Sidste år fyldt Sonic 30, hvilket typisk er et oplagt tidspunkt til at reflektere over tidligere bedrifter og hvad fremtiden mon vil bringe. En af de nøglemedarbejdere har været med Sonic på næsten hele rejsen er den nuværende chef for Sonic Team Takashi Iizuka, der debuterede som game designer med Sonic the Hedgehog 3 helt tilbage i 1994.
Da vi for nyligt fik chancen for at tale med Takashi Iizuka, spurgte vi ham, hvilke drømme som han har fået realiseret i løbet af de 30 forgangne år, og hvad han håber, fremtiden vil bringe for den ikoniske karakter. Han fortalte blandt andet, at det var en stor fornøjelse, at Sonic nu er blevet en vaskeægte Hollywood-stjerne.
"One of my dreams in the very early days was that it would be amazing if we had a Hollywood movie come out. That was nearly thirty years ago, and this dream has now come through. We had Sonic: The Hedgehog come out and it was a hit, it paved the way for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and hopefully a third Sonic movie after that. It's been really successful, so it's kind of one of those dreams that has come through," lyder det fra Takashi Iizuka.
"But for the next thirty years, there are more dreams to be had. One of these dreams - we have no plans for it, there is nothing in the works now - but one of these dreams is a Sonic theme park. Wouldn't that be cool? Can we get Sonic to be a character with enough notoriety and popularity so that we could have a theme park built around Sonic the Hedgehog? Again, no plans, but these are dreams that we are having when talking about the next 30 years."
Vi kan kun være enige med Takashi Iizuka. En Sonic forlystelsespark ville bestemt være cool og ville samtidig passe godt til den lynhurtige og eventyrlystne karakter. Sidste år åbnede en Super Mario forlystelsespark i Universal Studios Japan, så hvem ved, om det blå pindsvin snart endnu engang tager kampen op med sin gamle rival?