Sonic Team head talks about the pressure of obtaining high reviews and Metacritic

The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise remains as popular as ever, perhaps even more so, but the games have generally struggled critically with reviewers quick to jump on the flaws. In a recent interview Sonic Team boss Takashi Iizuka acknowledged there have been issues but attributed this to budgets and lack of staff. Now that they have bigger budgets, Mr. Iizuka is confident things will continue to improve on the quality front. However, one thing the team feels is pressure to achieve a high Metacritic score (90+), which they have yet to achieve. Sonic Team isn’t alone in this as development teams are usually offered nice bonuses for a high Metascore on the popular review aggregation site.

To dig a bit deeper into the topic of quality, Sonic games used to see fairly inconsistent reviews scores, whereas recent releases seem to have become more consistent. What do you think is the reason for that?

Iizuka: The biggest factor is the resources we can allocate to them. When the Sonic brand was struggling, we simply had less money to invest in each title, so we had to make do with what we had. Now, however, expectations for the Sonic series have risen, and we have more resources to put into it. Being able to make games with greater care as a result of that is a major factor.

Would you say those parts of past games that made you think “I wish this had been a little better” were directly related to a lack of resources?

Iizuka: I think the lack of resources was a very significant factor. Now that our development teams have grown considerably, if, for example, one title looks like it might not make its deadline, staff from elsewhere can come in to support the project, allowing us to maintain both quality and stay on schedule. We now have that kind of support structure within the team.

Compared to the past, do you feel there’s more breathing room in development now?

Iizuka: Thanks to that support system, we’re now in a position where we can properly deliver high-quality games to users. However, that also means the pressure has increased.

At this point, selling a million copies is almost a given for the Sonic series.

Iizuka: We can’t afford to let our Metacritic scores drop, either, so there’s also more pressure to make games that can achieve high scores, as well as the dilemma of what to prioritize (laughs). I think game development is tough because it involves both kinds of struggles.

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