Sonic’s Character Designer Working On A New Mascot Platformer

Sonic the Hedgehog is usually associated Yuji Naka who led the programming effort, but he didn’t make Sonic alone. Naoto Ohshima designed Sonic and Dr. Robotnik before leaving Sega to start Artoon. You know, the studio behind Blue Dragon and uh… Vampire Rain. These days Ohshima is managing Cavia, which developed Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles and is working on Nier.

Cavia also has something like a mascot platformer in the pipeline. “Ah, well, I’m making a game like that right now. (laughs) I can’t quite talk about that yet, though,” Ohshima said in a Gamasutra interview when asked if it’s possible to make a mascot platformer game today.

Mascot platformers used to be a dime a dozen. These days, new entries aside from staples like Mario and Sonic are quite rare. I wonder what kind of anthropomorphic animal Ohshima is working on…

Be sure to read the full interview which covers Nights and why Artoon made Vampire Rain.