Archived on 2020.12.30
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Translation by Windii https://twitter.com/lesbianmamiya
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Original interview: https://www.famitsu.com/news/201606/24107383.html
『ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ』誕生・ヒット・新生の真実をソニックチームのレジェンドクリエイターが、25周年のいま明かす 秘蔵資料満載の永久保存版！
The legendary creators of Sonic Team reveal the truth about the birth, success, and rebirth of "Sonic the Hedgehog" on the 25th anniversary: A permanent collection of treasured documents!
Written by: Manami Rei
Photographed by: Nagayama Wataru
"The secrets of the Sonic series, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary"
The 2010s have been a series of anniversary years for various video game titles, but 2016 is also a memorable year for Sonic the Hedgehog, which was released in 1991 for SEGA's Mega Drive, marking the 25th anniversary of its release. Although it was released on the lesser-known hardware of the Mega Drive, it was a big hit, especially in North America, thanks in part to the dramatic speed that hasn't been seen before in previous games and the cool character modeling of its protagonist. After continuous releases of sequels and several rebirths, the number of titles released in the series has now reached nearly 100.
How was Sonic, known around the world as "the face of SEGA," created, and how did it become popular and turn into a series? We invited Naka Yuuji, Ooshima Naoto, and Iizuka Takashi, the main creators of the "Sonic" series, to talk about the birth of Sonic, its hits, and how it has evolved over the years. Since they are old acquaintances who spent their 20's and 30's together, the conversation was very lively, and lasted for an unusually long time, over three hours in total. There are many anecdotes that could be revealed today for the first time, making this interview a valuable "biography of Sonic Team" and not only about the "Sonic" series. We hope that this article will remind not only fans of the "Sonic" series, but also the "SEGA people" who lived through the era from the Mega Drive to the Dreamcast, of their passionate feelings at that time.
Naka Yuuji
Born in 1965 in Osaka, he joined SEGA in 1984 and worked on the SEGA Mark III version of Phantasy Star and Space Harrier as a programmer. He attracted attention as a genius programmer. Since then, he has produced many titles for Sonic Team, such as the "Sonic the Hedgehog" series and "Phantasy Star Online". In 2006, he left and established PROPE. He serves as its president and CEO.
Ooshima Naoto
Born in 1964 in Osaka. After working at an advertising agency, he joined SEGA in 1987. As a graphic designer, he was in charge of character design for Sonic. As a director, he was involved in works such as "Sonic the Hedgehog CD", "NiGHTS into dreams..." and "Burning Rangers". In 1999, he retired from SEGA and became a founding member of Artoon, where he created "Blinx: The Time Sweeper" and other titles. Currently, as the executive vice-president of Arzest, he is also involved in the development of "Mario & Sonic AT Rio Olympics" for Nintendo 3DS.
Iizuka Takashi
Born in 1970 in Saitama Prefecture. He joined SEGA in 1992 and worked on the Mega Drive version of "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" as a planner, then became a director on "Sonic Adventure" and producer on "Sonic Colors", and has been involved in the development of the "Sonic" series almost constantly. He has developed games in the United States twice, and in March 2016, he travelled there for the third time to oversee the Sonic series.
"Shocking confession! Sonic was actually not a corporate character of SEGA?!"
--Thank you for coming today. Since this is a rare opportunity for the three members of the Sonic team to meet together, we would like to give you the opportunity to talk to your heart's content about the story of Sonic's creation. We'd like to ask you a few questions about events in chronological order and start with this question: how was Sonic born?
Naka Yuuji: I was looking for something the other day and found a vendor brochure for the original "Sonic the Hedgehog" (or "Sonic 1" when referring to the game). As you may know, the music for both "Sonic 1" and "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" (hereinafter referred to as "Sonic 2") was written by Dreams Come True's Nakamura Masato, but the flyer we handed out at that concert was actually the very first time that Sonic was shown to the public.
Ooshima Naoto: I have the "WONDER 3" brochure from the 1990 DCT live tour. There was a Sonic ad in the brochure, and the tour bus had an illustration of him on it.
Naka: Oh yeah! Do you have a photo from that time?
Ooshima: I don't have any photos, but I did the design, so I have [the original picture]. I haven't seen the truck to begin with...
Naka: Ohh, but we saw it together! Don't you remember (laughs)? Makino (Yukifumi. He was in charge of the sound of early Sonic games and later produced the "ROOMMANIA" series as a representative of WAVE MASTER.), Ooshima, me, and I think Yasuhara (Hirokazu. Game designer.) were there. Might as well put that design in the article anyway! I had to bring something with me, so I brought the staff jacket from that time.
--When did Sonic first appear as a game?
Naka: As I recall, the Tokyo Toy Show in 1990 was the first time. Do we have the ROM from that time?
Ooshima: We definitely don't (laughs).
Naka: I actually wanted to include it in Sonic Mega Collection for the GameCube, but I couldn't find it. I wanted to bluff with Ooshima, so I was bizarrely obsessed over making the background scroll on seven layers. All we could do was have Sonic running at high speed on a slightly undulating stage, but our rivalry towards Nintendo was so passionate that we wanted to show the Mega Drive could do this stuff as well.
Ooshima: But we didn't have a budget for the PR, so the decoration pop-ups were hand-made by me with cutting sheets.
--Making seven-layer scrolling even though the Mega Drive has only two background surfaces was definitely a bluff.
Ooshima: Speaking of Famitsu, "Sonic 1" was probably the first time they gave us a full page dedicated to SEGA games. Before that, SEGA-specialized magazines like Beep! Megadrive (Nippon Softbank) and Megadrive FAN (Tokuma Shoten) had published them, but Famitsu didn't have any SEGA titles listed.
Naka: I mean, it was called "Famicom Communications" after all (laughs).
