Sega Wants To Make A 'New Standard Sonic' In 2012

Tweet

Sonic the Hedgehog has gone through something of a transformation in the past year or so. Starting with Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 and then again in Sonic Colors, Sonic Team showed immense improvement over the terrible Sonic games of more recent years.

The main problem with the Sonic series was that Sonic Team never really seemed to have a specific focus for each release. There were werehogs, medieval adventures, human princesses that needed saving – it was basically a mess follow by another mess and then topped off with shit. But now we’re seeing Sonic Team set a very specific set of goals with the more recent titles, and it’s actually starting to put out really good Sonic games, like Sonic Generations.

In a new interview with Gamasutra, series producer Takashi Iizuka – the man credited with turning the Sonic series around – was asked where he sees Sonic going in the future, and explained that he thinks Sonic Team has a pretty good idea of what it needs to do moving forward:

There have been a lot of Sonic titles in the past, and I think, at this point, there’s a pretty good idea of what a Sonic game should be like — a fun, frenetic action game. As I said, I feel the need to surprise the fans in new and innovative ways, but I don’t want to do anything to depart from that style. The color powers in Colors are a good example of that.

I wouldn’t say that I think Generations is a new start. Instead, it’s more of the peaks of the past 20 years, is the way we’re approaching this. Generations is about taking the past 20 years of history and rolling it into one really fun product. I think, as a result, I would like to make a new standard Sonic, a modern Sonic if you will, in 2012 and beyond.

By all means Sega, go right ahead. I bought the PC version of Sonic Generations last night and I’m absolutely loving it so far. I never thought I would say that about a Sonic game again, but here we are. The thing is, I’m finding modern Sonic’s levels to be more fun than classic Sonic’s levels. If Sega can keep the same formula for future Sonic games, I think it’s safe to say that Sonic Team and Sega will be getting my money on day one many times over.