Hirokazu Yasuhara is a Japanese videogame designer and producer. He designed the gameplay and stages of the majority of the initial Sonic the Hedgehog videogames for Sega Mega Drive based on technical demos and engines coded by Yuji Naka and characters designed by Naoto Ōshima. In spite of Yasuhara and Oshima's key creative roles, programmer Naka has since claimed most of the credit for and become identified as the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog by the mainstream gaming press. Yasuhara stayed with the franchise until 1994 and with Sega until 2001. He has since joined Naughty Dog, working on the Jak and Daxter series, collaborating once more with former Sega employee Mark Cerny.