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SONIC TEAM PRODUCER - TETSU KATANO

About Me

I entered SEGA in 1993, and have been a long time SEGA user since SEGA MK3. My first title that I worked on in Sonic Team was NiGHTS, where I was making the A-Life system. I also worked on the Sonic 3D Blast special stage and Sonic JAM before I served as main programmer/ player programmer on Sonic Adventure.


After I moved to Sonic Team USA, the list goes on to Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Sonic Heroes, where I continued to work as main programmer and player programmer. The first project I worked on when I came back to Japan was Sonic and the Secret Rings on which I was technical programmer. So me and Sonic have been working together for more than 10 years… Though if truth be told, I didn’t like the look of the Mega Drive Sonic himself, because I thought he looked mean! Lol.

But gradually I’ve come to adore this lovely character who’s a little bit cheeky but very expressive. If Naka-san is Sonic’s father and Ohshima-san’s his mother, I humbly regard myself as one of his older brothers.

(AAUK’s note: No this does not mean Katano-san is Manic from Sonic Underground and yes lol was indeed put.)

Sonic & The Black Knight


This time I was Producer slash Director. It was around this time when we finally started to see the end of “Sonic and the Secret Rings” after a sequence of sleepless nights that my boss came up to me and casually dropped on me the newss that it would be up to me to think of an idea for “the next one (in the Storybook series)“.

After much struggle that gave me both pain and joy, I finally decided to throw Sonic into a world of sword and magic. I confess that I’ve always wanted to see Sonic holding a sword. I also wanted to see Knuckles or Shadow, the usual suspects, back as strong foes, not just as side characters. This is how the plot of “Sonic and the Black Knight” came into a shape.


Perhaps most challenging was to make Sonic have a sword. I had to hold on to the Sonicness. If he loses that as a result of having sword, then it would be preposterous. I sought advice from many people about this. My favourite bit would be when everyone in Sonic Team started to see the great game that this was becoming. I am proud of this game and I will be most happy if users will enjoy this game too.

Not to mention Sonic’s sword, actually this game has a big shift in its main attitude. Normally Sonic is about collecting rings and speed dash to the goal. But this time these are not the only objectives in the game. Of course it’s exhilarating if you can reach the goal fast, but in this game, every other cool action is taken into account in the scoring.