The Making of: Sonic 3D
Sonic fronted the Mega Drive’s greatest hits of the early and mid-nineties. Kats Sato and Jon Burton tell Retro Gamer how they worked with Sonic Team to give the speedy mascot a 16-bit swan song
Discover how Traveller’s Tales made its isometric Mega Drive Sonic game
Some wrote the Mega Drive off as early as the summer of 1995 when Sega launched the Saturn in the West. However, the next-gen system’s initial price stopped many Mega Drive owners upgrading, which led to demand for a new Sonic The Hedgehog release for Sega’s aging 16-bit console, as former Sega producer Kats Sato explains.
“Sega Of America and Sega Of Europe strongly requested a Sonic title on the Mega Drive. At that point, Sega Of Japan decided to use an outsourced team. Somebody at Sega Of Japan found out that Traveller’s Tales had done a really great job on Toy Story for the Mega Drive, and so Sega chose it.”
Unfortunately, the Japanese firm’s chosen developer had other ideas, and so when a proposal to produce an unspecified Mega Drive title was rejected, Sega revealed all to Traveller’s Tales boss Jon Burton. “We wanted to move on to the Playstation and Saturn,” Jon remembers, “so we told Sega that we weren’t really interested. Then it revealed it wanted us to develop the next Sonic game for the Mega Drive and we said, ‘Oh, that game! Well you know how much we love the Mega Drive – we’d love to make it for you!’”
With Traveller’s Tales signed up to produce code and visuals for the forthcoming Sonic title, there remained the matter of producing a game design, which was a task naturally entrusted to Sonic Team. “We used the three game designers from Sonic Team: Hirokazu Yasuhara, Takashi Iizuka and Takao Miyoshi,” Sato notes. “They made a map and also some specs, but Sonic Team’s programmers, artists and other designers were busy doing NIGHTS, as having a key title from Sonic Team on the Saturn was very important.”
Given that the production of Sega’s forthcoming Sonic title was being outsourced, a decision was made to give the project an isometric rather than side-on viewpoint in order to distinguish it from Sega’s core Sonic The Hedgehog games, as Sato discloses. “I think Sonic Team wanted something different from the standard Sonic 2D platform game because they were using a new
development team: Traveller’s Tales. Sonic Team were always thinking about the next Sonic title, I think they had some sort of idea for the Saturn, and that’s why they didn’t want Traveller’s Tales to do the same type of game.”
A further deviation from the main Sonic series followed, as the game’s isometric sprites required prerendered polygons rather than pixel art. “Sonic faced in 16 different directions,” Jon recalls, “and so a 12-frame run cycle alone would take 192 frames of animation – all required to be perspective correct, so traditionally designed sprites weren’t really an option.”
Another option deemed unviable for Sega’s isometric Sonic title was a two-player mode, as Jon soon found out. “It became clear pretty early on that even a full-screen single-player isometric view would struggle to show what was needed,” Jon points out, “let alone a screen using a split-screen mode, so we dropped the idea.”
Months into implementing Sonic Team’s ideas onscreen, the long-distance between Jon and his Japanese collaborators was significantly shortened, as Sato recollects. “Some of the design was done in England, because it was sometimes easier to work together with Jon and the artists at Traveller’s Tales. I brought Iizuka-san, Miyoshi-san and Yasuhara-san to England, and they stayed in a hotel for maybe three, four months. Mainly Miyoshi-san and Yasuhara-san did map design. Iizuka-san was quite busy doing some other title, but he did some design on the map.”
Although no longer a designer, a Sega director was equally important to the production of the firm’s emerging isometric title, he had even created the project’s costars – the Flickies – although Sato isn’t certain if Youji Ishii was responsible for partnering them with Sonic.
“Ishii San was the development director of
Sega’s consumer department at the time, so he was my boss. He assigned me to go to Sega Of Europe and work with Traveller’s Tales, but I don’t remember who came up with the idea of using Flickies in the game, maybe Ishii-san or maybe someone in Sonic Team.”
The former Sega producer is more certain of whose idea it was to have different coloured Flickies behave differently. “I think that the behaviour being different for different colours of Flickies came from Jon,” Sato muses. “I think one of the Flicky birds was moving slowly, and then the behaviour changed. If my memory is right, Jon did something to change the AI movement and behaviour between the different colours.”
sonic team wanted something different from the standard sonic 2D platform game Kats Sato
As for how ideas like Flicky behaviour were shared between the English-speaking Traveller’s Tales and the Japanese-speaking Sonic Team,
Jon gives full credit to the bilingual producer of the evolving game that the two teams were collaborating on. “Input from Sega was ideas rather than development,” Jon explains, “so we worked out of our office, and Kats passed on any suggestions from Sega.”
