Nintendo on the making of F-Zero, Captain Falcon was originally SNES’ mascot character, much more

Removing the Invisible Wall

The racers in F-ZERO reach over 400 kilometers per hour.

Shimizu: That was the idea while making it.

In addition to that feeling of speed, what was also fun about playing was the surprise that came from making a massive jump to take a shortcut. Were you planning such gameplay from the start?

Shimizu: We did for some of them…

Imamura: There was an invisible wall in the air until partway through development.

But that would have prevented you from pulling off those incredible jumps.

Imamura: Yes. It was also set so you couldn’t leave the track.

Shimizu: Oh, that’s right! There was an invisible wall…

Imamura: You remember now? I remember that because when the wall was still there, I felt like the game lacked something. But when we removed the wall, I began to feel like it became an awesome game!

Shortcuts became possible when you removed the invisible wall and created Jump Plates that made shortcuts possible.

Imamura: That’s right. We performed detailed checks on the courses and decided the places where shortcuts would be all right.

But if you go off the track…

Shimizu: You blow up! (laughs) And we wanted the explosions to have a lot of impact, so we made the sound as loud as possible.

Removing the invisible wall vastly broadened the range of gameplay.

Imamura: We removed the wall at Miyamoto’s suggestion, and it’s my impression that F-ZERO transformed as a result.

Nishida-san, do you remember anything particular from development?

Nishida: Rocket Start.

Rocket Start is a technique in which you get your racer up front before the start signal, let a vehicle behind you bump into you, and thereby get a head start.

Nishida: Right. That actually began as a penalty, but it found use as a trick move.

Shimizu: It began as a bad start.

How did you come to include that?

Nishida: In Famicom Grand Prix: F1 Race, if you hit the Throttle button before the start signal, the tires would just spin and you wouldn’t go anywhere. We had received instructions to include that same penalty, but the racers in F-Zero don’t have any tires, right? (laughs)

(laughs) There aren’t any tires, so you can’t make them spin!

Nishida: So we had the engine overheat. If you hit the Throttle button before the start signal, the engine backfires, your power plummets, and your rivals shoot past you. That was the intent, anyway.

Shimizu: But if a vehicle behind you pushes from behind…

You suddenly jump into the lead! (laughs)

Shimizu: When I saw that, I thought, “Maybe that’s all right!”

You knew that would happen before release.

Shimizu: Yes. I thought players would enjoy the game more with Rocket Start.

The Face of Super NES?

Changing the topic, I’d like to ask about the characters. Captain Falcon and other characters don’t appear in gameplay, so how did they come about?

Imamura: I remember we started thinking about various things after the game was complete.

You didn’t think about characters at all during development?

Imamura: No. Captain Falcon was originally the mascot character for Super NES.

What?!

Shimizu: That statement is a bit shocking, isn’t it? (laughs)

Yes! (laughs) I’ve never heard that Captain Falcon was the mascot for Super NES.

Imamura: Even most people at Nintendo don’t know that. When development of F-ZERO was almost complete, I was doing a bunch of illustrations and someone expressed a desire to make a mascot character for Super NES, with a name like Captain Something.

Captain Something? (laughs)

Imamura: So I started thinking about a character who would match the colors of the Super Famicom controller, with some red and blue and yellow.

How did Captain Something-or-Other, symbol of the Super NES, become Captain Falcon of F-ZERO?

Imamura: I don’t really remember.

Nishida: I brought some materials. These are specifications that Shimizu drew up.

What a thick folder! Are these all F-ZERO materials?

Nishida: Yes, they’re all just for F-ZERO. Since I was the programmer, everything came to me.

(flipping through the folder) There are course maps in here!

Shimizu: Wow!

Even you’re surprised, Shimizu-san! (laughs) How many years has it been since you saw these?

Shimizu: About 25 years! (laughs) Oh, there’s my stamp with the date. It says “Year 1,” the first year of the Heisei era.

Nishida: In the Western calendar, that’s 1989.

Imamura: And September 6 would make it about five months after I joined the company.

Nishida: And here’s an illustration Imamura drew of Captain Falcon.

Second from the left? He looks a little different… He’s got a cigar in his mouth!

Imamura: I drew this very early on. I brought some materials too.

This is the comic that was in the F-ZERO game manual.

Imamura: Yes. These are the rough sketches. Originally, he was Captain Something-or-Other, but we started talking about what to do for the F-ZERO packaging, and I tried drawing something in the style of an American comic.

Shimizu: When we showed that to Nintendo of America, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Then all sorts of ideas came up, like including it in the game manual.

So a character originally created for Super NES suddenly became the face of F-ZERO.

Imamura: I think that’s what happened, anyway.

Shimizu: The comic gave a sense of the game world that we couldn’t explain in the game itself. And I like the way it ends right as it builds to the start of a race.

Imamura: For a guy in his first year at the company, I did pretty good work, no? (laughs)

Everyone: (laughs)

“Are Those Polygons?!”

How long did development take from start to completion?

Shimizu: About a year and a half?

Nishida: Yeah, about that long.

When it was released simultaneously with Super NES, what was the response?

Shimizu: At the time, wholesalers had something called Shoshinkai.7

7. Shoshinkai: An organization consisting mainly of Nintendo’s primary wholesalers. It distributed Nintendo products and hosted video game trade shows. It disbanded in 1997.

Back then, Shoshinkai hosted a trade show almost every year.

Shimizu: F-ZERO was exhibited for the first time at that trade show before Super NES was released. We had about ten consoles out for the launch of Super Mario World and two for F-ZERO.

Two isn’t very many.

Shimizu: I think that was the scale of the events back then. And incredible lines formed at those trial stations. I was there to explain, and a young employee from another game developer came over in great excitement and said, “Are those polygons?!” (laughs)

Nishida: I got asked the same thing. (laughs) Of course, I answered, “No, they’re not.”

I suppose people who saw F-ZERO before the release of Super NES sensed an incredible leap forward.

Shimizu: Yeah. I don’t think anything like that was even in game arcades.

So you got a considerable response even before release.

Shimizu: Yes. I thought it would go over well.

After release, the ability to record top course times was quite popular.

Shimizu: That’s right. Especially for Mute City.

You try for your best time down to a hundredth of a second.

Shimizu: For example, if there’s a small space between the Guard Beam and a dirt patch, a daredevil will squeeze through. We knew such stunts were logically possible, but no one on the staff had tried them.

Imamura: Originally, we thought of Boosts as a way to blast through Dirt. That seemed like a miraculous move! (laughs)

Shimizu: And because of that, chasing top course times became incredibly popular, which was fine, but no one played anything but Mute City! I wanted them to race on all the courses! (laughs)

Yes, I suppose so. (laughs)

Imamura: Just a few years ago, there was an update to the fastest time for Mute City. For the first time in over a decade, someone set a record and made it a topic of conversation again.

The release of Super NES Classic Edition may be the occasion for people to set more records.

Imamura: Maybe so. I have high expectations!