Despite a 30-year run in charge of Star Fox and F-Zero, former Nintendo veteran Takaya Imamura "always wished I could have experienced developing for the NES at least once"

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But he gave us Tingle, so how could you regret anything

F-Zero
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Former Nintendo developer Takaya Imamura has expressed disappointment that he never had the chance to work on the original NES while he was at the company.

In 2021, Takaya Imamura left Nintendo after 32 years with the company. Imamura is best known as the shepherd of the Star Fox and F-Zero series for the majority of his time there, working on each entry in the franchises. He also made one of the biggest impacts on the games industry of all time back in 2000 when he invented the freaky little pajama-wearing fairy man Tingle and unleashed him onto the world in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

On Twitter, Imamura posted a response to a fellow developer who said they love making NES games to work within limitations, saying that, "I joined the company right when the SNES was in development, so I never had the chance to work on the NES."

Imamura joined Nintendo in 1989, and his first credit was for the 1990 game F-Zero, one of the launch titles for Nintendo's second home console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

Imamura continued, "I’ve always wished I could have experienced developing for the NES at least once!" While Imamura recently developed the SNES-inspired sci-fi adventure game OMEGA 6 The Triangle Stars, which released earlier this year, he did seem somewhat interested when fans told him about tools used to make NES games in the modern era, so maybe he'll make his wish happen in the future.

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Scott McCrae
Scott McCrae
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Scott has been freelancing for over three years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on GamesRadar+ in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.

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