Picture: Damien McFerran / Nintendo LifeIn the introduction to Tremendous Nintendo: How One Japanese Firm Helped the World Have Enjoyable, Keza MacDonald makes a easy promise: over the course of the following 12 chapters, you will learn one thing you did not already know.
It is the sort of gauntlet-laying that may have any self-respecting Nintendo fan click on their knuckles and shut their Bulbapedia tab in a ‘problem accepted’ sort of means. And but, 250 pages later, I can actually say that it rang true.
‘Tremendous Nintendo’, to deliver it down from its correct title, is the story of the corporate that everyone knows and love; it is also the story of us, people, and the way we play. The Guardian’s Video Video games Editor and former Editor-in-Chief at Kotaku UK compiles interviews with nearly each Nintendo artistic you may consider (and those you may’t) to clarify how a few of the business’s most iconic collection got here to be, whereas additionally reflecting on why these collection are necessary in wider tradition.
It is complete however by no means too dense, informative however approachable, and filled with an unwavering ardour for Nintendo that I would wager even the corporate’s greatest detractors would discover infectious. In brief, if you wish to study Nintendo, that is the ebook to do it.
Picture: Damien McFerran / Nintendo Life
Strictly talking, this is not a chronological walkthrough from A to B. It begins with the toy manufacturing of the Sixties and ’70s and ends with the event of Splatoon, however every game-focused chapter in between serves as a jumping-off level to clarify one thing bigger concerning the firm as a complete.
A chapter on Donkey Kong delves into the early design processes of a little-known artist known as Shigeru Miyamoto. A Metroid part additionally serves to dissect gender illustration in each Nintendo video games and the broader business. Animal Crossing acts as a chief case research demonstrating Nintendo’s behavior of sticking with an concept till its viewers finds it.
Be it the story of smash-hit successes like Wii Sports activities, or the corporate’s extra off-the-wall moments like LABO (no, LABO wasn’t only a fever dream), the ebook presents the Home of Mario not as an organization that is out of contact with rivals, however one which’s at all times seeking to what’s subsequent — even when ‘subsequent’ is a cardboard piano.
The Nintendo fanboy in me at all times likes viewing the corporate in relation to the bigger business, and MacDonald does a pleasant job of balancing the micro particulars of sport growth with the larger image. There are many locations which you can search for deep dives into particular titles and their growth, however Tremendous Nintendo actually shines in showcasing the private touches.
Picture: Damien McFerran / Nintendo Life
Take the chapter on Kirby, which is used as a means into discussing the much-missed Satoru Iwata. It is a poignant and heartfelt tribute shining the sunshine as a lot on Iwata the person as Iwata the designer — the company president, laptop programmer, and gamer, to paraphrase his iconic introductory quote. By compiling phrases from Miyamoto, Itoi and others near him (primarily from Hobonichi’s fantastic ebook, Ask Iwata), MacDonald balances Iwata’s industrial and private impacts. It is becoming that the chapter ends on Miyamoto’s recollections of their late-night meals and shared sweets slightly than spectacular gross sales figures for Wii and DS.
The ebook is constructed on some of the complete collections of interviews that I’ve seen in a very long time, many from MacDonald herself. The veteran journalist throws out tidbits from her chats with Miyamoto, Aonuma, Tezuka, and others, pulling from different works when she did not have an opportunity to sit down down with the artistic in query. Tremendous Nintendo threads every perspective collectively right into a cohesive entire, and it feels such as you’re getting a peek behind the wizard’s curtain, catching a glimpse of all of the outdated builders turning wheels and flipping switches whereas the tip end result seems to be like magic from the surface.
There are many little inner-working nuggets peppered all through the ebook, and I do not need to spoil them right here, but it surely’s thrilling to listen to a few of the firm’s longest-serving designers discuss anecdotally about their perceptions of choose merchandise lengthy earlier than they launched. Shinya Takahashi has a listing of manufacturing credit so long as your arm, so studying about his pre-launch worries concerning the Swap, about how he wasn’t totally on board with the enchantment of the design till the primary time he moved a prototype from docked to handheld, is fascinating.
Picture: Damien McFerran / Nintendo Life
Properly-worn tales of Miyamoto’s Zelda inspiration stemming from his time exploring forests as a baby are blended with lesser-known particulars, like Koizumi confessing he designed Mario Sunshine’s splashy deal with the again of his recollections of summer season holidays spent by the water. You may discover lots of these anecdotes elsewhere, however I extremely doubt that you have learn all of them.
By threading them into the story of the corporate, Tremendous Nintendo proves to be a really satisfying abstract of an organization that’s ever-changing and ever-growing. If this ebook places one factor above all others throughout, it is that Nintendo’s sense of enjoyable, and our sense of play, will ceaselessly be its most interesting characteristic.
Because of Faber for sending a complicated copy. Tremendous Nintendo: How One Japanese Firm Helped the World Have Enjoyable launches in North America on third February 2026 and within the UK on twelfth February 2026. It’s accessible now to pre-order.
Jim got here to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, regardless of his insistence that The Minish Cap is the most effective Zelda sport and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (sure, actually), he has continued to jot down information and options on the location ever since.
