Sonic Forces producer on the reaction to Sonic Mania, Switch version, wants to make Samba de Amigo for Switch
Eurogamer published a new interview today with Sonic Forces producer Shun Nakamura. Nakamura commented on the reaction to Sonic Mania, the Switch version of Sonic Forces, and his big interest in wanting to make Samba de Amigo for Switch.
You can find these comments from Nakamura below. The full interview is up on Eurogamer here.
On the reaction to Sonic Mania…
Shun Nakamura: It was very interesting for me to see Sonic Mania come out, get very high scores and have people praise the game. From the team’s perspective, we’re still going to be making 3D games for the audience that likes that style of Sonic – when we see the reactions that Mania got, the entire team sat down and thought it was really interesting, and we should break down what people liked about Mania, and in the future – when we build our 3D games – see what essence we can take from Sonic Mania and put into a 3D world, to give people what they’re looking for and that they’ve found in Sonic Mania.
On the Switch version…
Shun Nakamura: When we were doing concepts for the game, we really wanted to make it multiplatform. Regardless of what hardware you have, how you’re playing the game – the base idea is for that experience to be the same on the machine. And this was back before anyone knew what the Nintendo Switch would be. Even when we were drawing the lines of having Xbox One, PS4, we were going to have Nintendo’s new hardware – even though we didn’t know anything about it, we got the budget and schedule sorted before we even knew what existed. It was a bit of a panic when we first got the Switch – it was a little bit different to what we were expecting, so it was a case of seeing how we could make that work. There were some challenges – but because we have our own engine, we were able to customise it very quickly in a way that could work for the Switch, and in a way that it could really be the same experience on the Switch without it having to feel or look different.
On interest in Samba de Amigo…
Shun Nakamura: I really want to make Samba de Amigo on the Switch. …I really, really want to make it! This is coming from someone who had to make physical items you had to buy and plug into your console in order to play Samba de Amigo at home. When the Wii came out, there was only one Wii Remote, and you had to buy another one. You could still do it, but it’s a bit of a hurdle to get over. The first time I saw the Switch, I thought oh my god – this is it! You don’t have to buy another peripheral, you don’t need to buy another controller. I’m really, really interested in that.
