SUMO Digital has been enlisted to bring the world of SEGA crashing into the delights of the Virtua Tennis universe, melding various characters from the company’s long-running life with the high quality tennis simulation that has sold millions of copies around the world. Recently, SUMO’s Toby Allen, producer of SEGA Superstar Tennis, spoke on various aspects of the forthcoming Wii and DS game.

Talking to X-Power, Allen, who has previously worked on the likes of Outrun 2 SP for Japan, as well as NEW International Track ‘n Field, Go Sudoku, Driver 76, Super Rub-a-Dub and Virtua Tennis 3 whilst at SUMO, started off by speaking about the hurdles, or lack of, involved in creating this new SEGA project. He stated that the process was not as complicated as people think and the only real reason for it taking so long for such a game to come to light was purely due to SEGA waiting for the perfect time to greenlight it, “the fact that we now have five platforms, we can provide a wide variety of different sort of experiences. Virtua Tennis 3 you know, when we just finished that, we got of lot of experience with the Virtua Tennis series and I guess it required a studio that had that experience to be able to pull this off and that’s what we’ve been to able to do, I think.”

As for whether or not the game will appeal to tennis purists that adored Virtua Tennis 3, Allen admits that the game is rather more of an arcade, fun style of game in the sense of it being a bit more fun and ‘wacky’. However, “it feels quite similar to Virtua Tennis in terms of gameplay, so you know the actions and you know what to kind of expect, but in terms of general theme… It’s just a lot more of a fun game, whereas Virtua Tennis might be a bit more for the hardcore fans.” Certain players are definitely going to be put off by the roster of characters no matter what, though, sadly, wanting to play with Federer and the like instead.

In terms of how far Superstar Tennis will go to keep the authenticity of the music and sound effects from each franchise included in the game, Allen said that the team has basically worked with all the studio’s from SEGA, as well as having Richard Jakes, who remixed some of the Outrun music for the European versions, on board. “We’ve got some of the original sounds from the studio’s, so we’ve done that. We’ve just remastered them into 5.1 so there won’t be any changes.” Not only does every franchise have a certain number of soundtracks in the game, but some are unlockable in the Superstars mode as well.

Finally, X-Power asked about a few other topics:

XP: Is there a chance that the team would include full versions or demo’s of particular retro titles, given the quantity of characters and franchises this game contains? Like for example: a playable Sonic the Hedgehog? Kind of like how it’s done in Animal Crossing or Super Smash Bros. Brawl, if you’re familiar with those.

Toby Allen: That’s an interesting question! (laughs) Yeah, I am [familiar with them], but we haven’t really thought about that actually. Mainly because we had to squeeze so much information into the game. You know, with Xbox Live Arcade you’d be able to download some of the retro titles quite easily, but on the Wii we’re quite tight on space. But no: it’s more of a question of SEGA. If SEGA wanted it, we’d do it for them!

XP: SEGA and Nintendo have been quite friendly with each other lately. Are there any chances that we’ll ever see a Nintendo vs SEGA tennis title, now that both parties have recently collaborated for Mario vs Sonic Olympics? Both companies do have experience with “casual” tennis games by now after all.

Toby Allen: Again, that’s kind of up to SEGA and Nintendo. We’d be happy to work and create a sort of Mario & Sonic Tennis game. Or Mario and Sonic in an Outrun-based game, that’d be pretty cool I think. But yeah, it’s up to them really and we’d be happy to do it. We’ve got a lot of fans from SEGA and Nintendo, so…

XP: Is SEGA Superstar Tennis a sign that there’s more to come for long forgotten franchises like Space Channel 5, Jet Set Radio or the recently confirmed Alex Kidd? Even Samba de Amigo and NiGHTS have been “revived”, after being inactive for quite some time.

Toby Allen: Yeah, we might be able… Well, it’s… That is up to to the gamers I think. If the gamers really push for those franchises to come back up, we’d be more than happy to help recreate them or create a specific Arcade version of them, or just a downloadable version.

XP: So basically: as long as the fans make it clear to SEGA–

Toby Allen: Yeah: if you get an active petition or that kind of thing online… Sure.

So do you want to see more SEGA classics making a comeback? If so, you know what to do, since Allen has now laid down the gauntlet!