The History of Sonic's "Bad" Years (Documentary) - Collapse, Crunch, and Chaos in the Early 2000s
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- Опубліковано 28 чер 2024
- A significant chunk of Sonic the Hedgehog's history has been brushed aside simply as "the bad years," without much effort having gone into preserving the actual stories that led to Sonic's more controversial or perhaps disappointing titles: Games like Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Heroes, and to many, even Sonic Adventure 2. Each of these Sonic games has a fascinating history that's been overshadowed by other discussions - each has its own story of crunch, of layoffs, of developers losing 20+ pounds trying to meet deadlines, of a Sega that was even closer to the brink than we ever remember.
Regardless of whether you feel that any of these Sonic titles ended up being good or bad, the chaos behind the scenes that led to these games explains essentially everything about them - and the stories are far worse than we tend to hear. These are the true stories behind Sega's collapse, the fall of Sonic Team, and the "dark era" of Sonic games.
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Full list of citations and sources: rentry.co/az7ta
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
2:09 1998-2001: Sonic Team USA
13:44 2002: "Tell Him to F*** Off."
23:16 2003: The Sonic Heroes Diet
39:06 2004-2005: That Damn Fourth Video Chapter (working title)
51:00 2006
51:04 2007 and beyond
55:42 Credits
CREDITS:
Lead Editor: MykonosFan / mykonosfan
Guest Voices (in order of appearance):
MykonosFan / mykonosfan
minimme / minimme
AntDude / antdude92
SomecallmeJohnny / somecallmejon
Tom Campbell / tomcampbell
TheRealFTA / therealfta
gamesEnlisted / gamesenlisted
Smoovies / stephenaymond
SPECIAL THANKS
Big the Cat
That Trav Guy
Gritty
Dana Carvey
This video is not intended for viewers under 13 years of age, and may contain content inappropriate for such viewers. Parental guidance suggested.
#Sonic #SonictheHedgehog #BigIsYourDad - Ігри
Thanks for joining me on this journey
I won't ask you to subscribe because if you're a cool person you already have, but I will ask you to please consider sharing the video with your friends, communities, or in the 40th reply of a random Twitter argument. Sharing helps far more than you can imagine, especially with these deep-dive history sort of videos. A full list of citations and miscellaneous sources can be found here: rentry.co/az7ta
Below are some additional notes or corrections. For example:
1. A lot of folks, as I realized too late would probably happen, have misunderstood the comment I made about Cream being specifically designed for Heroes. And she was, she just didn't _appear_ in Heroes first! Cream was created to fill out Heroes' roster and act as a female parallel to Tails, and was later added into projects that came out _before_ Heroes, such as the Mega Collection, SADX, Sonic Advance 2, and even the Sonic X show. This was to get fans familiar with her and her Chao, with the assumption that she'd be a widely recurring character after Heroes. That didn't exactly pan out, but it was a solid idea!
2. A couple people (I haven't been able to figure out 100% who was first!) mentioned that on Heroes' campaign select screen, pressing Y/Triangle/top button gives you an Omochao hint that repeats a similar "Team Rose is for beginners" comment to what's in the manual! I missed the Y prompt entirely - although even having gone back to look at it now, I'd still say the game could have made the Team differences a good bit clearer on the screen itself. (Or, y'know, just organize that screen not by popularity but by difficulty!)
Love these videos, definitely have an hour to spare.
I anticipate Cream the Rabbit corrections and will settle for nothing less.
@@MykonosFan 41:58 ratio
@@MykonosFan cream the rabbit first showed up in advance 2, not heroes =)
@@TheGoldenBolt awesome video. maybe this will make people realize sega did not move their headquarters to the usa, just the 11 people at sonic team did. but sega japan still pulls the strings. idk why people don't realize this and think sonic isn't a japanese ip just because it focuses on the western market. I told people about the miscommunication between sega america and sega japan and why its to blame for alot of character writing issues, and for example, mistranslations in game manuals regarding amy for example, being a fangirl in the west instead of sonic's best friend besides tails in said japanese game manuals, or being replaced with sally in the sonic cd manual, etc, but people wanna doubt me thinking sega america was in charge of everything sega. how do they explain pso2 being japan exclusive for years then? and all the other japanese exclusive sega games? they also wanna think I'm making it up about the mandates not being made up by flynn or made for flynn specifically when I try to show them this documentary ua-cam.com/video/Yb1aPCghjjY/v-deo.html that goes into detail about everything from history of sega america and sega japan and the archie and ken penders history and even the lawsuits and the actual discussions in court and the mandates. theres even a mandate for not using sonic x as material for comics. this one person even tried to argue with me that during the ken penders lawsuits sega's hq moved to america, but like you just stated thats false and sonic team in fact moved back to japan in 2006 onwards.
Isao Okawa is a treasure, he gave so much to his company all the way to the day he died, and not only is his story buried in obscurity, but the company he saved managed to get itself into more trouble without their benevolent president to help them.
At least his investment into online games was a good call. Not only did Phantasy Star Online become a success, but it's sequel in 2012 had gone on to make record profit for SEGA. In addition, online gaming truly was the future after all, but Okawa would unfortunately never live to see it.
Thanks to Okawa's passionate belief in SEGA's success, we would still see more SEGA games, and more online games too.
Even after the company spent SO much money, doing exactly the opposite of what he wanted, the man still had nothing but love for his employees, and wanted to go out with kindness and hope, rather than spite and "I told you so"
Don't go too far in your praise, because it meant nothing in the end. Considering that Sammy would buy SEGA outright in 2004. To this day, SEGA is still a subsidiary in its own partnership. And the egos and refusal to give in led to SEGA losing ground in the software market (to this day once more, their most profitable division is in pachinko machinery).
@@DR3ADER1 They weren't, they were saying it was especially admirable how he immensely supported a business decision he was heavily against. It's not his fault the company bled money for 5 years despite his best efforts.
@@DR3ADER1 Are they? Last I checked Sega had the majority ownership again of their company.
There's something extremely upsetting to me hearing Yuji Naka call himself "The Father of Sonic" in one breath and slag off Hirokazu Yasuhara, arguably the real reason those early games were so special, in the other. I guess the silver lining is that Yasuhara has had a successful, respectable career since and Naka is now the Balan Wonderland guy.
Can't believe I was concerned for Naka. He looked like such a harmless old guy...
Agreed, big time. Someone should really make a video celebrating and spotlighting Yasuhara one'a these days.
Yasuhara and Oshima are the true geniuses behind the appeal of Sonic.
Sincerely, I classify Yasuhara as definitely the true "Sonic's father". He was responsible for many level designs building, gameplay consistency, etc. This guy was a genius to this blue blur.
Karma catches up to ya
This should be a mandatory viewing for any fan of the franchise. Never forget about the real human beings who work their asses off to make the things you love (or hate).
Well said.
This is one of the best videos for the people who want to know what was really going on to Sonic in that era.
This wasn't even the worst Era for Sonic with the real fall happening in 2010 where the series stopped trying to be good & just doubled down on the idea of the series being a joke made for kids. The characters were abandoned for the Just Sonic Mentality & 2 Lead Writers with no knowledge of the series were hired & they reduced the series to a joke as other questionable choices were made. At least you can tell the 4kids Era was still trying & I dare say the early 2000s were the Sonic Series at its peak even as Sega was burning around them.
@@WaterKirby1994 Dude shut the fuck up about this shit. You've been saying this exact kind of bullsht for years now and no one likes it. Yeah, they worked their asses off during the 2000s, but that doesn't mean the stuff they put out is magically good. I appreciate the effort they put in each game, as their company was collapsing though
@@WaterKirby1994 wtf??? Did you not even watch the video?????
30:40 to preempt all the “ACTUALLY” comments yes Cream’s debut was Sonic Advance 2 but she was a late addition to that game. Her debut was intended to be Heroes. They put her in Advance 2 to make it stand out from the first game and to ensure she was in a game before Sonic X premiered
Yep
Huh... Learned something new today.
Cream first appeared in Adventure 1, near the Casino right after the cutscene where Eggman stole a Chaos Emerald from Sonic's hands. But yes, she became playable in Advance 2.
@@roby4504 that cameo was added to the GameCube and HD ports. Advance 2 released before the GameCube version of Sonic Adventure. Though if you want to be REALLY pedantic her first appearance was as a piece of offical art in Sonic Mega Collection
@@skibot9974 Damn, sorry for the misinformation then lol
I'm so used to the DX version of Adventure
After this, I don’t need to hear any slander about Takashi Iizuka after he spent days without any sleep and losing 22 pounds working on the level design of Sonic Heroes. You can’t tell me he doesn’t care about Sonic after hearing this.
IKR, This man is really trying his best, even if his plans don't always work. The shitshow that is Sega behind the scenes is what I believe contributes to his sometimes asinine decision making. This does pose the question as to what type of sonic game he'd create without corporate executives breathing down his neck 24/7. Perhaps it could be truly amazing.
