Yoshiaki Koizumi has quickly become one of Nintendo's brightest new stars.
Having begun his career working on artwork in game manuals, Koizumi quickly progressed to formulating the stories in some of Nintendo's most famous franchises.
In recent years — and guided personally by Shigeru Miyamoto — Koizumi has been responsible for directing some of Nintendo's most striking and innovative titles, including Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and Super Mario Sunshine.
In late 2007, Koizumi's work reached new critical and commercial heights, with the release of Super Mario Galaxy, which quickly became not only the fastest-selling Mario title in history, but also the most critically-acclaimed videogame of all time.
Many of Nintendo's early staff were programmers or had studied in disciplines related to computer hardware and software development. The exception was Shigeru Miyamoto, who was originally hired as the company's first staff artist. Miyamoto transformed game development at Nintendo and brought new disciplines to bear on the process itself.
Yoshiaki Koizumi was similar to Miyamoto in several respects: he came from an art background (having studied film, drama and animation at the Osaka University of Arts) and had little exposure to the world of videogames prior to Nintendo (the first game he played was Super Mario Bros., which he played in college, despite the Famicom launching when he was in sixth grade).
Ironically, Koizumi's first gaming experience was not entirely positive. He found himself constantly dying in World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. The game seemed difficult to Koizumi, primarily because it was so unforgiving; Mario died after only one hit. Instead, he preferred The Legend of Zelda, because it was possible to survive a little longer, with Link having three hearts at his disposal.
Koizumi joined Nintendo soon after graduating from Osaka University of Arts' Visual Concept Planning Department. Although his ambition was to become a film director, he saw videogames as a new form of dramatic expression; it would be possible, he thought, to create a unique kind of drama that could not be experienced through movies alone.
The first project that came Koizumi's way was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the SNES console. Far from being involved in development of the game itself, Koizumi was given a task that he was uniquely qualified for: he had to find a way to tie the game's many complex gameplay elements together, through the creation of a cohesive narrative.
Nintendo's games were always centered around gameplay experiences and story was considered to be largely secondary. When Koizumi joined the Zelda team, he discovered that the game contained many elements that had no relationship in particular (other than being relevant to gameplay). The key was to bring these elements together by giving them a reason to exist (and to be logically related to one another). This task resulted in the creation of many Zelda staples (including major story elements, such as the goddesses and the various symbols that represented them). In addition to contributing to Zelda's storyline, Koizumi was also responsible for writing the game's manual and putting together its artwork.
This process of tying gameplay elements together through a cohesive story has since developed into a particular area of design, known as "event design". However, when Koizumi joined Nintendo, there were few games that required such attention. After contributing to these areas in A Link to the Past, Koizumi shouldered the vast majority of story development in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on the GameBoy.
Koizumi often thought that games could be infused with more complex, detailed stories. He wanted characters to come alive through their interactions with each other, as well as their overall back-stories. As he was increasingly being given free license to develop these aspects, Koizumi attempted to inject more detail into his work. However, Nintendo's EAD group were often not interested in the finer points of storytelling; to them, gameplay came first and the narrative was largely a function that brought overall cohesiveness to the project. Narrative supported gameplay, but was not a desirable end in and of it self.
As a result, Koizumi was told that story elements should not dominate the games; they should always play a supporting role. Koizumi responded to this by sneaking more detailed story elements under the radar. And this, in turn, gave birth to another element that permeated several Nintendo titles: rather than have too many narrative elements unfold in front of the player all the time, the player would be able to trigger titbits of story by either talking to non-player characters or simply "listening" to them have their own conversations. In this way, Koizumi could inject the game worlds with rich histories and detailed personalities, without constantly bombarding the player. In effect, the player would only ever reveal as much story as he or she wanted to, given that these elements needed to be physically activated during gameplay.
Later EAD titles, such as Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask were full of these "player-triggered story elements". Koizumi has taken credit for this trend in Nintendo games since the SNES days, although he has acknowledged that Shigeru Miyamoto is not always pleased with his emphasis on story.
Yoshiaki Koizumi (photo by e.delage)
In recent years — and guided personally by Shigeru Miyamoto — Koizumi has been responsible for directing some of Nintendo's most striking and innovative titles, including Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and Super Mario Sunshine.
In late 2007, Koizumi's work reached new critical and commercial heights, with the release of Super Mario Galaxy, which quickly became not only the fastest-selling Mario title in history, but also the most critically-acclaimed videogame of all time.
An Unlikely Candidate
Many of Nintendo's early staff were programmers or had studied in disciplines related to computer hardware and software development. The exception was Shigeru Miyamoto, who was originally hired as the company's first staff artist. Miyamoto transformed game development at Nintendo and brought new disciplines to bear on the process itself.
Yoshiaki Koizumi was similar to Miyamoto in several respects: he came from an art background (having studied film, drama and animation at the Osaka University of Arts) and had little exposure to the world of videogames prior to Nintendo (the first game he played was Super Mario Bros., which he played in college, despite the Famicom launching when he was in sixth grade).
Ironically, Koizumi's first gaming experience was not entirely positive. He found himself constantly dying in World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. The game seemed difficult to Koizumi, primarily because it was so unforgiving; Mario died after only one hit. Instead, he preferred The Legend of Zelda, because it was possible to survive a little longer, with Link having three hearts at his disposal.
Koizumi joined Nintendo soon after graduating from Osaka University of Arts' Visual Concept Planning Department. Although his ambition was to become a film director, he saw videogames as a new form of dramatic expression; it would be possible, he thought, to create a unique kind of drama that could not be experienced through movies alone.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Nintendo's games were always centered around gameplay experiences and story was considered to be largely secondary. When Koizumi joined the Zelda team, he discovered that the game contained many elements that had no relationship in particular (other than being relevant to gameplay). The key was to bring these elements together by giving them a reason to exist (and to be logically related to one another). This task resulted in the creation of many Zelda staples (including major story elements, such as the goddesses and the various symbols that represented them). In addition to contributing to Zelda's storyline, Koizumi was also responsible for writing the game's manual and putting together its artwork.
This process of tying gameplay elements together through a cohesive story has since developed into a particular area of design, known as "event design". However, when Koizumi joined Nintendo, there were few games that required such attention. After contributing to these areas in A Link to the Past, Koizumi shouldered the vast majority of story development in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on the GameBoy.
Koizumi often thought that games could be infused with more complex, detailed stories. He wanted characters to come alive through their interactions with each other, as well as their overall back-stories. As he was increasingly being given free license to develop these aspects, Koizumi attempted to inject more detail into his work. However, Nintendo's EAD group were often not interested in the finer points of storytelling; to them, gameplay came first and the narrative was largely a function that brought overall cohesiveness to the project. Narrative supported gameplay, but was not a desirable end in and of it self.
As a result, Koizumi was told that story elements should not dominate the games; they should always play a supporting role. Koizumi responded to this by sneaking more detailed story elements under the radar. And this, in turn, gave birth to another element that permeated several Nintendo titles: rather than have too many narrative elements unfold in front of the player all the time, the player would be able to trigger titbits of story by either talking to non-player characters or simply "listening" to them have their own conversations. In this way, Koizumi could inject the game worlds with rich histories and detailed personalities, without constantly bombarding the player. In effect, the player would only ever reveal as much story as he or she wanted to, given that these elements needed to be physically activated during gameplay.
Later EAD titles, such as Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask were full of these "player-triggered story elements". Koizumi has taken credit for this trend in Nintendo games since the SNES days, although he has acknowledged that Shigeru Miyamoto is not always pleased with his emphasis on story.