Sonic Team head Takahashi Iizuka has recently shared that the most memorable Sonic game he’s worked on is actually Sonic Adventure 2 for the SEGA Dreamcast. Famitsu asked him which Sonic game he’s worked on that he has the best memories of and Iizuka recapped the story of how he took the staff with him to San Francisco to work on the game. It was a small team but the combination of that and a new location and the freeness of the experience really resonated with him.
“I have fond memories of all of them, but if I had to pick one, it would be Sonic Adventure 2 from 2001.
After finishing the previous game, Sonic Adventure (1998), I took the staff with me to San Francisco to work on this game. While the previous project was a large-scale project involving over 100 people, development on Sonic Adventure 2 started with just 11 people.
Just hearing this might make it sound like it was a tough development environment, but since we were a small team in a new location, I remember that we were all able to work together freely and enjoy the development while supporting each another both professionally and personally.
Those results were incorporated into the game’s content itself, allowing us to create a title that has gained the support of many fans. I was also really delighted that the story was adopted for the third movie ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 3’.”
Yet won’t allow a remake of it. Also big reason he became head of Sonic Team was this game.
Some games were made so fast at the time and were just as long as today’s.. Like Diddy Kong racing was made in just 2 years or so and beat the pants off Mario Kart 64 in terms of content and fun single player gameplay.
Though I don’t know why there’s a bunch of talk about SA2 these days, it’s obviously not going to get an official remake.. probably a port at best.
This is from an old interview, it isn’t exactly new.
I still dont like Takahashi Iizuka, I feel like he hurt Sonic way more than he helped. Most of Sonic’s failures have been under him.