Very sad news. A true hacker. Started programming on a programmable calculator, with which he made games for his classmates. After he got himself a Commodore PET, he went to Nintendo claiming he can make games for them, and so he did.
> Iwata: Disassembling! Wow, that really brings back memories. I remember getting my first computer, which was a PET, and disassembling it to try and analyze it. We didn't have printers at the time, so I wrote everything on the screen by hand. I really can't believe I did that. (laughs) That's how I found out what was going on inside.
> Iwata: It just so happens that a computer and the Famicom system had a similar CPU. That's why when I started working with Nintendo, I knew about the 6502 better than anybody else in the company.
Iwata was apparently a legendary programmer. We've learned bits and pieces of his prowess in translated interviews over the years.
Iwata was a lead programmer on Earthbound/Mother 2 (my favourite game of all time). The game went through a troubled development and if you trust the impressions of Itoi, the lead designer, Iwata's incredible skills saved the game from cancellation. An Earthbound fan translated a Famitsu interview from Mother 2's initial release where he talks about programming a bit. https://yomuka.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/weekly-famitsu-septe...
EDIT: More here: http://earthboundcentral.com/2013/03/itoi-iwata-discuss-moth...
“When I’m parting with a friend, regardless of the circumstances, I find it best to just say, ‘See you later.’ We’ll meet again. After all, we’re friends.
That’s right—nothing unusual about it. I’ll see you later.
You went on a trip far, far away, even though it was planned for many years from now. You wore your best outfit and said ‘Sorry for the short notice,’ though you didn’t say it out loud.
You always put yourself last, after you’d finished helping everyone else. You were so generous as a friend that this trip might be your very first selfish act.
I still can’t grasp what’s happened. It feels like I could still get a light-hearted e-mail asking me out to lunch at any moment—after you’ve made sure lunch wouldn’t disrupt my schedule, of course.
You can invite me out whenever you want. I’ll invite you, too.
So for now, let’s plan on meeting again. You can call me up whenever you like, and I’ll give you a call, too. I still have a lot to talk to you about, and if I come up with any particularly good ideas, I’ll let you know.
So let’s meet again.
No–I suppose we’re already meeting. Right here, right now.”
The fact that Iwata-san's passing is being mourned by so many around the world really speaks to his contributions to gaming, and also to the fact that video games are already - and have been for 30+ years - a true art form.
I'll probably post this as a separate submission, but EarthBound's programming was sublime. Most of the actual native 65C816 code was just a VM, and the actual game was written in a high-level language that targeted the VM.
Earthbound's amazing. Don't let the cutesy pixel art fool you --- there's a lot more to it than first appears. And the end game boss is, like, one of the most disturbing ever.
My only complaint is that it is a bit long. It'd be nice to have some cheats that would let you level up more quickly, in order to get through the story a bit more briskly. But even so it's totally worth playing, and has a killed soundtrack.
First time I played it as a kid, it took me about 4-5 days to play it start to finish. Now that I've played through it at least a dozen times since then, I can do it in about 2.
This is about normal for a SNES-era RPG.
The end boss is maybe one of the best end bosses I've ever seen in a game, the music is absolutely amazing, and the characters are wonderful.
I don't want to say anything more because not only will it be a spoiler, but it may not even make sense out of context... and once you play Earthbound, you will know exactly what I mean.
I still haven't played earthbound (iirc it wasnt published in europe) and I'm thinking of trying this romhack which apparently improves the controls. Can anyone whos played the original comment if this is a good idea?
The trouble with buying them legally is you can't mod them. Well, I guess you could buy it and then just to find a ROM and hack that and be morally in the clear.
Mother is basically unplayable in 2015. The encounter rate is beyond ridiculous. I'm a little surprised they released it unmodified. Shortly before the official Nintendo release this year, someone put out a great hack that makes the game actually enjoyable. If you're going to play Mother, play this version.
If we're posting romhacks, this super metroid hack is absolutely amazing. An entirely new tileset, an all-new much larger map, new mechanics, AI, it could be super metroid 2. Highly recommended if you enjoyed the original. Oh, and the ending. The ending!
I can't speak to the quality of that hack, but it does sound like a godsend. In the original, you have to open the menu to talk to someone (Menu -> Talk To) or to open something (Menu -> Check). Yes, they're separate commands. You can't talk to a chest, and you can't check a person. If you're too far away, it pop up a dialog saying "No problem here" that you have to dismiss and navigate the menu to try again. It's crazy annoying.
I remember waiting for it to come out after reading everything about it in Nintendo Power for months (even to the point of asking them why the Octopus Eraser turned into a Pencil Eraser). It was a great and funny game. I'm glad he saved it, because a lot of us have enjoyed it over the years.
That game really rewards exploration. There are hilarious jokes hidden everywhere... even on the back of billboards :)
> Iwata: That was fun for me, too. At the time, when someone came to me and said, "I'm having trouble because there isn't enough memory," I was—to be honest—really happy. (laughs) Seeing if you could achieve programming for the same functions with a smaller amount of memory was one way for a programmer to show off.
> Miyamoto: We were like, "If we just leave it to Iwata-san, he'll take care of it." (laughs)
This quote is great and especially in the Japanese where showing off is generally frowned upon at all cost (lest you do it in subtle, generally sneaky, sociably acceptable way).
There's a reason the Famicom (NES) CPU was similar to the 6502 -- Ricoh copied it. They removed the BCD mode because it wasn't necessary on a game console and more importantly, MOS's patents only covered that portion of the logic.
I don't remember if there's evidence for this, but I believe the experience of Iwata and the rest of the HAL Laboratory crew with the 6502 led to them choosing it for the Famicom system. There are certainly plenty of PET and VIC-20 games they developed, including this one with his name hidden in it:
Edit: I found a PET quote from Iwata Asks.
http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/4/0
> Iwata: Disassembling! Wow, that really brings back memories. I remember getting my first computer, which was a PET, and disassembling it to try and analyze it. We didn't have printers at the time, so I wrote everything on the screen by hand. I really can't believe I did that. (laughs) That's how I found out what was going on inside.
> Iwata: It just so happens that a computer and the Famicom system had a similar CPU. That's why when I started working with Nintendo, I knew about the 6502 better than anybody else in the company.