Sonic Team boss Takashi Iizuka wants to know why the hell Sonic Team hasn’t made its own Sonic The Hedgehog RPG yet. It sounds downright hysterical, downright crazy, you know, buddy, you’ve been running this show since 2008. You’ve been working on Sonic games since 1994. I also miss going through the Star Post portal and into a world where Sonic has to max out his trainers and complete companion tasks for Big The Cat. The spinning ball of spikes is on your side, Iizuka-san. The people of Mobius are ready. Mario has had this genre all to himself for long enough.
Iizuka made these innocent comments during Interview with Good Vibes Gaming at the Sonic x Shadow Generations announcement event – it was Shadow’s year. They were then thrown at them by EurogamerSonic Team’s Ed Nightingale notes that Sonic Team has worked on RPGs in the past, such as Phantasy Star Universe, and as such has no excuses other than the tedious, commercial ones.
“I personally really like RPGs,” he said. “The RPG format is a lot of fun, and I even thought, you know, we haven’t done an RPG about Sonic in 30 years. And I ask myself, why haven’t we done an RPG about Sonic in all this time? How come we’ve gone 30 years without an RPG?!”
“So I’d like to work on a Sonic RPG at some point before I retire from Sega,” Iizuka continued. “But you know, right now it’s just a dream. There are no concrete plans yet.” Again, Mr. Iizuka, I have to ominously appear and remind you that you’re the head of Sonic Team. Let’s make those plans concrete. Yes, I know it’s more complicated, I know Sega isn’t in the mood for passion projects, but here you go – the only official Sonic RPG in existence is a third-party project for the Nintendo DSwhich I’m not allowed to write about because Graham would break my knees.
I want a Sonic Team RPG for two reasons: I think it could be great and I think it could be terrible. Sonic games have a habit of veering off in one direction or another, especially those released after 2001, but maybe these guys at Mania are just itching for another bite of the apple. Either way, it’s a fun prospect. Do you have to go brisk? No, Sonic, you have to go when Tails has his turn, and besides, you have no mana, so no spin dash for you. Good thing we have Itch.io creators will fill the gap.
