Iizuka: There will not be a Sonic Adventure 3 & what future Sonic titles will be like

[Blue Blood]

14 minutes ago, Mayor D said:

Probably because it's not called Sonic the Hedgehog 5.

Also why do I get the feeling the issue of them not wanting to do it and the whole 'let's add new stuff to advance the series' isn't an Iizuka problem, it's more of a Sonic Team as a collective don't want to do it?

This is why the name is stupid. Unleashed had the working title is "Sonic Adventure 3", and we all know what a poor Sonic 4 S4E1 turned out to be. 

If I was to say that I want an SA3, I would mean that I just want another game that builds on the core gameplay that was developed in SA1 or SA2. The name of "Sonic Adventure 3" and extra fluff like Chao World as @Shadowlax mentioned or the different genre styles for each character, are all things that I could do without. Just give me a 3D game that plays like a much more refined Sonic's SA1/2 gameplay. That's SA3 to me.

To clarify, I don't want a game called SA3. I don't care about that and think the name would come with too much baggage. But what I do want is a game that builds on the good parts of the Adventure series. That's all Mania was (plus it remade a bunch of stages and I think we've definitely had enough of that for the time being thank you).

[Milo]

26 minutes ago, Waveshocker Sigma said:

I don't see how Sonic 3 & Knuckles but not as good with levels from 1, 2, itself and CD plus few original levels is considered an "advancement" considering Mania does nothing new outside of it's Special Stages, but if you say so.

Still a good game, though. In the end, I suppose that's all that matters.

Drop Dash? Elemental shields that have effects from the environment? Combine Ring? Bonus stages used for unlockables? Stage mechanics and graphical effects not seen, let alone even feasible, in previous games?

The game's lacking in originality in the content department and doesn't bring a lot of new elements to the table, that's true. But the aforementioned additions do make Mania more than just a straight collection of old levels with a few new levels thrown in.

As for Iizuka's comments, I also don't want a Adventure 3; but the reasons he's using to back up his arguments are really questionable and even contradictory/hypocritical.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

22 minutes ago, Waveshocker Sigma said:

I don't see how Sonic 3 & Knuckles but not as good with levels from 1, 2, itself and CD plus few original levels is considered an "advancement" considering Mania does nothing new outside of it's Special Stages, but if you say so.

Still a good game, though. In the end, I suppose that's all that matters.

?

Mania has better visuals including but not limited to smoother more lively cartoony animation. Things like the element shields actually do some environmental effects such as the fire shield reacting in oil ocean zone. All the levels include more variety of fun gimmicks then the old games. Fairly more interesting boss fights overall. There's other stuff too honestly. Outside of Sonic 3&K having non-reused level themes... and better bonus stages... otherwise to me there is nothing else better about Sonic 3&K realistically.

[Your Vest Friend]

24 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

+1 for that lol 

But what do you mean? Mania was going back and giving the fans what they want (and so was S4 in theory). It went back to the Classic style and advanced on it.

I think that that's all anyone is asking for with SA3. I guess it does come down to the rather tenuous matter of defining what would make a game SA3 as opposed to any other 3D Sonic game, but still. The principle doesn't make sense. If Iizuka was happy for Mania to happen, why does his argument against SA3 contradict Mania?

I think a couple of things factor into my feeling on Mania;

1. It took nearly 20 years to even begin to touch the idea of a revisit. And the two times they kind of did, it was still trying to advance modern ideologies as opposed to actually bringing back the actual classic principle stuff and advancing that (Sonic 4 with a Rush style, Sonic Generations with classic Sonic having the modern physics more than 1:1 classic).

2. Even Mania doesn't come off as a genuine revisit to that style as an advancement (in the eyes of Sonic Team), at least not to me, and it comes down to the origin; with Whitehead pitching console ports of Sonic 1 and 2 with some extra levels, and Iizuka instead suggesting something like a "Best Of", I'm not sure Iizuka himself sees it as advancing on it even with how much they altered them. Even the original stuff added in ultimately served a purpose outside of serving the classic elements. And Iizuka being surprised at the sheer force of the reception only seals the deal. I'd have to wait and see what a hypothetical Mania 2 was like before I could say "Yep, this is SEGA (of Japan) and Sonic Team actually genuinely seeing this as an advancement on the classic style". 

[Badnik Mechanic]

At the risk of turning this into a 'what mania did well'...

If we talk about What Mania did to advance the 2D series, Vs what Sonic 4 did....

