Much like his mustachioed Nintendo counterpart Mario, Sonic is a character who has transcended genres and dipped his red-and-white sneakers into everything from racing, fighting, party and sports spin-offs. Heck, he’s even appeared alongside Mario in crossover efforts such as Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. One genre where Sonic hasn’t been found however is in RPGs; will we ever see a Sonic RPG in the vein of Mass Effect 2, Dragon’s Dogma or Dark Souls? According to Sonic Team boss Takashi Iizuka, a Sonic RPG is something he’d like to tackle in the future.
“Personally, I like role-playing games,” Iizuka told the Good Vibes Gaming podcast. “The RPG game format is a lot of fun and I’ve even thought to myself, ‘you know, for the past 30 years we haven’t done a Sonic RPG’, and I’m questioning myself, ‘why haven’t we done a Sonic RPG in all this time? How have we gotten to 30 years with no RPGs?’
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood/BioWare
“So I’d like to hopefully work on a Sonic RPG at some point before I retire from Sega. But, you know, that’s just a dream right now, there are no concrete plans at this point.”
Up until this point, the only instance of a Sonic RPG is 2008’s Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, which was only available for the Nintendo DS and was developed by Bioware, the publisher behind such acclaimed RPGs as Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The game was divisive among fans and critics, being praised for its attractive 2D artwork, dialogue/character interactions and story beats but criticized for its combat system and inability to switch Sonic out of the main party to allow for more unique combinations in battle.
Would you like to see the Sonic Team develop a Sonic RPG sometime in the future? If not, which video game genre would you most like to see Sonic the Hedgehog appear in next? Let us know in the comments.
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