“…That inspired the initial concept for Sonic the Hedgehog”
Though he existed as Jumpman a few years before, this month marks the 25th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. franchise, one of the most celebrated in gaming.
To celebrate, this month’s Nintendo Power included a feature from some of gaming industry’s most widely known on how Mario has influenced their own careers. In the case of Yuji Naka, the original Super Mario Bros. from 1985 may have planted the seed for Sonic, though it may have been out of frustration.
“…That turned out to be a very important title for me,” Mr. Naka said. “Back then, games didn’t allow you to save your progress. So when you wanted to play Super Mario Bros., you always had to start from World 1-1. [....] Doing so eventually became kind of tedious, so I always tried to get through the level as fast as I could. And that inspired the initial concept for Sonic the Hedgehog.”
Mr. Naka also revealed one of the first projects he worked on–apparently before Girl’s Garden–was never released, as it was intended before the NES, and before Sega entered the console wars. Mr. Naka does say he “would love to publish it one day.”
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Thank god that Sonic is not based on Mickey Mouse after all.
I always thought that the Sonic franchise was similar to Mario in some ways. For example: They are both iconic video game stars, and they starred in three games together 10+ years later (i.e. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, which were all superb games in my opinion, and I hope that the whole Mario/Sonic crossover continues in the future).
@Vulpine: of course he isn’t based on Mickey Mouse they doesn’t look like each other and all Mickey Mouse does is kissing… hehe in your face Mickey. No hard feeling I got nothing against Mickey.
People tend to forget that Naka was the lead progammer for Sonic 1, what he is saying here is that he designed the physics around speedy gameplay over the routine gameplay of Mario.
“Sonic for SEGA is like a Mickey for Disney”
Sonic & Mickey are anthropomorphic animals
…
but Sonic like Game…is based in Mario
this is old information of story of Naka, Oshima and Yasuhara
@Vulpine
He was talking about game mechanics here, not character design.
Sonic had more personality than Mario, but his games were better than Sonic’s IMO
@Vulpine
I think you may be thinking of Felix the Cat that Sonic’s design was based off of. On an related note though, I would love to see Girl’s Garden made considering how good Ivy The Kiwi? was.
“Oh mai gawd it would be so terrible if the was based on Mickey Mouse because .. I don’t know it would just be terrible and change everything!”
No way! I`m disappointed, mr. Naka.
@Sonic&Tails, Kickassnessity and Skai Cyan
Whatever you say. As someone who does not like Kingdom Hearts and wish that game franchise didn’t even exist, I am just sick of people on various boards thinking that “SONIC SHOULD BE IN DA N3XT KINGDUMB FARTS!! LOL!! OMG!!” when the chances are very unlikely or not going to happen. I am also tired of people compairing Sonic to Disney because there is no way that Sonic and Mickey will ever unite due to their origins being different.
Plus, I see Sonic as a video game character, not a cartoon character. He may had his own cartoon series, but so did many other video game properties (i.e. Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Pokemon, the list goes on and on. Also, Captain N: The Game Master could have predated the Super Smash Bros. games due to having both Nintendo and third-party characters in the show). It’s not like Sonic is the only one out there, if you know what I mean.
@Vulpine
You know, back in the designing process of Sonic, there were many influencing things which made Sonic as he was. And you know, if have been stated a lot of times than the original japanese design was tweaked to look more like friendly characters, just like Mickey Mouse and others. That´s the only similar thing though (some inspiration in design).
Vupine : Yes I want more Mario & Sonic crossovers since I’m a big fan of both & they got me into art plus Olypmic Winter Games had everyting I wanted in a M/S crossover : great graphics,fun gameplay, my favorite characters , my favorite tunes from past games , my favorite levels from a past , etc hopefully Nintendo & Sega will bring us a platformer next I’d like to see how that will go as well the story & plot
Sonic is unic! we all know that
@Vulpine
Of course Sonic will never see a chance to be in a Kingdom Hearts game. It’s Square Enix and Disney fare only. And why do you hate Kingdom Hearts so much? It’s not a bad series. Disney and Square making Kingdom Hearts makes as much sense as Marvel Comics and Capcom making the Capcom VS. Series.
@Amuro
If you are dying to know, I hate the Kingdom Hearts series, for many reasons:
1. The whole Disney crossover thing. Video games and classic cartoons are two different things that come from two different eras and seeing them together makes my head want to explode (It is almost like crossing over Pokemon with Tom and Jerry, but worse). Kingdom Hearts is not a good game, and it is only made to please hardcore Disney geeks who are tired of originals like Mario or Sonic taking the video game crown (But Mario, Sonic and such originated as video game characters, people! Mickey and other Disney characters did not!). Basically, Disney is a greedy corporate hog, and Kingdom Hearts is another excuse for Disney marketing just to advertise their characters and make them more popular, which they always do when making merchandise (I would not be surprised if they made Winnie the Pooh toilet paper, which I doubt would sell the same way as Kingdom Hearts). Marvel vs Capcom was made way before greedy Disney purchased Marvel with 4 billion, so there is a little bit of a difference (I hope that Disney does not purchase Capcom (or any other major brand in gaming) as well or else I will have to reconsider).
2. Kingdom Hearts is the new Lion King. Because not only I dislike both, but also because both are overrated as heck (Always top of the charts), fans of both always criticize games or films that didn’t do as well in the box office or whatnot, fans of both talk down to anyone who does not share their opinion on both, even against those who are much older and mature then they are, and both are liked by the strange furries and overly-obsessed yaoi fangirls out there (There is more fanfics and art of Kingdom Hearts then there is of any video game franchise, much like there is more fanfics and art of The Lion King then there is of any (western) animated feature film). This is why I often ignore the fan sections of websites and just look at official stuff. Idiots ruin every single thing (And you thought the Sonic fandom was corrupted).
3. The original characters are lame: The females are so weak and the males were only made to please squealing yaoi fangirls. And contrary to popular belief, the original characters are Disney. If you don’t understand then why don’t you lurk more on the Internet? Disney owns the entire Kingdom Hearts IP: They own all of their film characters, and they own all of the original characters (This means that Sora, Riku, Kairi, Organization XIII, et cetera, are all property of Disney). Square-Enix only owns the Final Fantasy characters in the series.
4. Disney and Square-Enix are different from one another and I don’t get why people think putting the two together makes sense. Perhaps either a Square-Enix/Namco-Bandai crossover or a Disney/Warner Bros. crossover would work better and therefore would make more sense then a Disney/Square-Enix one (Or Disney/any video game company) will ever will.
@Vulpine
I´m not a huge fan of Disney films and I really liked both Kingdom Hearts. And actually, there were plenty of AAA Disney titles in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. Castle of Illusion, World of Illusion, Quackshot, Aladdin, Mickey Mania… It´s not like there isn´t enough good games about Disney. Although I would agree there´s not a single good Disney game in 3D (without counting Kingdom Hearts).
I understand that you don´t like Disney, but that doesn´t mean the game is bad. In fact, there isn´t anything about gameplay in your comment. Have you tried the game? I know some Final Fantasy fans who said they hated Kingdom Hearts, just to end liking and enjoying it after some time. Actually, Kingdom Hearts is more faithful to Final Fantasy than any new Final Fantasy game after X. I would even say there´s more Final Fantasy fans playing Kingdom Hearts than Disney fans. If there wasn´t any FF character people wouldn´t like the game so much, but it´s a huge fanservice for both franchises, just like Marvel VS Capcom.
And you know, most companies are greedy. Seriously. That includes Sega, Campcom, Square Enix, Marvel or whatever.
You know what, Naka-san, there’re warp pipes