Literally, the only thing I can think of regarding Sonic 4 is the 'separate button for Super Sonic activation' otherwise I really struggle to think of anything.

But Mania... I can think of a lot more and that's without talking about the level design... that said, it does a few things I don't agree with but I'd say it does advance the series in many ways.

[Your Vest Friend]

I'm not saying that it didn't advance anything (lukewarm opinion of the game aside), I'm just saying I question whether the men in charge see it as doing that. 

[Zippo]

I think his reasoning here is really, really bad.

That said, Adventure 3 would be...bleh.  A thousand essays and reviews from people much, much smarter than me have already said  anything and everything I could possibly say about why the Adventure games are not any good. Reviving that series and it's laughably awful alternate gameplay styles would be an unmitigated disaster. Sonic is the only thing there that is salvageable. Many of the elements that damn near killed this franchise started with those games. I'd rather keep those games and the bad ideas that came with them in the past where they belong. 

[JezMM]

1 hour ago, DonWaffleleven said:

Also, all the other comments in this thread pointing out the same Words to Actions disconnect and you chose mine. Any particular reason?

I was skimming the topic and your post was short and succinct so it was easy to read the entire thing, nothing personal lol.

[Wraith]

Mania is only really a rehash on the surface level. I've accepted that aesthetic affects perception a lot so it was going to get a bad rep in certain segments of the fan base regardless. I just can't really see it that way myself. The game's feel and level design blows the vast majority of the series out the water and there are new concepts, mechanics and gimmicks everywhere. Even older gimmicks are polished up or removed outright. Aesthetically it's fantastic too. This level of passion and polish should be encouraged for the entire series, imo.

[PKGaming]

Yeah, his reasoning is definitely flawed and hypocritical, but I don't think the series show go back to Adventure-style either. To be perfectly honest, I enjoy the Boost gameplay more than Adventure-style. I've realized that like 90% of my enjoyment for Sonic Adventure is nostalgia based rather than me actually enjoying the level design and how Sonic controls. I've also realized that like 99.99999999% of my enjoyment of Sonic Adventure 2 is purely Chao World. ProJared nailed it for me about my enjoyment on that game. I love taking care of the Chao, and whenever I need to get stuff for them, I play through Sonic or Shadow stages because they're the most fun and I never touch the others. So if they make a new 3D Sonic, the only thing I'd want them to bring back from Adventure 1 and 2 are Chao Gardens. But the core gameplay should be something different.

[Scar]

4 hours ago, Mayor D said:

 

“I hear people saying that they want Adventure 3, but the path that we’re on and ... Adventure 3, what fans want that to be, might not be an advancement of the series, [...] So I don’t want to do an Adventure 3 and step the franchise back just to give the fans what they want.”

 

This is a legit point of view. What he wants here is to avoid a Sonic 4 situation, where they make a game and its called Sonic Adventure 3, but is ultimately nothing like a Sonic Adventure game and will yield in naught but disappointment.

Quote

“From the developer standpoint, every Sonic game that we’re making is taking new steps and advances, furthering the game in a new direction, and that’s dictated where the Sonic series has been going,”

This is perhaps the most telling quote of them all.

Sounds like it isn't up to him. The franchises direction is a strong current in a turbulent river and he's merely the captain of a barely held together raft. Can't decide where to go, and can at most, just about prevent his team from drowning. Don't even know if he can keep them afloat a this rate.

EDIT:

Regarding the issue of Sonic Mania, I think to bring it up in this context is a little disingenuous. It is an attempt at advancing the 2D gameplay paradigm. It's more of a step forwards on an axis that is completely perpendicular to 3D sonic. 

[GentlemanX]

The Sonic Adventure games are my favorite Sonic titles and I'd love to spend time defending the alternate play styles, the interlocking story direction, the more open world feel of the stages, etc. But after reading most of the responses in this thread, I don't have the energy for it. It'd be the same "I like this thing you hate" that doesn't end up going anywhere. I will say Iizuka's comments don't surprise me in any way. Iizuka talking about not making SA3 has been said about as many times as "we're trying to get Sonic right" has been in relation to other playable characters. Certain exceptions aside, they just don't want to do that. It's their game series, I'm certainly not in any position to tell them what to do. But I also don't have to care about the gameplay direction this series has taken since 2008 nor do I plan to. I don't care for it as much as the Adventure gameplay and probably never will. That just means I don't buy Sonic games anymore. Like I haven't for six years now. It's just how it is.

[Bowbowis]

Oh boy. Another example of Iizuka talking out of his ass. Throw it on the pile.

