Speak about Intelligent Systems means talking about Nintendo: even if on a legal level it is an autonomous entity, this software house is to all intents and purposes an appendix of Mario’s house as much as any other collaborator not directly owned, not even HAL. This is because Intelligent Systems, which since October 2013 has had an independent building a few kilometers from the Nintendo building (therefore in Kyoto), was born and grew within the company’s Research and Development department: it represents a sort of external continuation of it. It was officially founded almost thirty-eight years ago, in December 1986: initially it included around ten employees, in 2024 it is made up – according to the official website – of 198 members.
Intelligent Systems, in addition to being a great software house, is the last remnant of a part of Nintendo that almost no longer exists. For anyone who doesn’t know it, however, here is a very brief summary, because the works of this company are much better known than the name: Intelligent Systems has been developing exclusively for Nintendo consoles for around forty years, and its most famous and best-selling series are Paper Mario, WarioWare, Wars (in its various incarnations, from Famicom Wars to Advance Wars) and, above all, Fire Emblem. Over the years the company has evolved, it has developed for both portable and fixed consoles, but it has managed to grow and expand without losing its identity and the quality that distinguishes it. An apparently obvious observation, which however hides a sad truth: various Japanese software houses, over time, have not been able to “remain themselves” first due to the arrival of three dimensions and then, more widely, with rising development costs in the high definition era.
On May 23rd, the modernization of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Portal will arrive on Nintendo Switch (we previewed it a few days ago), one of the company’s most celebrated titles, initially released on GameCube in 2004. Now it’s time to remember how Intelligent Systems arrived at this latest publication.
Intelligent Systems and R&D1
It all began when Tohru Narihiro, born in 1963, joined Nintendo: at the time he was a young programmer at R&D1, and initially he was responsible for converting two prestigious titles created by the division (Metroid and Kid) onto the NES, the original format being that of the Disk System. Icarus). There birth of Intelligent Systems it is not engraved in stone: the official date is – as mentioned – December 1986, but there is nothing to seal it. Simply, Narihiro’s skill is so appreciated that he is tasked with generating software to develop on the NES (to also be shared with third parties), a task quite different from “simple” video game development: this is how the company was born. Narihiro is so esteemed that one of his projects is accepted and shaped in collaboration between Intelligent Systems, which begins to recruit members outside the world of programming, and R&D1: thus Famicom Wars is born, whose bones are Intelligent Systems, and whose creative (graphics, design direction) is entrusted to R&D1. A combination that will be repeated over time and which in some ways, with different nomenclatures, still persists today.
At this point a parenthesis is necessary to explain what R&D1 was: initially it was just called R&D, then, when Nintendo began to expand and dedicate itself to different projects at the same time, different divisions were born. The most prestigious, in fact, was R&D1, the one led by Gunpei Yokoi: mainly responsible for Game & Watch first and then Game Boy, on a software level the most representative titles are the aforementioned Metroid and Kid Icarus, with the addition of Super Mario Land. They are also the creators of the Wario character, and the subsequent Wario Land series. The pinnacle of R&D1 is reached when a young game designer, Yokoi’s protégé, creates Donkey Kong (the arcade) and Mario Bros in sequence. That designer is none other than Shigeru Miyamoto, whose talent is so disruptive as to guarantee him a division ” staff”, R&D4, which over time changes its name to EAD and, well, makes Nintendo… “Nintendo”. Miyamoto’s rise overshadows R&D1, which tends to become smaller and smaller over the years: the latest great masterpiece, programmed by Intelligent Systems, is Super Metroid for SNES. Then it becomes SPD, in 2015 it merges with EAD and gives life to EPD: the residues of the great R&D1, internally at Nintendo, are now called EPD7, and need external collaborations to carry forward their projects (such as Metroid Dread, designed together to the Iberians of MercurySteam).
