
Update: Naka has posted some tweets which appear to give a little more insight into the altered photo:
It would seem that Naka is referring to the fallout surrounding the release of the much-derided Balan Wonderworld, which was created alongside Ohshima.
Original Story [Tue 5th Jul, 2022 21:30 BST]: Things are seemingly not well in the Balan Wonderworld world, as seemingly-ousted creator Yuji Naka has taken to Twitter with a rather passive-aggressive way of showing his displeasure.
Naka posted a photo of the NiGHTS team in celebration of the game's 26th anniversary, showing the original team who made the game, with one conspicuous absence: Naoto Ohshima, the creator of Sonic and Naka's co-worker, who was the character designer on Balan Wonderworld, and the vice president of Arzest, who co-developed Balan Wonderworld.
Or rather, it's not so much an absence of Ohshima, but a rather noticeable black lump where Ohshima used to be, as noted by a poster on ResetEra called MechaJackie.
Here's the photo itself:

Uh... thoughts? Let us know in the comments.
[source resetera.com]
Comments 71
That’s petty. Why are people petty? Removing him won’t erase the work he has done.
Go ahead and waste all your money on a monthly subscription fee for Adobe Photoshop. Real pros can get it done with MS Paint.
Well, here we go again.
Looks like Yuji Naka had some beef with those two peoples.
And that's one of the reasons I'm happy Balan Wonderworld failed miserably. He's a petty man who build his career on the backs of more talented people than him.
Lol, why would you do that? And why would you do it so unprofessionally?
Pretty petty fella there.
@Desrever Pretty sure anyone with an ounce of computer knowledge just pirates it.
Streisand effect fr
Naka-san lives on the vexatious edge and doesn’t give a fig..
more behind the scenes secret from Balan Wonderworld development?
Whatever beef they have between each other, that's a pretty tasteless thing to do, not gonna lie. Not a very good look at all.
That’s just petty, like come on man, just pathetic.
I’m just glad we regular people aren’t the only petty types in the world.
I'll be honest, years of stories about him have always painted a picture of him being a diva.
I've always assumed a lot of the success of Sonic games and whatnot came from everyone else, not him.
The lazy way he was scrubbed out of the picture makes this infinitely funnier.
@Duffman92 I'm sure he's in ''gives-no-*****'' mode since he was fired lol.
Salty... very salty indeed.
@Duffman92 The point was to make it obvious so people would notice it. Immaturity like this needs an audience.
This is just Yuji Naka reminding us that he just gave the middle finger to Sonic X-Treme for wanting to use the NiGHTS Engine for that game. The dude don't want any other game to be better than his even if it was Sonic which is why Ohshima got erased.
Naka is like a character in movies that you don’t think really exists until you see something like this.
It is equal parts cringe and hilarious.
I still appreciate Naka’s contribution to gaming. I love NiGHTs and I wanted Balan Wonderworld to be good. But the old man crazy mixed with a grumpy diva isn’t a good look.
Just Yuji Naka continuing to show that he is arrogant and a hack.
Naka is really is drama queen and petty no wonder why Balan wonderworld flopped so bad.
😂 This man knows where the bodies are buried...that can be a dangerous thing...
That's so disrespectful
That is the most horribly edited thing I’ve ever seen, I can’t stop laughing at how this actually professionally exists… the reason for posting this post about one game is to just get mad at someone for a separate game? This is so stupid, it’s hilarious!
@SteamEngenius Pretty sure they don’t.
The gesture is really petty and immature, the actual execution is hilarious; looks like an edit made by a scoured teenager with no photo editing abilities who wanted an ex out of a social media photo.
But anyway, happy birthday, NiGHTS! Still my favorite Sega game.
Obviously some super bad blood there. But I'm definitely on the side of Yuji Naka for the time being. Especially since Square Enix is involved with what seems to have upset him the most.
The PS3/PC release would be ideal for Switch
Now this is juicy gaming news. 🐸🧋
I can't post the word that describes this man because it goes against every inappropriate content warning there is. With the amount of stories regarding his treatment of his colleagues, I have no time for this man, despite actually enjoying Balan Wonderworld for what it is. A man who was once on top has become a joke. And that's just sad.
Good lord, this is so petty. Naka is a giant man child.
I wouldn't be surprised if they kicked him off the dev team for Balan because he was a big weirdo diva the whole time. I'm glad he's making it public how unprofessional he is.
Yep, as said multiple times above, he’s childishly digging a hole for himself in full view of the public eye.
You do that sort of thing when you want people to notice your pettiness. Respect for his shameless game.
lmao that's absolutely embarrassing
Look up Yuji naka on tvtropes...apparently he has done some petty stuff before. (Like when he fired the entire VA team for sonic adventure 2 because of stuff that’s way to complicated to describe)
Yuji's Photoshop skills still better than Boogie Wonderpoop or whatever the hell that game is called.
At least Bomberman will never betray us, will he?
I understand it, he feels really betrayed by everything that went on with that project. His is only one side of the story, though, it's not fair for me to pass judgement as someone just passing by in the internet comments section, reading articles about the work of someone halfway around the world.
@RupeeClock That sounds like a fair stance to take on this situation
These people are children... My goodness. He needs to act his age, stop making games and get off Twitter.
Wow, this is some incredibly petty behavior. I too would be talking behind someone's back if that person was acting like this
Naka should be glad Sonic was a hit, because this type of attitude would not have gotten him far in life had Sonic not become as successful as it did.
Just like... Don't show the picture? There was no need for Yuji to embarrass himself like that
Yuji Naka is trying to RTA ruining his own reputation. Peter Molyneux and Phil Fish best be advised, their records will fall
The enemies were invisible in Enemy Zero.