Remember when the werehog was definitely coming back? When Classic Sonic definitely wasn't? Remember when Sonic had no canon, immediately after a game that had its entire premise built around Sonic reliving the events of past games? Iizuka's word is worth about half a wooden penny, no point reading too far into this.

[knuckles20]

So from what I'm getting is that we're getting more 3D games that aren't really 3D games.

3 hours ago, Zippo said:

I think his reasoning here is really, really bad.

That said, Adventure 3 would be...bleh.  A thousand essays and reviews from people much, much smarter than me have already said  anything and everything I could possibly say about why the Adventure games are not any good. Reviving that series and it's laughably awful alternate gameplay styles would be an unmitigated disaster. Sonic is the only thing there that is salvageable. Many of the elements that damn near killed this franchise started with those games. I'd rather keep those games and the bad ideas that came with them in the past where they belong. 

Funny enough Sega wants to be stuck in the past and not move forward at all. With constant returning to Sonic's roots, 3D games consisting of more 2D than needed and the pathetic try hard feel of "Isn't the classic era great you guys". 

 

[Scar]

24 minutes ago, Bowbowis said:

Oh boy. Another example of Iizuka talking out of his ass. Throw it on the pile.

Remember when the werehog was definitely coming back? When Classic Sonic definitely wasn't? Remember when Sonic had no canon, immediately after a game that had its entire premise built around Sonic reliving the events of past games? Iizuka's word is worth about half a wooden penny, no point reading too far into this.

Iizuka was nothing more than a "Level Design Special Thanks" in Unleashed.. So how did he lie about the werehog returning?

He's also doing his job. Which unfortunately seems to involve trying to make bad decisions sound good. Must be really dishearting being involved with this mess.

[Dr. Detective]

I mean, it feels a bit weird...

Like, the way Sonic played in the Adventure games, he would just run and jump and pick up speed the more you went and do loop-d-loops and homing attacks and all that jazz... without a boost right?

It doesn't really seem like it'd be that big of a hinderance to just do something like that again. It's kind of like what I'd imagine those 2D games being in 3D would typically mean. You don't have to worry about working so long on stages only for them to be zipped by so quickly and render that work almost completely meaningless. Nor do you have to relegate things to hallways to compensate for how fast you're going. You also don't need to shovel in other gameplay styles to accommodate for how short your game would be either. 

It kind of feels like the "Adventure style" is just... "platformer character goes through a stage"... only it's Sonic so he can go fast and do his signature tricks of the trade. 

I don't really know what to make of being told it's not a good thing to work off of. Especially here in 2017 where things have advanced so far that keeping it to a simple formula like that might actually make for something that felt new.  I'm also not sure of what else they could really do. Lost World tried something but it was kind of just what the Adventure games did but with it's natural momentum stripped away for the sake of a run button, an uncomfortable parkour system, and weird gravity based level design. 

So I'm at a loss. I'm probably talking bollocks anyway.

I should stick to being the story guy.

 

 

[KHCast]

53 minutes ago, Scar said:

5 hours ago, Mayor D said:

 

This is a legit point of view. What he wants here is to avoid a Sonic 4 situation, where they make a game and its called Sonic Adventure 3, but is ultimately nothing like a Sonic Adventure game and will yield in naught but disappointment.

Quote

I mean personally doesn't sound like that to me. I don't see anywhere in that block quote where Iizuka implies he's concerned the game wouldn't play like a sonic adventure game the fans want. He very clearly says he just simply doesn't like the formula itself as it doesn't feel to him like an advancement to go back on it. Sounds like a loose interpretation you have

If it's up to sega, then it comes off selective that they are willing to work and build on 2D, but not give SA style the time of day personally. Especially funny that they talk about improving and advancing the series when forces modern and classic seems ripped from previous games.

[Badnik Mechanic]

40 minutes ago, Bowbowis said:

When Classic Sonic definitely wasn't?

People like to say this.

Then they forget it's been years since he said it.

[Pawn]

Most of the words that come out of Iizuka's mouth will be from SEGA. Someone high up is clearly insistent about pushing the series 'forward' by adding haphazard gimmicks and chasing the latest trends, all the while dressing it up in nostalgia to maximise appeal. Their whole ethos is style over substance. It's no wonder so many people have this perception of the franchise when the owners themselves believe it to be true.

[Rusty Spy]

5 hours ago, Diogenes said:

There is so little I can point to in SA and say "yes, this is good, learn from this" compared to how many places the game falls short.

How bout having a smooth turning arc and in general, a character that doesn't control like a car? 

