Sonic Heroes Will Offer Different Gameplay Styles and Stories for Each Team

Sonic Team's Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka sat down for an interview with the official Xbox website at E3 2003, and revealed some more details about how the different teams in Sonic Heroes will play - including how each set of characters will have their own storylines in the game as well.

The game's director, Iizuka, said that Sonic Team intentionally only showed gameplay of the Team Sonic (Sonic, Tails and Knuckles) at E3 to focus attention on the action side of the game. But when you play as the other Teams, each will have their own play style.

Quote

"We have three more teams, 12 characters altogether. Team Rose is designed for beginners and is very easy for anyone to access. Team Dark is for those who really want to break something and knock back the enemies—the power makes gameplay feel really cool. Team Chaotix is incredibly unique: Depending on the stage, you have different objectives and play styles. You might need to take time and search for something, get somewhere very quickly, or even use stealth and hide."

Iizuka-san also talked about the game's overall story, and how each Team's adventure crosses over with one another:

Quote

"Each team has an independent story, but they can merge very subtly at certain points... You can enjoy great complexity of interaction between the teams."

Iizuka was very keen to stress the importance of gamer choice in Sonic Heroes as well - not just in terms of choosing your Team but in choosing your path during levels and deciding which character skill you want to rely on the most.

Quote

"The style of play depends on the team and the user. Some people might want to slowly fly, evading the enemies; some will want to aggressively fight. In the beginning, you can pick the basic style to play; as you advance, you will figure out what kind of play is the best style for you and how to take advantage of it. For example, you'll learn that if you're in the air, you can change formation as you land and hit the ground running, to keep things fast."

Finally, Iizuka was asked about the Xbox itself and he said, "through 12 years of Sonic history, our themes have been speed and cool gameplay. The Xbox is a very high-performance console. I would like Xbox users who have never experienced Sonic to experience two things: the speed, and the cool comfortable feeling you get when you really catch [how to play] the game."

Naka-san, for his part, talked mostly about the Sonic franchise as a whole, saying, "we want to make this year the year of Sonic... For Sonic's twelfth anniversary, we've decided to release an animated series and a new game. We really want to extend our audience for Sonic to the Xbox and multiple platforms."

You can read the rest of the interview on Xbox.com right here.