Naoto Ohshima, Arzest helped develop Mario & Sonic Rio 2016
SEGA and Nintendo have just recently released their latest Mario and Sonic Olympic title earlier this month on the 3DS, while the Wii U version of Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games isn’t due out until late June.
It’s not clear yet how the games will do critically or commercially, but we did just learn of one interesting tidbit that will surely please longtime Sonic the Hedgehog fans. It appears Naoto Ohshima, one of the original creators of Sonic, and his team at Arzest, which includes several other former SEGA developers, played a key role in developing Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
The game is primarily developed by SEGA Sports R&D, while Wikipedia lists Arzest and Spike Chunsoft providing “assistance,” with Nintendo handling publishing duties.
However, NeoGAF member Hero of Legend tracked down Arzest in the game’s credits, which show every member of the company who helped out with the game and includes reknowned former SEGA developers, like Ohshima, Yutaka Sugano and Yoji Iishi.
He goes on to posit the first time one of the original Sonic creators have worked on a “Sonic” game since Yuji Naka left SEGA in 2006.
You can purchase Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games on the 3DS here and pre-order the Wii U version here.
Here’s the full list of the Arzest credits:
ARZEST Corp.
Directors: Masahito Shimizu, Noboru Shirasu
Art Director: Yoshihide Sasagawa
Technical Director: Tomoo Kondo
Game Designers: Jun Imanishi, Daisuke Hagiya, Ryo Sato, Takashi Nakashima, Mitsunori Yamazaki, Tadaaki Moriya, Rena Sakaguchi, Hidemi Hamada, Makoto Hara, Gen Murayama, Gen Shiomi, Koji Arai, Akihiko Sato, Teppei Iwanaga, Mitsunori Shimazu, Motoharu Nakajima
Stage Artists: Daisuke Kojima, Kana Fujibayashi, Ayana Katsumata, Masaya Takahashi
Character Animators: Hiroshi Arai, Eriko Kato, Yuya Iwama
Graphic U.I. Artists: Yuno Endoh, Chihiro Ishikura, Chika Yamamoto, Makoto Sonoda, Akihito Kato, Tsutomu Hatanaka, Tatsuya Ishikawa, Michiru Sasamori
SFX Artists: Tatsuro Matsunaga, Yasuhisa Nakagawa
Cutscene Artsist: Yuichi Nakamura
Programmers: Shinji Iseki, Naotaka Ueda, Kouichi Watanabe, Mikio Kume, Kenji Miyakawa, Kohei Iwata, Takanori Yoshida, Manabu Kobayashi, Akihiko Ohyama, Kazuya Azuma, Kenichi Otani, Hiroshi Fujinishi, Toshinori Suzuki, Norio Suzuki Fumie Morishita
Art Supervisor: Masamichi Harada
Supervisor: Naoto Ohshima
Producer: Yutaka Sugano
Executive Producer: Yoji Iishi
