classic games. It's also honestly pretty damn cool and awesome so I don't even care that it's broken because, hey, sequence breaking with physics utilization is one of the core things that should define Sonic in my eyes! It's like the thing in Chemical Plant 2 where you can skip the rising water section with a spindash-slope jump. That's good. That the SA1 spindash is busted as hell and can break SA1's levels sometimes is just a fault of the level design, not the mechanic.

SRB2 Sonic e.g has a quite powerful spindash and the thok, yet it doesn't break levels because the levels are designed around it. Hell even with the much more mobile and agile Modern Sonic mod the levels are mostly intact due to their design.

If you look at the boost games, they're almost always straight lines, either because they're 2D and have to be by definition or they're 3D and there's no way to actually turn well. Like, try to count the amount of times in 3D sections, in all the boost games, where the level curves and it isn't either a super shallow curve that's effortles to traverse, a tiny hallway that forces you to turn without any real input in your part, or a drifting section. Because if you do, there really is not a lot. Like, there's barely any. They disguise it by throwing you into speed boosters and springs to make it look like you're turning, but you're not. In terms of the actual player input, they are basically all hallways.

...actually, you are kinda right. They're all hallways in SA2 as well! The problems started all the way back there! Whoops. SA1 was a little better about it, though, I think.

 

Fight? There was never a fight. People were dumping on him over a misunderstanding, and it ended with you still insisting he was hostile. Let me stress that this isn’t a fight either, it’s just me disagreeing with you. Disagreements aren’t fights, and I don’t want to fight you. Whether or not you move on from it is not up to me. I was just making a comment.

You are not the arbiter of what should and should not be discussed. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.

This is my biggest problem with the boost games. I could deal with the gimped momentum physics if there was somewhere to go besides forward. To bring this back to Yuji Naka, though, I can’t see the series keeping with this boost-to-win theme if he’d return, even if Sonic Heroes was admittedly pretty straight forward.

 

one time i suplexed yuji naka

 

He probably deserved it for something something Sonic Xtreme something something Nights engine, tbh

 

I'm a big fan of Yuji Naka and I wish I could learn more about the events that led to him leaving Sonic Team during 06's development. He made some mistakes as the head of SonicTeam, but I think SonicTeam was in a better state under his helm than it is now. Current Sonic Team just seems unambitious to be honest. I'd love to see Naka back on board for a Sonic Adventure 3 or Adventure remakes (which I think are inevitable).

 

Not at all, he's a programmer, not a level designer, and ultimately the reason why Lost World and Forces were terrible games was the terrible level design, not how Sonic controlled.

 

YMMV, but I would say the controls were a worse problem than level design in Lost World.

 

Honestly, it's a hard toss-up for both games on which element was worse.

Lost World is a slopfest of undercooked new mechanics and arbitrarily-implemented changes to existing mechanics that can't pick on what approach it wants; coupled with a slopfest of level design that cycles between ripping off Mario level design tropes in textbook fashion or showcasing shoehorned gimmick levels/Wisp-flavored motion controls. (Well, that's primarily the Wii U version, anyway; the 3DS version meanwhile was unfortunately more focused overall in its goal of reveling in the most monotonous task-based level objectives it could think of across outrageously long levels.)

Forces meanwhile was some bootstrapped Lost World game engine nonsense masquerading as Generations gameplay that somehow got the worst of both worlds correct, coupled with unarguably the most restrictive, automated, and ultimately banal level design the series has ever seen in quite some time.

 

Lost World was by far the better game. At least it felt like you were doing shit in that.

 

I'd be interested in Naka coming back, if he was programming. As the creator of the original 2D Sonic physics engine, I'd like to see him take a stab at it in 3D, with 2020 knowledge and technology and experience. Just for the novelty of it, if nothing else.

Would be sweet to have Yasuhara back on game design as well, with the same boons, for the same reasons.

 

Does Yuji Naka still code, though? Using modern technologies and such? I was always under the impression that game programmers who didn't quit the industry eventually moved up to designing or management roles and completely abandoned programming. It's possible that Naka doesn't even know how to work on the technical side of a modern game.

 

While it would be cool to see him work on a Sonic game or even any Sega property again, I'd rather see him make new things and see what kind of new projects he can come up with. He's much more than just Sonic after all.