The head of the Sonic Team, Takashi Iizuka, has reflected on Sonic Frontiers in a new interview with Japanese publication 4Gamer. Mr. Iizuka said that the open zone 3D Sonic game was “a major test that determined the future of the Sonic series” clearly paving the way for whatever the next mainline entry is in the Sonic series. He further reiterated on this statement saying that he believes Sonic Frontiers was “a great step” for Sonic. Here’s what Mr. Iizuka said via machine translation:
The last one would have to be Sonic Frontiers. I think that was a major test that determined the future of the Sonic series. I’ve wanted to make an open-world Sonic for about 10 years now, but Sonic, whose core appeal is “running courses,” and an open world are not a good match. “It’s not going to be fun if Sonic is just sitting around in a vast space,” and that brought back trauma from the early stages of “Sonic Adventure” development, so I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. But in the end, director Kishimoto (Kishimoto Morio) agonized over it and came up with the open zone concept. I think it became a title that took a great step that will determine the future of Sonic.
Sonic Frontiers is a huge breakthrough to help reshape the Sonic brand by evolved the gameplay.
What was its big breakthrough ?
Open world gameplay, playable characters returning and of course the combat system. That’s the breakthrough I’m talking about. Pay attention.
Your first comment was very broad and didn’t really explain what you meant by “gameplay”. Your second comment made it a lot clearer what you were trying to convey, but you don’t need to be rude while you speak your mind.
You should have seen that SonicGalaxy27 loser when the game didn’t win Game of the Year: he started blaming everyone else
I wasn’t being rude. He was asking me a question about the big breakthrough and so I did.
ignore em, just some trolls trying to make you mad. That’s all they do with their life, trying making other people mad. You have the power to simply ignore them, and if you do that, they look like pathetic leeches trying to find someone to make mad.
I wasn’t being rude to him. I was explaining to him about the whole breakthrough about Sonic Frontiers that has evolved the series. He was rude to me in past articles for no reason.
There is no “breakthrough”. It’s just another failed sonic game like Boom, ’06, even CD. Music as bland as the stages.
Preach.
How is it a fail Sonic game which was a commercial success? This was a test run for them to evolved the franchise gameplay elements.
You can’t understand. Go to bed, retard.
“This was a test run”. In other words, they’re throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks
I already did mentioned the test run. This is basically will help Sonic Team explore more research on how to evolved the series.
Shout out to the folks at IGN that got laid off. Seth Macy and Brian Altano were big parts of the Nintendo Voice Chat Podcast, one of the better video game podcasts out there that I tune into every week for their takes and insights. Didn’t see a headline on here so I wanted to post in some way.
If there’s no news about Sega, then news about Nintendo is shared. Actually, if it weren’t for Total War, Football Manager, and Atlus, Sega would have been long gone.
And because Sonic Team was willing to take that step, Frontiers is one of my Top 5 Sonic games💯
I want a frontiers 2 just to see how they will improve on the first game. Add more variety in terms of theming, make original cyberspace stages, and fix the pop in.
No thanks. I never want to see Starfall Islands (or anything similar) ever again.
Sonic Frontiers was not bad but it was not good at all. The Super Sonic Fights blind people from how bad the gane is. The Action stages used Boost Gameplay but with worse control. Sonic controls worse than he ever has in the action stages and they all used Green Hill, Sky Sanctuary, and a city theme over and iver p.
No more sonic news please.
Thanks for continuing to bring us news all in one place, Sickr. This is the only site I use for game related news, and your constant dedication to bringing us up to date information has always been very helpful. Every game that releases on Nintendo’s platform is important to me, so thanks!
100% to this
Reminder that Sickr is a power-mad mod who deletes any comment with even the faintest hint of criticism.
If you hate SickR so much, why are you here?
Addiction, loneliness, misplaced love – what you will.
That’s probally what it is.
Learn 2 spell.
What are you talking about? He doesn’t delete critical comments, he only deletes the most controversial ones.
What is Sonic? Is that the games that didn’t do that well so Sega stopped making hardware to sell them and somehow keep making new games that a few people buy and no one likes?
Correct.
Do you even sometimes double-check all this nonsense you write?
Sonic sold well on Sega consoles, here are just the sales figures for the original Sonic games on the Sega Genesis as an example:
Sonic the Hedgehog — 15 million
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 — 7.55 million
Sonic the Hedgehog 3/Sonic & Knuckles — 6.2 million
Sonic Spinball — 1 million
Sonic 3D Blast — 1 million
Sega itself stopped producing consoles for other reasons (constant disputes between the Japanese and American divisions, unsuccessful releases of some things like the Sega 32X, which undermined confidence in Sega, etc.), and sales of Sonic video games did not affect this in any way.
And yes, modern Sonic video games are also selling well, here are some examples:
Sonic Frontiers — 5 million
Sonic Superstars — 2.88 million
Sludge compared to the classics. Another mentally damaged sonicfag sperging out. Lol!
Shut the fuck up idiot
Nothing is more delicious than the ANGER of a manchild.
Could you be more specific about what I wrote that was so childish?
You yourselves should learn to keep quiet
Is refuting obvious nonsense really fanaticism?
You’re completely screwed, lol.
Reminder that sonic articles are driven by a desire for engagement, no matter the costs. Troll wars? Endless pointless debates? Whatever mess the comments are, Sickr’s laughing because it keeps the website active. He doesn’t care.
That’s what I’m afraid of.
What part of “Adventure era, not Breath of the Wild” is SEGA refusing to understand!?
30 comments on here right now. When the mushroom wakes up, watch that number drop away. Never do shrooms, kids.
50 comments – the legacy of SICK r.
What is it with this site’s obsession with Sonic Frontiers? Every other week we get a quote from some SEGA executive talking about what it means for the series. Call me when they announce the follow-up.
All Sonic is is experimentation now. Nothing ‘new’, irronically
I am glad to hear Iizuka considers Frontiers such a major step for Sonic. The open zone style really did feel like a breath of fresh air after years of the same formula, even if some parts were rough around the edges. If the next game builds on this foundation and polishes the combat and world design, I think Sonic could be in for a great run.