F-Zero was the first title I worked on, and I am very attached to it. Star Fox is the series I put my heart and soul into, and I am very attached to its game design and characters. As for the Zelda series, I have always lovedYour new venture, the manga Omega 6, was recently released in France. What can you tell us about that experience?
“I’ve tried to plan my life with each decade, but I had a lot of thoughts when I turned 50. I had this vague idea that I would retire from Nintendo before I turned 60, so I could try something new.” Story-wise, it’s different, but the style I draw, which is like a ‘retro future’, is similar. That’s the only thing I can draw – that’s my style – so I didn’t change it! I’ve always wanted to draw manga with this style, so I just applied it from my past games.You also have an Omega 6 video game in development. What can you tell us about it?
Exactly. At Nintendo, I couldn’t make what I wanted this quickly because I had to go through a long process to get something approved. “There aren’t very many people who retire from Nintendo and still make games, but I do keep in touch with the few who did stay in the games industry.”Because I left Nintendo during the pandemic, nobody was in the office when I cleared my desk, which was quite easy! I was expecting everybody to send me off, but I was alone collecting my things. I only talked to those who worked for the personnel department.
I used to like it. For example, on Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the director would tell me, ‘please make this kind of boss’, and then you’d work with a programmer to create it. So we had a clear direction: the director would come up with the idea for a boss and also the balance within the game. So along with the programmer, I’d have to do everything in the creation of the boss, and I learnt a lot from that experience.