Courtesy of Gamesutra.
Interesting bit of information is that Sonic CD was intended to be a CD version of Sonic 1. That would explain that unlockable bit in SCD with Tails saying "See you next game."
It also gives a bit of insight as to why Sonic's main colors are red, white, and blue.
Wow. If only Sega would hire Oshima to make a directors cut of Sonic CD. That "sonic-boom > instant time-travel" needs to be finally realised. And I love how he essentially said that Sonic CD was inspired by Back To The Future XD
88 MILES PER HOUR!!!
Wow. If only Sega would hire Oshima to lead Sonic Team.
There...much better. 
But in all seriousness, Oshima seems to have always understood what gives the series its charm, and I just love how he still gives props to Naka's programming skills. Quite interesting, too, how SCD was supposed to be the successor to S1. I always figured that, because of all the miscommunication involved with the simultaneous development of SCD and S2 that culminated in the fandom's discovery of the Hidden Palace beta and internal discussions of "Sonic 2 CD" that the games were originally going to be one and then were split at some point in development.
*resumes quietly wishing Oshima and Naka would return to kick out Iizuka*
Naka can go bleep himself and I have yet to hear any evidence that Oshima deserves praise beyond excellent character design. Neither of their groups has done much.
Meanwhile people rave at Iizuka even though the SonicNEXT debacle was the first major attempt at a Sonic game without him, and Shadow was likely demanded by management. The concept and design of Sonic Heroes was better than any other Sonic Team ideas, and it's not like he told SEGA to release an alpha version of it.
The ones I want are Hirokazu Yasuhara and Masato Nakamura. They had major roles in 2 of the creative spheres that were most important to the series success and there was a very obvious drop in level design talent after Carol Yas quit. It also helps that his contributions were dismissed by Naka, and my opinion is such that I consider Naka dismissing him more evidence of his talent.
Naka can go bleep himself and I have yet to hear any evidence that Oshima deserves praise beyond excellent character design. Neither of their groups has done much.
Um...directing Sonic CD and NiGHTS? That sounds pretty praise worthy if you ask me, considering they're something of hallmarks in SEGAs history.
As for Naka, I don't know how much of the series he programmed for but saying he hasn't done much because he wasn't the creative team is like calling a farmer unimportant because he's not the chef. What's more you do have to be creative in programming, especially when dealing with something like Sonic, physics played a huge role in the 2D Sonic titles, and not knowing of any games that worked like Sonic before it I can only assume they had to create the engine themselves.
Anyway, nice interview, lots of nostalgia, I still miss old SEGA.
I mean that the groups they started independently have not been impressive. Oshima does deserve praise for directing those games, though I'll note that one of the lead designers of NiGHTS was the often demonized Iizuka. I do consider him a genius of character design, though I tend to credit Yasuhara with what makes the game work and Naka with achieving it. Part of that is that I think Sonic CD has some great ideas and the wonderful Metal Sonic design, but its level design is a bit less impressive than the genesis games'. It's still very good, so it's too much to say "does not deserve praise."
Anyway, I went way overboard there, but, I think SEGA (or whoever started it) were wrong to hype Naka up over the rest of the team. I'm a major fan of the level design of the genesis Sonic games, which is absolutely incredible and far beyond anything up to that time and nearly everything after. My ire started as, during the era of the Sonic Adventure series' bad level design, Naka called Yasuhara useless. Level design is by far the biggest issue with the 3D games, and Yasuhara has gone on to designcritical successes like Uncharted while the Sonic series has become a joke.
It's hard to say how accurate the rumors are, but with how Naka killed X-Treme, it's not hard to believe he had a lot to do with Yasuhara quitting.
<<Yasuhara has gone on to design critical successes like Uncharted...>>
I thought he already left Naughty Dog for Bandai Namco by the end of the sixth generation of consoles.
Interesting bit of information is that Sonic CD was intended to be a CD version of Sonic 1. That would explain that unlockable bit in SCD with Tails saying "See you next game."
