The real guy behind Sonic 2

I don't know how many hours I've searched for that guy. I got everything from Yuji Naka's e-mail addresses to half done interviews. The guy is missing, he's just disappeared from our planet. Me and Kurairyu have together searched Japanese sites. We got his name in Japanese, but only one search hit! Damn, he knows everything... and he's nice, but still nowhere to be found. Searching for Yuji Naka in Japanese brings up 1000+ hits. How can this be? Sure Naka programmed Sonic, but without Yasuhara...

Here is his name in Japanese:



Okay, here is my Yasuhara collection, last time seen at SOA 1996, or was it 1997:

Code (Text):

1. __SONIC R__
2.  
3. Travelers Tales
4.  
5.      Program Design & Implementation
6.  
7.           Jon Burton
8.  
9.      Head Artist
10.  
11.           Dave Burton
12.  
13.      Game Design Director
14.  
15.           Takashi Lisuka (Sega Enterprises Ltd.)
16.  
17.      Map Design Director
18.  
19.           Hirokazu Yasuhara (SOA)
20.  
21.  
22.  
23. __SONIC R__end
24.  
25.  
26.  
27.  
28.  
29. Executive Producer: Yuju Naka
30.  
31.  
32.  
33. Co-Executive Producer: Hirokazu Yasuhara
34.  
35.  
36.  
37. Lead Game Designer: Hirokazu Yasuhara.
38.  
39.  
40.  
41. Lead Programmer: Yuji Naka
42.  
43.  
44.  
45. -------saturn news
46.  
47. Sonic X-Treme Team Increased
48.  
49. Mr. Yasuhara, one of the men responsible for the original Sonic, was recently brought in to work on Sonic X-Treme. In addition to Mr. Yasuhara, Sega has doubled the amount of people that are currently working on Sonic X-treme.
50.  
51. -------
52.  
53.  
54.  
55. Interview; Christian G. Senn; Sonic Xtreme
56.  
57.  
58.  
59. Yasuhara Hirokazu took charge of designing levels. Since he'd completed the Sonic Blast designs, he went in the same style direction of designing new Sonic Xtreme levels. I loved his drawings - great designs. A few months after this was when the sh*t really hit the fan... Nakayama-san visited to check the progress and was outraged to see how much was left to be done. This was the day Ofer and I had planned to show him what the two of us had created on our own...
60.  
61.  
62.  
63. Interview; Brenda Ross; Sonic 2
64.  
65.  
66.  
67. Q: Explain the process of how a level was designed: from concept to final product.
68.  
69. A: That’s a question for Yasuhara, The game designer for Sonic.
70.  
71.  
72.  
73. Interview; Craig Stitt; Sonic 2
74.  
75.  
76.  
77. My primary job on Sonic 2 was simply to 'paint' art (one pixel at a time!) that would bring the maps to life. Yasuhara was the primary designer on Sonic 1-3 (and he was the real magic behind the game and a really nice guy)
78.  
79.  
80.  
81. Naka (the head programmer) had quit in Japan, but he was friends with Mark Cerny (who started and ran STI). Mark talked Naka into coming to STI. At the same time, but before anyone knew how huge Sonic would be, Yasuhara had signed-up to come work in the US. By the time Sonic went ballistic, STI had the two people most responsible for it's success, so STI got to do Sonic 2.
82.  
83.  
84.  
85. I do know that there was no plans for Knuckles at this point since he wasn't even a glint in Yasuhara's eye yet.
86.  
87.  
88.  
89. One bit of trivia for Spinball. It was the last day. We were all sitting around eating at the 'wrap party' when the Japanese came in from working on Sonic 3. Yasahara, while watching the opening sequence of Spinball, made an off-hand remark asking how we talked Sega into paying for the rights to the orginal Sonic Theme. We all looked at him very strangely since we didn't have a clue what he was talking about. It turns out that the group that did the orginal Sonic theme still owned the rights to the music.
90.  
91. In the intrerm between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 this band had become quite famous in Japan. When Sega approached them to use the music again in Sonic 2, they asked for a lot of money.
92.  
93.  
94.  
95. Interview; Yuji Naka; Sonic 1
96.  
97.  
98.  
99. For example, when Sonic jumps, he needs to be fast enough to attack the enemy at the same time. These are just some of the aspects of the game design taken into consideration - an effort headed by Mr. Yasuhara. Anyway, we decided to create a cool, extremely fast hedgehog who could also roll up and jump.
100.  
101.  
102.  
103.  
104.  
105. Hirokazu Yasuhara (Designer)
106.  
107. Takao Miyoshi (Designer) *main force behind Phantasy Star* <s93220*[email protected]>
108.  
109. Takashi Iizuka (Designer) *Sonic 3 & K, Sonic Adventure*
110.  
111. Naoto Ohshima (Designer) (Football player;) )

Will Sonic games ever be like they were, without Hirokazu Yasuhara?

Do what ever you can to find this person. he would probably be happy to tell us about the development process.

 

Nakka the bad producer *shot*

 

I'm talking more than just the general graphics here. Take Sonic Advance and Sonic Advance 2. Sure they graphics are good, but still they don't have this feeling like Sonic 1, 2 or 3.

Take the levels. Compare Casino Night (S2) with Casino Paradise (SAdv). They're on total different levels. Yasushi Yamaguchi made the character design in Sonic 2 and made the tiles in Casino Night and Metropolis, even remade them many times because they didn't look good in Yasuhara's eyes! Casino Paradise looks just like a level in a fan game! How many times did Yuji Naka ask the level designer to remake Casino Paradise?

 

I have already thought about that. Sonic CD is mostly a copy of Sonic 1, in graphics.

Naka had probably something to do with it, even though he wasn't credited. Yasushi Yamaguchi (sprite designer in Sonic 2) made some sprites in the Special Stage. How can that be? He worked on Sonic 2 at that time, at STI.

 

I don't make up tings here. Look at the credits in Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic 3D, Sonic R...

 

Stupid me!

Sorry.

 

I'd put that registered trademark symbol there as a joke. Like we put ™ after GAH

 

What about sega.co.jp/sega.jp?