Within 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 type of gauntlet-laying that will have any self-respecting Nintendo fan click on their knuckles and shut their Bulbapedia tab in a ‘problem accepted’ type of manner. And but, 250 pages later, I can truthfully say that it rang true.
‘Tremendous Nintendo’, to convey 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 inventive you may consider (and those you may’t) to clarify how among 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 e book to do it.
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 in regards to the firm as an entire.
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 major 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 e book presents the Home of Mario not as an organization that is out of contact with opponents, however one which’s all the time trying to what’s subsequent — even when ‘subsequent’ is a cardboard piano.
The Nintendo fanboy in me all the time 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.
Take the chapter on Kirby, which is used as a manner 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, pc programmer, and gamer, to paraphrase his iconic introductory quote. By compiling phrases from Miyamoto, Itoi and others near him (primarily from Hobonichi’s fantastic e book, Ask Iwata), MacDonald balances Iwata’s business and private impacts. It is becoming that the chapter ends on Miyamoto’s reminiscences of their late-night meals and shared sweets reasonably than spectacular gross sales figures for Wii and DS.
The e book is constructed on one of the vital 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 take a seat down with the inventive 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 previous builders turning wheels and flipping switches whereas the top outcome appears like magic from the skin.
There are many little inner-working nuggets peppered all through the e book, and I do not need to spoil them right here, but it surely’s thrilling to listen to among the firm’s longest-serving designers speak anecdotally about their perceptions of choose merchandise lengthy earlier than they launched. Shinya Takahashi has an inventory of manufacturing credit so long as your arm, so studying about his pre-launch worries in regards to the Change, 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.
Effectively-worn tales of Miyamoto’s Zelda inspiration stemming from his time exploring forests as a toddler are blended with lesser-known particulars, like Koizumi confessing he designed Mario Sunshine’s splashy give attention to the again of his reminiscences of summer time holidays spent by the water. You will 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 e book places one factor above all others throughout, it is that Nintendo’s sense of enjoyable, and our sense of play, will endlessly be its most interesting function.
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 out there now to pre-order.
Jim got here to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, regardless of his insistence that The Minish Cap is the perfect Zelda sport and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (sure, actually), he has continued to jot down information and options on the positioning ever since.
