6 Interesting Facts About Your Favourite Nintendo Games

Are you a fan of eSports? You must be familiar with Nintendo, thanks to the company’s current online service with numerous games suitable for almost everyone.

However, even if you grew up with offline gaming consoles, you must have a taste of Nintendo’s game selections as they are among the popular players in the field. So, the names Mario, Kirby or Yoshi in gaming aren’t strange to you. But, what else do you know about your favorite characters or games?

For instance, did you know that Mario was actually featured in 200+ games? Read on to discover more interesting facts about their games, the console, and the company.

The company is among the oldest players in the video games industry. The company ventured into the industry in the 1970s. However, the Japanese company has been around for over 125 years and their first business involved manufacturing playing cards and toys.

Today, the Switch and the Switch Online will keep you and your family entertained for as long as you want. The Switch online is the service that enables virtual multiplayer just like PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live.

Subscribing to this service opens a collection of iconic SNES and NES games including Brawl Brothers Super Earth Defense Force, Demon’s Crest, Kirby’s Dream Land 3, and others.

Princess Zelda was named after Zelda Fitzgerald

You are familiar with The Legend of Zelda, right? This classic might have been devised in Japan and inspired by the creator’s childhood but had other sources of inspiration too.

Basically, the enchanted forests in Hyrule mimic the rural village in Kyoto where Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the game, grew up interacting with the surrounding woodlands. Also, the game’s creator modeled his home in the numerous dungeons found in the game.

However, he gave the Hyrulian heroine, princess Zelda the name of the Alabaman novelist and feminist Zelda Fitzgerald. Zelda was also the wife of the American writer and novelist F. Scott.

Another interesting fact to note about Zelda the game is that it was the opposite of Mario, another classic. Now, the two games were released almost the same period. It is safe to say that the two games were designed simultaneously.

If you have played both, you will realize that Super Mario Bros involves a relatively straightforward mission. On the other hand, Zelda is complicated and puzzling.

Actually, some players of the original version complained that the game was confusing and lacked clear objectives. This forced Miyamoto to include a complicated cave level to earn the Link’s sword. Zelda is good for developing creativity and problem-solving.

Unfortunately, Shigeru Miyamoto is reported to have disclosed that he was disappointed by Zelda II. At an interview with Kotaku, a Japanese gaming site’s interviewers sought to find out if he made a poor game. He disclosed that The Adventure of Link didn’t match his projection. He felt that they could have done more in making the game more mysterious and challenging. The enemies in the game could have been bigger.

He, however, clarified that the NES software was unable to handle such. What is your best completion time for Zelda? Someone has hacked the entire Legend of Zelda at 27 minutes and 40 seconds.

• Nintendo didn’t think The Legend of Zelda will make it in America.
• Several elements, such as the chance for the player to create their dungeons, were dropped.

Final Fantasy Was Inspired By The Creator’s Desire to Retire

Final Fantasy is among the widely-known science fantasy and role-playing video games. The game was originally on Nintendo and the creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, had planned that he will retire from the video game industry in case his creation didn’t sell as desired.

Surprisingly, the initial sales were about 400,000 copies which were followed by a series of spin-offs and sequels. The latest Final Fantasy VII Remake was released in 2020. Today, Final Fantasy is among the video game franchises making the most revenue. As of 2019, its lifetime revenue was $10.9 billion.

As you may have guessed, Sakaguchi didn’t have to retire but served as President of Square USA.

PAC-MAN was inspired by Pizza

Who would have thought that the concept of eating pizza would inspire a fascinating game like Namco’s Pacman? But Toru Iwatan imagined that it would be fun to help a pizza with a missing slice to escape from ghosts chasing it along a maze while it feeds on a collection of dots on the way.

Now, the original name was Pakkuman and was coined from “paku-paku” the Japanese term used to describe the sound one produces when eating. The game came into the market as Puck-Man. But in North America, there were concerns that it might be corrupted by replacing “P” with “F” and making it abusive.

The First Jumping Character was Featured in Nintendo’s Donkey Kong

You may think that Donkey Kong is very basic. But it’s because you are judging it by modern standards. In the 1980s, coming up with a game that features a jumping character was a technical breakthrough. Nintendo’s Jumpman, who is widely known as Mario, was able to not only jump over hurdles but also climb ladders.

You should also note that it took about a decade after the release of Pong to attain this milestone. Many classic games are founded on this ability of characters to jump and the pioneer was Nintendo. No wonder, the company continues to offer innovative platforms and video games to date.

There was a failed Disk Drive Add on For Nintendo 64

To improve the lifespan of the Nintendo 64, the company kept releasing various types of peripherals including Rumple and Expansion Pak. What many of you might not know is that the company came up with a disk drive add on they called 64DD. This was supposed to take care of the cartridge issue with N64 and it came with the ability to play CD-ROMS.

With 64DD’s bigger memory, some games like Pokemon, Majora’s Mask, and Paper Mario were to be released on it. Unfortunately, this system didn’t sell in Japan as anticipated. That hindered the company from releasing it in other markets and the games had to be adjusted.

Kirby Was Originally Tinkle Popo

Ridiculous! Right? Probably we wouldn’t be talking about the puffball today. Luckily, the company figured out that the game might not make it in some markets, especially, America if they went with Tinkle Popo.

So, the name was changed. Many of Nintendo’s popular games had different names which were changed for one reason or another. Examples of such games include Grand Theft Auto whose original name was Race ‘n’ Chase, Doom was originally It’s Green and Pissed, while Q*bert was to be called Cubes.

With some extra knowledge about your favorite games, you’ll easily connect with your next iGame better. Which of these facts did you enjoy learning about?

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