Ooshima: I used to be an advertiser, so I visited the editorial department with Takezaki (Tadashi. He was a specialized publicist for SEGA home video games. Now he is company director of TMS Entertainment.), who had just become the publicity specialist for home video games at the time, with a cartridge in our hands to ask for an article. Then the editor said, "You're the first ones from SEGA to visit us." and I was shocked. Until then, simply no one had ever been to Famitsu [and that's why they didn't have articles about SEGA] (laughs).
--You really had such an exchange (laughs). In that case, we'd like to hear from Mr. Takezaki, too. By the way, how was Sonic created as SEGA's corporate character...?
Naka: (Interrupting) Sonic has never been recognized as a corporate character to begin with.
--Oh, really?!
Naka: It's often misunderstood because it coincided with the company's internal recruitment of a corporate character, but we started working on "Sonic" before that, around 1990. At the same time, SEGA was listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (it was listed as second in 1988), and it was the right time for the company to grow, such as by creating a company anthem. As part of that, the idea of creating a corporate character was brought up. Of the 200 or so characters we solicited internally, Sonic was selected as one of the eight finalists. We were overjoyed, but ultimately we hadn't decided which one would be the corporate character.
Ooshima: I gave that presentation to the president of the company at the time. I was a mid-career hire and didn't have any peers, so I asked people in various departments, such as the toy division, to make stuffed animals and stationery items, and challenged with a working game.
Naka: That reminds me. There still wasn't any official announcement, I think. But I did see Sonic printed on a business card once when Ookawa (Isao. founder of CSK Group and chairman of SEGA since the 1980s, and also president since 2000) was president.
Iizuka Takashi: When we celebrated our 20th anniversary, we used a Sonic pattern on our business cards. I also made stickers to put on business cards. But he never officially became a corporate character (laughs).
Naka: The corporate anthem "Youthful Power" was decided through a resolution in a meeting, but I don't think a meeting to decide on the corporate character has taken place since then.
Iizuka: That's not necessarily why I went to the U.S., but this time I'm going there to handle the character IP directly.
"The twists and turns leading up to the birth of Sonic. Even Eggman was a candidate for the hero!"
--Once again, we would like to ask you the story of how Sonic was born. According to what you said earlier, Sonic was born with a kind of game in mind.
Naka: It took a lot of twists and turns for Sonic to become a hedgehog. It wasn't until he became a rabbit with actions like holding and throwing things with his ears attached to him that he started to work properly as a character. But unlike the Super Mario Bros. game, which I saw as a rival, I was trying to make a fast game by trial and error.
Ooshima: I was only in my third year of career, but I wanted to work with Naka, who was known as the number one programmer, and we started to create characters together. When I had no idea what the game was going to look like, I designed the aforementioned rabbit, and Naka said he wanted to make it more like a ball that rolls around.
Iizuka: (subdued) Like "Panda! Go, Panda!" right?
Ooshima: Right. The visual inspiration was "Panda! Go, Panda!" (an animated film released in 1972. The director was Takahata Isao and the screenwriter was Miyazaki Hayao, and it is said to be the prototype of "My Neighbor Totoro").
Naka: Every time I came up with a game plan, I wanted to make a panda as the main character and talked about "Panda! Go, Panda!". Ooshima and I both love Miyazaki Hayao's works.
Ooshima: And I wasn't expecting any of the characters I had been thinking about to turn into balls, so I wondered what I should do, and finally I came up with a hedgehog and an armadillo.
Naka: Rolling over enemies to defeat them was a treasured secret idea I've been keeping since high school, and I really didn't want to use it. But I hit a kind of wall when I realized you wouldn't want to stop every time you throw an object in this rabbit object-throwing game, so I reluctantly revealed it.
(everyone laughs)
Naka: But Ooshima was so logical that he objected to the idea of curling up and defeating enemies, saying it was ridiculous (laughs). So we decided to make a hedgehog or an armadillo, or some other animal with a hard back, and that set the plan into motion. One of the designs was a character that would later become Dr. Eggman, and he was one of the candidates for the main character.
Ooshima: My personal favorite is Eggman, which had a more rounded body in the design stage. I chose blue as the color of Sonic's body to match SEGA's image color.
Naka: I had a hard time deciding on a name, and "lightspeed"... didn't feel right. When we were discussing it until late at night, I heard someone say, "The speed of sound is called 'sonic'", and I said, "That's it!". The reason he became a hedgehog instead of an armadillo was because he was more stylish and cooler with spikes.
Ooshima: That's true. Before the Classic Sonic illustrations were made, the design was a little loose, but I asked Makino (Taku. Card illustrator of "Sengoku Taisen" etc.), a designer in the amusement department, to make a figure for me. If the model from that time is still around, I'd like to see him make another one.
Naka: Like the hair in "Locke the Superman", I didn't have a clue what Sonic's head looked like, but when Makino made it into a three-dimensional figure, Ooshima understood it better, and Sonic's design was refined further and completed. The process of creating a three-dimensional object beforehand was just like the production process of a Pixar movie.
Ooshima: We may have tried to imitate the methods that were popular in Hollywood at the time (laughs).
Iizuka: Speaking of sculptures, we're working on a Classic Sonic figure for the 25th anniversary as a prize. I think it will be ready in time for the birthday event to be held on June 25.
"Sonic is completed and becomes a hit, and behind the scenes, something astonishing happens!"
--Moving on to after the completion of "Sonic", there were some surprising things going on behind the scenes when it became a big hit, right?
Ooshima: It was shocking. I went to the company and was told that Naka had quit.
Naka: I hadn't told anyone. I quit before "Sonic" was released. I thought "Sonic 1" would definitely sell, but my boss at the time didn't appreciate it at all. I was dissatisfied with that and said, "Well, then I'll just quit the company." I was persuaded by the executive director to stay on, but left in the end.
--The official information at the time was that you were transferred to SEGA in the U.S. to work on Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but in fact, you had left the company once.
