F-Zero was an extremely unique chaser when it hit the scene in November 1990 on the Super Nintendo. One of the many things the game had going for it was its unique theme and art style, which Takaya Imamura said was inspired by a number of films at the time that both he and director Kazunobu Shimizu bonded over, such as Back to the Future Part 2 and Batman. Both were big movies at the time, and the Batmobile was especially cool.
Since before its release, the new device (Super Famicom / SNES) has risen to the level of a social phenomenon, right?
Imamura: At the time, magazines like Famimage had articles saying things like “This is the future!” and “The screen flip feature is amazing!”. Since the Internet was not yet popular and the state of information was truly non-existent, I was deeply surprised to see the display working during development.
And then, this leads to F-Zero, the first game you worked on?
Imamura: That is correct. The tastes of the director Kazunobu Shimizu and I coincided, then the films “Back to the Future, Part Two” and “Batman” (Tim Burton) were shown, which were talked about a lot both in public and between the two of us.
The first had the flying DeLorean time machine, but the second had the amazing Batmobile that was gaining in popularity.
Imamura: The Batmobile was particularly cool. We were also very influenced by that point and I think the director wanted to do that in the game. I feel like the director created the basic world and I added the characters and design.
Thanks to Greatsong1 for sending the news tip!
