During Super Metroid’s development, Nintendo was still located at its previous headquarters in Higashiyama. That building “became like a boarding house for the Super Metroid team,” according to Sakamoto. “It got to the stage where I really don’t remember going home at all! There was a nap room where it was okay to sleep, but sometimes it was full [of sleeping, overworked Super Metroid staff] – those were the worst times, when I wanted to sleep but couldn’t, and I didn’t have time to go home!”
“There were always between ten and fifteen of us in the office through the night, so we had to take naps in turns. The nap room wasn’t being cleaned or looked after at all, because we were always using it; one morning staff from another area came to wake us up and told us that the room smelled like a zoo. Another Nintendo employee put a room freshener in the nap room, but that only made the place pong even worse. Everyone in Nintendo gave us funny looks,” Sakamoto said with a laugh. “It’s quite sad having only these kinds of memories!” |
