When the first news of Sonic and the Black Knight hit the scene, the initial reaction was “oh, what now?” and was soon followed by “they gave him a what?”
In a recent interview with the SEGA America Blog, Producer/Director Tetsu Katano explained how the concept of arming Sonic with a sword came to be (and that he too realized that, if not done properly, the concept could be “preposterous”).
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.
Other subjects he discusses include his own history with Sonic Team, and some information about Blaze’s theme and the familiar music some people might have noticed throughout the game. You can read the rest here.
