From a strategic standpoint, what we really wanted to do was have two titles and not have them fight it out to see who wins. That's really the core main group we're targeting when we're making this game. Shun Nakamura: Really the core audience the team was trying to get is the people who like those modern Sonic games - and even reaching beyond that core group of Sonic Fans, we created the create your own hero feature, and we're trying to get some of the younger kids who enjoy customising things. What kind of audience are you going for with Forces? And do you sometimes see resistance from grumpy old men like me? When it comes to building something like Sonic Forces, it's got such a wide fanbase - you've got people like me with greying beards, who played Sonic the Hedgehog when we were nine or ten, then you've got our kids and they want a very different thing - it must be difficult. But the team was very aware of what Sonic Mania was - while they were making Forces which stared many years before Sonic Mania! He was working with them to make it true to what a classic Sonic game was - he was the one saying 'in Sonic Mania they're doing this, you might want to add something to Forces to tie it together in some way'. Shun Nakamura: It wasn't really direct contact with Christian and Sonic Team, but Iizuka-san is located in Los Angeles - he was managing the approvals for Sonic Mania, he worked on the classics games and working with the team to make sure they had that classic feel. Have you spoken to Christian Whitehead about what it is about that feel that really resonates with people - and is it something you want to emulate in your own games? One thing that Mania did really well was nailing that feel of Sonic, the feeling of speed and momentum, and it's something I think even Dimps struggled to capture with Sonic 4. From the team's perspective, we're still going to be making 3D games for the audience that likes that style of Sonic - when we see the reactions that Mania got, the entire team sat down and thought it was really interesting, and we should break down what people liked about Mania, and in the future - when we build our 3D games - see what essence we can take from Sonic Mania and put into a 3D world, to give people what they're looking for and that they've found in Sonic Mania. Shun Nakamura: It was very interesting for me to see Sonic Mania come out, get very high scores and have people praise the game. Seeing that kind of reaction, has that made you take stock and rethink your approach with your own games? It's one of the best received Sonic games, critically, for quite some time. There are a lot of 2D titles out there - maybe because it was Sonic coming back into this classic world, that's what pushed its popularity. Because it's an easy game to sit down and play, when you release it a lot of people are going to get excited about it, especially if it's going to be a Sega title with Sonic the Hedgehog coming back into this very familiar 2D action game. ![]() And we've got a huge classic Sonic fanbase, that's always craving for that kind of content. Shun Nakamura: I wasn't that surprised - I know the 2D games are easy to understand, easy to access as a game for a lot of people. With Sonic Mania, did the appetite for a traditional 2D Sonic surprise you? ![]() Shun Nakamura, game designer and producer at Sonic Team, answered my questions in Tokyo late last month. Where exactly will this one land? I'm not entirely sure just yet, but I was interested to find what impact the success of Sonic Mania has had on the series - and whether any old Sonic Team series might be due a revival at any point in the future. Sonic Forces is the next mainline entry, coming some six years after the fairly decent Generations, and four years after the not-so-great Lost World. It was also a mighty fine Sonic the Hedgehog game, too, restoring a little swagger and glory to the series thanks to the efforts of Christian Whitehead and his team with the outstanding Sonic Mania.Īnd within the next few weeks, hot on the heels of a critical highpoint for Sega's mascot in the modern era, there's another Sonic the Hedgehog game due out. There was a Sonic the Hedgehog game that came out a short while ago, you might have noticed.
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