Zelda Dev "Wasn't Too Pleased" About Working On 'A Link To The Past'

Image: Nintendo

Takaya Imamura, the legendary ex-Nintendo dev perhaps best known for his work on the Star Fox franchise, received an early gig at the company working on The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the SNES.

In an interview with Edge magazine (thanks, GamesRadar+), however, he apparently wasn't particularly keen to work on the title, and would have preferred to enjoy playing the final build as a fan. According to Imamura, the QA for the game was "really tough", and he struggles to play A Link to the Past to this day without having flashbacks to its development.

"To tell the truth, when I was asked to help out on the Zelda team, I wasn't too pleased about it. I didn't really want to, and the reason was because I wanted to enjoy the game when it was finished, as a player. I can remember that feeling even now.

"I also remember that the debugging, the QA, was really tough, having to do the same thing over and over again. I still really don't want to play that game; the testing was that difficult. Even now, if I just jump into the game for a minute or so, the feeling comes back. It's like PTSD or something."

He also recalls that despite being busy with another project at the time, he was called in to help out with the development of a new Zelda game after the previous title had performed so well, with president Hiroshi Yamauchi pushing for development to be completed in a timely manner.

Quite the sacrifice, we're sure you'll agree. We imagine it must be strange for any developer to play their own game, but it seems like Imamura just can't bring himself to enjoy A Link to the Past without conjuring up memories of his involvement in its development.