Takashi Nishiyama

• 1. Introduction

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  Takashi Nishiyama built one of the fighting genre's signature moves, the Hadouken, out of an idea borrowed from outer space. The special attack he gave his players in Street Fighter took its energy blast from the Wave Motion Gun. That weapon was fired by a giant vessel in the 1970s anime series Space Battleship Yamato. Nishiyama, sometimes credited onscreen as "Piston" Takashi Nishiyama or simply T. Nishiyama, spent his career at three companies before founding his own. He worked for Irem, Capcom and SNK, then started the studio Dimps. What made three separate game makers want the same designer? And why did the man who created Street Fighter's signature move never help make its sequel?

• 2. Arcade Beginnings At Irem

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  In 1982, Nishiyama worked on the game design of Moon Patrol, a scrolling shooter for Irem. It became one of the first games built with parallax scrolling, layering moving backgrounds to create an illusion of depth.

  In 1984, Nishiyama designed Kung-Fu Master, released in Japan as Spartan X. The game drew from two Hong Kong martial arts films. One was Wheels on Meals, the Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung feature also called Spartan X in Japan. The other was Bruce Lee's Game of Death, from 1972. Kung-Fu Master is widely regarded as the first beat 'em up game. Its formula then shaped martial arts games throughout the rest of the decade.

  The NES version, titled Kung Fu, was programmed by a Nintendo team under the direction of Shigeru Miyamoto. That experience later shaped his work on Super Mario Bros., released in 1985. The same influence carried into Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, released in 1987.

• 3. Building Street Fighter At Capcom

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  Capcom's founder, Kenzo Tsujimoto, invited Nishiyama to join the company while Kung-Fu Master was still in development. Nishiyama left Irem and joined Capcom before that game was finished, then was formally hired once it shipped.

  In 1986, Nishiyama designed Trojan, an arcade game that expanded on the mechanics he had built for Kung-Fu Master. Its home port on the NES added a one-on-one fighting mode, the first time any Capcom game had included one.

  Nishiyama then built a new game concept entirely around the boss encounters from Kung-Fu Master, and that idea grew into the Street Fighter franchise. Alongside Hiroshi Matsumoto, he directed the original Street Fighter, released in 1987. He left Capcom soon after, and when Street Fighter II: The World Warrior went into development, another team carried the series forward without him.

• 4. Neo Geo And Fatal Fury

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  SNK invited Nishiyama to join the company after he left Capcom, and the Neo Geo system became his first project there. He proposed the initial concept for an arcade system built on ROM cartridges, similar to a home console. He then pushed for a home version of that same hardware.

  His goal was to make the system cheaper in markets such as China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Central America and South America. Dedicated arcade cabinets were difficult to sell in those regions because of piracy.

  Nishiyama then created Fatal Fury as a spiritual successor to the original Street Fighter. He also worked on the Art of Fighting and The King of Fighters franchises, along with the run and gun series Metal Slug. In 2000, Nishiyama left SNK to start out on his own.

• 5. Founding Dimps

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  Nishiyama's studio, Dimps, released Demolish Fist in 2003, with him credited as executive producer. The company followed with Seven Samurai 20XX in 2004 and The Rumble Fish in 2005.

  Dimps later worked on Freedom Wars in 2014, then Dragon Ball Xenoverse in 2015 and Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 in 2016. In 2018, the studio released Soulcalibur VI, keeping Nishiyama's design work in front of players decades after his first arcade project.