But outside of work time, Jon remembers how demonstrating his Lotus Turbo Esprit’s acceleration to his producer resulted in an outcome that didn’t need any translation. “I slowed right down, but then I spotted headlights in my rear-view mirror, so I accelerated as hard as I could and then slammed on the brakes to turn into Sato’s hotel. Unfortunately, the car in my mirror was a police car. I remember seeing Sega’s senior management with their faces pressed against the hotel windows taking in the scene. Turns out the police thought I had stolen the car and made a run for it!”
Meanwhile, Jon and Sato’s Sonic project was also picking up speed, with industrial fans being one memorable gameplay feature to be implemented into the game. “I believe Yasuharasan brought the fan idea,” Sato ponders. “We really wanted to do something different because isometric was different from 2D platforming, so we saw not from the side-view but from an isometric view. That’s why Yasuhara-san came up with this kind of idea.”
Additional gameplay concepts followed, such as giving Sonic the ability to turn into a living homing missile. “With an isometric view, it was really hard to actually aim at enemies,” Sato reasons, “that’s why the ‘Blast Attack’ worked really well, because it automatically aimed. Without the ‘Blast Attack’ you made many mistakes, lost coins and soon it was game over. So probably players would have gotten frustrated at such a quick game.”
A recurring feature from previous Sonic titles was omitted, however, as Sonic’s ‘Super Sonic’ power-up didn’t suit the puzzle-based gameplay of the isometric title. “From the beginning, this was a more puzzle element action game rather a battle action game,” Sato argues. “Super Sonic was a special feature to fight on boss stages in the other Sonic games, and so I think it didn’t fit into this because it was just more puzzle element action.”
Recurring characters Tails and Knuckles did join Sonic in his isometric Mega Drive debut, but as
gatekeepers to the game’s special stages rather than playable characters, which Sato puts down to expediency. “Because Tails could fly and Knuckles could glide if we had made them playable characters that would have made much of the design completely different. We probably would have had to work harder and think about how the map should work with those characters – and that would have taken time and money.”
A further concession to the isometric nature of Sato and Jon’s rapidly progressing project meant a loss of control in return for more predictable outcomes. “I think originally the loops were designed so that you could run around them manually like in the previous Sonic games,” Jon reflects, “but as our maps were 3D we had to change them to being automated to stop all kinds of problems occurring.”
Besides troubleshooting, the coder also found time to come up with an unexpected finishing touch for Sonic’s latest Mega Drive adventure - an animated intro. Although Jon wasn’t influenced by a similar feature in Sonic Team’s latest Saturn title. “I really don’t remember seeing the NIGHTS animated intro, but I was really keen to fit one into Sonic 3D, he tells us. “I kept saving memory wherever I could and then surprised Sega a few weeks before going gold with the intro we’d managed to squeeze in.”
When Sonic 3D hit the shelves, sales were brisk, and while reviewers hoping for 2D platforming were disappointed, those that appreciated its novelty heaped praise on the game. Although Sato focuses on the positive
With an isometric view, it was hard to aim at enemies that’s why the ‘blast attack’ worked really well Kats Sato
response that he got from within Sega rather than the game’s critical and commercial fortunes. “I don’t remember the reviews, and I probably didn’t care about them or the sales numbers. I felt that the product was really successful. Maybe it was just because the marketing and sales departments really appreciated my work.”
On the motivation for producing a Saturn version of Sonic 3D, Sato is forthright about Sega Of Japan’s opinion of the cancelled game that the Traveller’s Tales port replaced. “Sonic Xtreme was really bad. We reviewed it many times internally, but it didn’t reach the quality needed. But I think marketing wanted a Sonic title on the Saturn, and
Sega in Japan was busy doing other titles. That’s why we did a conversion of Sonic 3D from the Mega Drive.”
In reviewing Sonic 3D now, Sato is proud of the game’s unique attributes, but feels that with more time it could have been even better. “Unlike the 2D Sonic games, Sonic 3D’s isometric view gives quite a different type of game with a lot of puzzle elements, and it’s really fun to play. So I’m definitely really proud that I was involved in the project. But of course there are some regrets, if we could have we would have liked to have produced more stages.”
When asked for his assessment, Jon highlights Sonic 3D’s visuals and slickness before finishing with an admission that he likes his 2017 enhanced version that much more. “It’s a great looking game, it’s technically very proficient and it was executed according to the design that Sega gave us. I always liked it, but I prefer the Director’s Cut now!”