Naka: Right. I happened to meet Mark Cerny (American game designer. Worked at SEGA in the 1990s on the SEGA Mark III titles such as Galactic Protector. Major works include "Marble Madness", "Crash Bandicoot", "Ratchet and Clank" and many others.) at SEGA in June after I retired. We had worked on a project together in the past, and he said, "You're probably not busy, so why don't you come visit us in the U.S.?", so I went to the States in June. I visited the office of SEGA Technology Institute, which would later develop "Sonic 2", and stayed there for about three days, but Toyoda Nobuo (He was heavily involved in the founding of SEGA of America. Currently he is president of Unity Technology Japan, the branch of Unity in Japan.) invited me to come and work there, and two months later I was in the US. So if I hadn't met Mark Cerny in the lobby of SEGA at that time, there would have been no "Sonic 2".
Ooshima: As a matter of fact, I had also been told that I was going to go to the United States, and I was preparing to do so.
Naka: Really?!
Ooshima: When I was preparing to go to the US, as soon as Naka was designated to go there, I was called in by my CEO at the time, and he asked me to stay in Japan, and I was like, "What?!". Yamaguchi (Yasushi. He participated in "Sonic 2" as a zone artist, and is now a manga artist and illustrator.), who was my next candidate, went to the US instead.
--So that's what happened.
Naka: From my perspective, I got the impression that Ooshima didn't want to come even though he was invited. While Yasuhara (Hirokazu. He participated in many of the early Sonic series of games as a planner-director. He is still active as a game designer today.) came when he was called. I see, so Ooshima was stopped, huh?
--So there was no communication between you and Ooshima?
Naka: It's not that we didn't communicate with each other at all, but we didn't have e-mail in that era, so we couldn't communicate as easily as we do now. Occasional phone calls or faxes were the most common, and then I would ask to see the ROM that was finished to some extent when I returned to Japan.
Ooshima: We had at least a minimum amount of communication to make sure that the planning was consistent with each other. When we had Mecha Sonic from "Sonic 2" and Metal Sonic from "Sonic the Hedgehog CD" (hereinafter referred to as "Sonic CD") and I heard that Mecha Sonic was going to appear in "Sonic 2" that Naka was working on, I remember sending him the design of Metal Sonic in the mail.
Naka: I don't remember that one. I think it was from a back-and-forth with Yamaguchi. At any rate, I was so busy at that time that I didn't have time to do many things. You were in the U.S. at the time, so you could understand, couldn't you, Iizuka?
Iizuka: We were short on people, all things considered. In contrast, the scale of the project was huge, so we were just immersed in the work.
Naka: In Japan, there were a lot of staff members and you could ask for help, but in the U.S., there were only a few people and we had to do everything by ourselves. And since we had a specific release date, we had to run as fast as we could. The same can be said for the "Sonic" series in general; "Sonic 1" was actually made by five people. Seven when you include the musician. It wasn't until "Sonic 2" that we had about 10 people working on the game.
Iizuka: Sonic 3 had 12 people.
--That's surprising. The name Sonic Team makes you imagine a lot more people to be involved.
Naka: When Iizuka came to the U.S., it was a big disaster, it felt like we were living inside the company. He was thrown into such a situation even though he was a new employee.
Iizuka: I joined the company in 1992 when we were working on "Sonic 2" in the US. When it was decided to make the next "Sonic 3" in the U.S., my boss at the time asked me if I could do it there, and I was very honored.
--So how was Sonic 2 created?
Naka: Ooshima and I had been talking about making a two-player game since "1", and we were working on a prototype at the end of the development of "Sonic 1". We were young, so even though we were busy, we were able to do as much as we wanted. I even made it to the point where it worked with a split screen, but it wasn't interlaced, so we couldn't play it because we could see nothing. With that in mind, when I heard about "Sonic 2" in the U.S., I was inspired to make "Sonic 2" possible for two people to play simultaneously on the Mega Drive. After that, we experimented with interlacing for about two months, and in the latter half of 1991, our prospects looked brighter. That was right around the time when "Sonic" was becoming a big hit on the scene.
--And that's how Tails came into play now that two people could play together.
Naka: Yamaguchi's favorite, the "horizontally-spinning raccoon dog" (laughs).
Iizuka: When I think about it now, that's the same as Mario the raccoon dog (laughs). Why did he change into a fox?
Naka: I think he became a fox when he needed to be able to fly and we gave him two tails. Speaking of Tails, his real name, Miles Prower, was Yamaguchi's idea, but before he knew it, SEGA of America had announced his name as Tails. Yamaguchi was very upset about it, and a meeting was held. The solution was to use Tails as a nickname and make Miles Prower his real name. The name "Miles" was derived from "miles per hour", to contrast with Sonic's "speed of sound" unit.
--So it was a pun.
Naka: Yeah, that's what happened. Well, because of that, the president of SEGA of America came to me in person and we decided on a new character name for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (laughs). So, he suggested Knuckles, who would hit things with his fists and destroy them.
Iizuka: That was Tom Kalinske, the president at the time. Next to him was Pamela Kelly, the head of marketing. They and we developers were sitting across from each other at the same table, and we were looking at an illustration book with animals, deciding who would work and who would not (laughs). So we decided on an echidna (spiny anteater).
Naka: It was pretty unusual. But that's how the name and design were decided based on the character's abilities, so I'm sure he remains a viable character even today. Come to think of it, when "Sonic 2" was first published in Famitsu, the article said, "Tails, the younger sister who follows behind Sonic". Because of that, the news that Tails was a girl spread among gamers (laughs). Later, SEGA corrected everyone, saying he's a boy.
Ooshima: Because even we developers didn't know.
Iizuka: I was debugging the game in Japan, and I was wondering, "Is this character on the title screen male or female?" (laughs). We didn't have any documentation, so we had to judge from the title screen, but Tails had eyelashes, so he looked like he could be both.
