Hirokazu Yasuhara

Hirokazu Yasuhara is synonymous with the Sonic the Hedgehog Series. Yasuhara was the Director and Game Planner for Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic and Knuckles. He was also integral in the level design of nearly all the early Sonic games. Yasuhara worked with Sega and Sonic Team from 1991 until 2002 when he left Sega. Along the way he also worked on games such as Fatal Labyrinth (Director/Game PLanner, 1991), Sonic 3D Blast (Play-field Design/Sega Saturn porting enhancements 1995), and the scrapped Sonic Xtreme (Head Designer, 1996). After leaving Sega Yasuhara was hired on at Naughty Dog where he worked as Game Designer for Jak 2, Jak 3, and even Jak X: Combat Racing. In 2007, he worked as game designer on Naughty Dog's Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. In 2008, Yasuhara departed Naughty Dog to take up a job at Namco-Bandai America working on a Pac-Man comeback game that will be released this year in commemoration of Pac-Man's 30th Anniversary.

Work

"I was opposed to [Sega's] decision to create games that use 'Sonic-something' so that they can sell it easily. I wanted to make good games, not any games that used the Sonic character in a haphazard way."

- Yasuhara on his work on the Traveller's Tales-developed Sonic titles

Hirokazu Yasuhara worked on the revolutionary Sonic the Hedgehog Series. A franchise that introduced speed to the platforming formula. As well as adding dynamic music, like the drowning tune when Sonic is running out of air, that enhanced gameplay. Vibrant and exciting environments and enticing music were some of the key features that made the series as popular as it was today. Characters in the world never had any lines of dialogue and were one-dimensional. The only real information about the characters is told to the player when he read the manuals. However, when Yasuhara left Sega and work for Naughty Dog the characters, helped greatly by the new hardware, came to life. The characters in each series are similar. Yasuhara leans toward anthropomorphic characters, hence, Sonic the Hedgehog and Daxter. He also tends to work on games which are set in a fantasy cartoon style world, staying away from the gritty realism so popular today. This approached changed when he worked on Uncharted. Yasuhara transferred from working on games that mostly involved a high level of fantasy and anthropomorphic characters to a more realistic game world.

Project

1991-1994: Sonic the Hedgehog 1,2,3 and Sonic and Knuckles. (Director, Game Planner)

Chief Map Designer for Sonic 1,2,3 and Sonic and Knuckles.

Many levels included a wide variety of paths to take to get the Goal.