Sonic fans are ungrateful so they'll continue the slander
On the other hand, Yuji Naka is severely overrated. I seriously didn't know how much of a POS he was behind the scenes.
@@Yanquii Just because we can empathise with the working conditions of the devs and respect their work ethic doesn't mean we can't critique medicore games.
@@ikec-pw5sb He was all about the technical side of things. I get upset when he feels he needs to control the story and characters. He had nothing to do with that. He's the guy that made Sonic go fast.
This is why people should be always respectful to game developers, most of the time it's not their faults if companies rushed games
for a good amount of japanese developers though, it's a slightly different story
People are so impatient they always demand for a little teaser.
@@zestytriss5282 people nowday seem to be impatient in everything, it can be games, foods, driving and so on. This society is going in a hell hole imo, we need to be more chill and respectful with eachothers
We aren't angry at the developers when we speak about the company we're angry at the company and especially the management because at the end of the day it's all managements fault
All Gaming industry NEEEDS union, and the fact that the gaming industry is global, i would work if the act as a global Union.
The idea that Jak 2 had something to do with Shadow the Hedgehog’s development is something that’s surprising yet not too surprising at the same time .
It's ironic that years later, fans familiar with Jak & Daxter would refer to its sequel as a better alternative. This whole thing is mindblowing.
Even funnier that Jak 2 was inspired by GTA 3
Also it was confirmed in a Naughty Dog live stream Jak II’s hard tone and gameplay shift was caused by GTA III
And JaK's guns are from Ratchet
Surprising in that Jak's weird transition made TWO franchsies jump the shark. I wonder if Gavin woulda gone down that path if he knew he'd be giving Shadow the Hedgehog a gun.
Not surprising in that Sonic has always been a trendchaser. Even to this day given how Sonic Frontiers looks. At least they seem to be taking their time this time.
As a SEGA historian, you knocked it out of the freaking PARK. The wild, chaotic, and near-death of SEGA is not nearly talked about enough.
Sega deserved that. There is not much reason to pity them
@@Alicia_Tomoko_5x Fuck that. Hundreds of incredible artists, musicians, programmers, and writers were laid off in the chaos following the Saturn. They didn't deserve that, and they do deserve pity. Or are you so naive that you think any of the fucks responsible for bringing the company crashing down actually suffered from their pride and incompetence?
@@Alicia_Tomoko_5x but I LIKE sonic. There is a reason to pity given the animators are hardworking
Anyway hi Jordan 👋😁
Cause its irrelevant.
I love how much you humanize the developers. A+ job.
You phrase that like they aren't human.
@@inkchariot6147 Given the gamer backlash everytime something doesn't go their way, it sure can feel like that a lot.
@@inkchariot6147 a lot of gamers talk about developers as if they’re soulless machines
@tiggy wiggo ok but thats pure laziness we can see with SwSh
@@abbaszaffarkhan1872 unfortunately that seems to be what publishers want so people won't clue in to how horrible the gaming industry can be
Sega was scarily more inept than we thought they were.
What’s worse, is that they still make some of the same mistakes.
Yeah look at forces
@@justasimplemanworkinghiswa1569 Forces is just bad. It was delayed several times. All the compassion in the world can't make a poor developer competent.
Carsonj13 it still felt rushed
@@justasimplemanworkinghiswa1569 because it was, time spent actually developing the game was just a little over a year
Sega couldn't even handle colors without screwing that up too (talking about the remaster), what's worse is I hear some people say "it wasn't their fault" like..HOW??? Sonic is their IP. They should be aware of everything that goes on with their own damn franchise, there's no excuses SMH.
This was awesome. And, it's worth noting that diehard Sonic fans were often the folks MOST up-in-arms (sometimes to unhealthily angry degrees) about how awful things were getting. It's just that almost two decades later, that record is a lot harder to come by than critical reviews of the time. But, I think the very fact that you're on the outside looking in when it comes to this stuff is exactly WHY your work on this series has been such a breath of fresh air, because you're NOT beholden to defending something you've loved your whole life, or criticizing how it's not what it used to be. And, when you brought up that 2007 blog post about Sonic Team being passionless and overworked, I literally pumped my fist. :D I've been waiting for YEARS for someone to bring that one to the surface. Again, awesome work, and I'll be catching up on the rest of your videos!
Much love, my friend! What I always find the most fascinating is that there's almost like a Schrodinger's Sonic situation going on, where fans insist that even stuff like Heroes or Shadow were actually beloved back in the day, while other fans insist they were hated from day one. The whole post-Dreamcast era is simultaneously revolutionary or garbage until you open the box and play it yourself, and even then we all know the Adventure games get that same sort of treatment too to a lesser extent!
The death of forums has cut out a _lot_ of the contemporary opinions that fans shared online, but thankfully it's only harder to find those sources, and not outright impossible. But when most gaming news sites have been consolidated and links to old sites now under the IGN or Eurogamer or GamesRadar umbrella all fail or redirect, that's just kind of the name of the game lol
@@TheGoldenBolt Exactly! Just earlier today, I saw a tweet with 13,000 likes show the Wikipedia reception boxes for the Adventure games, and claim that the "rocky transition to 3D" line was "revisionist history." But the truth was so much more complicated and nuanced and *interesting* than that.
(And also, uh, the "rocky transition" line itself originated in GameSpot's 2002 review of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, so at the very least, the idea that it was happening **was** already being discussed then. :P)
@@TheGoldenBolt and Sonic 2006?
@@GeekCritique I'd disagree with the idea that Sonic had a "rocky transition" to 3D. I haven't played all the 3D Sonics, but I've played the most well-received ones (SA1 and Generations) and they're both crap. The transition wasn't rocky, it was simply a failure.
@@GeekCritique Hello. I don’t know if you would answer this question. But, current Sega, what’s your stance on them? Between some of their best talent leaving, this whole super game/NFT with Microsoft collab, this recent Origins backlash. I know there is people who legitimately are passionate to work there, but clearly not enough to bypass the corporate scope’s view on their IPs.
The Golden Bolt isn't doing a retrospective he's doing a public service!!
The story of Yuji Naka really fits in now that he's suing Square Enix for getting fired from Balan, but SE maintains that *every other creative lead* got together to boot him out.
This was FANTASTIC. Great job!!!
The legend himself!
Hey, it's that guy
NICK! What is up dude!
@@jw_gojifan19 Not much, how are you?
Holy shit.
People gave their lives for this,and some their health.
They should be appreciated and celebrated.
And it's such a heroic story that the company survived till this day.
Here's to another 30 years of Sonic
Yeah, it sucks that these guys aren’t thanked enough for their hard work and dedication.
It's great how this franchise is still kicking despite the ups and downs through the years,shows how fan feedback can help a brand.
That's Japanese work ethic for ya.
These guys made the Best Era for the Sonic Series while Sega was burning down around them. Early 2000s was Sonic Series at its peak & such a shame the series went downhill & at least 4kids Era was trying to be good compared to the Shiitake of the past 12 years. Here's hoping we get to see a return of what made the Adventure Era so great soon.
Calling it heroic doesn't really sit well with me. It celebrates what happened too much for my liking. It's honestly just really sad that they were put under so much stress and were demanded so much. Honestly, I'd have preferred for them to simply quit for their own health. The circumstances led them to great accomplishment, but they should not have been under these circumstances in the first place.
Sonic is one of the most intriguing franchises ever because there were so many things behind the scenes
The biggest instance yet is Sonic X-Treme
One of the most infamous incomplete video games of all time
Oh, and also one developer almost died
The franchise itself is already intriguing because of how much the series changed their gameplay, tone, premise and quality, but now we have stuff from behind the scenes
No matter where you look at, there's always something interesting to talk about with Sonic
@OctoOOZ for real, with sonic there are so many angles to cover. Even me a long time sonic fan of nearly 17 years was shocked to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. You could talk about the game development, the “dark ages” the “actual dark ages (?)”, sonic as an ip, the ever so increasing varying opinions on the games as a whole, the vast gameplay styles and to top it all off sonic as a concept.
@@omarpikm2101 I still get chills thinking about how one of the developers was told that they only had _six months* to live,_ though they thankfully recovered.
*I don’t remember if it was six months or six weeks. Either way, scary.
This confirmed a lot of suspicions I've had over the years(Particularly Jak 2 and Ratchet and Clank inspiring Shadow the Hedgehog). When put into perspective, Sonic never really had a goddamn chance to be truly great. Things were way too tumultuous. The fact that this series has existed for over three decades is exceptional. Any other series would have died decades ago.
Exactly! Even though I grew up with Sonic, as I listened to the video, I was SHOCKED the series has lasted as long as it did with the painfully troubling history behind the scenes at Sega all this time. It truly is a miracle SA2 came out as good as it was, or the Sonic Heroes came out AT ALL.. 😵💫😖
I think Jak 2 inspired Shadow The Hedgehog more than The Prescursor Legacy.