Ooshima: Exactly! I was clueless, so I called Yamaguchi and asked, "Is this a boy or a girl?".
Naka: Really? I wonder if that angered Yamaguchi once more (laughs). But at the time, we were only exchanging the ROM, so what can you do.
"McDonald's and MTV. The whirlwind behind the smash hit "Sonic 3""
--After the completion of "Sonic 2", the production of "Sonic 3" began.
Naka: It was a lot of work, but it was fun. About half of the staff on "Sonic 2" were foreigners, but we couldn't communicate subtle nuances in English. That's the reason why Sonic 2 has a slightly different tinge in some of the stages. So for "Sonic 3", we decided to include more Japanese people in development team, and so Iizuka and his team came to work on it. Iizuka has been involved with the "Sonic" series the entire time since 1993, right? Wow, that's amazing.
Iizuka: The first time I met you in the U.S., you were like, "why did I get this big rookie on the line?!", though (laughs).
Naka: It's gratifying to me now, but we were in a tight situation at the time and we wanted to get a veteran to work on the game (laughs). But he absorbed the work technique so well that we were able to make "Sonic 3" in time.
--The huge map of "Sonic 3" was the result of Yasuhara and Iizuka's blood and sweat (laughs).
Naka: Adding to that, when Iizuka came to "Sonic 3" in January 1993, we were experimenting with a 3D version of the game, named "Sonic 3D," using SVP (SEGA Virtual Processor. A chip that enables polygonal drawing when mounted on a cartridge. It was used in the Mega Drive's Virtua Racing). We were still in the basic research stage, with a demo that had Sonic running around on a small spherical field like King Kai's Planet from Dragon Ball. In 1993, when we were trying to figure out how to incorporate it into the game, we decided on a contract to produce McDonald's Happy Meals (called Happy Set toys in Japan). We had to make it in time to meet the company's strict orders, but SVP production took a long time, and if we had made it into 3D before then, we wouldn't be able to make it. The six months between then and the completion of "Sonic 3" were a rough patch. That's why out of all the games we made, "Sonic 1" through "Sonic 3", "Sonic 3" had the shortest development time.
--I thought that in the US, you were more in a position as a producer. Someone who also managed the character of Sonic to an extent.
Naka: Oh no, I was always doing programming. In terms of IP management, Japan and the U.S. had different dynamics. But the good thing about working on "Sonic" in the U.S. was that we invited kids to come to the office for a lot of playtesting, and we were able to see with our own eyes how they reacted to the game, like, "Oh, that's where they get a game over", or "They seem to have fun in this part", and I think that had a good effect. In deciding on the design of the characters, we showed the children pictures and asked, "What do you think of this?" and had them decide.
Iizuka: That's what I was doing for the year and a half I was in the United States. And that's how Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles came out of that. And even though I was immersed in development, I would take the occasional vacation and enjoy the US. I remember having fun and being able to concentrate on my work, so I came back home with a good impression of the US, and later I would go back there.
"Ooshima was ordered by the CEO to stay in Japan. What is the true nature of Sonic CD?!"
--On the other hand, you were working on "Sonic CD" in Japan. What was it like at that time?
Ooshima: When plans on Sonic CD came up, I told the company that it was impossible since Sonic is what the programmer Naka is for. But they said they'll assign us a good programmer, so Yamamoto (Yamamoto Keiichi. Responsible for programming such titles as the Mega Drive version of Strider Hiryu.) joined us. But there were some things we couldn't achieve even then, and I remember thinking we just couldn't do without Naka.
Iizuka: I don't think it was the programmer's fault; I think Ooshima's demands exceeded the limits of the hardware. Initially, the idea was to have Sonic run through a time warp, and the background instantly change to another era, right?
Naka: The necessary load times made that impossible. There was no choice but to include a scene where Sonic flies upwards during the time warps to show that the time period has changed.
Ooshima: Every time I look at the ports of Sonic CD, I think, "Please, please cut that scene out!". I mean, nowadays it should all fit in on-memory. In fact, the stage map was made in such a way that it could change at any point between the four eras, and the terrain changing dramatically in an instant would be the focus. At first they said it was possible...
Naka: When Sonic CD was ported to iOS in 2011, he was still mad about it, saying "we don't need this scene!". So, if the people who ported it are reading this article, please make a "director's cut" version without that scene for him.
Ooshima: I'd be very happy if you did, and I'd like to play it myself.
Naka: Speaking of Sonic CD, Amy Rose appears in the game, but to us in the US, it made Sonic look like a playboy. There was already a glamorous adult human female "Madonna" established as Sonic's girlfriend. Because of that, I remember feeling very uncomfortable about it.
Ooshima: I was asked by the character department, which was in charge of the licensing business at the time, to design a female character that would be the Minnie to the Mickey, and so I did. But the Madonna element is still present in Amy.
Naka: At that time, the J. League was about to be established, and they asked you to draw an illustration of Sonic for it.
Ohshima: The only request I received was to make an illustration of Sonic playing soccer, so I thought it was a boys' soccer club or something, and within some 10 minutes I finished the drawing, and was surprised to see it on the chest of JEF United Ichihara's uniform. I think I drew it with a felt-tip pen (laughs).
"Sonic's popularity continued to grow. What was behind the scenes of the "Sonic" fever in various parts of the world?"
--While you were all working on the games, the character of Sonic became more and more popular, and he was adopted as a character on MTV. Where did you see the popularity of "Sonic" grow?
Naka: The most memorable moment for me was when he was selected to be a Happy Meal for McDonald's. When I heard that they would be making nearly 200 million units of merchandise for the entire world, I remember feeling both happy and under pressure. Although "Sonic 2" was a hit in millions of units sold, we had to complete "Sonic 3" before that campaign, and with far greater numbers. As a result, we had to divide "Sonic 3" into two parts, which we regret.
