Takashi Iizuka

From Sega Retro

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Takashi Iizuka
Date of birth: 1970-03-16 (age 54)
Role(s): Designer, director, producer

Takashi Iizuka (飯塚 隆) is a key producer, director and designer within Sonic Team. Early in his career, he worked directly under Hirokazu Yasuhara as a senior game designer on Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, and quickly progressed to be the main design of NiGHTS into Dreams and supervise development of Sonic R. In 1998, he is credited as the driving force behind Sonic Adventure, the franchise's third adventure in the third dimension, as it had been his idea to create a role-playing game featuring Sonic.

After the success of Sonic Adventure, Iizuka headed to America, where he and a few other members of Sonic Team began work on such games as Sonic Adventure 2 and NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams. Iizuka continued as head of this department, known as Sega Studios USA, until 2008, when it was disbanded, and team members, including Iizuka were absorbed back into the Japanese division. After Akinori Nishiyama's departure from the head of Sonic Team chair, Sega would eventually settle with Iizuka as a main producer on the Sonic series, starting with Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I & Sonic Colors. Thus, he became the Sonic series producer/head of Sonic Team.

Production history

Interviews

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