Veteran designer Takaya Imamura has left Nintendo after more than three decades at the company.
A post on his Facebook page this afternoon (spotted by Kotaku) noted today was his last day at Nintendo.
Over a career spanning six console generations, Imamura worked on some of Nintendo’s biggest franchises such as Donkey Kong and Zelda. His work for the latter included designing the fan-favourite character Tingle, but it’s for his creation of the core Star Fox cast of characters that Imamura is best known.
In a memorable 2017 interview, Imamura recalled how the game was originally going to feature human protagonists until Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto intervened.
“Miyamoto overturned that and suggested making them animals,” he said. “We made the main character a fox because of its association with the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine near the head office, and then for the other characters, we chose from among the types of animals that appear in Japanese folk tales.