The Precursor Legacy is to bright and cheerful
It really is telling about the spark that sonic as an idea has if it can survive THIS kinda mess.
I agree. Hearing about the development and behind the scenes as detailed in this video, as well as SomeCallMeJohnny's recent videos on the main Genesis era titles, it is truly a miracle that this series continues to persist.
In all honesty, I agree.
The only time Sonic had a chance to be truly great is now with Sonic Frontiers.
24:26 To add insult to injury, the "Director's Cut" tagline for SADX was ONLY for the North American and European markets. In Japan it's just simply referred to as Sonic Adventure Deluxe (which is shorten in Japan to DX)
I like how people began joking that the port sucks so much because it could be short for "Director is cut".
@@lpfan4491 except the port is fine
@@GiordanDiodato *Insert Star Wars Liar-meme*
@@GiordanDiodato It is objectively more buggy and it completely screws up the lighting, just to mention the two most obvious problems. It's _playable_ but it's not _fine_
@@mjc0961 Never experienced any bugs and the lighting on Dreamcast just makes everything look way darker, also you can't skip cutscenes in that version since people like dog on the story so much
The fact that Sonic is still alive and relevant despite how much of a complete corporate management clusterfuck Sega is behind the scenes just proves how well designed, cool and appealing his entire concept is
Sonic, you deserve a better home
Microsoft should just buy Sonic at this point. Nintendo would fuck the series even harder and Sony would somehow bastardize the series even further considering their current state this gen(despite me being a Sony fan)
That's why he was able to compete with Mario in the 90s, he had a unique play style no one has ever seen before, and that alone is why Sonic games can't really be compare to other platformers.
@@hwanniggles187 Nintendo/SEGA/Microsoft don't dip into the arcade business, and SEGA is an arcade icon in Japan alongside Capcom and SNK.
They'd all be companies that wouldn"t know what to do with Sonic, either: Microsoft shat on all their platformer IPs and has no idea what to do with franchises for kids, Sony *seems* okay but I haven't kept up with their work. It'd be my pick if they didn't cage Sonic to only come out on PS and on PC 5 years later.
Nintendo is probably the best candidate solely for the fact that the games born from their partnerships and second party devs tend to be good, but I doubt it's in their interests. Their first party ranks actually have the biggest number of ex-Sonic Team devs, supposedly, but again... I feel like they'd like to keep Sonic as a competitor to possibly study from. Let's not mention that they don't want to deal with SEGA anymore due to SEGA's blatant ties with the real yakuza.
I guarantee you if sonic team was an indie studio separate from sega the sonic franchise would be in a better place right now.
Nothing shows this better then indie games inspired by sonic doing more and better things then sega has in the past 20 years.
@@XelchanTheBrave "SEGA's blatant ties with the real yakuza." wait what
*”Sonic has had a rough transition into 3D” intensifies*
Had to get it out of the way early - take a shot!
Yuji Naka was recently arrested for insider trading. He and his cohorts tried to make a profit off the announcement of a new Dragon Quest game (unknown to the public beforehand). If you need more proof that he can view a beloved franchise as simply another paycheck, there it is.
(Edited for grammer/clarity)
The story of SEGA is as depressing one. Filled with so much self-sabotage and fumbling anything promising. There is a universe where they are the biggest video game company ever. Back in the Genesis days they made the Sega Channel, and the system they made for that is the basis for modern day high-speed internet. Had they copyrighted that, they would be a tech giant.
They're like the Japanese Atari - no idea how to handle success, and abusing employees... except they managed to win enough loyalty that someone would always rescue them from their bad decisions.
And Sammy were a better savior than Jack.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 it's the power of furries. Something Atari lacked
Sega's philosphy is think Fast, Cool and Everything you can at the wall
It's fascinating that they're still around.
I have, and will always say this in discussions about Sonic’s flaws as a game series:
It has never been a *Sonic* problem.
It has ALWAYS been a *SEGA* problem.
That’s my piece.
Thank you and good night.
Yep. If sega weren't drunk morons and actually understood that rushed games arent good, none of sonic's flaws wouldn't have happened
SECAN'T anymore
SEGA does what Nintendon't
and that's shoot itself in the foot.
@@ikec-pw5sb They're trying pretty hard to keep up though
@@AkameGaKillfan777 yh the dev teams. You see the quote from OP, don't you?
I knew Yuji Naka was hard to work with, but I never thought he would be this type obstacle to everyone.
I really love the 2000's era of Sonic because I grew up as kid/teen back then, but this video sure opens up my eyes even more, despite I knew half of the story told here.
This is a really good video. Hopefully it will open up more eyes.
Right now Yuji Naka is suing Square-Enix for kicking him off the production for Balan Wonderworld. Somehow I have a feeling there's a reason for why he was kicked off.
@@SapphireSword-pd1ix I mean the whole team turned on him and HR got involved. That doesn't tell the full story tbf but its not a good sign. Then there's all the rumors going back to the nineties...
@@NotaPizzaGRL It should be noted that one of the people who turned against him was Naoto Ohshima who is the actual creator of Sonic the Hedgehog and was helping him with the creation of Balan Wonderworld. It's still pretty possible that Naka was still acting like how he was in the ninties. Naka just comes off as having a huge ego and doesn't understand how gaming works nowadays. Sure he brought up how before release they added the ability of the rings or something but he doesn't realize that modern game development doesn't have the flexibility as it did in the ninties. And guess what; Outdated game mechanics was an issue with his games after he left Sega. So, again, I'm doubting the claims due to his track record.
@@SapphireSword-pd1ix What are outdated game mechanics?
As far as modern game development goes, just the fact that they have version control alone makes it more flexible than back in the day where they had to keep burning ROM chips over and over again with each build. Then you can actually apply fixes after the game was released without having to go and make new physical copies of the game thanks to online downloads being an option.
@@NotaPizzaGRL I won't argue the outdated game mechanics since I lack examples right now, but when I mean by "flexible" game development I mean sudden changes in the development. Like engine switches, changing the overall gameplay, and the likes. Back then stuff like adding something new into the game didn't caused much damage to the development. Like Final Fantasy VI where Kefka destroying the world came up in mid development not at the start. At the time it was easy to go with the flow and add whatever you want into the game. Nowadays that kind of method can't work as game development has gotten more costly and bigger. So it's better to have a vision at the start and stick with it until the bitter end. Look at Anthem; Didn't have a vision throughout most of it's development and see how that went. Naka also had a vision but, as you can plainly see, it was a bad vision.
We give so much shit to other companies for crunching and overworking their devs, but only point and laugh at Sonic Team for being mediocre, that it makes me uncomfortable.
So many Sonic games are bad because of rushed development and understaffed teams and that issue is clearly a reoccuring problem with upper management.
This happens with LOTS of game studios these days.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 They are all Sega now.
@@PoisonDuckAnimations When everyone is SEGA, NO ONE WILL BE
@@AkameGaKillfan777 Syndrome is the CEO of game companies. And Sega.
Because Sega is not relevant enough to criticize. Sega's crunch results in poorly selling games. So, Sega is hurting themselves. EA wins big over crunch. So they are criticized.
Sega is not very good at being evil
I watch an unreasonable amount of Sonictube and I'm shocked at the depth of this video, whole buncha stuff I never knew. Fantastic production!
As a lifelong and continuing Sonic fan I have no idea how this franchise still exists but I'm glad it does. This video had me whipping back and forth with hearty belly-laughs interrupted by gasps of horror at the multiple concurrent development cycle hells each game was mired in.
Bravo.
51:00 the video and narrative has been done so well thus far that you only had to psudo-introduce the title card "2006" for me to understand immediately and finally fill in those extra concerns about what happened with the development of Sonic 06.
This video really just reinforces that idea in my head that SEGA (note: the company, not "Sonic Team") can really no longer be trusted with the Sonic franchise, because it's obvious that the stains that were garnered from this era of the company are still being wiped off today.
Overall, amazing video. This is definitely "must consume" content in the Sonic conversation
As funny as it is the first watch, yeah. At this point, the story of Sonic '06 and the deplorable treatment of the dev team is pretty much common knowledge by now. There was no need to go in detail.
I agree sonic team can make good games but probably under a better company like Microsoft.
the problem is Sonic fans don't know what they want. One side wants a sequel to Mania and the other side wants a Sonic Adventure 3
@@GiordanDiodato why not both mania and adventure is made by different teams and mania's cost is non existent
I wouldn't even agree with you that the stains are being wiped off. Just last year, SEGA botched the launch of Sonic Colors Ultimate. Just this month (writing this on April 30, 2022) SEGA botched the announcement of Sonic Origins - splitting the game into multiple DLCS and editions instead of just selling a single version of these 30ish year old games, charging what is arguably too much for these games ($45 to get everything, when these games can otherwise be had for $5 each, making Origins a $25 markup), realizing the previous point to be true and instead of changing the price or adding more value to Origins they decide to delist said $5 versions of the games so potential buyers have no choice but to pay the Origins tax, and of course more Denuvo, because we really need to make sure nobody pirates these 30 year old games that are already widely available on the internet for free.
