Lad Bible Interview With Takashi Iizuka Posted

11 May, 2019 16 February, 2021

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Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka has been interviewed by Lad Bible. As always, we’ll relay the noteworthy parts here, but please read the whole interview here.

About other Sonic titles on the way:

Team Sonic Racing comes out for the expected platforms on 21 May, and might not be the only Sonic game we see in 2019. Perhaps it’s a quirk of translation – Iizuka-san speaks Japanese, I don’t, so we converse through a very helpful middleman – but he makes a reference to there being Sonic titles, plural, in development right now.

On Sonic Mania:

2019 is a big year for SEGA’s most famous son, after all, with the Sonic the Hedgehog movie scheduled for a December release – and what odds on a tie-in game? Iizuka-san feels that Mania was a vital turning point for the Sonic series, after a string of less-than-satisfactory releases that rather peaked, in terms of wretchedness, with 2014’s Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. “That was made for a TV show first and foremost, and a lot of the show’s own animation team took the lead on the look of that game,” he tells me. “I didn’t really have a lot of control of that project. [But] post-Mania, I feel the character, and the games, have really turned a corner, towards where we want it all to go.”

On the Sonic Movie:

“It’s not a SEGA movie – we’re not making it, or anything – and I’m only an advisor, really. But I do get shown things, and the [movie team] ask for my opinion. I’m also listening to what the fans are saying, and I’ll feed that back to the director – he, and the producers, are very interested in receiving that feedback. At the end of the day, it’s up to the team at Paramount to make something successful, but we’re all looking forward to seeing the finished movie.”

On NiGHTS:

Iizuka-san cracks his widest smile of our entire conversation: “So right now, Sonic is my main focus,” he begins. “But at some point, I’d love to return to Nights, as that was such a big part of my career. Sonic is very important to me, but Nights is very important to me, too. I really enjoy the game, so maybe in the future I can bring Nights back to people.”

This post was originally written by the author for TSSZ News.

9 Comments

“[W]e’re all looking forward to seeing the finished movie.”

Speak for yourself. 😉

Rarefoil says:

11 May, 2019 at 2:15 PM

I’m looking forward to seeing it… so I never have to look, see, or think about it again. Like really badly made food.
1. Hifihedgehog says:
  
  17 May, 2019 at 8:50 AM
  
  What subject yourself to legalized substance abuse?
  
  https://www.facebook.com/NintendoAesthetic/photos/a.133251697343789/322185165117107?type=3&sfns=mo

“I didn’t really have a lot of control of that project. [But] post-Mania, I feel the character, and the games, have really turned a corner, towards where we want it all to go.”
Post-Mania was Force which you had control over and was a giant mess. If the next game announced is more rubbish from him instead of something from Evening Star I don’t see much hope left for this franchise until he’s finally gone.

Can we replace him with Christian Whitehead please?

Could we PLEASE just replace him with somebody more competent so that we could actually get Sonic back on track? At the very least he’d probably have the availability to bring NiGHTS back, for real this time. XP

Also, “Post-Mania” is only Forces, and that was either a complete disaster at worst or an un-noteworthy fumble at best. The only other thing that came out was Mania-Plus, which was essentially just a physical version of Mania with a few neat bonuses, so really MANIA is your only noteworthy release that’s actually positive. So unless you’re really banking on Team Racing being a surprise success I don’t think you’ve really earned the right to say that “post-Mania” you’ve finally got Sonic back on track. Mania GOT him on track, then you went and derailed him again because you just couldn’t let us have nice things. XP

I bet he’ll give the approval for the movie tie in game.

I am so done with this man’s bullshit. There are so many talented, creative people who are passionate about Sonic, why do we have to be stuck with a bunch of unmotivated dumbasses such as Iisuka smh.

I bet he’s unhappy and miserable being the head of Sonic Team too, let him have fun making Nights into dreams and put Christian Whitehead on his chair

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