Head of Sonic Team Talks About What Makes “Sonic Games Fun”

If you’re a fan of the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise, you know more than most that when your dev team is killing it on games, it shows, but when they AREN’T killing it on games, it also shows. Because Sonic as a character has been through the ringer in the worst of ways due to the group at Sonic Team not exactly “meshing” with what the game series is about and what they need to do to keep making quality titles as they did in the older days. The upcoming Sonic Frontiers might be the change that gamers want, but it might not.

The biggest frustration amongst fans is that they’ve said to the dev team multiple times over the years what they want from the franchise. They want a kind of “classic return” to what made the games great in the original Sega Genesis days and beyond. A game where it was about speed and using that to weave your way around the course. Which was shown off by the fans when they made Sonic Mania, a title SEGA eventually bought and helped develop so that they could make some money off of it.

Yet, Sonic Team is still very hesitant to do what the fans want, as shown off by Sonic Frontiers in various ways in terms of combat, the open world, and more. But for team lead Takashi Iizuka, it’s not just about the speed of the game, and it’s about the “feeling” you get as you race around:

“It’s very clear to me that just going fast does not make it fun. It’s really through the design of the course, and the things that you’re having to do, where you feel that speed and where you feel that fun.”

He’s not exactly wrong, but he’s not exactly right, either. Because it’s true that the reason that the OG Sonic the Hedgehog games were great was not just the speed but the fun courses that many people can name by heart. But that’s the rub, isn’t it? In recent games, the team behind the games hasn’t really “clicked” on how to design the best games and the best worlds for Sonic to unleash his speed in. In other cases, the game is incredibly “slow” in its feeling, and that just makes players mad.

That’s why they were hesitant with the upcoming title because the earliest footage didn’t really show Sonic running at all, but at times walking and just looking around.

There is clearly a “divide” if you will between what the people at Sonic Team want for Sonic, and what gamers want. We’ll just have to see what side wins out on November 8^th.

Source: Eurogamer