Yuji Naka Reveals He Sued Square Enix For Balan Wonderworld Removal, Criticises Game Release 'A Disgrace'

3 hours ago, Tornado said:

I don't understand the context in which he's bringing this up supposed bombshell. How late is "last minute"? While we know that Naka was busy tinkering with the game even after the US release (leading to all of the improvements the Japanese version had); we have the holy grail Sonic 1 CES(ish) prototype now and that was half a year prior to release and that had rings work the same way as far as I can tell.

I really don't get it. He states it was done 2 weeks before the master cart was submitted, but it was already like that for half a year as you said. Honestly, that detail doesn't really matter much here, when there's a fishy undertone to a whole dev team voting to kick him out.

Naka may be passionate about his games, but looking up the development stories behind some of his games reveals a man whose passion ends up negatively impacting on those who have to implement his vision. I recently looked up development stories behind Phantasy Star Online, and the accounts of the devs for the game reveal Naka to be an extremely ambitious director pushing for far more things than the team could handle under a tight deadline. Obviously, the game came out well in spite of this, but it shows that Naka had not changed much from then until now.

I could speak more about Naka as a person, as he's a bit of an uppity prick supported by his programming talent, but that's a different topic for a different time. Honestly, I'm with others here that he is just as much in the wrong as Square Enix is in this situation.

I do feel that it's kind of rich that Naka is raising a storm about Square interfering with a game when he also highly contributed to Sonic 06's ultimate state by just abandoning it outright, supposedly due to troubles with higher-ups.

And yet, now here he is being ousted by people below him for troubles with their respective higher-up, and even HR of all departments.

I'm just saying; stones in glass houses Naka.

https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?posts/1003158/

The original translation of Naka's statements read kind of unclearly as to who Naka is pointing blame at and how, so here is a more accurate translation; courtesy of Sonic Retro user Gryson.

Quote

"According to documents from the trial, I was removed as director of Balan Wonderworld for two reasons. My removal was decided by the producer, the game's PR director, the sound director, the company executive overseeing the game, and the personnel department.

"The first reason came about when it was decided that, to promote the game, the game's musical score would be debuted by a Youtuber performing a piano arrangement. I thought it was odd to debut the score using an arranged version--written by a ghostwriter--for an original game. I argued that we should release the game's original music, and it created a big problem.

"The second reason, according to the court documents, was due to my comments about Arzest submitting bug-filled work during development and not fixing it. It was written in the court documents that my comments--intended to improve the game--caused the company's relationship with Arzest to fall apart. That's what Ohshima [of Arzest] told the producer, Fujimoto.

"Furthermore, in the email Ohshima sent to Fujimoto, he wrote: 'I just gathered the staff and told them the news about pushing back the release of the demo version. I said, "This decision was made by producer Fujimoto. Let's all do our best for Fujimoto's sake." Then, the staff began to applaud and cheer. I was deeply moved because this exceeded my expectations. The energy of the staff, which had recently been sinking, were restored. Thank you very much. All of us on the staff will do our best.'

"However, the schedule was decided not by me but by the producer, so I can't see how that's related to me. The schedule was too tight because that's what the producer originally decided. It doesn't make any sense.

"I really think it's wrong that, for an original game release, the only music released to the world is an arranged version not from the game. Everyone reading this, I'm sure you have some game music that you can hum to yourself--I imagine that's the game's original music, right?

"For me, a game is something that you put your full effort into until the very end, always with the thought of how game fan's will enjoy playing it. I think it's odd to respond to my comments about the game by saying there's no time left, and then, without even discussing it with me, to remove me from the project so that I can't be involved with it in any form."

Gryson (the translator)'s own understandings of the situation, if more context is needed:

Quote

SE collaborated with Youtube pianist marasy to create an arranged version of the game's score. Naka objected to this, saying it made no sense to promote an arranged version when no one had heard the original score, and that they should instead promote the original score. It should be noted that, apparently, a lot of effort went into the original score. There was some conflict between Naka and, presumably, the game's PR and sound heads, and they complained against him.

