http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-05-18-game-industry-legends-yuji-naka Interesting. It also says how he wouldn't mind going back in and helping out with a Sonic game or possibly a NiGHTS game. He believes that Sonic games should be a bit harder. Personally while I appreciate what he was saying, I don't think he put the games in that great of a direction towards the end of his Sonic making days. Now, if he would like to take a crack at a legit 2D Sonic platformer again, by all means give it a go. I would love to see those physics back in the game. Maybe instead of Dimps Sega should outsource their Sonic projects to Prope. I mean the guy did help make the series he probably has a better idea of how a Sonic game works than a company that primarily makes fighting games.
To be honest, I'm more interested in the supposed "new direction" of Sonic. Aside from hacking and fangames... I really don't wanna see any more Classic Sonic. They are relying too much on it, and the 2D style gameplay. I'm actually getting somewhat bored, and the Sonic Generations' Modern Sonic has me more intrigued in SEGA's potential in really getting 3D Sonic done right. If we are talking portables... then that's different. By all means, throw some 2D in there somewhere.
Classic Sonic gameplay is fine when they do it right, and then balance it out with a 3D title as well, not unlike how during the early 2000s we were getting Sonic Adventure, Adventure 2, Heroes, and the Advance trilogy at the same time.
I thought Colors was pretty damn good. Not sure I really want Naka back, wasn't he affiliated with Heroes, Shadow, and 06? I do like that he believes Sonic only requires one button to be enjoyable.
I agree with Yuji Naka absolutely. Companies of the present tend to sacrifice challenge and difficulty for attracting wide consumer audiences, thus resulting in extremely easy games that tend to guide the player too much, or tend to be afraid to be challenging. It's rather disheartening.
I agree the games are too easy. The last time I played a difficult level in a Sonic game was probably Crazy Gadget in Adventure 2. I love Naka, but he let the games get pretty crappy, culminating in him leaving Sega and sonicteam during the production of Sonic 06.
You might want to read what he said again. He says that the titles were never made public, Rodea cannot be one of them.
I was complaining about the handholding in Sonic 4-2 just the other day. Those hint monitors seem really irritating, can you turn them off?
Nope. You can't even use the combo moves until you've found the first monitor of each kind in Sylvania Castle 1-3.
Yuji Naka helped participate in some of the worst games in the franchise. He may be right about it being too easy, but I don't think he can be trusted with the brand. Of course as long as Dimps is still allowed to do what they do, I guess it doesn't matter who makes Sonic games anymore.
They are easy, but then again they again the Sonic franchise always have been. Among a lot of vintage games, I never really felt Sonic fell within (as TV tropes would call it) the Nintendo Hard category of games. And frankly, I'd prefer the games to be somewhat easy and being fun (a la Generations) rather than challenging yet frustrating (a la Sonic Heroes). Honestly, I think Colors (which I just beat today) got the balance right between challenge and fun.
Except that Crazy Gadget is a pretty easy level. Maybe its because as a Castlevania/Megaman fanboy I'm used to more difficult games... but Sonic games have almost never been difficult. Sonic 2 Game Gear is the only one that's remotely challenging and its more cheap than actually hard. Have to really disagree with Naka here. The classic Sonics, while a lot of fun, were piss easy. A game that allows you to continually spam invincibility frames with absolutely minimal punishment for doing so has a hard time being considered hard, especially compared to other platformers of their era like Castlevania 3 or Rondo of Blood which are far more difficult than any Sonic game ever has been.
Of all the things wrong with Sonic games lately, it seems really odd to single out difficulty as an important factor. Maybe he was just using it to be polite. Blaming an industry trend is a lot more PC than slamming the games' level design, art direction, or programming.
Yuji Naka doesn't know what fans want. Since his disappearance, Sonic games have only gotten better. Frankly, Sonic Adventure 2's 100% completion was way too hard and unfair and if he thinks that the games are too easy then that's because he wants them to be super hard. I found Episode I to be easy, Episode II was a bit more difficult, and I found Colours a bit hard in some spots, so it seems that Sonic games are a mixed bag nowadays.
I like some of naka's style, and it's a shame he never got to work on a 3d game that wasn't rushed as hell but I don't think the series needs a complete restructuring and I definitely disagree with the games not being fun.
Hey, let's all gang up on Yuji Naka because that's the cool thing to do!! Wait, no it's not. This isn't 2003 anymore, people. Have we so soon forgotten that Yuji Naka wasn't the one who made the Sonic franchise go downhill? To be fair, he could have stepped in and changed things, but he didn't. There are a million reasons as to why, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was simply a case where he was burned out with Sonic and wanted to work on new projects. Just like what happened between the classic games and Sonic Adventure. The original Sonic Adventure was developed exclusively in Japan, by Sonic Team. Yuji Naka was in charge, credited as a producer. He was definitely there day in and day out, overseeing how the progress of the game was coming along. Yes, Takashi Iizuka was the Director of the game. But the way he even explains it, it seemed much more like a pooling of ideas from all over the board. But after Adventure, the Sonic games were not the babies of Yuji Naka. Sonic Team split in half, one staying in Japan and the other heading off to San Francisco. Sonic Team USA were responsible for Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Nights: Journey of Dreams. This branch was led by Takashi Iizuka, and while Yuji Naka was still credited as Producer on the three Sonic titles, he wasn't there day to day. He was in Japan, working on Chu Chu Rocket, Samba De Amigo, and Phantasy Star Online. Also accepting the fact that by this point Yuji Naka was more a business man and less a game developer, blaming him for the decline of the franchise is misplaced. He wrote off on concepts and ideas, but it might have just been a case where Sonic did not excite him. He always wanted to try something new, and for all the faults those Sonic games had, they certainly did try something new. Adventure 2, Heroes, and Shadow were Iizuka's babies, plain and simple. Also, trying to blame Yuji Naka on Sonic 2006's failure is not fair. I don't think you can blame any one person for that game. It was mismanaged to hell, and complete shifts in management more than once, and just wasn't developed to the point that it needed to be. Yuji Naka leaving did hurt it, but I don't know if it would have been as bad if he had stayed. That is a "What If" scenario that just goes in circles. Also, just like you can't blame Naka for Sonic's failures, I don't think you can say that Iizuka is the sole reason that Sonic is getting better. Remember, Iizuka was simply the producer on those games as well, and while he had input, it's not like Unleashed, Colors and Generations were his brainchilds. Finally, yes, Sonic games are some of the more easier platformers out there. But the older games did give games the benefit of the doubt. The newer games certainly don't. It would nice to see some flurries of difficulty in certain acts that weren't just moments of cheap frustration but actually make you feel you've accomplished something once you get through the obstacle.
One thing I'd really like to see is another 2D game strongly in the style of Sonic CD, but with much more difficulty. I just wonder though how much the Genesis Sonic formula could actually produce a challenging game though, or if there'd have to be some design changes to make things harder.
