Yuji Naka doesn't think Sonic games are as fun anymore

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.

 

I guess that means Rodea The Sky Soldier was one of them... .

 

You might want to read what he said again. He says that the titles were never made public, Rodea cannot be one of them.

 

Not to mention Rodea is actually finished and just awaiting publication.

 

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.

 

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.

 

16 months since the reveal. I find that waiting for publication for that long a bit of a stretch.

 

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.

 

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.