Takashi Iizuka Wants To “Take On Some Sort Of New Challenge” For Sonic’s 30th Anniversary

10 Comments

1. Probability of Iizuka making a dismissive comment before the end of the year about another game like Mania: 38%. The biggest challenge for Sonic is Iizuka himself, you failed big on Forces and Lost World you shouldn’t get another “new challenge” aka another game that isn’t focused on what people actually want. I want to have optimism for what Evening Star might be working on but past history says Iizuka/Sega of Japan will make a idiotic decision.

2. Well looks like they are ready for something challenging for the next anniversary game. Don’t think that the boost formula will return in every game. it will return in some games. Sonic Team fail on Sonic Forces level design but i assume that this anniversary will have a better story telling in like Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Adventure 2.

3. I’m sorry but WTF was that stupid e-Sports question!? No seriously, WTF are you even asking that to the head of the SONIC THE HEDGEHOG FRANCHISE!? I’m sick and tired of all of these reporters and interviewers asking Iizuka these stupid questions so that he has an excuse to come up with some kind of stupid half-assed answer, retcon, or justification for the most arbitrary parts of Sonic. This is half of the reason why we have dumb retcons like “Sonic never takes off his shoes in the canon” or “No one but male hedgehog characters can go super now.”

   And now because he had to think about this answer even just a little, I wouldn’t be surprised if by 2025 we have some kind of dumb Sonic e-Sports thingy just because someone thought asking if an ACTION-PLATFORMER should have an e-Sports spinoff was a legitimate question. Nobody ever asks that about Mario or Zelda, so why would you bother to ask that about Sonic of all franchises? It’s things like this that gave the series a reputation for losing it’s identity over and over again. And no, I don’t think that’s a stretch, Iizuka has a record for being a very fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants type of producer/director. He already causes enough problems for this franchise without people asking him dumb questions, so can we PLEASE just not tempt him to do it even more? XP

   As for the actual “challenge” statement itself, I honestly feel like we’ve heard this too many times already for it to really mean anything anymore. I mean wasn’t Sonic Forces supposed to be “challenging” for multiple different reasons? Unless he’s specifically referring to a new approach to modern gameplay, I can’t really imagine how else you can challenge what this series is unless you were more willing to bring more fans-turned-developers on-board like you did with Mania, only in this case for a 3D game. Until we see anything concrete, this is just another one of those famous empty platitudes from Sonic Team. Nice to see at least one thing that carried over from the previous Team.

   1. Well said, as usual.

   2. The real “Challenge” would be to make a consistent series of good games. At this point Sonic’s just known for throwing everything at the wall and find what sticks.

4. How about a GOOD Sonic RPG? Like Adventure, bit with loads more RPG elements? That would be awesome!

   1. I’ve always wanted a spiritual successor to Sonic Chronicles. I think an RPG is a great way to use the character and world this series has provided.

   2. I would love that to pieces, would be great if Atlus could develop that game.

5. “Take On Some Sort Of New Challenge”?

   How about finding a replacement for Iizuka.

6. Late reply but the real challenges here would be to find a better replacement for Takashi Iizuka, and also not having the mainline games stick to anniversary titles which Sega and Sonic Team seems to be doing nowadays.

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