Then, at some point, the real trouble hit. The game itself was being developed by Naoto Ohshima's company Arzest, with Naka--working within SE's 'Balan Company' brand--serving as the director. Arzest, I should point out, doesn't appear to have a very stellar record in game development (but I'm not that familiar with the company). There were plans to release a demo in late 2020, but Naka was shocked to see that the work Arzest had done so far was a buggy mess. He got into some sort of conflict with Ohshima about this, saying they couldn't release the game like that and they had to fix it. Ohshima fought back, saying the development deadline was too strict and they didn't have enough time.

Ohshima then went to the SE producer, Noriyoshi Fujimoto, and complained about Naka (I wonder if an ultimatum was involved?). Fujimoto saw that the relationship between SE and Arzest was deteriorating, and he wanted Naka out. Together with the previous complaint against Naka, they were able to have him removed from the project, six months before the eventual March 26, 2021 release. According to Naka, they did this without even discussing it with him. He was no longer able to work at all on the project, and he was even forbidden from engaging with the game in any way on social media. Without Naka at the helm, the game was rushed to completion and released in a half-finished state.

Naka, obviously not happy with the situation, decided to sue SE (on what grounds I'm not sure). During the lawsuit, he found out about the above two reasons for his removal from the project. He was shocked to learn that Ohshima praised producer Noriyoshi Fujimoto for extending the deadline on the demo. Naka argued that it was Fujimoto who caused the whole situation in the first place by putting a too-strict deadline on the development cycle, so it made no sense for Fujimoto to appear a hero in Ohshima's eyes.

We know from other interviews that the game's design was following a more classic 'evolve-as-you-go' path. Naka felt that there was still a lot of work to be done on it, but it was released as-is because SE and Arzest just didn't give a shit.

This seems pretty to-the-point on what happened; although of course the question begging to be asked is how harsh Naka's response and following actions were; since that seems conveniently left out. It does seem to paint that at the very least, there was foul play from multiple directions here. A classic clusterfuck.

It could be go either way. A person that is opinionated or stands out too much is generally perceived as a negative value over there. 

15 hours ago, Shade Vortex said:

The one button thing has literally been Naka's trademark philosophy. I really doubt it came from anyone else, honestly.

It's literally been his philosophy since Sonic 1.

The most relevant quote:
Naka: When you think of fast characters, rabbits are a natural match. We’d conceptualized it that far. But more than his image, I placed a higher emphasis on the controls themselves, and had decided the game would use just one button for his controls. Having only one button, I thought that button should probably be used for an attack.

Let's also not forget the game Let's Tap, which literally was based around the same concept- one button controls. And Ivy the Kiwi, which uses a very simple draw-the-path control scheme.

There's giving Naka the benefit of the doubt and then there's ignoring his entire philosophy on game design.

That’s still just one statement about one game.  I am not intending to give Naka the benefit of a doubt, as his creative output has been unremarkable at best for over a decade, but for whatever it’s worth, Naka’s one-button philosophy didn’t make it into the Adventure era.  If it had, it likely would’ve ruined those games.  
 

Also that interview omits the detail that originally, Sonic involved picking up and throwing projectiles.  Whether it was a one-button game at that time I don’t know, and if it was I’m not sure how it would have also included jumping. But other interviews I read make it sound more like the one-button idea came about merely as a means to the end of having very quick controls for a very quick game.  That interview you posted does seem to support your point, but many other times Naka spoke on this, he declared his primary goal to be speedy gameplay.
 

Of course both of us are just relying on Naka’s testimony about how he did this; he could be misremembering things or even lying about them.  I suppose it is, in fact, possible that Naka’s gameplay philosophy is a broken clock and Sonic was just that time of day a broken clock happens to be right, but the way Naka has recounted it also makes sense; it does, in fact, reflect insight into pragmatic analysis of what works and does not work when making a game that plays well.  If Naka is telling the truth about his development of Sonic’s abilities and controls, Sonic is as good as it is because he could spot annoying flaws and fix them, which is what makes BW so ironic because it’s as bad as it is because Naka or someone else did NOT change or remove things that hold it down so far.

So incidentally, I fully believe that Naka is a bossy, stubborn man, but there’s nothing innately wrong with wanting to make a game with simple controls.  It’s good that not all games are like that but there are far more examples than just the Genesis Sonic of games with simple controls that are great.  Even if Naka had insisted from the start of Sonic’s development that it only use one button, he at least understood that Sonic’s abilities had to work with that.  

And THAT is the big issue with Balan Wonderworld; it’s obscenely bloated roster of abilities does NOT work well with simple controls.  Maybe you can blame this on Naka’s inflexible ego but it’s not really correct to say this is all a result of his philosophy never evolving past Sonic, because had he forced the team to make a game more like Sonic, it likely would have been much better.

Posted By: SonvikTVYT

All Of The Things Yuji Naka Has Said Is CORRECT!, The Game Failed Because Of Square Enix Kicked Him Out Of The Project Months Before The Release, If They Kept Him, The Game Would Have Been Getting GREAT REVIEWS

On 5/5/2022 at 6:54 AM, SonvikTVYT said:

All Of The Things Yuji Naka Has Said Is CORRECT!, The Game Failed Because Of Square Enix Kicked Him Out Of The Project Months Before The Release, If They Kept Him, The Game Would Have Been Getting GREAT REVIEWS

The criticisms about the game, its pacing, its level design, the dedication to its weird single-button control scheme, the way it handles costumes, the irritating quicktime event segments… a couple of months really wouldn’t have resolved that no matter who they had directing. Those issues were core to what that game is.

Posted By: Greatsong1

https://twitter.com/6d6f636869/status/1525008395790843905

I expected S-E to give a typical “no comment on the lawsuit or game” kind of comment but to say that they actually recommend the game with “confidence”? Ugh…sometimes I’m glad I’m no longer a big S-E fan as I was back in the days.

I wonder if the lawsuit might've been used as a cover for this until he was found out.

33 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

I wonder if the lawsuit might've been used as a cover for this until he was found out.

Is this going to affect the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise or not really since he hasn't been involved with the franchise for years?

9 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Is this going to affect the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise or not really since he hasn't been involved with the franchise for years?

I cannot say. The most I can be certain about is that SEGA will probably want to distance themselves from him as much as humanly possible.

11 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Is this going to affect the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise or not really since he hasn't been involved with the franchise for years?

I hope for the latter, honestly.

Just now, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Yuji Naka has nothing to do with SEGA, and hasn't for decades. It's not going to have an effect on anything beyond clickbait titles going "THE CREATOR OF SONIC ARRESTED????".

Yeah, cause that's sure to be positive PR.

3 minutes ago, Zoomzeta said:

Yeah, cause that's sure to be positive PR.

The point is, there's nothing to worry about. Naka hasn't been attached to the Sonic brand for ages.

What he does, does not affect Sonic's reputation. 

..."Mr Yuji Naka is (not) alright."

5 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

The point is, there's nothing to worry about. Naka hasn't been attached to the Sonic brand for ages.

What he does, does not affect Sonic's reputation. 

That's good to hear!

28 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

The point is, there's nothing to worry about. Naka hasn't been attached to the Sonic brand for ages.

What he does, does not affect Sonic's reputation. 

Not with that headline all over the internet (minus possibly Twitter). 

12 minutes ago, Zoomzeta said:

Not with that headline all over the internet (minus possibly Twitter). 

I have a feeling it's not going to matter in the long run anyway because Yuji Naka's reputation was already tanked when Balan Wonderland came out.

Apparently he bought shares in a mobile game company after learning that they would be developing Dragon Quest Tact before it was publicly announced.  I want to make a joke about it, but given what an awful time this must be for his family, that would be... Dragon Quest Tactless.

3 hours ago, Salamander said:

Apparently he bought shares in a mobile game company after learning that they would be developing Dragon Quest Tact before it was publicly announced.  I want to make a joke about it, but given what an awful time this must be for his family, that would be... Dragon Quest Tactless.

Booo