Iizuka: In fact, the reason why "Sonic 3" was split in two is not only because of the production time, but also because there was not enough space on the cartridge to hold all the data in the ROM.
Naka: I also remember the shipping ceremony for Sonic 2. The scene where the software was loaded onto a truck at the factory was covered in the newspaper as "Sonic 2 finally shipped". I wasn't able to witness it, but in Europe, when I heard that Sonic came out of four jumbo-jet cargo flights arriving at London's Heathrow Airport with the software, I realized, "Wow, he's making his big break through."
--For Sonic 3, an MTV-sponsored global gaming competition was held.
Naka: When I was told, "We've rented Alcatraz (An island off the coast of San Francisco Bay. In the past, it was used as a prison), so let's have an event there," I thought, "This sure is on a different scale" (laughs). We had a paddy wagon going from the hotel to Alcatraz, and we would call in off-duty San Francisco police officers, and they would show up every single time. I didn't know how they did it, but they kept changing all the traffic lights in the city to green. It was amazing...
Iizuka: When the MTV promotion was decided, we were still working on Sonic 3, and the marketing manager came to us and asked us to include a scene in the game where the character is being held in jail. I hadn't been told about Alcatraz, plus it was impossible for the story development-wise, so I declined the idea, but looking back on it now, I should have included it.
--The popularity of Sonic led to a rapid growth in the number of people and organizations involved.
Iizuka: That's right. There was also the MACY's Thanksgiving Day Parade (a parade held in New York City during the Thanksgiving season by the US's famous department store Macy's) in November 1993.
Naka: Yeah, there was! I went to New York City in the coldness because they said there would be a giant Sonic balloon, but no matter how long I waited, it never came. I heard later that right after the start of the event, the balloon got blown by the wind, and it popped and shriveled up.
Iizuka: On the way there, I saw a group wearing Sonic T-shirts walking by, and I thought, "Could that be it? There's no balloons, though". No one explained the situation to me, so I had no idea until it was over.
Naka: Only famous characters like Garfield or Spider-Man can be in that parade. I was very happy that Sonic was among those.
Iizuka: For me, that moment made me realize that Sonic had become a national character in America. I was disappointed that I didn't get to see the balloon, though (laughs). I should have had a look at it before the start.
--Did you feel that way while you were in Japan, Ooshima?
Ooshima: I did not. I've been told that he's incredibly popular in the US, but I haven't been on the scene to witness it.
Naka: Wasn't there a catchphrase in end-of-year commercials saying it's a big hit in all-America?
Ooshima: That's just information, not a solid sense of it. I guess it just feels different when you see it in front of you. But there was a year when Sonic surpassed Mickey Mouse, which was created by Walt Disney, whom I admire the most, in terms of popularity. At that time, I was so excited, going, "He's surpassed Mickey!". I saw Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger [in the list] underneath Sonic, and I was like, "This is going to be awesome!". I think it was around 1994.
"It's the Saturn era, where the "incubation" continued. There, we got NiGHTS and Burning Rangers"
--Let's go forward in time and talk about the SEGA Saturn era. In the first half of the SEGA Saturn, there were no "Sonic" series releases, and people wondered what Sonic Team was up to.
Naka: We didn't want to make another Sonic game. Some said the SEGA Saturn wasn't popular because it didn't have Sonic, but we had been working on Sonic for four years, and we wanted to make a new game. That's why I started working with Ooshima and Iizuka on "NiGHTS into dreams...". It took us two years to make NiGHTS. After that, I felt bad for the fans, so I started to work on Sonic that could run on the SEGA Saturn's development environment, which later became Sonic Adventure. But around the time we were done with the first testing stage for SEGA Saturn, we heard about the next-generation console Dreamcast. Eventually, we had to move the project to the Dreamcast, but we wanted to make the most of the "Sonic" we had created for the SEGA Saturn, so we implemented it as a gallery mode in "Sonic JAM".
--It became part of a series called Project SONIC.
Naka: At that time, we were doing a lot of media interviews, but we couldn't tell users that the Saturn version had been canceled, and we couldn't say anything about the Dreamcast yet, so it was a tough time. Even so, we were doing everything we could to make it the Dreamcast's launch title.
--There was also Sonic R, but that was developed overseas.
Naka: That was by Traveller's Tales (the British developer who would go on to work with Crash Bandicoot). I made many trips to the UK to supervise them.
--Can you tell us a bit more about NiGHTS?
Iizuka: After Naka and I returned to Japan, Ooshima joined us and we started trying to create a new character that would represent the SEGA Saturn. When we were working on the game plan, Naka told us the keywords "a character who flies" and "flightless bird". He said, "It would be very moving if the flightless bird flew at the end, wouldn't it?".
Naka: I wanted to impress people with the game experience, not with words or images.
Iizuka: But the keywords given to me by Naka were "flying" and "flightless bird", which were contradictory from the beginning. Maybe it's because I was young and inflexible at the time, but I was really struggling to think of a plan that would take shape.
Ooshima: For me, I was happy to make something new. I've said it many times, but I don't like to make the same game over and over again. Ideally, I would like you to enjoy a different work each time, like Miyazaki Hayao. That's why it was a great pleasure for me to be able to create something new again when Naka and the others came back. It's something I can say because it's long ago now, but there was a lot of pressure from the sales side to make a "Sonic" game. So in the presentation of the new SEGA Saturn game, I said, "This time, Sonic will fly."
--All without saying that it's actually a new character and not Sonic!
Ooshima: If I said that, there was no doubt that they would oppose me. So when I finished the prototype and showed it to the sales people, they said, "That's not Sonic!" but they also said it "looked interesting," so I was relieved.
Naka: NiGHTS took a long time to develop, about two years, and I think it's one of the games I've worked on the longest.
