When F-Zero rose from the lifeless in 2023’s September Nintendo Direct, nobody was extra stunned than the man who designed Captain Falcon over three a long time in the past.
Ex-Nintendo designer Takaya Imamura was with the firm for over 30 years, with credit on all-time classics like The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Masks, Star Fox 64, and F-Zero. However when F-Zero 99 launched on Nintendo Change final yr, it was the first entry in the franchise with out Imamura’s enter, and the creator admits he wouldn’t have considered the 99-player on-line route for the sequence.
“The very first thing I believed was actually that if I might nonetheless been at Nintendo, I do not assume I might have been capable of take this method to it.,” Imamura says. “So I used to be actually stunned that they made such an authentic tackle the IP on the recreation itself and organized it in such a enjoyable method.”
Imamura will not be at Nintendo anymore, however he nonetheless holds his two primary creations – F-Zero and Star Fox – very near his coronary heart. In reality, Imamura has already discovered his method again to online game improvement, as he is engaged on a brand new undertaking with an artwork type that’s very harking back to his pair of Nintendo darlings. OMEGA 6: The Triangle Stars makes use of the identical retro future artwork type that Imamura constructed his profession on, and it’s the first recreation he’s labored on since leaving Nintendo three years in the past.
“I feel it is the first time I’ve drawn pixel artwork since Star Fox on Tremendous Nintendo, which has been some time,” he says with a smile.
Imamura’s OMEGA 6 started with a 2022 manga printed in France that’s now being tailored into an journey recreation due out on PC and Nintendo Change in 2025. It’s set round a journey to find a brand new dwelling planet for the human race, and Imamura says he put his all into the authentic comedian earlier than starting work on the online game.
Whereas Imamura himself tinkers on a brand new IP, he additionally feedback on the state of the video games and leisure business, noting how tough it’s for a brand new concept to take off.
“I feel Nintendo’s actual peak was when [Shigeru] Miyamoto-san was in a very central place and so they had been creating numerous new IP. However at the second – and this isn’t simply associated to Nintendo – however at the second, in the video games market and normally in the leisure world, it is actually powerful to convey a brand new IP to market and have or not it’s profitable.”
Learn on for IGN’s full interview with Imamura-san (by means of an interpreter), the place we talk about the place F-Zero goes from right here, his new undertaking OMEGA 6, why Star Fox 64 continues to be the most particular recreation he’s labored on, and the keys to Nintendo’s success in the future.
IGN: Once you spoke with IGN in 2021 proper after you left Nintendo, you mentioned F-Zero wasn’t gone for good, however a grand new concept was wanted to convey it again. Final yr, Nintendo revealed and launched F-Zero 99, the first F-Zero recreation launched that you simply weren’t concerned with. What had been the feelings while you noticed F-Zero lastly return from the exterior?
Takaya Imamura: First off, I used to be actually stunned. The very first thing I believed was actually that if I might nonetheless been at Nintendo, I do not assume I might have been capable of take this method to it. So I used to be actually stunned that they made such an authentic tackle the IP on the recreation itself and organized it in such a enjoyable method.
IGN: Why do not you assume that you’d’ve been capable of take that route?
Imamura: I feel it was primarily as a result of after I noticed it, I believed, “Effectively, that is similar to Nintendo to take this route.” And for me, F-Zero, I have been engaged on it so lengthy that I’ve acquired this… My imaginative and prescient of it isn’t as versatile as whoever took the reins on [F-Zero] 99 and was capable of principally assume exterior the field and recreate what it was.
IGN: So now that Nintendo has acknowledged F-Zero once more on this method, the place do you assume this sequence can go from right here?
Imamura: When you’re asking me, in my creativeness, I am seeing one thing scaled up akin to F-Zero GX. However given Nintendo’s acquired the reins at the second, I feel they as an organization will most likely take it in the route for a wider vary of gamers, together with informal players as effectively. So it is an IP that may actually seize a variety of gamers.
IGN: I feel that we’re in settlement that GX is the pinnacle of the F-Zero sequence, however principally each F-Zero recreation is unbelievable and the gross sales numbers did not at all times mirror their high quality. And that led to a close to twenty-year hiatus. I am questioning, as the sequence progressed, did you and the crew ever really feel such as you wanted an enormous gross sales hit to maintain the sequence alive? Or as a inventive had been you by no means actually targeted on that facet of issues?
Imamura: After all, the most vital factor of any product is that it sells. In order that was the very first thing on our thoughts. We won’t simply concentrate on recreation followers. We could not, I could not after I was at Nintendo. However F-Zero and Star Fox are usually supported by extra core players than informal, and Nintendo clearly wants to have the ability to method a wider vary of gamers. So sure, after all, the very first thing on my thoughts was to have one thing that sells. However these video games appeared to have higher help with a extra core gamer viewers.
IGN: So that you simply talked about Star Fox, and final time we spoke with you, you referred to as Star Fox 64, “the recreation of your life.” And I feel numerous followers agree that’s the spotlight of that sequence. I’m questioning in the event you can share why Star Fox 64 is so particular to you past the reality that you simply put a lot care and arduous work into it.