SEGA (as you said, the company, not any specific developers) *_STILL_* cannot be trusted with the Sonic franchise, they still don't even appear to be trying to clean things up.
I'm also getting increasingly fed up with how they're handing new Yakuza/Judgment releases. Same loads of DLC and editions garbage, and I'm not at all a fan of the "buy the most expensive version for what we're going to call early access but the whole model is actually delayed access for all you poors who didn't spend more than $60" crap they've pulled with both Sonic Colors Ultimate and Lost Judgment. The gosh darn *_release date_* is not something that should be toyed around with depending on how much money you spend. I skip every game that does this at launch - if buying it for $60 isn't enough to get to play on day one, I will wait even longer. Got Colors Ultimate free as a Christmas gift and got Lost Judgement for $30 a month or two later. SEGA, you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.
(I've also passed on games from Microsoft/Xbox at launch, because they love this crappy business model too. I remember being home sick from work, and bored, when Gears 5 reviews started showing up. Seemed alright so I went to the online store to go buy it, only to find that the base version didn't come out yet. Closed the window without spending anything, got that months later for dirt cheap too)
43:38 This put a huge smile on my face.
So glad to hear Gareth again :)
I love this part of the video lmfao 🤣
A sonic community icon :)
My heart...aw man, I'm happy to hear him too!
Wow, just... wow. this gives the whole "Dark Era" a whole new context. It was never the Dark Age of Sonic, it was the Dark Age of Sega itself.
It's not surprising at the same time that Sega's been making mistakes even since the 90s, but at the same time amusing that not only these mistakes were so damaging, but also that Sega is still up and running after nearly facing bankruptcy. While i'm not a huge fan of some of the games like SA2 & Heroes (at least not anymore), i now appreciate them more because of their history.
This is a MUST WATCH for every Sonic fan. They must know the history behind what most of them called "The Dark Era of Sonic" when it was not a "Sonic only" problem to begin with.
Never understood why that time was the dark age of Sonic.
Looking at them as Games they were pretty solid and fun games. There is a few hiccups here and there but until generations, i'll say they were pretty good games even 06 to some degree.
Past Generations however, i'll call that the True Dark Age of Sonic.
Average-medicore forgettable games at best like Sonic Lost world to unplayable mess at worst like Sonic Colors Ultimate. It doesn't help these recent 11 years after generations we got such little sonic content. I wouldn't mind that if the games were at a good quality but they aren't, in fact even worse quality than the supposed "dark age" of sonic games.
@@jacksonteller3973 lost world was alright, nothing compared to generations but it was an okay game. What it really suffers is the 2D Sections and the Gimmick Levels like that Snowman level on the 3DS, those get annoying fast. There also goes the use of generic themes of grass world, desert world, ocean world, etc which in even Super Mario Bros it's uninspired and lazy. Like i said it's an average game, i like the idea of the 360° world level design and wall running or infinite spin dash but it's really forgettable and has some weird game design.
As Sonic Color Ultimate, well the original game's design was already flawed, I didn't like how in the original it purposedly split 2 Acts and missions into 6 smaller acts just making the game more frustrating which acts are the good acts to replay. Also the Super Sonic Theme is still super annoying. Nothing from the original was fixed instead with more problems. Touched the game once and never again since September.
I wouldn't even say that this IS the dark era. There have been FAR worse eras in Sonic's history than this.
1. The era between S3K and Adventure, because barely any Sonic game were made then, let alone good ones.
2. The Boost 2 win/Pontaff/Wisps/Useless friends era.
3. Boom era, excluding the cartoon series.
4. Sonic 06 and Secret Rings deserve an era to themselves.
@@YujiUedaFan
1. That isn't an era just a some time without any mainline game mostly because they were working on the next gen product which eventually got cancelled and then another planned to be a JRPG but later turned into Sonic Adventure.
2. So basically past Sonic Generations
3. So basically number 2
4. It's just 2 games within 2 years? Thats hardly an era. Not to mention Sonic Rush Adventure and Later on Sonic Unleashed released.
@@sonicthehedge Honestly, I'd change the era names entirely:
Classic Era - Games between Sonic 1 and S3K.
Dead era - After Sonic and Knuckle's release, but before Sonic Adventure's release.
Adventure era - Between SA1 and Shadow the Hedgehog, including the Advance games and Battle.
Middling era - Between Sonic 06 and Unleashed, including Rush, Riders and Rivals.
Dark era - From Sonic Colours to now.
I’m only halfway through this video and it’s already been reframing and giving added context for things I’ve played and thought in the past. This has been incredibly researched, and a wonderful watch.
Really need to go through your other episodes sometime, keep up the amazing stuff Bolt!
Much love, friend!
This was an awesome video, and I'm glad to see someone directly saying that Sega was a hot mess behind the scenes - even publicly at times. In terms of Yuji Naka, every single interview that I have ever read or listened to has not had a single nice word to say about him. They're all along very similar lines, that he's technically brilliant, but incredibly difficult to work with. He is arrogant, petulent, egotistical, willing to actively sabotage colleagues' projects for his own gain, and overall, unpleasant. It's always a little heart breaking when someone who by rights should be one of your heroes, turns out to be pretty horrible as a human being.
Fun fact: Yuji Naka is now in jail.
I've been waiting for years for a video setting the record straight on Yuji Naka's insurmountable hubris. There also really ought to be a documentary on Okawa, I'll make it myself if I have to. As someone who has obsessively poured over this history for YEARS, you even managed to teach me some things I hadn't heard before. Bravo, dude. This is a *fantastic* video.
Do it
I would watch that documentary 100 times guy gave his life to sega, and really wanted to see the company prosper. Honestly there needs to be a documentary on sega as a whole and cover everything about the company and the employees
Tell me when you make the documentary please!
Balan Wonderland was apparently Square Enix's issue.
@@GiordanDiodato no it was stilla Yuji naka issue. He still designed the game.
Sega really just always had a problem with keeping up with the market, to the point where they overextend themselves. Ironic. Lol That story about Okawa was so beautiful though. He gave his all to Sega and tried to ensure their success. What a gentle soul. :') Here's hoping Sonic Frontiers does well.
Both in profits and in development, SEGA trounced all other companies in the arcade arena. But like you say, the home console market really did move too fast for them to keep up, and they didn't have the deep pockets Nintendo had with their back-to-back-to-back ultra smash hits of Game & Watch to Famicom/NES to Gameboy (or Nintendo's much more unified company vision) to weather the storm.
hearing all about the development of these games really makes me go "yeah i totally understand why things turned out like they did holy shit"
And Yuji Naka allegedly just got arrested for insider trading!
These are the kind of videos I wanna see on Sonic, not factoids everyone knows but a real deep dive into the who and why things turned out the way they did, good or bad.
Oh, that's a weird answer why Shadow returned in Sonic Heroes. Because there's another developer from Sonic Team, Shiro Maekawa, who told us Shadow's revival only happened because one of the teams in Heroes was planned to revive Chaos and E-102 Gamma (which strangely DID happen in Sonic Battle, so maybe they were developed at the same time and they went with early Sonic Heroes plans).
___
Maekawa-san's reply on a comment 'Shadow is not in the list [of initial plan for Heroes]! :
" 'What are you saying? A dead character will of course not appear.'
⬆And with these words, the later 'Did Shadow DIE or NOT' meetings were put into a chaos...😌"
🔵"It was tumultuous with opposing 'Shadow DID die'-faction and 'DIDN'T'-faction.
'If dead characters can't reappear, why are E102 and Chaos here?'
'E102's shell remained so the inner part was replaced. Chaos didn't die. He kinda went up.'
'That's sophistry!' 'No it's not' 'I didn't intend that scene to be his end' 'What, why?' "
___
You can find these translations of those tweets on SonicJPNews' Twitter account.
43:38 I literally shed a tear hearing Gareth’s voice again. I hope he is doing well.
Not to worry, he is indeed well.
I always knew Yuji Naka was kinda a narcissistic prick but no where near to the extent that he was. I don’t really feel bad for the failure of Balan wonderworld anymore
Hope that disaster made him realize that he needs to pull his head out of his Dark Chao Garden
If anything, I feel for Oshima, he's a talented dude who's designs are wasted on a bare basic platformer... will he ever hit it big like he did with Sonic?
@@TimGaukerToons Good point. He really does deserve more recognition than he gets. As far as I'm concerned he is the true father of sonic, and deserves the credit that Naka basically stole.
@@TimGaukerToons Oshima’s work on Sonic CD automatically makes him a legend in my mind, Oshima and Yasuhara defined what made Sonic work.
I never felt bad to begin with because his design philosophies doomed the game from the beginning.
