The head of Team Sonic really wants a Sonic theme park

"Wouldn't that be cool?"

Last year Sonic turned 30, which is usually a good time to reflect on past accomplishments and readjust your goals for the future. One of the people who has been with Sonic nearly all of the way is the current head of Sonic Team Takashi Iizuka, who debuted as a game designer with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 way back in 1994.

As we recently got the chance to talk with Takashi Iizuka, we asked him what dreams have come true in the last 30 years, and what he hoped the future would bring for the iconic character.

"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," tells 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."

We can only agree with Iizuka-san. A Sonic theme park would be extremely cool and would certainly fit the fast-paced character very well. Last year a Super Mario theme park opened in Universal Studios Japan, so who knows if the blue hedgehog once again will challenge his long-time rival?