Intelligent Systems post-R&D1
The line between R&D1 and Intelligent Systems is blurry. As we said, Famicom Wars is a collaboration between the two: in the same way Fire Emblem was developed, whose first episode arrived on Famicom in 1990, sculpted in collaboration between R&D1 creatives and Intelligent Systems programmers. This saga, which will take a long time to reach the West, and even longer to find glory there, is still alive today, and is perhaps the most representative of the company. In the years of NES and SNES it seems that Intelligent Systems is divided into various internal teams: Team Emblem (quite explicit), Team Battle Clash (which deals with puzzle games), and Team Shikamaru (Wario Land), which in its once contains Team Deer Force, the one from Metroid. They are all supervised until 1996 by Gunpei Yokoi, which left Nintendo that year. The joint efforts of R&D1 and Intelligent Systems to create a polygonal Metroid on Nintendo 64 prove to be in vain; however, in that period another pillar of the company was born and grew, namely Paper Mario (published in 2000).
To complete the pillars of the company, once again in collaboration with the former R&D1, in the figure of Goro Abe, WarioWare arrived in 2003. Another series, like Paper Mario, which is still alive and breathing, and is still developed at Intelligent Systems, as well as directed by Abe himself (Nintendo employee). In short, wanting to crystallize the most important sagas of the company, these would be Fire Emblem (at the top), followed by Paper Mario and WarioWare, with Wars off the podium. Intelligent Systems has also dedicated itself to “minor” projects, such as the unfortunate Code Name: STEAM, or the puzzle series Pushmo (halted since 2015). He has also rarely collaborated with companies other than Nintendo (always on Nintendo consoles): we remember Cubivore (Atlus) for GameCube, and Dragon Quest Wars (Square Enix) on DS. These digressions, however, as staff and development costs increase, become increasingly rare: the last project outside the four main sagas dates back to 2015, and on Switch they preferred to publish two Fire Emblem games, two Paper Mario games and two of WarioWare, rather than trying to succeed with something new.
Key figures and future
The founder of Intelligent Systems, as already mentioned, is Tohru Narihiro: starting as a programmer, over the years he has been director and project producer, both in the Wars saga and in the Fire Emblem saga, of which he is still general producer, also in the more recent Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Fire Emblem Engage.
Another prominent element is Ryouichi Kitanishi, the chairman of the board of directors (also president of the company until 2010): he started by directing Soccer for the NES, and later was involved in the production of various Paper Mario, WarioWare and Fire Emblem. Since 2010 he has “only” carried out administrative tasks. Alongside him is Toshiyuki Nakamura, who replaced him as president of the company in 2010: he too was initially a programmer at Nintendo (Tennis was his first job), in the past he worked on the first Paper Mario as Project Manager .
Among the main creatives we highlight Ryota Kawade, director of Paper Mario, its successor Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and the Wii puzzle/platformer Super Paper Mario. From then on, the production of a little-known project (at least in the West) but which lasted for years began, namely Fire Emblem Chiper, a card game dedicated to the fantasy saga. Among contemporaries, Masahiko Nagaya, director of Paper Mario: The Origami King and designer on WarioWare: Net it Together!, and Toshiyuki Kusakihara, illustrator and director of Fire Emblem Three Houses, deserve to be highlighted. A Westerner also works within Intelligent Systems, Paul Patrashcu, who also had the honor of directing one of the company’s strangest projects, the aforementioned Code Name: STEAM for 3DS.
The future of Intelligent Systems seems solid: there are now 200 employees, but their productions continue to have good success, both on a commercial and critical level. They still deal, as in the days of the NES, with creating tools and development kits for Nintendo consoles, even if there is a lot of secrecy on this topic. On a romantic level, for every enthusiast of the Japanese company, it is simply beautiful that Intelligent Systems exists: because in a certain sense it is the only manifestation of the former R&D1, and with it of Gunpei Yokoi, in the current scenario of the company. It is an apparatus that has detached itself from R&D1, but is also the only one to keep it alive in 2024, together with the few veterans of EPD7, who, however, unlike Intelligent Systems, are “forced” to collaborate with external companies to create their own projects.