"Sega's chairman and long time chief investor okawa began falling terminally ill with what was reported as either heart failure or a form of late-stage cancer and Star Wars: Pod Racing came to the Dreamcast" is such an amazing set of words I'm at a loss
Minor Correction: On the character Select screen in sonic heroes, pressing the button listed by the Omochao graphic will cause the robot to explain the difficulty settings of each team. While this is technically optional, the fact that the graphic is present is enough that it's not really fair to say the information does not exist in game.
This was an amazing history lesson. I never suspected things were so shaky behind the scenes at SEGA, it honestly explains a lot about how some games came to be. Masterful video, you have my thumbs up!
33:10 actually if you press triangle/y on any of the menus Omochao will give clarification on the highlighted option. Omochao does describe Team Rose as best for begginers
I think you were the first to mention it, so thanks for the shout! I've added that to the corrections comment, I just missed the prompt, apparently - though I'll still say that there are much better ways to show off the Team difficulties. On the other hand, it's really funny to me that easy mode is third on the list, right after hard, so I'm not complaining as much as I am pointing it out and chuckling.
@@TheGoldenBolt Yeah, genuinely can't blame you for missing it due to how obscure and easily skippable it is (Heroes was my first 3d Sonic game ever, and this is the first I'm hearing about this prompt, lol). Better communication could've spared players so much headache with that game..
@@DLxxx Heroes was the first Sonic game I owned (first I played was Sonic Riders) and I was curious enough to press triangle when I noticed it in the corner. Though that was a bit into the game (about second world I think)
@@TheGoldenBolt i hav to tell , i enjoyed about every part of this video , and perhaps words like " you knock it out of park " can't describe just how truly is wonderful the amount of work you had put into this to come together , how ever , there are some things i would like to tell you that may not have necessarly have to do with this video but i would like to tell ou about it neverthless , which has to do with sonic franchise and some facts that could help you have more understanding over this franchise's history of struggling to keep its momentum going , which i'm going to tell you right now
so in early 90s , one of the things that a lot of sonic fans never realise is the fact that if you pay intention to what sonic team had been doing , is that they actually tried , time and time again during development of each main line game to put cut scenes that had to do with story they wanted to tell with in each game they were developing , and because this was not possible with any of main line sonic games for sega mega drive console due to hard ware limitations , they put so much of story elements in japanese manuals in which you can find translations of in sonic retro web site , or undrstand these stories by watching a video named (the complete lore and story of classic sonic) made by a you tube channel of a you tuber who actually did a FANTASTIC job explaining a lot of game play elements and even stories of at least all main line games up to sonic adventure 2 , and up to sonic heroes for game play elements , and one of the things that i relized from his video about classic sonic story and lore is that sonic adventure story is nothing but an other episode of these stories told in these japanese manuals including even knuckles chaotix japanese manual , and when watching an other video made by Cyber shell named (sonic the hedgehog the screen saver) which is a video about some art sonic team made in late 90s before sonic adventure release , which show us a lot of what sonic's world has , you would come into the conclusion that sonic's world has a lot of surreal places with modern thecnology and humans and animals living in that world , and when putting that in mind along with the japanese manuals , i've come to realise that sonic in his classic iteration was essentialy a shonen anime , and that in contrast to what a lot of people believe about sonic in 90s being this silly cartoon character who is made for kids , sonic team did not wanted to make a silly cartoon character , they wanted to make a character with world having shonen-esque elements to it with surreal places and ancient civilizations , and make some thing special that not just children can enjoy , but also for every one to enjoy , from tone to story telling to world building , but there was a problem ...
@@TheGoldenBolt so if you don't know , one of the initial concepts behind sonic as a character is that he looked much agressive than he would eventually look like in sonic 1 japanese release with fangs and a woman girlfreind named as medonna , and sega of america believed that sonic was too edgy to appeal to kids , so they helped tone down the design , which helped sonic have his japanese design from sonic 1 release in japan
how ever , despit what sega of japan did of many other things to make sonic appeal to many ages , sega of america would go so far as making many changes to that to make him more kiddy freindly and appeal to children , and for some odd reason , EVEN doing that in other media to , , from sonic satam premise of sonic living in a world named as mobius with nothing of humans living in it aside from doctor eggman and snively being only humans alive ,which do not make sense to what sonic team established of sonic's world being named earth and having humans living in it
to adventure of sonic absurd levels of whackiness and its much comedic story telling and tone that is meant for children with an art style that barely look like any thing in the games , despite the character was meant to appeal to every one , as well as how art direction should be handled to do that
to sonic fleet way comics which to be fair had a much more art direction similar to the games , but also had sonic's personality in it that he is such a jerk with a dark sense of humour , though he stand to what he believe is right , to early archie sonic comics that was some sort of weird mixture between sonic satam and adventure of sonic in terms of story telling and tone , but suffered from many of these shows' problems i mentioned , and what ever what sonic under ground was supposed to be
and let's not forget about an other problem that being sonic's personality in these continuities , as he was known as being this character with atittude , representing a lotof what was cool in 90s , and other things such as cracking jokes a lot of times , and making fun of his enemies , in contrast to what he is supposed to be in his japanese depection , that being even if he has atittude , it's not the whole part of his personality , as he was meant to be this proective guy who do not look at him self as being a hero or any thing , just a good guy with a free spirited nature who enjoy his life running around and going from place to place , not intersted in going after crime or taking a look t what bad guys doing , but when he see some thing wrong going on , or freedom of his freinds being violated , or bad things going , he do not just sit there and do nothing about it , and rush to any bad situation like that to stop it
and if all of this is not enough , paying intention to many of what archie comic of sonic had been publishing from 1997 to 2006 , you see many things from very out of place , or even disgusting stuff , such as over sexualized designs of some charaacters , abusing dads to their children , introducing drags and using them on some characters , implaying that some characters had sex off screen , in sonic official licensed products that being these comics made by archie , as well as legal battles that caused by a certain writer who was mostly responsible for that stuff
Yuji Naka and Yu Suzuki are some of the most out of touch directors of games I've seen in the Japanese industry. I know people like to give shit to Miyamoto, but he has remained mostly hands off and in an advisory role over the last few generations, and when he does give advice sometimes the teams stick to it a bit too hard. But Yuji Naka and Yu Suzuki have admitted to not giving a shit about any games that were made in between the times they made games, saying that they only really pay attention to their own works. How does one stay so out of the loop of massive changes that happened in the 20 years that the industry has been growing and then produce some terrible projects afterward?
Update in case you don't know, Yuji Naka just got arrested for real
Also there's more evidence that suggests Miyamoto isn't as awful as people made him out to be, at least for Mario.
I've been seeing comments about Yu Suzuki being egoistic but no videos were made based on that..
Putting Yu Suzuki's name up there with Yuki Naka is fucking crazy bro. Naka might have been a wiz kid developer back in the day, but Suzuki can be as egotistical as he wants given he spearheaded 3d game development.
Cause they were the only ones with natural talent.
Aw man, 2 people beat me here about Naka's arrest :/
Just here to celebrate Yuji Naka's arrest.
Man, this explains so much about the company that I legitimately had no idea about before.
47:38 "They thankfully cut out an entire scene where a child gets shot" That scene actually plays out uncensored later in the game, albeit in stills (guess the ESRB missed that). It's also one of the few things in this game that is of a genuinely mature subject matter, that plays a real narrative purpose in Shadow's character arc, rather than simply being edgy for edgy's sake like most of everything else, so I don't really mind such a scene being shown.
On that note, I'm not averse to dark elements in Sonic games in general so long as it serves real narrative purpose. Perhaps thanks in part to me growing up with stuff like the SatAM Sonic cartoon / the Archie Sonic comics / the "Dark Age" Sonic games, which all had strikingly dark elements at times. But that's me. I understand this is a franchise who's primary target audience is young kids, though I'd say teens always felt like a large part of their demographic too, since the series' inception all the way up 'till the 2010s happened.
Anyways, I have a love-hate relationship with this game, to say the least. Lots of things I like that they never tried again, and lots of things that I dislike or otherwise find annoying... Such is the Sonic Cycle.
I feel like a lot of the problem with Sonic is that the fandom doesn't know what it wants. one side wants Adventure 3, others want Sonic 4 Episode 3, and another side wants Mania 2.
@@GiordanDiodato It's interesting to me that it doesn't seem like there's as much fandom division in Mario on the other hand. There's about as much different between Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario 64 as there is between Sonic 3&K and Sonic Adventure. But I don't really see intense fandom warfare about people wanting the series to return to the NES game style.
@@itsshauta Because with Mario there was no fall. 2D or 3D, Mario has always been a prolific icon and critical darling in the gaming space. Sonic fell from grace and hasn't truly recovered, and so you have people trying to point at what went wrong, when it went wrong, and they all have different ideas as to how the franchise should be fixed.
@@brycebitetti1402 Yeah, that makes sense.
