Before Takayuki Nakayama became the director behind Street Fighter 6, one of the most celebrated fighting games in years, he spent time early in his career doing something you would never guess: working with Nintendo on a Zelda game. That collaboration, it turns out, left a mark that still shapes how he makes games today.
From Capcom's early days to Hyrule
Nakayama has been at Capcom for over two decades, debuting with the PS2 adaptation of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind back in 2002. Around that same period, Capcom had a working relationship with Nintendo that produced some genuinely beloved portable Zelda titles. The studio developed the Oracle duology and then followed it up with The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for the Game Boy Advance.
That project put Nakayama in direct contact with Shigeru Miyamoto. And according to Nakayama himself, that contact was not just a professional footnote.
What Miyamoto told him that stuck
Speaking to Game Informer as part of coverage marking Zelda's 40th anniversary, Nakayama was direct about the impact. "I gained invaluable experience while working on The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap," he said. "The advice I received from Shigeru Miyamoto-san left a lasting impression on me, which has greatly shaped the way I approach game development even today. He is, and will always be, a North Star guiding all game creators."
He also took the moment to congratulate Nintendo on what he called an "incredible milestone" for the franchise.
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Capcom developed The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for Nintendo, releasing it on the Game Boy Advance in 2004. It was the studio's third Zelda project after the Oracle games.
Why this matters beyond the quote
Here's the thing: Miyamoto has never made a fighting game. His career sits firmly in platformers, action-adventure, and the kind of design philosophy built around player discovery and accessible joy. Street Fighter 6, by contrast, is a precision fighting game with frame-data depth and competitive systems that Miyamoto has never touched professionally.
And yet the director behind Street Fighter 6's official page credits that Nintendo collaboration as one of the most formative experiences of his career. That says something specific about what Miyamoto actually imparts when developers work with him. It is not genre knowledge. It is a design sensibility, a way of thinking about what a game should feel like for the person playing it.
Street Fighter 6 launched in June 2023 and drew widespread praise for making the franchise more accessible without stripping out the competitive depth. The key here is that accessibility-first thinking is very much in Miyamoto's wheelhouse, and you can trace a line from his influence to the World Tour mode and the Drive system that defined SF6's identity.
Zelda turns 40 and the tributes keep coming
Nakayama is far from the only developer who has spoken up around Zelda's 40th anniversary. The milestone has prompted a wave of reflections from creators across the industry, many of whom point to specific Nintendo games or specific conversations with Nintendo figures as turning points in how they think about design.
What makes Nakayama's comments stand out is the specificity. He is not offering a general tribute to Nintendo's legacy. He is pointing to a single project, a single set of conversations, and saying those exchanges still affect the decisions he makes today.
For anyone who has played The Minish Cap and wondered why a relatively short GBA game has such a tight, purposeful feel, it is worth knowing that the people who built it were operating under that same guiding philosophy. Browse the latest gaming news for more developer stories and game coverage as Zelda's anniversary continues to generate them. Make sure to check out more:
