Sonic Team Creative Officer Takashi Iizuka revealed that he went to Japan in 2007 to help restructure the development studio under a unified vision, following a series of projects with varying directions - and as a result, now oversees the entire franchise to the point where "there's not a whole day that I don't think about Sonic."
Recounting his multi-decade career at SEGA in a new interview with GameInformer, Iizuka noted that the development approach of Sonic Team in the mid-2000s tended to follow whichever director was assigned to the current project at the time:
"The Japanese Sonic Team was creating new games according to the vision of whichever director was leading the individual project," Iizuka said, "That's how they created Sonic Unleashed, Secret Rings and Sonic (2006). There wasn't anyone controlling production from the top. Each director and producer were creating their own titles during this time.
"So when I got back to Japan (in 2007) each of those directors was creating Sonic titles based on their own interpretations (of what Sonic was)... I didn't think it was very good."
While there are certainly fans of each of those three titles, it is probably fair to say that there was a lack of cohesion about what the franchise should look and feel like. Unleashed, Secret Rings and 2006 all had wildly different visual styles, canonical approaches and core gameplay styles (although you could argue that Secret Rings was a spinoff). For Iizuka, it was important to "unify" the design language and gameplay core for future titles (which likely would have started with Sonic Colors in 2010).
"I put all of that together and created a system to have a unified vision," Iizuka continues. "We could now control the Sonic brand in a unified manner."
The SEGA exec added that his role has since expanded greatly; "When I was working in Japan, I was overseeing Sonic games, specifically. I covered management, quality control, and was acting as a point of contact for SEGA of America... But now it's truly [a] truly global experience and I'm in America. I came to the US to oversee games, animation and merchandising globally.
"Now I'm engaged with all aspects of the business, which is the difference between now and my time in Japan."
The whole interview can be viewed below, and it's worth a watch - there's a rather sad story about how Sonic Team became a little deflated during Sonic Adventure 2's development after hearing the news of SEGA's decision to become a third party publisher, as well as other interesting facts about his Mega Drive days (including a mention of Devi & Pii - which the Sonic Stadium first asked him about during our meet at Gamescom 2022!)
Source: GameInformer
Wraith
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