Yuji Naka speaks out on recent Sonic games.

TSSZ News released some news on Naka's reaction towards the current generation of Sonic titles and his feelings about returning to the franchise.  If you don't mind, I'm going to paste this article here:

Expresses Interest in Returning to Help with Franchise 

In an interview with GamesIndustry International, Prope’s Yuji Naka, one of the key individuals behind the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog, conceded that in his opinion, recent Sonic fare simply doesn’t compare to the past. 

“I also think that recent iterations have not been as fun when compared to those of the past,” Mr. Naka said in the interview.  “I think the number one reason for this is that the games have become much easier, so the gamer doesn’t feel that extreme joy that comes with the satisfaction of accomplishing something that was very difficult to achieve.” 

In the interview, Mr. Naka suggests Sonic games of today are tailor made to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.  He believes it would do Sega some good to up the challenge a bit. 

“Sonic has a very simple control scheme that is capable of doing a lot of advanced things while sprinting at a high speed, that’s what makes it a good game in my opinion,” Mr. Naka explained.  “I think even moderately raising the difficulty level in the future could work well.” 

Those remarks led to Mr. Naka expressing an interest in returning to Sega in the future to perhaps work on Sonic again, or properly revive another of his classic franchises, such as NiGHTS into Dreams. 

“Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to do so but perhaps at some point in the future if I could come back and contribute, that could be fun and gratifying,” he said. 

Mr. Naka also noted he’d like to see the rivalry between Mario and Sonic from the revived again.  You can read the piece in full at the link cited above.

My thoughts?  I think Sega intentionally made crappy 2D Sonic games to lure Naka back in.  I'm serious!  I think Sega plotted this since 2009 and said, "We are going to get Naka back in.  How do we do that?  We take the best parts in Sonic games and make them into something worse.  We'll get Dimps to do it w.i.t.h l.i.t.t.l.e m.o.n.e.y, make it look like an old Sonic game, and it shall be called Sonic The Hedgehog 4!  If he doesn't come back, we'll use the earnings and make another episode where we'll have room to butcher even more of his legacy!"

This has to to be the most logical reason behind those pathetic excuses for a Sonic game, to bait Naka as a plan to increase the value of the franchise by making terrible Sonic games based off of the classics that brought Naka into the limelight.

And if it works... meaning Sega gets him to work on 2D Sonic games, I'll buy Episode 2 on every platform I can play it on.  Naka working on 3D games?

(Why is that the best line in the entire game?)

But seriously, Naka and 3D games?  Lets take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

Now, Naka may have aimed Sonic in the direction (sort of) of Sonic's future in gaming jumping from 2D to 3D, but while these games get praise for players by simply stepping outside of it's 2D boundaries being somewhat of an over-complex Mario 64 (Adventure series), the games had many design issues such as clipping through the floor to fall to your death (or fall eternally), disobedient cameras, and terrible collision detection.  After Heroes, I was done, mostly because Heroes was pretty on paper but pathetic in pixels.  Just like Sonic 4, Naka wasn't free from making games that were utterly boring that were centered around forced mechanics (but at least they didn't stop the flow of the gameplay and coated with multiple forms of automation).  Shadow The Hedgehog (game) to my knowledge was his last finished work and although I never played it, it was received as the worst game on the Adventure engine.

But who really knows?  Since he left Sega in the midst of working on 06, perhaps he's got some good ideas?  He says that the current formula isn't challenging.  Now... before I go, OMG, speed running is sooo hard, he has a point.  Have you ever just walked up to some of the enemies in the recent games to see what they'd do?  You can idle around a lot of them or just avoid them easily.  Unleashed did a decent job of enemy placement to prevent Sonic from boosting through everything.  For players who do not speed run these games, you're pretty much left with simply navigating Sonic in a comfortable, unchallenging manner.  In Generations main acts, there aren't many enemies that check you for going fast or not going fast enough.  It's mostly memorizing the level and reaching the end without any objectives within the level.

So yes.  If they bring back Naka and he throws in ideas for the 3D Sonic games, all I can say is... if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Right now, as I've stated before, 3D Sonic is where it's at now.