--At the risk of rehashing, from the users' point of view, those two years seemed to be the "incubation period for Sonic Team."
Naka: All things considered, I was struggling with NiGHTS for a long time. One day Iizuka said, "If it feels good to fly at the end, let's just make that good part only." (laughs). I remember arguing, "Then it won't be as moving, will it?!".
Iizuka: No one knew what kind of game it was going to be, and we agonized over it until we had an idea.
Naka: The character was initially modeled after the Okinawa rail, but Ooshima didn't really get into it.
Ooshima: In the staff roll of NiGHTS, Naka is stated as the producer and I as the director, but I'm most interested in the characters. I was so absorbed in creating the characters that I left the game part to Iizuka. So I didn't know about the scene where the main character flies near the end of the game, and during playtesting I went, "Oh my God, he flies!" (laughs).
Naka: So you've gotten caught in the emotional point (laughs). So that's how Iizuka went into the study of the dream world, thinking about how to make people cry.
Iizuka: Every day we came to work, I was going around doing oneiroscopy and asking everyone on the team, "What did you dream about?".
Naka: We've been reading the books of Jung and Freud. The game field's color keys were also born from that type of research, so we'd be able to work on the deep psyches.
Iizuka: The stages are structured according to the emotional changes of Elliot and Claris.
Ooshima: Actually, the roles of the three of us were divided up in a triangle: Naka and I were responsible for the player's surroundings, Naka and Iizuka for the game, and myself and Iizuka for the worldview. I don't remember all three of us talking at the same time.
Naka: You make it sound like we didn't get along (laughs).
Ooshima: It's just that that's what we were doing while we were working on it (laughs).
Iizuka: For the final flying scene, I worked with sound designer Sasaki Tomoko to come up with ideas on how to impress the audience. It was Sasaki's idea to have a moment of silence before the background music starts.
Naka: At the same time, another tear-jerking point was the ending movie. At the point I saw the product which just got the sound on, I already got wet eyes. I was like, "If this is so effective while being incomplete, it will definitely move people when it's finished!".
--So the theme of moving people was a different element you aimed for comparing to Sonic.
(everyone) Yes.
Naka: In contrast to "Sonic," which was intended to be exhilarating, "NiGHTS" was intended to be a narrative experience. That was the biggest difference.
Ooshima: In terms of the market, Sonic won the US over, so we wanted to do that to Europe with "NiGHTS."
--Was that a request from the sales people?
Iizuka: No, just our hopes.
Naka: We were allowed a lot of freedom in that area. Up to the early days of SEGA Saturn, we were allowed to do various things at our own discretion.
Ooshima: By the way, Christmas NiGHTS was a rush title we made when Naka went, "Ooshimaaaa! We gotta make an end-of-year title!" after a meeting (laughs). When I asked him why, he said that all the other projects were behind schedule and they didn't have anything to sell at the end of the year.
Iizuka: That's how we came to the conclusion that Christmas NiGHTS won't be for sale, but rather a promotional software distributed for free. At the end, we distributed it as an additional software to the main unit and the multi-controller, but we also wanted to offer it to users who wanted it through a telephone application. So we asked the users to bear only the actual cost of production and shipping.
Naka: I think Takezaki came up with that one.
--The swashbuckling between the creator and the seller of the game is apparent.
Naka: Isn't that always the case? The sales side of the business thinks about things, but the developers don't make what they want. And when we ask them, "What do you want us to make for you?" and they answer with, "Something we can sell." So then we reply, "We'll take care of it." The gap between creativity and business is an eternal issue.
Ooshima: I think the way management thinks is very important for a game company.
Iizuka: In that sense, the phrase "creation is life" in the company policy is very important. Development was always a challenge. That kind of awareness shaped SEGA's games, and I think that's why we had the emotional experience that people say, "I've never seen anything like this before."
--We would like you to tell us a little bit about Burning Rangers.
Ooshima: After NiGHTS was finished, we wanted to challenge ourselves to create something different and fun, so we thought we'd try a cutesy title that Sonic Team hadn't tried. It was aimed at users who had a bit of a otaku-ish temperament. I gathered a group of people in the company who were good at that kind of thing, and I started to practice making moe-pictures.
--Wow!
Ooshima: But I couldn't do that. Every time I drew, they would say, "The drawing is too neat," or "You need to break it up a bit more," and I would give up. So I tried to make it more like an anime style, then I pieced together a fireman and settled on that form.
Naka: Ooshima loves heroic figures. In the US, the most familiar heroes are firefighters, so we thought we should go with that.
Ooshima: And I wanted to ask animator Ochi Hiroyuki to do the character design. SEGA and Bandai had just announced their merger, and I was wondering if we could ask them to produce animated movies as well. We waited for a while, but the merger was canceled due to various reasons. So we asked Tokyo Movie Shinsha (now TMS Entertainment), which was a subsidiary of SEGA, to make the movies, but I really wanted Ochi to draw the package illustration, so I asked him and he did so.
Naka: There was talk of such a merger, too (strained laugh).
Ooshima: Still, we were confident in the game system. In terms of visuals, the programmers were able to achieve translucent processing that was not possible on the SEGA Saturn.
Naka: That's true. We had to draw a whole scrolling surface. It was hard to give it priority. And it's a difficult game to port because it makes use of Saturn's hardware to every inch, such as bu using up two CPUs.
Iizuka: People still desire a port.
Ooshima: I would like to see a modern-style serious version. A Hollywood version of sorts.
Naka: Why not just leave it as it was then? In fact, I firmly told Okunari (Okunari Yousuke. Producer of the SEGA 3D Classics Collection.) that the porting of Burning Rangers is his job.
Iizuka: Speaking of which, when the game was almost complete and we were close to selling it, our overseas representative pointed out that "Burning Rangers" means that the player himself is on fire in the local context. So, from a foreigner's point of view, the title might have seemed strange (laughs).
