Sonic Team is well aware that the reception to Sonic Forces was mixed (or perhaps more accurately, I was one of the dozen people that seemed to really enjoy their time with it), and that Sonic Mania had a much more positive as far as reviews go. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Sonic Team designer and producer Shun Nakamura discussed the future of 3D Sonic games, and how Mania will impact the games going forward.
One thing that Nakamura was asked about was if he was surprised by the reception that Sonic Mania received, and if that’ll impact 3D titles going forward. “It was very interesting for me to see Sonic Mania come out, get very high scores and have people praise the game,” answered the Sonic Team designer. “From the team’s perspective, we’re still going to be making 3D games for the audience that likes that style of Sonic – when we see the reactions that Mania got, the entire team sat down and thought it was really interesting, and we should break down what people liked about Mania, and in the future – when we build our 3D games – see what essence we can take from Sonic Mania and put into a 3D world, to give people what they’re looking for and that they’ve found in Sonic Mania.”
“Really the core audience the team was trying to get [with Sonic Forces] is the people who like those modern Sonic games – and even reaching beyond that core group of Sonic Fans, we created the create your own hero feature, and we’re trying to get some of the younger kids who enjoy customising things,” explained Nakamura. “That’s really the core main group we’re targeting when we’re making this game. From a strategic standpoint, what we really wanted to do was have two titles and not have them fight it out to see who wins. There’s the classic game that classic Sonic fans will love and get excited for – and maybe they’ll go onto [Sonic Forces] to try a modern Sonic game. We wanted those fans to get what they wanted, but also maybe try something new. From a reverse standpoint, we wanted to reintroduce classic Sonic to fans of the modern games – and maybe bring our group of very divided fans together.”
There’s a lot of other interesting quotes in the full interview over at Eurogamer, so definitely give it a read. Nakamura also talks about his desires to make a new Samba de Amigo game for Nintendo Switch, and yes, please.
[Source: Eurogamer]