@Chocobo_Shepherd OK, but this comes off as very unprofessional. He could have simply just now shown the picture to begin with.
Who is Yuji Naka in that photo? Is he the one kneeling between NiGHTS and Bomberman?
Happy birthday NiGHTS!!!
On that note… i think Naka is a victim of its own ego, and emulating the cancel culture that is currently present in society.
Petty as all hell.
But since we are acknowledging the anniversary, I would love for Sega to remaster the original or even the sequel without the frustrating motion controls. Heck, even a third game, provided its given to the right person(s) to develop
Naka is an overrated, petty *****. The game industry is better off without him.
@Zoomzeta that's fair. but I give him the benefit of the doubt cuz I like him.
Btw, where is Yuji Naka from that photo above?
I heard from someone he was crouching between Nights and Bomberman standee.
But if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?
Classic Naka.
The guy’s ego has been insane since Sonic 3 was originally developed.
I’ll give him credit though. The original Phantasy Star was a programming masterpiece on an 8-bit game console. Only other guy at the time that could rival his skills was Iwata-San.
@Fizza Good post. This was my first thought as well, except Stalin's was done way better considering the difference in tech.
@HammerGalladeBro @Anti-Matter
Naka is crouching between Nights and Bomberman.
Gotcha.

Btw, I made a funny manipulation of the photo above. Guess what is missing here. 😁
ooooo the girls are fighting
I feel like after the update on this people would calm down, see where Yuji Naka was coming from, and leave the past behind. But do they do that? Nope.
People are calling Yuji Naka petty when in reality WE’RE the petty ones. No one on this planet is perfect and we should all accept that, but there’s some people on the internet who think playing god makes everything right in the world.
Well, I’ve got news for those people - IT DOESN’T.
@Henchdog I'm sure Naka's contributions were significant, but I always thought Hirokazu Yasuhara didn't get enough recognition. He even directed 3 & Knuckles, which I consider my favorite game of all time.
@Ruler-Of-All-Evil You can ignore the past if it hasn't continued to repeat itself. Yuji Naka is the same person he was in the past. An angry, full of himself diva, so of course people are going to bring that up. He deserves every ounce of criticism for being so petty, especially when you can bet his ouster from the team on such a terrible game likely would've had to do with his behavior and how difficult the man is to work with.
This is outrageous. This reminds me of the time when Konami completely stripped Kojima's name from their company. Yuji Naka is super petty.
I don't know, I know Yuiji Naka has a rep, but I think to what he has made, as a games creator, the man who comes up with the mechanics of a game , he's usually spot on. I enjoy most of his games from Sonic, Sonic Adventure, Chu Chu Rocket, Nights, Billy Hatcher,Ivy the Kiwi,Burning rangers and more. Even Rodea the Skysoldier is a very neat game providing you play the Wii version that plays as Naka intended.
Also to think that upto his departure from Sega he was the man who greenlit all the games. Now go back to the Gamecube ,Xbox and PS2 Sega games and you have a huge amount of fine software.
The Minute he left and Nagoshi took over, Sega's output started to twindle to a point that none of it's IP where being used. I like the Yakuza games but Nagoshi was very blinkered to what he greenlit. Yuji Naka did a much better job of giving the Sega fans games they wanted.
And if you read the story of how Balan Wonderworld got sidelined and Naka was baiscally told to get lost, and he knew the game needed work to make it better. Yet they still released the game in a poor state after using his name to gain popularity for the game .
So looked ,like he was stabbed in the back. hell I would would have put a huge turd there instead of just blacking it out, Now that would have been really funny.
There was no reason not to keep him in the photo, people have no chill sometimes.
top comment of this post took my comment lol. but yeah this is childish as heck and jacked up in so many levels - like dang, this guy has some serious anger issues.
grow up for heck sakes.
sure you disagree with sonic creator, but don't go stooping this petty low it's laughable at this point.
@xryukagex And you just proved my point.
@Ruler-Of-All-Evil No you just completely ignored mine. The man continues to be impossible to work with in the industry, as many other stories have pointed out over the years. The argument of "always ignore the past, don't bring it up!" Is stupid and part of what has slowly been destroying the industry. You know what happens when you go with your mindset? People think they can keep doing it. Look at Bethesda. Everyone excused the crappy launch products, so then we got Fallout 76. Everyone hated it, but it was no different from any other product they've put out. But because we kept "not bringing up the past" and holding people accountable, Todd Howard flat out said "its not how a game launches" excusing that their games launch like garbage. It's the same thing here. The more we put this man on a pedestal and excuse how he's a terrible person to work with, he thinks he doesn't need to change and now he's right where he is now. Acting like a man child, putting out terrible products (balan was terrible because he was so full of himself in thinking the one button scheme was a good idea. That was him.) I didn't prove your point, you ignored everything I said and rather than refute it, just claim "I win, haha".
Naka DESERVES ALL of the criticism until he starts proving he's grown up and changed, which stories like this prove that he has not. Get over yourself.
@xryukagex I ignored yours on purpose because it proved my point about all of us humans being petty. None of us are perfect.
@Ruler-Of-All-Evil I genuinely feel bad for you. You must get easily lied to like all the time if you think remembering bad people are bad us petty. Harping about a stolen pencil is petty. Remembering someone has a history of being a selfish diva that's impossible to work with is not.
@xryukagex I haven’t been lied to all the time - I’ve just seen some crazy ***** in my life, that’s all. No need for this to devolve into an argument - you have your thoughts on the matter and I have mine.
@Chocobo_Shepherd uhh....
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