Former Nintendo Power Artist Explains Credits in Star Fox 64 and Star Fox 64 3D

Former Nintendo Power artist Benimaru Itoh has explained the reason behind his mysterious appearance in the credits for Star Fox 64 and Star Fox 64 3D. Itoh originally created the official Star Fox comic adaptation published in Nintendo Power magazine in 1993. Shigeru Miyamoto and other Nintendo staff initially hired Itoh for the comic because they liked his stylized drawings of Mario from Shogakukan official game guidebooks.

Because the original Super Nintendo title was a 3D shooting game equipped with an FX chip and lacked an official side story, Miyamoto requested that Itoh develop the story freely. Itoh followed the game concepts of the Arwing and the Lylat System while creating the rest of the lore on his own. He introduced Fox's love interest Fara, gave Andross a tragic backstory, and proposed the home planet name Papetoon, which was based on George Pal and puppet animation. Itoh also came up with the name for the G-Diffuser anti-gravity device used in the Arwings.

Although not everything from the Nintendo Power comic is considered canon today, Nintendo kept using details like Papetoon and the G-Diffuser name in subsequent titles. As a result, Nintendo decided to credit Itoh on the Nintendo 64 sequel and its remake, even though he had long moved on to work at Creatures and HAL Laboratory on various Pokemon and Kirby games.