Imamura: I feel it is tough to specific precisely why I really feel that, however I feel it is most likely primarily as a result of out of all the video games I’ve labored on, it is the one the place my imaginative and prescient has been most mirrored in the closing product. I used to be capable of put most, if not all, of the concepts I had into the recreation. So it is the recreation that I’ve made that has the most of me in it. I am an enormous movie and recreation fan myself. And I feel most likely Star Fox 64 has the most parts of that, homage to different inventive works, movie, video games, et cetera.
IGN: We have talked about F-Zero and Star Fox, and now you are engaged on OMEGA 6, and it solely takes a look to see the similarities in your character design with these two Nintendo sequence we have touched on. OMEGA 6: The Triangle Stars makes use of your iconic retro future artwork type that F-Zero and Star Fox share. Are you able to simply inform me very merely to readers who might not know, what’s OMEGA 6?
Imamura: I do not know if it is the elevator pitch, however in a single phrase, the finest strategy to describe it will be that it is the online game spin-off product of me actually eager to turn out to be a manga artist, a mangaka, and creating a comic book, placing my all into this comedian after which spinning off right into a recreation.
IGN: I discover that basically attention-grabbing since you left Nintendo to strive one thing new, and you have been instructing, you wrote this manga, however by means of all of it, it is led you again to online game improvement. And I am questioning while you left Nintendo, in the event you deliberate to ultimately work on one other recreation once more and the way that each one got here to be.
Imamura: Effectively, I had truly been enthusiastic about recreation improvement. It was on my thoughts after I might left, however I wasn’t enthusiastic about one thing fairly as massive as OMEGA 6 has turn out to be. It was extra a compact, smaller expertise at first, however then we began including issues, and earlier than I knew it, right here we’re.
IGN: What excites you the most about OMEGA 6? And what do you need to inform followers of your earlier works about it to get them excited as effectively?
Imamura: Effectively, one in all the issues could be that I principally drew each single pixel in the recreation. So the very first thing could be that I would like the followers to take a look at the pixel artwork and revel in it principally. I feel it is the first time I’ve drawn pixel artwork since Star Fox on Tremendous Nintendo, which has been some time.
IGN: So talking of that, the Tremendous Nintendo was a very long time in the past, and also you noticed Nintendo by means of many highs and lots of lows. And proper now, Nintendo’s using what you would name an all-time excessive, no less than financially talking. In your opinion, what about Nintendo’s management and route retains the firm related each throughout the generations that you simply had been there for and into the future?
Imamura: Clearly, it is simply my opinion, however I feel Nintendo’s actual peak was when Miyamoto-san was in a very central place and so they had been creating numerous new IP. However at the second – and this isn’t simply associated to Nintendo – however at the second, in the video games market and normally in the leisure world, it is actually powerful to convey a brand new IP to market and have or not it’s profitable. So I feel what Nintendo might want to do is to work on new IP and in addition the present IP, turn out to be one thing like Disney when it comes to having all these IPs that they’ll create merchandise from.
IGN: I need to ensure that we contact on Zelda since you had been the artwork director on Majora’s Masks, which is one in all the most visually attention-grabbing video games in the sequence. And the story is totally different and mature as effectively about unhappiness and remorse. What it was like engaged on a Zelda recreation that is nonetheless so distinct from the remainder of the franchise?
Imamura: That is fairly a widely known episode in that the president of the Nintendo at the time, [Hiroshi] Yamauchi, the order got here down from him to make a brand new Zelda in a single yr. And so it got here down to 2 factors. One in every of them was that we had the earlier Zelda and we wished to distinguish it from that. And the different one was how can we create a brand new world, one thing that may be very new, that’s distinctively totally different from earlier Zeldas in such a short while? And that was principally what we got here up with. We took a unique path visually and conceptually. My job on the artwork facet was to make it totally different from Ocarina of Time – as clearly totally different as attainable. And that is why we ended up with the world that that recreation is about in.
IGN: I’ve at all times been very fascinated by the design of Majora’s Masks itself, the merchandise. After I was a child, I used to only stare at the cowl artwork of it on the Nintendo 64 field. What had been your inspirations for the design of the very creepy masks?
Imamura: So in Osaka, there is a museum that collects numerous totally different artifacts and clothes from totally different ethnic teams. And I typically go there for inspiration for various designs and stuff. And for the masks specifically, that was one place the place I absorbed numerous design concepts from.
IGN: My closing query right here is, as the one who created Tingle, each time a brand new Zelda is revealed, are you hoping that Tingle reveals up in some capability?
Imamura: [Laughs] I have never seen him in latest video games, however I feel there’s a character much like Tingle in Tears of the Kingdom.
IGN: Thanks a lot, Imamura-san. I respect the time, and better of luck with OMEGA 6 and at gamescom.
Imamura: Thanks in your time as effectively.
Components of this interview had been edited for readability.
Logan Plant is IGN’s Database Supervisor, Playlist Editor, and Tremendous Ninfriendo on Nintendo Voice Chat. Discover him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
Blogroll picture credit score: Takaya Imamura (https://twitter.com/ima_1966/status/1351786503815397376/photo/1)