The GHZ Forum

Taylor Miller, the producer of Sonic Rivals 2, generously offered to take part in a second interview.

Although anticipation for new Sonic games has gradually decreased over the years, it's safe to say that out of all the Sonic titles released recently, Sonic Rivals 2 was one of the least anticipated. This shouldn't be too surprising - although the original managed to provide an exhilarating sense of speed, it was marred by a severe case of “press right” syndrome and what little interactivity it offered consisted solely of frustrating reaction tests.

However, as Taylor reveals, the Backbone team were keenly aware of these problems when developing the sequel and set out to eradicate every bottomless pit, increase the interactivity and offer a greater variety of paths in an effort to make the definitive Sonic racer.

Pre-release aficionados will be pleased to learn about Sonic Lightning, which was the game the Backbone team were originally developing before Takashi Iizuka reworked it into a racing game. Story fans are also catered for as Taylor provides the official explanation, direct from Sega, about the contradictions between Sonic Rush and Sonic Rivals on Eggman-Nega's origins (and like most Sega explanations, it creates more questions than it answers).

The full interview can be found here.

The GHZ Newsboard is in talks with several western Sonic developers, so hopefully there should be more interviews in 2008.

Nice job, BS. Again, I just love how eager this guy is to please; I don't know how good of a job Backbone did this time around (As no one in any community worth a damn seems to care about Rivals, understandably), but they learn fast, and I honestly feel that with a few more years, they'd be capable of churning out something respectable- you know, if Sega weren't bogging them down with superfluous tripe.

In fact, since he'll inevitably wind up reading this topic: Hey, Taylor Miller. 'Sup? Next time Takashi Iizuka starts fogging up your window, kneecap him and tell him to fuck off. He's a bad influence- you'll find better friends!

Also, make Vector playable.

Well hey, if hes reading this I have to say they did a good job at doing what they wanted to do, a slightly addicting multiplayer racing game. I do have a few complaints though. The 3D backgrounds were neat, but most the levels felt like they were ripped straight out from another Sonic game, except this western one which was kind of boring. Also the bosses carried on too long when competing with a rival since after they were hit you would have to wait a certain period of time before you had another chance to whack at them. Music needed a little more effort. I don't know how many of the eight story modes you need to play to unlock everything, but I quit after I beat Sonic and Tails' since I assumed they were all the same thing. The little shortcut gimmicks were cool, but made shortcuts very obvious. Lots of floating platforms and grinds make the levels feel scattered. I would sometimes find myself running on a flat plane, and there were very few enemies. The levels need a little more extra depth overall really. It is a racing game though, not a classic Sonic venture, which is probably where most of my complaints are stemming from...

Nice interview.

That was a very good read. I'm particularly impressed by the dedication that he puts towards making the game as balanced as possible - that's extremely admirable.

Now I'm interested in playing "Sonic Lightning"... I always thought the Rivals style would work well with a standalone Sonic game, and Free Play in Rivals 2 pretty much sealed the deal for me in that regard.