Akito Nakatsuka

Akito Nakatsuka

Local	中塚章人 (なかつかあきと)
Gender	Male
Born	1954?
Birth Place	Unknown
Nationality	Japanese
Aliases	A. Nakatuka Tsukasan NAK

Akito Nakatsuka is Japanese composer, sound designer, sound programmer, and sound producer who has been working with Nintendo since 1984.

He has composed music for several of Nintendo's games across multiple gaming platforms. His best known soundtracks are Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES) and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (NES). In addition, Nakatsuka composed many of Nintendo's "black box" games such as Clu Clu Land, Excitebike, and Ice Climber. He also composed the music to the Super Game Boy. During Nintendo's development for the BS Satellaview games in Japan, he composed the music to a vast majority of those games.

While Nakatsuka continues to work for Nintendo to this day, he no longer composes music but rather works as a sound supervisor.

Audio Development

Akito Nakatsuka seems to sometimes write in the key of F and use either several triplets and/or dotted eighth notes followed by sixteenth notes in a similar fashion to Nobuyuki Ohnogi.

FDS/NES

Akito first used a sound engine written by Hirokazu Tanaka. Then, he ended up programming his own sound engine around 1986. Back then, assembly was the only way to make music. His sound driver took advantage of the Famicom Disk System's audio capabilities.

Composers such as Soyo Oka and Shinobu Amayake worked under Nakatsuka, and as a result, used his sound driver.

SNES

Akito used his own variant of Nintendo's Kankichi-kun sound driver. Music was written in macros on a Sony NEWS computer.

Gameography

Released	Title	Notes
1984-10-05	Devil World (FC) (デビルワールド)	With Koji Kondo.
1984-11-22	Clu Clu Land (NES) (クルクルランド)
1984-11-30	Excitebike (NES) (エキサイトバイク)
1985-01-30	Ice Climber (NES) (アイスクライマー)
1986-02-21	Family Computer Disk System (FDS) (ファミリーコンピュータディスクシステム)
1986-08-27	I Am a Teacher: Super Mario's Sweater (FDS) (アイアムアティーチャースーパーマリオのセーター)
1986-09-26	I Am a Teacher: Basic Hand Knitting (FDS) (アイアムアティーチャー手あみのきそ)
1986-??-??	FamicomBox (FC) (ファミコンボックス)
1987-01-14	Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES) (リンクの冒険)
1987-02-21	Famicom Golf: Japan Course (FDS) (ファミコンゴルフ: ジャパンコース)	With Yumiko Kametani.
1987-06-14	Famicom Golf: USA Course (FDS) (ファミコンゴルフ: USA コース)	With Yumiko Kametani.
1987-10-??	Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (NES) (マイクタイソン・パンチアウト!!)	With Kenji Yamamoto and Yukio Kaneoka.
1988-11-30	Kaettekita Mario Bros. (FDS) (帰ってきたマリオブラザーズ)	New Music Only
1988-12-09	Vs. Excitebike (FDS) (ＶＳ。エキサイトバイク)	Sound Driver
1991-09-20	NES Open Tournament Golf (NES) (マリオオープンゴルフ)
1995-04-24	BS-X Satellaview (SFC)
1995-06-14	Super Game Boy (SNES) (スーパーゲームボーイ)
1996-??-??	JRA PAT (SFC)	Composer?/Sound Driver
1997-??-??	BS Zelda no Densetsu (SFC) (BSゼルダの伝説)
1997-05-11	Excitebike Bunbun Mario Battle Stadium 1 (SFC)	Composer?/Sound Driver
1997-05-18	Excitebike Bunbun Mario Battle Stadium 2 (SFC)	Composer?/Sound Driver
1997-12-01	Heisei Shin Oniga Shima: Kouhen (SFC)
1998-01-30	Super Game Boy 2 (SFC)
1999-06-25	Sutte Hakkun (SFC)
2005-05-19	Brain Age: Train Your Brain In Minutes a Day (NDS)
2013 (TBA)	Daigasso! Band Brothers DS (3DS) (大合奏!バンドブラザーズ３DS)
Unknown	Bdash Gatsu-Go (SFC) (ビーダッシュ)
Unknown	Cassette Kensaki - NUS-you S Cassette (SFC)	Composer?/Sound Driver
Unknown	Famicom Disk Writer (FDS)
Unknown	Satella Walker: Sate Bou no Sukuidasu! (SFC)
Unreleased	SNES Burn-In Test Cart (SNES)