Have to say, watching this video, I can 100% buy that Naka would eventually get himself arrested for insider trading.
Yuji Naka sounds like the complete opposite of Shigeru Miyamoto... like they're complete opposites and it's kinda funny
dude yuji naka tweeted about the anniversary of nights's announcement and straight up blacked out naoto oshima from the picture
So basically went full Keiji Inafune. Got it
Yuji Naka to me is that hero that lived long enough to see himself become a villain. He’s acted like an asshole on several occasions, as you’ve pointed out, but it can’t be understated what a crucial role he played in Sonic 1 and 2, so much so that later ports of Sonic CD (which they made without him) were made to feel more like those games.
He’s also stated that he was against releasing Balan Wonderland as early as it did, since it was (very clearly) unfinished, for whatever that’s worth. I still think a one button 3D platfotmer was just going to be doomed to fail, but who knows what they could’ve done with a few extra months of dev time.
Great video, it’s great to see this kind of perspective on the series, even if I will die on the SA2 hill.
Yeah, those few months would have done jack to save the game. As much as I hate the phrase because it is often used very wrong, releasing early was most likely the equivalent of cutting the losses.
Just imagining a universe where SEGA and Sonic Team took care of itself and Sonic in a better way, where this series would be at right now.
Let fans take over Sega and Sonic Team and they will take better care of themselves one day. As long as Sega does not bankrupt themselves first.
Sonic would be back up there with Mario again.
Sonic frontiers
@@warrenbradford2597 feperd would be a good place to start when were talking about fans taking over the company, the man literally made sonic adventure 3 but better! with spark 3!
hearing gareth again only for him to do his mocking nerd voice is the most gareth thing ever and i wouldn't have it any other way
I miss him
I was caught off guard hearing his voice again. Wonder how long ago he recorded for this.
Naka gets less and less pity for getting fired from Square Enix each time any video about him is uploaded.
Jesus, no wonder the Adventure Era was such a clusterfuck roller-coaster ride. Anything and everything that could've gone wrong, went wrong.... Also I had no idea that Naka was like this holy shit what an eye opener O_o
Naka is a clear case of a creator letting success inflate their ego to the point of arrogance.
Right? It's frankly SHOCKING those games turned out half as good as they were given the awful circumstances behind them.
Dude the Adventure Era was the best Era for the Sonic Series! Games like Adventure 2 Battle & Heroes were the peak despite how bad things were behind the scenes at Sega. The 2010s were complete trash for the Sonic Series except for Mania & the worst Era for the series.
@@WaterKirby1994 Just to clarify, when I refer to the Adventure Era, I'm talking about the games released from 1998 to 2009. I also count Shadow, 06, and the Storybook games as part of the overall era. Also, I agree that SA2 was really good (and this isn't nostalgia talking, I didn't play it until 2018). But Heroes? Nah, it's not good imo, sorry. Overall, the Colors Era was just more consistent and enjoyable to me. Colors, Generations, Mania, the Kart Racers, and even Lost World and Forces were at best good and great, and at worst were average or decent.
@@DSmith3279 Adventure-Advance 3 is what I refer to as the Adventure Era, while Shadow & Rush started the 4kids Era that ended when the 2010s Started. While I agree Heroes was of much lower quality than other games of the same era, the game sold quite well & was quite good considering what happened with its development. Also Heroes was way better than Sonic Colors was.
As for 4kids Era a lot of people love Unleashed even though it wasn't my cup of tea. Black Knight was 1 of the Sonic Series last hurrahs & has a significant cult following. Riders 2006 & the Rush Games also are quite well received from this era that many called the Dark Age because it wasn't as good as what we were getting in the Adventure Era. Many have come to appreciate Sonic 06 after how bad the series would fall 4 years later.
2010 was the year that Sonic kept releasing bad games (Free Riders, Sonic 4, & Colors) Generations was way past overrated, with the modding community being its main selling point. Your forgetting how bad Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric & Shattered Crystal were with the former being considered by many to be the worst Sonic Game. I think we can remember how Forces & Team Sonic Racing both turned out over the past 5 years. Hard to believe how far Sonic has fallen over the 2nd half of his almost 31 year career with most of the problem being the 2010s Decade.
I appreciate a Sonic content creator who expresses their opinion without trashing the opinions of others. That should go without saying, but here we are. Thank you for all the research you did, as a clueless newer Sonic fan, I had been wondering about a lot of this stuff!
Really cool look into more of the context behind the development of these games. Even though Takashi Iizuka doesn't always make the best judgement calls, I've always felt his contributions to the series never got enough recognition. It always bums me out when people try to characterize the developers behind bad games as being lazy, incompetent, or not caring, but there's almost always more to it than that. I mean, I doubt Iizuka would've stuck around with a series as turbulent as Sonic as long as he has if he didn't care. I've always had vague knowledge of what went down with SEGA, but this video really helped put more things into perspective.
Izuka cares but he’s tone deaf to criticism.
However Naka didn’t care about Sonic in the 2000s and stuck around due to his massive “sega savior ego” slandering his former coworker Yasuhara even though Yasuhara did most of the work on shaping those original Sonic games.
Yuji Naka: "This company would fall apart without me!"
Also Yuji Naka: *actively makes things worse at every turn
And we were surprised when Balan Wonderworld turned out horribly...
I knew that Naka wasn't perfect, and he was certainly in denial about the future of gaming, which is why I didn't use Square Enix themselves as the scapegoat for ALL of Balan Wonderworld's problems, but man, he certainly had some issues.
He probably thought he was right when 06 released and was further validated with boom, lost world, and forces, unfortunately.
So here's what I currently understand as the issues that plague the Sonic franchise.
Management:
* Pushes development too hard and fast, creating rushed games.
* Makes poor management decisions that shift the goalposts unnecessarily.
* Is not entirely at fault due to dealing with the consequences of poor decisions made by previous and existing leaders, and some individuals deserve respect for the amount of work put into the company.
Development:
* Delivers rushed and buggy products due to having extremely short timescales to develop games whilst having to try and cater to the desires of the fans.
* Is probably the biggest victim
* Continues to deliver poor products due to employees leaving the team as a result of the high-stress environment and pressure, for which they are not at fault.
Games:
* All over the place since Sonic tried to go 3D, still somehow finding its footing after years of change.
* Has a few diamonds in the rough that are praised by fans, each different in execution
* Fractured concept of a Sonic game damages future games in attempts to get the best of all worlds, without ultimately understanding what made each respective game good.
Fans:
* Produce passion projects based upon individual understandings of the franchise's core tenets, each drawing groups of fans to play
* Suffers fragmentation due to different eras and playstyle preferences clashing
* Fragmentation causes unnecessary separation of fans from each other, each holding tenets and ideals based upon their first experience with the series and not really letting that go.
* Makes really good fangames that show just how much bureaucratic nonsense, timing issues and seemingly reactionary responses of Sonic Team and management affect the quality of official titles.
* j/ Bears an odd similarity to Christian sects and divisions. (For the uninitiated, please refer to a list of different Christian sects.)/j
Therefore:
* Management is partially to blame
* Developers are not to blame and are trying their best
* Fans are divided and pull many ways on creative design according to their gold standards, getting nowhere
* Games as a result are confused, often lose the plot, and come out half-baked altogether too many times, occasionally producing another gold standard, which may only worsen the problem.
Is this a good summary of what went wrong? Please be civil in your responses, I may have just kicked the hornet's nest.
Very good video that puts it together very well. Sonic Team was left in self-isolation as a strange attempt to protect themselves from the divorce, but in the process had pretty much all their resources and time chopped away so they were affected worse than they could've possibly imagined. Their story, beyond the obvious silly/poor decision-making and Naka's ego, is really a huge tragedy that I don't think most gaming outlets care to discuss. It's too easy to laugh at the Sonic series and throw it under a bus, rather than break down how it got there and why it still struggles to get out. So thank you for being amongst the first to do that, your work is super appreciated.
I do have a few minor gripes with the video though. Nothing that breaks it, but I think context is important.
I dunno how I feel about Sega of Japan's software developers coming off unreasonable or incompetent compared to Sega of America's staff, in relation to shutting down the Dreamcast; nor particularly the story of how Yuji Naka prevented Sonic Xtreme from completion. It's kind of a lesser talked about thing, but Sega of America were uhh... not great at their jobs, and much of their own issues with poor marketing (as briefly mentioned in this video, but also WAY WORSE with the Saturn itself) and bad decisions in general (they're more than half-responsible for the 32X disaster that partly put them in the hole in the first place) are a lot of the reasons Sega's relevance spiraled in the west, which might be a big reason why they butted heads so hard with Sega of Japan. For your teams to work so hard making all these games, only for it to flop due to mixed issues out of your hands (of which was largely in failure of SoA's own marketing job) and be told they have to pack it in BY the people they find at fault, yeaaaahhh the walk-out and disputes make more sense.
