Here's the last of the footage I took on the day. My camcorder batteries ran out so I couldn't get as much as i would have liked but still. here you will see us joining the signing queue for Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka, of which we got to watch Never Mind the Buzz Bombers while in it. There is also footage of Frobman Sonic Heroes animation (watch the whole thing here) which I took so he could have video of how well it went down. Finally there some footage of the second Q&A session with Naka, Iizuka and Senour followed by a bit of the birthday cheer that was recorded for Sonic Generations. Enjoy!
Just remember: Even Iizuka, director of Sonic Adventure, hates Big the Cats fishing game.
7 comments:
Sai Start Marker
said...
Just because Iizuka says that he regrets Big's game in retrospect, it doesn't mean it wasn't a decent part of the final product.
Remember, Iizuka geniunely believes Uekawa's version of Sonic is superior to Ohshima's, and that Dimps did a perfectly decent job of the physics on Sonic 4. Taking any serious heed of anything that man says is quite an eyebrow raiser.
By that logic surely he would have said he had no regrets? I was honestly surprised he said anything, let alone a whole section and character of a game. Ever since that game Big has pretty much been a joke character, and they haven't dabbled in his fishing gameplay again. Give him some credit..
Not at all. He obviously has regrets, as Sonic Adventure isn't all bad. What I'm saying is that he's probably upset about the geniunely good bits, like Big and his gameplay.
The scorn Big and his fishing game gets is very irritating, because 1) it's innovation, 2) it's not as terrible as every "I only play Sonic games" cretin would have you believe, and 3) Big embodies exactly the attitude Sonic the Hedgehog, as a series, should embrace. The character clearly isn't taken seriously, and the big problem with Sonic since 1998 is that need to make parts of the story or levels overly serious and realistic.
The point is this: Iizuka systematically ruined one of my favourite game franchises with bad design and gameplay choices. As soon as Yasuhara was out of the door, he set about revamping Sonic in his own image and brought upon an awful stream of executive decisions.
The fact that Sonic Adventure was half decent was a mixture of good research and falling back on pre-existing gameplay and design mechanics (along with a few flukes, here and there). Which Iizuka promptly eradicated for Sonic Adventure 2, magnifying the more tedious aspects of Sonic Adventure.
So, no, I will not give him any credit at all. I can't wait until he leaves the company and someone with a good idea of making video games takes his place.
Blimey that was a rant and a half. Been playing Sonic Adventure on PSN again and A ranking Bigs levels was not fun: there's nothing innovative about a bad fishing game that just spits random weight numbers at you no matter what the size or difficulty of the fish is. Sega Bass Fishing on Dreamcast was fishing done fun, but Bigs was just tedious and felt like a chore. I agree the series needs to take itself less seriously though, but Big is something of a joke.
Iizuka also directed Colours and that turned out to be the best Sonic game since at least SA2, and Generations looks fantastic. The series went down the toilet for a bit but it's starting to pick itself back up. Sonic's design change wasn't al his fault: it was Sonic Team as a whole and how much of the best staff left.
I agree with GagaMan and I also don't believe Sonic Adventure 2 eradicated a lot of good elements from the original SA. Besides Yasuhara left in 2002, long after SA2's release, so Iizuka's first game without him on board would have been Heroes wouldn't it? (Not that I'm a big fan of Heroes =P)
Hello everyone. I feel the need to reply to this happy little thread of comments. First off, Mr. Gagaman. I am afraid that Takashi Iizuka was not the man behind Sonic Colors. He was simply in a Producer role, the same role Naka held for Sonic Adventure 2, Heroes, and Shadow. And as we know, those games were really Iizuka's show, and Naka just sat in the corner counting money and was busy making other games that he actually wanted to make. He was way too busy with Phantasy Star Online and wasn't invested in Adventure 2, just like Iizuka was more invested in Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Morio Kishimoto was the architect behind Colors, being the Director/Lead Game Designer. Iizuka is having the same Producer role in Generations, though I'm sure his involvement is a bit more than Colors, seeing as it's the big tentpole title.
As for Big the Cat, I felt Iizuka's comments were simply that Big's gameplay was not as good as it should have been, not that he made the fishing portion at all. He probably would have liked if it was closer to Bass Fishing, but they had never done that sort of thing before and were way too interested in actually making a Sonic game, not a fishing game. It was never meant to be the centerpiece of Sonic Adventure. Sonic the Hedgehog was.
As for you Mr. Lungo, while Yasuhara was employed by Sega until 2002, he was sitting in a corner not being used by anyone at all. He left for Naughty Dog because he actually wanted to make video games and not just sit and wait until Naka decided to be nice again. Therefore, Yasuhara was not watching Iizuka during either Adventure title. Naka and Ohshima were watching Iizuka during the first one, but he was pretty much left to his own devices during the production of the second. Even if they have never come out and directly said that, it is quite evident when you look at how different the two games are, and seeing that Ohshima left Sega right after Adventure 1 was finished. As I said earlier, Naka was too busy with other games that weren't Sonic. He wanted to do new and innovative things. Sonic Adventure 2 was not that.
