In an interview with the latest issue of GamesMaster the director of Sonic Unleashed, Yoshihisa Hashimoto, proved to the world that he has a bit of a clue. A glowing preview of the upcoming Jekyll-and-Hyde game from the magazine includes such questions to the Sonic Team lead as ‘is Sonic Unleashed going to continue the trend (of making Sonic’s world more ‘realistic’)?’

Hashimoto’s response was the news we had all been waiting for:

No, I don’t think Sonic should be something that’s merely realistic… That wouldn’t be Sonic. Our goal is to make it like Disney World. Disney World is ‘real’, but it’s a colourful toon-ish world. Just strolling around it makes you excited. I want to make Sonic’s world like this… with the textures as realistic as possible yet (in) forms that are deformed.

So, like a twisted form of realistic locations inspired by the world around us? Sounds like Sonic 1 to Adventure to me. It’s about time they realised all this nonsensical parp about Maria/Gerald Robotnik/Shadow’s morality was a pointless affair. Sonic fans, here’s a guy in Sonic Team who finally knows what he’s talking about. In a land without Naka, Yasuhara and Oshima, such people have been rare to come by in the last ten years. Yoshihisa Hashimoto is our new pin-up of the month.