Takaya Imamura recently parted ways with Nintendo, the company where he spent over 30 years, working on series like Star Fox, Zelda and F-Zero.
Speaking in a new interview with Japanese publication Famitsu (thanks, Nintendo Everything), Imamura revealed that two of the key inspirations behind F-Zero, his first project with Nintendo, were the movies Back To The Future II And Tim Burton’s seminal Batman (both released in 1989).
“The tastes of the director Kazunobu Shimizu and myself matched,” he says. “The movies ‘Back to the Future Part Two’ and ‘Batman’ (Tim Burton) were being screened at the time, and there was a lot of talk about it by both the public and between the two of us.”
The Famitsu interviewer notes that Back to the Future featured a flying DeLorean, while Batman boasted an iconic redesign of the legendary Batmobile. Imamura reveals that these vehicles inspired the design of F-Zero.
“The Batmobile was particularly cool,” he says. “We were also strongly influenced by that point, and I think the director wanted to do that in a game. I feel the director created the base world, and I added the characters and designs.”
The original F-Zero launched alongside the Super Famicom in Japan. It has spawned several sequels over the years, the most recent being F-Zero 99, which is available as part of the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service.
Go on.... treat yourself to a new game.
