#Sonic fan character ideas series#

One was very familiar with a tropical island vibe, and then the other one was a jungle that felt more new. GamesBeat: I played two levels in the demo. If you don’t do any of those additional things, you can still beat the game. In the game, we thought about this for a long time, but we finally said, the emerald powers will be additional things you get to do on top of the core, classic gameplay. We wanted to make sure that fans who love the classic series, who want to get in there and have that classic experience, can still have that experience. We did want to add the powers and have these new actions and abilities in the game, but we realized that if we started doing that, the classic gameplay that we wanted people to experience – running, jumping, attacking the enemies – that all changes if the game is now about using the powers all the time. Iizuka: That was actually a big, important point we wanted to work on early in design. GamesBeat: What if you don’t get all of them? Are you still going to be able to complete the game? Are any of these abilities mandatory to progress? Iizuka: You’ll have to collect all seven to find out! GamesBeat: Do you still unlock that super form when you get all the chaos emeralds? We thought that because the challenge is to get them all, and that’s really difficult, if people can’t stay motivated to get them all, what if we gave out a power every time you collect one? You get something with each emerald, so maybe that will get people motivated to keep collecting, if we reward them for every time they collect one. You have to get them all in order to get something. We understood that players are motivated to get all seven, but if they hit this wall and they can’t collect them all, they lose their motivation. Iizuka: You’re a classic fan, so you know that when you get all seven Chaos Emeralds, you get something special for collecting them. GamesBeat: Talking about new mechanics, the Chaos Emerald powers stand out as something that’s new to the franchise. After that came out, after people played the original, now we wanted to deliver something new in that same 2D classic format. That was the classic format, the original original, where everything started Sonic games. One of the ideas was, we had Sonic Origins come out. Even from a franchise standpoint, the Sonic brand, the Sonic series, the team always wants to have new things in development, new experiences for people to engage with. We’ve been doing that for the past 30 years, innovating and adding and making these new experiences. All the games have to have some new element. Iizuka: The Sonic franchise has always been about bringing something new. Is that part of a strategy, to make sure that there is this steady amount, maybe not exactly once a year, but something close? This is a pretty ambitious schedule for new Sonic games. GamesBeat: You talked about Frontiers coming out last year. He’s on Eggman’s side, but we’re bringing him back for Superstars. It’s been many decades since Fang was out there, but we wanted to put him in. Also, how could we bring back a character like Mighty or Ray who’s maybe not so well-known? What would be a character that could get the fans excited?

Because they had that reaction, when we were doing Superstars, the team really wanted to think about bringing back classic characters and putting them in the game. We weren’t expecting that kind of reaction. Two characters that most people didn’t really know. Iizuka: When we released Mania, or really Mania Plus, we added in Mighty and Ray. We’ve seen cameos from him recently, but this is his first time back in a bigger role in a long time. GamesBeat: I played the Game Gear Sonic games, so I was excited to see Fang come back.

#Sonic fan character ideas series#

Yes, it’s the same 2D side-scrolling game format, but we wanted to challenge ourselves and say, hey, how can we take this to the next level? How can we make something new, interesting and innovative in that classic series format? That’s Sonic Superstars. I wanted to do something new with that classic series. It’s always been about the old, old, old. In a similar way, the classic series, everyone has thought of it as retro. Takashi Iizuka: Last year we released Sonic Frontiers, and that was really the big advancement, the new and innovative way that we took the modern series and made something new with it. What was the motivation for familiar-yet-new style? GamesBeat: We’ve seen a few different approaches to doing 2D Sonic games in recent years. I talked with Iizuka about Sonic Team’s new approach to a 2D in my interview (done through a translator). Superstars releases this fall for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.