Out of all the many speedy platformers out there starring Sega's blue blur, Takahashi Iizuka's favorite one is Sonic Adventure 2.
There are dozens upon dozens of Sonic the Hedgehog games out there, and Sonic Team's lead producer Takahashi Iizuka has been involved with several of them over the last three decades. But there's one game he feels was particularly memorable, and I'm not sure many series fans would disagree.
"I have fond memories of all of them, but if I had to pick one, it would be Sonic Adventure 2 from 2001," he says in an interview with Famitsu magazine (thanks, Genki!) "After finishing the previous game, Sonic Adventure, I took the staff with me to San Francisco to work on this game. While the previous project was a large-scale project involving over 100 people, development on Sonic Adventure 2 started with just 11 people."
"Just hearing this might make it sound like it was a tough development environment, but since we were a small team in a new location, I remember that we were all able to work together freely and enjoy the development while supporting each another both professionally and personally," Iizuka adds.
The head of Sonic Team thinks that smooth working environment also contributed to the game's quality because - surprise, surprise - people do better work when they're supported. Sonic Adventure 2 is now an absolute fan-favorite entry that's even inspired a few indie game love letters.
Sonic's 3D outing was so popular, in fact, it even provided the framework for the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie, something Iizuka was "really delighted" to see.
Thankfully, unlike many of the other best Sonic games of all time, Sonic Adventure 2 is pretty easily available on PC (Steam) and Xbox Series X|S consoles via backward compatibility.
On the topic of remakes that could potentially bring the beloved games to even more platforms, Iizuka recently said he would "love" to magically remake every Sonic game, but remakes would apparently take just as much time as developing an entirely new instalment.
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