7 comments:
Just because Iizuka says that he regrets Big's game in retrospect, it doesn't mean it wasn't a decent part of the final product.
Remember, Iizuka geniunely believes Uekawa's version of Sonic is superior to Ohshima's, and that Dimps did a perfectly decent job of the physics on Sonic 4. Taking any serious heed of anything that man says is quite an eyebrow raiser.
By that logic surely he would have said he had no regrets? I was honestly surprised he said anything, let alone a whole section and character of a game. Ever since that game Big has pretty much been a joke character, and they haven't dabbled in his fishing gameplay again. Give him some credit..
Not at all. He obviously has regrets, as Sonic Adventure isn't all bad. What I'm saying is that he's probably upset about the geniunely good bits, like Big and his gameplay.
The scorn Big and his fishing game gets is very irritating, because 1) it's innovation, 2) it's not as terrible as every "I only play Sonic games" cretin would have you believe, and 3) Big embodies exactly the attitude Sonic the Hedgehog, as a series, should embrace. The character clearly isn't taken seriously, and the big problem with Sonic since 1998 is that need to make parts of the story or levels overly serious and realistic.
The point is this: Iizuka systematically ruined one of my favourite game franchises with bad design and gameplay choices. As soon as Yasuhara was out of the door, he set about revamping Sonic in his own image and brought upon an awful stream of executive decisions.
The fact that Sonic Adventure was half decent was a mixture of good research and falling back on pre-existing gameplay and design mechanics (along with a few flukes, here and there). Which Iizuka promptly eradicated for Sonic Adventure 2, magnifying the more tedious aspects of Sonic Adventure.
So, no, I will not give him any credit at all. I can't wait until he leaves the company and someone with a good idea of making video games takes his place.
Blimey that was a rant and a half. Been playing Sonic Adventure on PSN again and A ranking Bigs levels was not fun: there's nothing innovative about a bad fishing game that just spits random weight numbers at you no matter what the size or difficulty of the fish is. Sega Bass Fishing on Dreamcast was fishing done fun, but Bigs was just tedious and felt like a chore. I agree the series needs to take itself less seriously though, but Big is something of a joke.
Iizuka also directed Colours and that turned out to be the best Sonic game since at least SA2, and Generations looks fantastic. The series went down the toilet for a bit but it's starting to pick itself back up. Sonic's design change wasn't al his fault: it was Sonic Team as a whole and how much of the best staff left.
I agree with GagaMan and I also don't believe Sonic Adventure 2 eradicated a lot of good elements from the original SA. Besides Yasuhara left in 2002, long after SA2's release, so Iizuka's first game without him on board would have been Heroes wouldn't it? (Not that I'm a big fan of Heroes =P)
Hello everyone. I feel the need to reply to this happy little thread of comments. First off, Mr. Gagaman. I am afraid that Takashi Iizuka was not the man behind Sonic Colors. He was simply in a Producer role, the same role Naka held for Sonic Adventure 2, Heroes, and Shadow. And as we know, those games were really Iizuka's show, and Naka just sat in the corner counting money and was busy making other games that he actually wanted to make. He was way too busy with Phantasy Star Online and wasn't invested in Adventure 2, just like Iizuka was more invested in Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Morio Kishimoto was the architect behind Colors, being the Director/Lead Game Designer. Iizuka is having the same Producer role in Generations, though I'm sure his involvement is a bit more than Colors, seeing as it's the big tentpole title.
As for Big the Cat, I felt Iizuka's comments were simply that Big's gameplay was not as good as it should have been, not that he made the fishing portion at all. He probably would have liked if it was closer to Bass Fishing, but they had never done that sort of thing before and were way too interested in actually making a Sonic game, not a fishing game. It was never meant to be the centerpiece of Sonic Adventure. Sonic the Hedgehog was.
As for you Mr. Lungo, while Yasuhara was employed by Sega until 2002, he was sitting in a corner not being used by anyone at all. He left for Naughty Dog because he actually wanted to make video games and not just sit and wait until Naka decided to be nice again. Therefore, Yasuhara was not watching Iizuka during either Adventure title. Naka and Ohshima were watching Iizuka during the first one, but he was pretty much left to his own devices during the production of the second. Even if they have never come out and directly said that, it is quite evident when you look at how different the two games are, and seeing that Ohshima left Sega right after Adventure 1 was finished. As I said earlier, Naka was too busy with other games that weren't Sonic. He wanted to do new and innovative things. Sonic Adventure 2 was not that.
If only my upcoming post about a Sonic the Hedgehog snuggie sparked this much discussion.
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