Takaya Imamura may be very a lot a proponent of taking part in to at least one’s strengths. Chatting with VGC in August, the veteran artwork director informed us that his new undertaking, Omega 6, is similar to his previous work as a result of its ‘retro future’ model is “the one factor I can draw”.
It’s a fairly humble remark from a person whose earlier character designs are among the many most iconic within the historical past of video video games. Should you’re not acquainted with his identify, you’ll definitely be acquainted with his work: over the course of his 30 years working at Nintendo, Imamura was integral to among the firm’s most iconic video games, together with F-Zero, Star Fox and the Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Masks.
He was accountable for the creation of such beloved characters as Fox McCloud, Captain Falcon and Tingle, and he designed massive chunks of F-Zero X and Star Fox 64 in addition to the bosses in The Legend of Zelda: A Hyperlink to the Previous.
Imamura left Nintendo in January 2021, the Covid-19 lockdown making certain his send-off wasn’t the grand company-wide celebration he deserved, however fairly noticed him quietly clearing his desk on the largely empty constructing and having a short chat with personnel division workers on the way in which out. It was removed from the perfect method for one of many business’s most influential artists to bow out of video video games, and that’s why his return with Omega 6 is all of the extra particular.
After touchdown a job instructing on the College of Know-how in Osaka, Imamura created the Omega 6 manga throughout his break instances. He was then requested if he was all for making a online game primarily based on the story. The result’s Omega 6: The Triangle Stars, a story journey developed by indie studios Happymeal and Pleocene, of which Imamura is the story and artwork director.
“It was removed from the perfect method for one of many business’s most influential artists to bow out of video video games, and that’s why his return with Omega 6 is all of the extra particular”
We went hands-on with the English language construct – which has since been confirmed for a February 28, 2025 launch – at Gamescom, and it’s an fascinating launch for the West as a result of it’s a 16-bit impressed recreation primarily based on a kind of narrative journey that we didn’t actually get on our shores on the time.
Whereas we have been no stranger to textual content adventures, the visible novel model large in Japan – wherein your interface is a collection of menus with choices – didn’t actually make its method over right here en masse till the twenty first century.
As such, Omega 6 is curious as a result of the mix of the sport construction and Imamura’s art work makes it really feel like a visible novel from the Tremendous Famicom period that’s solely simply been translated, fairly than one thing that was really created three a long time later.
Once we spoke to Imamura at Gamescom, he informed us that creating the sport felt like a pleasant strategy to deliver his profession full circle, as a result of it reminded him of easier instances. “For the longest time I’ve had this want to be extra like an indie studio, and develop video games extra in an indie model,” he informed us.
“Whereas I used to be at Nintendo, this was one thing I used to be all the time sort of battling with internally. Because the workforce obtained greater, the video games obtained greater, as a result of this must scale from the preliminary core workforce as much as a full manufacturing workforce. Once I joined I used to be engaged on SNES titles, the place it was only a a lot smaller workforce, and this suited my model of working and what I needed to do. So working with Happymeal and Pleocene on Omega 6 seems like paying homage to these days.”
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