As for the Xtreme thing, that too needs context. It's development was hellish, largely due to Sega Technical Institute's own hubris, poor planning, civil war within it's own development teams (the art and programming teams legit sabotaged each other's plans IIRC), constant project rebooting to shift between 32X and Saturn (there were like four-five versions of that game in a span of 3 years), and (let's face it) a really, really poor looking game from the footage and builds we've collected. Naka is definitely an asshole and one real jerk to American devs, but you can see how him giving the go-ahead to a team who were not only giving extremely poor results in general but also were internally imploding was a bad idea for what at the time (especially to him), particularly with *his* name attached to it if it were his team's engine, seemed like it could damage the brand; not even to mention they tried to use said engine without Sonic Team's consent (making the hostile reaction all the more justified). It might've resulted in a Sonic game for Saturn, something that financially could've saved them, but it also could've been an absolute disaster for the brand.. which the Xtreme as we knew it DEFINITELY would've been when put beside Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot in the same year. Of course this doesn't address that Xtreme also had it's own terrible crunch, almost killing one of it's own developers. Yeaaahh. Xtreme's story isn't pretty, and Naka (for once) might've had some justification in his reaction.
I think to truly understand the scope of how Sega caved in, you gotta look in basically all directions. A lot of Sega discussion online seems to focus hard on SoA making the company into an underdog success story in the west thanks to the breakout of the classic Sonics and the Genesis, but leave out the rest of the picture. Not to say some of the key heads like Tom Kalinske, Mark Cerny, Peter Moore etc didn't do good things (even Bernie Stolar wasn't all bad), but SoA was... just as messy, if not sometimes moreso, and the blood for Sega's failure is largely also on their hands.
Sega could *really* use a thorough, Defunctland-ish series to explain the wildfire in full detail. The world needs to know. lol
Except Naka had zero authority when it came to deciding if the Nights Engine could be used or not, he just threw a petty entitled tantrum because his head was too big. What Naka did there was straight up sabotage a team that was already struggling real badly and could've used some desperately needed help just because of his ego.
@@elin111 I think regardless of authority, having your work be repurposed without your consent or jurisdiction is still crummy. And when you and your team is publicly known as responsible for the outcome for a product, especially when the work put into Xtreme came out the way it did, the reaction makes sense.
And Xtreme was struggling BECAUSE of the team chosen and it’s output. The game was cancelled simply because STI and its management could not get it together. It’s not hard to see that. The team was likely better suited working on a different game, at the very least.
@@AzoosYT Again, Naka is NOT the one owner of that engine, not the one who made the calls of where it gets to be used or not, and not in any way anything other than a petty douchebag. Naka's decision to throw a bitch fit unless mommy Sega caved into his tantrum also caused the other team's work and awful cruch to go to waste because Sonic X-Treme was ultimately cancelled and Naka's temper tantrum was a big reason why, had he not been a spoiled brat they could've finished the game instead of crunching to the point of nearly dying all for nothing just because Naka's fragile ego was too big to fit in the room.
And speaking of repurposing other people's work without their consent and juridisdiction, how do you think the team felt when Naka wanted to fire all of them and steal their work without their consent and jurisdiction? And you know for sure he would've gotten away with it if the team hadn't quit beforehand.
Naka isn't just an arrogant asshat he's also a complete selfish hyporcite. Naka might've coded a physics engine in 1991 but that doesn't make him a good person nor a priceless genius that must be defended.
@@elin111 I’m not even defending him like you think I am, is the problem here. I’m trying to be as diplomatic as possible, regardless of any bias for or against.
Fact of the matter is, whether or not it was his call to make OR whether he would’ve done it later, I can understand the want to protect you or your own team’s work from being used in unintended ways by people outside of your jurisdiction. Are we supposed to look at the ethics of that and go “tough shit” as if the idea of empathy is selective here? It’s not something I think that’s a cool move from either direction. Especially when their “Sonic Team” brand was gonna be associated (and likely damaged) by it.
Anyways that’s as far im moving with this. You can be mad at Naka for being an asshole, he IS one. Xtreme was just bad, man. All of it. That’s all I’ve got lol
One would think that, as a Nintendo-fan back in that day (that is to say, a kid whose parents bought him a Super Nintendo and so I was in Ninty's corner just because that was what I knew) I would feel validated and / or smug about realizing what an INCOMPARABLE dumpsterfire SEGA was in comparison to Mario's house but like... man. I'm just sad that it wasn't EVER actually a real competition.
All Mario really had to was like, smile, wave and keep being a solid performer, and he'd have won even if Miyamoto WASN'T a genius gameplay designer. It all just hammers home how big a waste of time all those playground and letter-page arguments were...
This is an incredibly well told story. As you said, a lot of people know the rough story of these few years, but I don't think I've ever heard it told so comprehensively and, while I already appreciate SA1 and 2 quite a bit, this has given me a newfound appreciation for Heroes and Shaodw if only because of Iizuka's unreal level of commitment.
One thing has become crystal clear to me after watching this video:
Both SEGA and Sonic are better off without Yuji Naka.
Side note But I was shocked but happy to hear TheRealFTA since he left the internet. I hope he's doing well.
Who?
@@KittyKatty999 Former lets player and part of my childhood.
"Did you know that the director of the early 3D Sonic games lost almost 20 pounds due to development issues?"
My metric brain: "That's very little money. Odd thing to bring up. Oh, wait…"
I had the exact same thought funny enough
Yeah, it's not like he went Apartment broke. I mean flat broke.
Man put his physical and possibly mental health at risk to get a game out. If that’s not dedication I don’t know what is.
@@aidanshowers8366 And yet people blame him for the direction of the franchise, while he did not have any power on the crunch or the higher up decisions
I really enjoyed you branching out. You have a really thorough style.
Thank you thank you - and good news, the branches are only gonna keep growing from here!
Branching out… heh.
Damn, Yuji Naka really is like Evil Mirror World Shigeru Miyamoto
Been saying it for years now. Iizuka may be misguided, but at least he's not a prick like Naka was.
At least Naka's legacy is forever ruined
They're kind of the same in some ways. Miyamoto got mad that people liked Donkey Kong Country saying that "they'll put up with medioce gameplay if the art is good," and "games are fine without stories, do we need them?"
@@AkameGaKillfan777 At Miyamoto didn't bully his co-workers.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 while I think Miyamoto isn't perfect and I totally disagreed with your phrase, your art and design direction is something that I want a Sonic game breaths on. He sure don't treat your employees like trash and humiliates them instead of Naka making this for so long time. Miyamoto is definitely an inspiration not just from make things you truly love, but be dedicated for that you LOVE. Not following crap threads.
I'm a hard Sonic fan, but I don't want my favorite mascot lost in mediocrity.
It's crazy how bad it was at Sega at the time, I knew it was bad but all this information that I didn't know about really went to show *how* bad it was. I'd like to see another video going up to the 2010s.
Brilliant! As someone who actually likes 06 despite the huge flaws most would point out and I prob wouldn't abject to most of the time, I knew of the Story for that game specifically and I feel that one remark about how Heroes only had one level designer is slowly bringing up a small memory of Someone mentioning this before but I don't remember who cause it was SO long ago. As a Sonic fan I thank u and I hope my or anyone's sharing of this get's it the attention it deserves. Regardless if u like or hate SEGA, Sonic, their fans or whatever u can't deny or not give respect to the luck and perseverance it's many members gave to allow all of us to get to this point NO MATTER WHAT the odds and I feel that's beyond incredible. Sonic in my eyes has this weird infectious curse that I could not begin to explain the many layered facets of in this single comment if I tried, but I'm glad I got bit(or however u choose to be infected) regardless of this vid I will always be a mega fan for life. Thx for this with all my heart❤(tho I doubt u'll see this lol)
This was an amazing video that shed a lot of insight into why there was such a bad friction between Sega USA and Sega Japan and the knock on effects this had. I'd like to think that Naka's time at squeenix was a very humbling moment for him.
Well well well you should check his twitter
Lmao humbled.... that didn't age well, he's trying to sue squeenix now.
Holy shit, was that fucking FTA? In the off-chance that he sees this, I hope you’re doing good, man.
Also, this video is borderline legendary status. I love knowing how the sausage is made, and while I’m not a fan of finding rats in the kitchen, knowing the hows and whys helps out a ton. Thank you for your dedication and hard work, it’s deeply appreciated.
Despite their flaws I actually unironically like the games from the so-called "dark age" (probably because I was 11 when Shadow came out lol) and it really bums me out when people trash talk them like they have no redeeming qualities. It's really interesting to learn about the development history of those games and why they turned out so uneven, and I appreciate the focus on documenting their circumstances instead of piling on with well-worn critique that this video brings.
I also hate how people say that Shadow the Hedgehog is a part of the dark era. Maybe it was 10 years ago, but we have a FAR worse era now. The Boost/Pontaff era is far worse because it doesn't even have semi-decent storytelling, scope or the excuse of "too many playstyles" to "excuse" the bad controls.
