SEGA shares how Sonic Mania inspired Sonic Superstars

Good Vibes Gaming had the great opportunity to conduct an exclusive interview with Takashi Iizuka of Sonic Team. The interview covered a range of topics including Sonic Superstars, Sonic Mania, and other interesting aspects. Additionally, GVG had the chance of playing the game firsthand at Summer Game Fest, providing them with a hands-on experience.

In this interview, GVG got to ask Iizuka-san about the Superstar’s relation to Sonic Mania, to which he responded with that a lot of their inspiration comes from Mania, but with Superstars they wanted to create a sidescroller that was more modern. Superstars will provide a new format which will be used to develop future platforming games that could coexist with more modern 3D titles.

When asked about moving the platformer to a 3D environment, Iizuka-san said that Superstars is an evolution of the classic 2D formula and this will be the direction of new games going forward. The 3D environment will allow them to do things that they weren’t able to before, like allowing characters to move between the zones in ways that can’t be done with pixel art or having more complex and engaging battles in a 3D space.

These are just some of the highlights from the video, so we highly recommend you watch the full thing above for everything GVG and Takashi Iizuka had to say!