"The arrival of the next generation hardware, Dreamcast. Sonic is reborn to future standards"
--Let's talk about your time on the Dreamcast. Do you remember how your feelings revived towards a "Sonic" title, which you once said you didn't want to do?
Naka: The fact that people said that the reason why SEGA Saturn had a tough time selling was because there was no "Sonic" on it was a big deal. It's a bit of an excuse, but we didn't intend to spend two years on "NiGHTS", and we thought we'd be able to finish it in a year or so, and then make a new "Sonic" game. But as a result, we ended up drawing a two-year blank. We were feeling sorry as we started out. [The development was] full of challenges, such as utilizing capabilities appropriate for the hardware launch, using 3D for the first time, and changing character designs. We also had a lot of discussions about whether or not we could make Sonic speak.
--There were a lot of topics being offered. For example, Sonic Team going South America for an investigatory trip.
Naka: Right. We went to Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru for a two-week research trip to produce topicality for a major epic. Iizuka came up with a plan of going to the place where the location scouting for "Indiana Jones" was done. But it all started when Suzuki Yuu went to the Autobahn for the making of "Out Run", and I envied him for a long time. I thought, "Well, this is the only chance I've got!" and left the development scene with six staff members in the middle of an awful load of work (laughs).
Ooshima: I was working on Burning Rangers at the time. We had a parallel development period.
--Ooshima got left behind again... (strained laugh)
Iizuka: The research trip also had the purpose of collecting textures. Until then, the designers had been hand-drawing, but in the age of Dreamcast, the photos can be the textures directly. So I thought if ruins would appear in the game, we should shoot the real thing in South America.
Naka: The costs for photo film development were incredible.
--You were taking on a lot of new challenges with "Sonic", but is there anything you didn't change that you could call "Sonic-like"?
Ooshima: I thought it was important to me to see how many conventions they would break in terms of renewing Sonic. While I was working on Burning Rangers, I appealed [Sonic dev members] from the side saying "make more changes!". Iizuka was the director so he must have had his own vision, but to the young staffs, the image of existing Sonic was so impactful that they couldn't get rid of it completely.
Iizuka: That's also why I had my guy Uekawa (Yuuji. Responsible for character design of the series since "Sonic Adventure".) draw new Sonic illustrations.
Ooshima: At first, I handed him a sketch saying, "Let's go this far!" - it was a monstrosity of a muscular old man with spines growing out of him. And Uekawa objected, saying "The fans will kill us if we do this" (laughs).
--What was your vision in your mind, Iizuka?
Iizuka: Up until then, the story of Sonic was simple enough that it was just written in the instruction manuals, and what the characters were like was up to the player's imagination. But in "Sonic Adventure", Sonic talks and has a story to tell. So we tried to build everything from the ground up so that we wouldn't betray the image of Sonic that people had in mind. So I was conscious of keeping the "slightly cocky but cute and fast" image that Classic Sonic's illustrations had. On top of this base, I gave him a slightly cheeky way of speaking and an American-like "woah!" tic.
Ooshima: Who came up with the story?
Iizuka: From the outline to the dialogue, Nishiyama (Akinori. He was in charge of the scenario for "Sonic Adventure". He has since been involved in supervision for much of the Sonic series with Iizuka and Uekawa) did.
--Naka, as a producer you were in a position to make judgments. What did you keep in mind?
Naka: I was secretly concerned about whether it was OK to go this far. But the timing was right for the switch to 3D, so we changed not only the style of the game, but also the character modeling. To borrow a phrase from Ooshima, who loves Disney, "Mickey has also changed his appearance to fit the times". In terms of game design, it's all about the timing of the jumps. In 3D, it's hard to see the edges of the footholds, so we were very careful about how we handled it. In the case of "Burning Rangers", after discussing it with Ooshima, we solved the problem by jumping automatically when reaching the edge. But in "Sonic", we decided that it would be a game in which the player had to jump on their own, so we prepared a mid-air homing attack that would allow them to aim at the enemies and feel good about moving forward.
--Unlike the 2D Sonics, you don't "fall to your death" as often.
Naka: That's because we reduced such trap to what's necessery. In the 2D version of Sonic, there was what we called the "Yasuhara set" - the placement of spikes right after the jump, but if we did that in 3D, character would die right away, so we eliminated that. This may have changed the flow of the game a lot, but I think this is where we established the point of reference for 3D Sonic.
Iizuka: Super Mario 64 was one of the predecessors of 3D action, but the first time I played it I didn't know where to go. The old "Sonic" games were designed so that you only had to go right to get to the goal, so we didn't want Sonic Adventure to be a game where you didn't know where you were supposed to go. That's how we came up with the system of pointing the camera in the direction you need to go.
--So that's how the high-speed ride sensation in Sonic Adventure came about.
Iizuka: Without the automatic control system of the camera, the 3D version of Sonic would not have been born.
Naka: We managed to release it about... a month late from the Dreamcast launch date, despite the big changes we made. I'm relieved that we managed to make it to launch, but the crew was working on the international version right away.
Iizuka: Yeah (laughs).
--It seems to be the current trend of "Sonic" to this day to have a focal point as a character, but to never stop changing.
Iizuka: That's true. That's why, even though we've been 25 years in the business, we don't have many numbered titles. We are always introducing new concepts and new gimmicks every time.
--Sonic was born and raised in this way, and now he's playing with Mario in the Olympic Games. How do you feel about that?