I don't think I've ever heard about this before. That is very interesting. However, I do remember reading somewhere that an early beta version of Sonic 2 was originally intended to feature time travel, just like Sonic CD. So I guess that would've more explicitly linked Sonic 2 with Sonic CD. Also, I've always found the fact that Tails is absent as a playable character in Sonic CD and that Sonic's sprites in Sonic CD are the same as his sprites in Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 to be somewhat conspicuous.
What I don't really understand though is that if Sonic CD was intended to be a prequel of Sonic 2, then why does Silver Sonic in Sonic 2 appear to be bulkier and more clumsily designed than the sleek and smooth Metal Sonic from Sonic CD? Ever since I first played Sonic 2 back in the good ol' days of my early childhood, I've always thought that Silver Sonic was a prototype of Metal Sonic. But whatever. Maybe Silver Sonic was made after Metal Sonic after all.
I don't think I've ever heard about this before. That is very interesting. However, I do remember reading somewhere that an early beta version of Sonic 2 was originally intended to feature time travel, just like Sonic CD. So I guess that would've more explicitly linked Sonic 2 with Sonic CD. Also, I've always found the fact that Tails is absent as a playable character in Sonic CD and that Sonic's sprites in Sonic CD are the same as his sprites in Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 to be somewhat conspicuous.
What I don't really understand though is that if Sonic CD was intended to be a prequel of Sonic 2, then why does Silver Sonic in Sonic 2 appear to be bulkier and more clumsily designed than the sleek and smooth Metal Sonic from Sonic CD? Ever since I first played Sonic 2 back in the good ol' days of my early childhood, I've always thought that Silver Sonic was a prototype of Metal Sonic. But whatever. Maybe Silver Sonic was made after Metal Sonic after all.
It is my understanding that Sonic 2 was supposed to feature time travel, but someone realised how much more development time that would have required, so it was decided relatively early to form two separate projects. Oshima took on one project (perhaps because both Yasuhara and Naka were on the other one) and so he decided not to veer too far from the course of the first game, leading to overt reiterations of the zones from Sonic 1.
While it would appear that Silver Sonic is a clunky prototype for Metal Sonic, there is essentially nothing indicating that this is so. Oshima's team in Japan and Naka's team in America maintained a limited degree of contact while working on their respective projects. Certainly it would make sense that in those instances where both games shared some commonality, the different directors took different approaches (Metal Sonic versus Silver Sonic, the different Spin Dash styles, et cetera).
Also, I was quite sure that Tails's message "See you next game" was a reference to Sonic Drift, somewhat evidenced by the car. Unless Oshima's team was extremely certain they would be done before Naka's (in which case they were quite wrong), it seems odd that they would reference Sonic 2 as "next". I could be completely wrong about this, of course; it would stipulate that Sonic Drift was already being thoroughly considered by the time they struck that into CD.
It is my understanding that Sonic 2 was supposed to feature time travel, but someone realised how much more development time that would have required, so it was decided relatively early to form two separate projects. Oshima took on one project (perhaps because both Yasuhara and Naka were on the other one) and so he decided not to veer too far from the course of the first game, leading to overt reiterations of the zones from Sonic 1.
While it would appear that Silver Sonic is a clunky prototype for Metal Sonic, there is essentially nothing indicating that this is so. Oshima's team in Japan and Naka's team in America maintained a limited degree of contact while working on their respective projects. Certainly it would make sense that in those instances where both games shared some commonality, the different directors took different approaches (Metal Sonic versus Silver Sonic, the different Spin Dash styles, et cetera).
Also, I was quite sure that Tails's message "See you next game" was a reference to Sonic Drift, somewhat evidenced by the car. Unless Oshima's team was extremely certain they would be done before Naka's (in which case they were quite wrong), it seems odd that they would reference Sonic 2 as "next". I could be completely wrong about this, of course; it would stipulate that Sonic Drift was already being thoroughly considered by the time they struck that into CD.
I agree.
he does sound like a really cool dude.