At least Shadow the Hedgehog tried and you can still tie it into Sonic Adventure 2. You can't say the same thing for Forces tying into Generations, because it really doesn't.
Oh man, this video essay was an eye opener! I had no idea that Sega was basically on fire during the production of almost all the Sonic games from Adventure 1 and onward. It really does give insight on the quality of those games
The best games of the series were ironically being made as the company was burning down around them. I miss the Adventure Era for Sonic so much & hated the 2010s for Sonic.
@OctoOOZ Agreed Sonic Team really was under a lot of pressure when making their best games. Personally I think the real miracle would be if we got more games of that quality after how long it has been.
After watching this video...it makes the delay Frontiers received feel all the more impactful/meaningful. I genuinely believe SEGA and Sonic Team are attempting to turn things around for this IP and do care especially after Mania and the success of the movies. While time will tell, this really puts things into a new perspective that I wish more people understood.
I'd love to see a follow up on the 2010's era for Sonic and some of the things that happened behind the scenes with games like Forces or Generations to put things into perspective, especially after how well this video turned out.
I do just want to point out that christian whitehead was the reason mania even exists, not sega.
@@mr_indie_fan I know that, I was mentioning the success of it being a wake up call for SEGA.
Tbh after seeing Yuji Naka’s latest projects I’m not surprised by what I’m seeing in this video. He probably has a “I can do no wrong” mentality.
2:49 ''From a man who was so certain that online gaming would be the future'' He was right. He was just a bit ahead of the times. Online gaming is massive now.
True
Wow, didn’t see this one coming. I think it’s official that I like stuff behind a game’s development even more than the games themselves.
When your stock jumps 60% just from RUMORS of you *LEAVING* the console market, you know you messed up
I think it’s been said a lot already but, thank you for humanizing the developers. It’s to often forgotten that real human beings with the same needs as you and I work on these games, and the amount of times they are demonized is sickening to say the least. Especially in Takashi Iizuka’s case for sonic and the fact that he wanted the adventure series to continue and heroes to be its own separate series is so cool and disappointing it never came to fruition, I don’t think this can be over stated but the fact he lost 22 POUNDS to get heroes out so people could enjoy is really telling as to how much he cares about sonic, and the fact that some fans repay (if that’s the right phrase) by hating on him for trying is saddening to say the least. And giving information of Yuji Naka that isn’t said to often honestly I think the guy is put on a pedestal, to often good to know he isn’t the infallible angel so many fans make him out to be just because he’s the “father of sonic” and honestly I was never really a fan of the way he makes 3D games always felt the were archaic in being 2 button based, even when there are 4 face buttons, 2 bumpers, and 2 triggers. Really glad this video was made it was super informative about the fact that sonic still has some of the same issue, I hope this gets out to more people so we can appreciate the hard these people do.
It's scary how easily a few board members can ruin perfectly upstanding company.
I've been binging your reviews, retrospectives and whatnot for the past week and it's amazing how consistantly informative but also funny your videos are. Yuji Naka contradicting his colleague and you saying "wait" is pure gold.
33:06-33:08 "Nowhere in the game is that actually stated."
Great video but, that actually *is* stated if you push the Y button with the Omochao icon when a particular team is highlighted on the Team Selection screen before starting a campaign.
I already loved your SA2 retrospective simply for bringing to light the development situation. Such situation makes me adore indies even more.
I almost want a documentary or just normal research into Sega for the last decade. They aren't in a hellfire per say but they certainly do more restructuring than most companies. And it's always weird since the last decade, a lot of their other IPs are given a lot of love, budget, and success (sans console era ones like Nights etc), all the while it feels like the company is trying to kill off their own mascot (game wise. Multi media wise Sonic is booming). It makes me wonder if that isolation thing still occurs. Or other similar issues mirroring history.
without some executive doing an interview, there simply isn't as much content out there as in the 90's/00's. the 00's had many companies otherwise happy to talk and discuss development close up like a clam and treat anything like government secrets. Any details you can gleam will come from the few professional interviews left, or in fact from youtubers who try to find and email devs and actually get responses back.
Language barrier also doesn't help. JP companies talk more than American companies but it can be hard to dig into decades of famitsu magazines to try and find and properly translate some gems.
As for how Sega is doing... well, it's mixed. They have a lot more franchises than you'd think outside of Yakuza and Sonic, even if they don't directly develop them. But I don't think they are too worried about the console games being in limbo because the mobile games are doing fine. Apparently Sonic Dash makes major bank.
Lotta good and bad decisions made, but that's to be expected of a huge company I guess.
Hmm.. it's possible 🤔 If nothing else, it certainly doesn't seem like Sonic Team has access to the same budget, time, and resources as other groups in Sega. So who's to say there's not still some division going on?
The 2010s were the worst Decade for Sonic, & it's ironic that the best era for Sonic (Adventure Era) happened when Sega was burning down around them. I will always see the early 2000s as the series at its peak because I remember playing the Adventure Games & Heroes on GameCube & how good Sonic was doing back then.
No wonder indie games turn out so much better… the companies don’t have toxic corporate culture like Sega. It’s like being self-employed.
Wow, this certainly aged well after Yuji Naka got arrested. He had it coming for the last couple decades.
This was really, really informative and well done. You went into alot of detail and made something that really highlighted new aspects of a very turbulent time for Sonic Team.
Keep up the great work!
Damn the part about Sonic Heroes hurt the most considering it was my first Sonic game and introduced me to these characters and world. The description about the crunch time is painful to hear. We need to appreciate all game development staff no matter what game they worked on
I'd be worried to the core if I were the only one left. I can't imagine the stress.
@@cliffturbo2146 The lack of sleep is the most concerning part. I can't even get as little as 5 or 6 hours without acting like a zombie the next day. I'm astounded this person didn't die by the end
@@ink_blot25 I mean, he must've gotten SOME sleep (the human body can only go a few days without it before shutting down), but it was probably freaking close... The sacrifice some of these people made for this company is just insane, dude.
My mans really just crossed three of my favorite UA-camrs in one video. Wish I hadn’t looked at the description, pleasant surprise to hear Jon, Ant, and Tim Campbell though.
Fantastic video, first one I’ve watched. SomeCallMeJohnny shouted you out in one of his videos and it peaked my curiosity. Stellar work my man, please keep it up.
Taking the easy way out does not a game make. For current Sega’s sake, I hope this cycle ends before someone actually dies under their practices.
Very informative and captivating as always gotta be one of my favourite UA-cam channels at this point also loved the fact you got antdude and Johnny on board among others. Really have new found respect for Sonic Heroes and even Iizuka to a point can’t believe he lost 22 pounds that’s insane. Anyway your videos are almost the highlight of my night man makes work go by so much quicker
I think I like this video so much because your not much of a Sonic fan. Kinda refreshing in way and professional instead of petty anger. I’m going to recommend this video to so many people. Thank you for your effort dude.
8:52
"The company is ablaze around them, without any *burning rangers to save*"
The lil visual gag with Blaze is a lil fun, but the Burning Rangers pun is sublime
Also awesome video
Hey Golden Bolt
I just wanna take the time to thank you very much on creating this documentary specifically and all the information you've brought to light in a way more accessible & consumable way.
Thanks to you I've even begun to reach out to developers and have got two of my own game documentaries in the works.
Also as for Sonic Boom there is a documentary you should watch by the UA-camr Palette. They went completely in depth with the development of the game and Sega's internal politics at the time and I think it would give you a way better perspective on what the game was going through and going to be.
Firstly, fantastic video Mr. Bolt! I never knew Sega was this….atypical, for lack of a better term. Really easy to follow throughout.
Also, the background behind sonic heroes, including that brave individual basically giving his health to that game, absolutely excuses it of its issues in my mind. I don’t even think I can play that game in good faith anymore considering now I know I what was sacrificed in order for it to ship.
Man, this video was awesome! It was pretty refresh take on gaming analysis, to see a game development through this messy business context, it makes me remind that at the end of the day, games are still products made to sell. Really, this video made me curious about the history of other gaming companies! Seriously, I'm very happy this video appeared on my recommendations! Keep the good work!
17:31 Naka: **talks about his cars**
Cashier: Sir, this an Arby's.
The Scott steiner "he's fat!" Cut had me in stitches
Holy shit, it feels kinda nostalgic hearing Gareth's voice in something new, like an old friend coming back to say hi.
Considering Yu Suzuki developed Shenmue 3 the exact same way he had Shenmue 2 20 years before, having actively resisted any new trends that had appeared in the gaming industry…this makes so much sense now.
It is interesting that he learned NOTHING from Yukuza, which in term learned from Shenmue and improved on it.
This was a series i always thought was very quiet when it came to developmental stories in its dark ages that i always had so many questions about in recent years. I very much appreciate you bringing most of these stories to light.