Naka: Actually, I'm the one who wanted Sonic to co-star with Mario, so I went to Miyamoto Shigeru (the well-known Nintendo Creative Fellow. The creator of "Super Mario Bros." and "The Legend of Zelda.") once to make a presentation about making an action game with Mario and Sonic. Around the time of the GameCube, I took about four planners with me. Unfortunately, that talk didn't happen because "there was no clear necessity for Sonic and Mario to play together in action", but at the time, SEGA was able to obtain the license to Olympic games, so we used that license to get the characters to play together. A little later, Sonic appeared in Super Smash Bros. But that was also because I asked Sakurai (Sakurai Masahiro, representative of Sora. Game designer of the "Super Smash Bros." series and "Kid Icarus", etc.) to put Sonic in the game, and that too was made possible. The Olympic Games are not exactly what I had in mind, but I think it's good that kids all over the world are happy to see them work together. But I'd like to see Mario co-star in an action game one day. I'm sure Iizuka will find the necessity and go back to present it (laughs).
Ooshima: I feel the same way. I used to think of them as rivals, but when I saw them working together, I honestly thought that Nintendo had recognized Sonic.
Naka: I've always dreamed of having a theme park with Sonic roaming around, but I wouldn't mind if he was Disneyland. At one time, DiC Entertainment, which produced the Sonic animated shows in the U.S., was acquired by Disney. There was a moment when I was happy that maybe Sonic would walk around Disneyland, but it didn't happen. Personally, I'd like to see him in more places.
"The Sonic gene never stops evolving. What will the future of Sonic look like?"
--It's time to wrap up the interview. There aren't many series that have been released consistently over the course of 25 years.
Iizuka: In terms of the number of mentions, there are nearly 100 titles.
Naka: So many! The Game Gear versions had very little of our involvement, right? It was a different department.
--By the way, do you and Ooshima play the current Sonic games?
Ooshima: Not all, but some of them. I think they're still very fast as always.
Naka: I'm sorry, but I haven't (decisive). I mean, I was involved with Sonic until I left SEGA in 2006. For that reason, when I play it, I'll be bothered about many aspects of it.
--You can't help but observe it from the standpoint of a creator?
Naka: I played the first game after I left SEGA, but after the first 10 seconds or so, a lot of things bothered me and I thought, "I shouldn't touch this," so I decided to watch from afar. I didn't play the games at all after that. I was involved with the games up to "Sonic the Hedgehog" released in 2006, but left SEGA in the middle of the game's production, so I couldn't help but be concerned in the parts that were made after that. We named it "Sonic the Hedgehog" to begin with to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the first game's release, and to make this game a big change as another new step. As a result, it wasn't well received, and I felt even more sorry that I wasn't able to be involved in the project until the end.
--So is the information about "Sonic" also cut off?
Naka: Sometimes I watch the product movies at game shows from a distance and wonder, "Is this what the new Sonic is turning into?!". It really does make me curious. But I don't go tell things about it to Iizuka.
--It's like a daughter who became a bride (laughs).
Naka: I'd like to have the opportunity to work on "Sonic" again with us three, but since Iizuka is leaving for the U.S., I guess it's a longer way off now. But I think it's a good thing that the genes that led to the original idea are spreading to various places. I think we're going to have a moment of worthy progress to celebrate the 25th anniversary, and I'm looking forward to that. I wonder if the next time we get together will be the 50th anniversary? (laughs)
Iizuka: By that point we'll be tottering around, and we may not be able to answer questions about those old days.
(everyone laughs)
Naka: I do want it to last that long. Until then, I want to play an active role myself, and I want to celebrate the anniversary with Sonic.
--Nintendo had a clear rival in Mario, too.
Naka: It was probably very good to have such a strong competitor. Not only for SEGA, but for the game industry as a whole. I think it's sad that the rivalry is fading now that there are not so many differences between platforms.
--What is your vision for the future of "Sonic"?
Iizuka: As I'm sure all of our fans are aware, in addition to the games that Sonic Team makes, we also have a series called "Sonic Toon" that started as a CG animation. So it's been broadcast in countries and regions where our games are not available, and it's been well received. I hope that "Sonic" will expand in various ways, from games to TV shows and the upcoming movie produced by Sony Pictures, and I hope that we'll be able to create various points of involvement.
--Is that why you're going to the United States?
Iizuka: That's right. Today, we have been talking about history, but sometimes things get "blurred" beyond our reach, such as "Sonic R", which was made overseas, and "Black Knight", which both Naka and I are unfamiliar with. To be honest, "Sonic Boom", the game released two years ago, didn't get a great reception from users either. So we're setting the standard for what Sonic should be like from Los Angeles, where the headquarters of the "Sonic" brand is located.
--You'll take control of Sonic as it grows up.
Iizuka: Exactly. Twenty-five years is just a period of time, and it's the same for every title. It's the 20th anniversary of "NiGHTS", even though it's only had two games. So it's not the years that have passed that are so great, but the things we've built up that are important. That's why, for the next anniversary, I'd like to keep the IP alive by always proposing new things, so that it won't be called a "past IP". Naka won't play them, though (laughs).
Naka: Just show me from the beginning and I'll play! But Iizuka doesn't consult me at all. I'm sure he thinks I'll get picky if he shows it to me (laughs).
--That's how much love you have for the game, isn't it?
Ooshima: In my case, as a creator myself, I don't mind too much if the game has some flaws. On the other hand, when I find strong points, it encourages me to keep up the good work.
Naka: I would get anxious and grow my frustration over it, especially when it's about Sonic series. I've been involved in it for 15 years, and that's why I'm so attached to it.
--We believe we have seen the relationship between the three of you today, as well as half a lifetime of truths about the "Sonic" series (laughs). Thank you very much for your long and precious conversation.
Naka: Next time, invite me and Ooshima to the US. Let's have dinner and talk about something fun again!
Iizuka: I'll keep that in mind. You gotta play Sonic then (laughs).
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Translation by Windii https://twitter.com/lesbianmamiya
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★The interview article also includes a whole timeline of Sonic series games with brief description to each on its last page. Check it out if you'd like!
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Proofread by Knuttunk
Proofread by Knuttunk
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