Takaya Imamura is now renowned for his work as a designer and art director on Star Fox, F-Zero, and The Legend of Zelda – he’s often credited for the design of Tingle, the really odd Zelda character in a full, skin-tight green jumpsuit – but even a legend like himself had an “inferiority complex” during his 32-year career at Nintendo.
In a series of tweets, spotted by Automaton, Imamura explained “there we so many incredible people” working at the famed publisher that he “was constantly thinking about how to prove my own worth among them. A sense of inferiority was always lingering somewhere.”
He went on to say that he found a “sense of freedom” in leaving the publisher, “as if I had been released from the inferiority complex I’d carried for years.” Still, things weren’t all black and white. “At the same time, there was also a loneliness in thinking, ‘I won’t be able to work with these people anymore,'” he added. “That said, with only a few years left until retirement anyway, and since game development often takes many years, I felt a stronger desire to move forward at my own pace, doing more freely creative things.”
It’s a struggle Imamura’s talked about before, too. In an interview with GamesRadar+, the beloved designer said working under Shigeru Miyamoto showed him “what it takes to be number one at anything in the world.” But with Tingle, Fox McCloud, and Captain Falcon under his belt, I think he’s certainly proven himself worthy of standing alongside the company’s other legends.
Be sure to keep an eye on all of the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 games we know about so far.