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, Rusty Spy said:

How bout having a smooth turning arc and in general, a character that doesn't control like a car? 

If something as basic and fundamental as "don't control like trash" is the best the Adventures have to teach us, I don't think we'd be losing out on much by not looking to them for inspiration.

[Wraith]

Sonic Adventure 1 has a lot more dynamic bits to it's levels- places where I, the player, can manipulate Sonic's momentum in my favor to do cool shit. It's mostly manipulating the spindash to do some insane jumps off of inclines and skip shit and maybe 40% of it is intentional but it's something.  Sonic Adventure 2 started stripping these moments away and they were fully gone by heroes. Automation and hallways became the name of the game.

Sonic Adventure 1's game feel shouldn't be downplayed either because it's -probably the only Sonic game that I think controls well at low speeds. That may sound like basic shit to you, but that means there's something that works we can build off of, which you advocate for all the time with the classics.There's also more organic feeling level gimmicks in general like the classic games compared to the boost games where the levels end up feeling kind of samey because you have to approach them all the same way.

There's plenty of issues with the game, but we can't look upon it in disdain if it has something to offer. 

I'm pretty weird in how I think about 3D Sonic games though. Mechanically, I think most of them are pretty poorly put together, but there's a sense that they were passionate about each. I see ideas I'd like to give another spin everywhere. The style system in SA2. The branching paths from Shadow. Little towns like in Unleashed as breather levels. All kinds of ideas you could take and blend in with some solid foundation behind it, which Sonic Team never actually had.

I don't mean to give these games misplaced credit, since I care the most about execution at the end of the day and I've revisited Sonic Mania more times than Shadow and Heroes already, probably. All I'm saying is that inspiration can be found anywhere. Even bad games can teach us something..

[Multikaris]

6 hours ago, Waveshocker Sigma said:

"It’s not that Iizuka isn’t on the same page, he said. It’s just that Sonic Team isn’t interested in repeating itself."

...Okay, Iizuka? Seriously, Iizuka?

SHUT UP.

You need to just shut up never speak your mind in public ever again because every time you do, you say something so completely bassackwards that all it does it make people question whether or not you actually thought before saying it or why you're even in the position that you are now.

Because goddamn, "Sonic Team interested in repeating itself"? You don't want to "step the franchise back just to give the fans what they want"?

Then what the fuck are Mania and Forces supposed to be, you fucking hypocrite?

I don't get it.

People say "We want another game like the Classic Genesis titles!" and Sonic Mania is made.

People say "We want another boost game like Colors and Generations!" and Sonic Forces was made.

But when people say "We want another 3D game similar in controls and designs to Sonic's speedy platforming portions of the Adventure series!" all they basically get is a pile of excuses that just amounts to:

"No. I don't care if you want it or how much you'd pay for it. I'm not making it cause I don't wanna."

Good lord, why don't you just kill off the Boosting series and the entire Modern Sonic line and force the series to being Classic only in gameplay and character/world designs just to fully give me a reason to quit this franchise forever?

At least it'd guarantee that you'd be in an endless cycle of critical praise and support until/unless people finally get sick of the same thing over and over like what happened to Mega Man and the New Super Mario Bros series.

Thank god for Sonic Utopia. Even if it'll take awhile for anything else to happen with it, at least it's not only something, but it's something good that Lange and Murasaki care about.

Goddammit, I hate being a person who started being a fan of this series via Adventure.

Yes, I am hilariously mad. Confused and mad.

Forces tries to appeal to Adventure fans with the storyline. 

[Bowbowis]

1 hour ago, Mayor D said:

People like to say this.

Then they forget it's been years since he said it.

So? He could have said it yesterday, he could have said it five years ago, it doesn't change the fact that he said it. Nor does it change that fact that, since then, Classic Sonic has been shoving his face into everything from Sonic Dash to Forces. I mean, he just got a whole new game dedicated to him for Christ's sake.

Besides, Classic's return is just one example. Iizuka has said plenty of shit that's been contradicted by future (or even past) actions. Why believe him now?

[Badnik Mechanic]

23 minutes ago, Bowbowis said:

So? He could have said it yesterday, he could have said it five years ago, it doesn't change the fact that he said it. Nor does it change that fact that, since then, Classic Sonic has been shoving his face into everything from Sonic Dash to Forces. I mean, he just got a whole new game dedicated to him for Christ's sake.

If we put aside what boils down to glorified skins.

Why are you so angry at the fact that they changed their mind?

lol seriously, what does it matter?