March 3rd, 2016: To celebrate the return of Twilight Princess, now in HD on Wii U, we look back at the creative minds behind the epic franchise.

The biggest names behind The Legend of Zelda need little introduction. Any fan of the series, indeed any follower of the game industry on the whole, knows about Shigeru Miyamoto. By the same stroke, Eiji Aonuma is established far and wide as the second biggest name in Zelda history, having risen from the somewhat obscure Marvelous: Another Treasure Island to direct and produce many games in the series. Takashi Tezuka is another major talent, known for his influence on both Mario and Zelda games. And any Zelda follower could extoll the talents of composer Koji Kondo, whose music was part of the series since the original The Legend of Zelda hit the Famicom Disk System in 1986.

Yet they aren’t the only ones who’ve made The Legend of Zelda what it is today. With over twenty games spanning over twenty years, the series involves hundreds of artists, programmers, writers, composers, and designers who lend their talents. Some started big and some worked their way up gradually, but every one of them had a hand in the franchise’s history—and the odds are good that they’ll play larger and larger roles in Zelda’s future.

Below are eight individuals that, while not as well-known as Miyamoto or Aonuma, have played a critical role shaping the Zelda series over its decades-long run.

Yoshiaki Koizumi

Zelda Debut: Link’s Awakening - Script Writer

Most Recent Work: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D - Supervisor

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening holds a special place among fans of the series, perhaps because it wanders so far from the established Zelda chronicle. There’s no Triforce to be found or princess to be rescued. There’s just an island full of memorable characters for the heroic Link to meet and a tragic secret for him to uncover. Much of this was the work of Yoshiaki Koizumi, who devised the game’s storyline and tropical setting. His first encounter with Zelda came in penning a backstory for the manual of A Link to the Past, but Link’s Awakening saw him taking the Zelda mythos to new places. It wouldn’t be the last time.

Koizumi later served as one of several directors for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and he’s credited with creating the game’s innovative Z-targeting system. Yet he left a greater mark with the game’s follow-up, Majora’s Mask. In contrast to the familiar series trappings of Ocarina, Majora’s Mask finds Link in more personal constraints, struggling to save a world fated to vanish in three days. Along his journey, he witnesses other character facing their own losses and impending destruction. It’s easy to see the ties to Link’s Awakening—particularly when one notices that Koizumi co-directed the game with longtime Zelda steward Eiji Aonuma.

Koizumi returned to the seafaring style of Link’s Awakening with The Wind Waker, where he shared assistant-director duties with eight other staffers. Perhaps as a consequence, The Wind Waker isn’t as bleak in its outlook as Majora’s Mask or as harsh in its revelations as Link’s Awakening.

Sadly, Koizumi and The Legend of Zelda rarely crossed paths again, as he’s turned to the only Nintendo property that eclipses Zelda. One of the assistant directors on Super Mario 64, Koizumi rose to the director’s spot for Super Mario Sunshine as well as Super Mario Galaxy, and he produced both Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Super Mario 3D Land. During a 2011 segment of Nintendo’s Iwata Asks roundtable discussions, Koizumi joked about making another Zelda while Aonuma takes over the next Mario game, but that’s as close as he’s come to returning to the series.

Daiki Iwamoto

Zelda Debut: Ocarina of Time - Cinematic Programmer

Most Recent Work: The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes - Supervisor

Many game directors start in small roles on low-profile games. Daiki Iwamoto began his Nintendo career on an even humbler note: his first project wasn’t even released. Before he ever worked on Mario or Zelda titles, Iwamoto was the 3-D tool programmer for Star Fox 2. The original Star Fox boasted impressive 3-D graphics for a Super NES title, and Star Fox 2 pushed the system and the cartridge-based FX chip to new limits with its polygonal space battles. This would be its undoing. Nintendo decided that the game would detract from the upcoming Nintendo 64, and so they canceled a nearly finished Star Fox 2.

The experience wasn’t a loss, though. Iwamoto moved on to programming duties on Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and he oversaw the boss battles in Four Swords Adventures, the GameCube’s multiplayer installment of the series. Though he didn’t work on The Wind Waker, it was the game’s portable sequel, Phantom Hourglass, that first put him in charge of a Zelda title. As the first DS outing for the Zelda series, Phantom Hourglass adjusted the usual Zelda mechanics to accommodate the system’s touch-screen. It was no easy task, but Iwamoto and his team proved adept enough that Phantom Hourglass inspired a second DS outing.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks traded the sea exploration of Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass for a less orthodox adventure involving a train, inspired by a children’s book that Aonuma read to his son. Iwamoto devised the game’s setting, unfolding it many years after the events of Phantom Hourglass and depicting a new version of Link encountering Princess Zelda (not Tetra from the Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, mind you). Most recently, Iwamoto shifted to consoles to help plan The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Hidemaro Fujibayashi

Zelda Debut: Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons - Director, Planner

Most Recent Work: Skyward Sword - Director

Many of Zelda’s current handlers started their careers with Nintendo, but Hidemaro Fujibayashi began his at Capcom. His first projects were never released in North America; he started off in 1995 on Gakko no Kowai Uwasa: Hanako-san ga Kita, a simple interactive movie based on an animated TV series, and then worked on one of many, many Mahjong titles headlined by Yosuke Ide (who was to Japan’s mahjong games in the 1990s what John Madden was to America’s football titles). He then directed Magical Tetris Challenge, the first Capcom title on the Nintendo 64. If it wasn’t a notable game, it was a sign of collaborations to come.

Fujibayashi soon found himself at the heart of an unlikely project: two portable Zelda titles developed by Capcom. After pitching numerous ideas to Shigeru Miyamoto, Fujibayashi became the project director at Flagship, a developer that legendary arcade creator Yoshiki Okamoto founded with help from Capcom, Nintendo, and Sega. There, Fujibayashi went to work on what would become The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. For the two narratively connected games, he devised an easy method for sharing content: a password received after beating one game unlocks and alternate version of the other game, complete with a bonus ending.

Capcom and Flagship’s Zelda games continued to occupy Fujibayashi as he directed The Minish Cap as well as the Game Boy Advance version of A Link to the Past and its Four Swords mode. Flagship disbanded in 2007, and most of its employees went to Capcom. Fujibayashi, however, jumped to Nintendo, where he served as sub director on Phantom Hourglass. This readied him to move from portable Zelda titles to his greatest duty yet: directing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Yoshiyuki Oyama

Zelda Debut: Majora’s Mask - Character Designer

Most Recent Work: Skyward Sword - Lead: Object Design Team

Fans of Majora’s Mask may recall Mikau, a tragically inclined Zora guitarist. They might even remember Gabora, a towering blacksmith who helps forge Link’s weapons. Though these two were mere supporting characters, they were also the first video-game creations of Yoshiyuki Oyama, one of the designers for the frequently doomed cast of Majora’s Mask. Oyama didn’t limit himself to the morbid, though. His next creation was the affable Professor E. Gadd of Luigi’s Mansion—or, as the character was tellingly named in the Japanese version, Professor Oyama.

After dabbling in Pikmin design, Oyama returned to the Zelda series. He created several characters for the Wind Waker, his favorite being the eccentric mini-game showman Salvatore. Oyama jumped to the darker side by heading up the enemy designers for Twilight Princess, aiming to creature a certain narrative pace with the steady progression of foes Link encounters.

Oyama moved positions again for Skyward Sword. While he’s listed as leader of the object design team, his duties apparently grew broader. In an installment of Iwata Asks, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi jokingly referred to Oyama as a “high-school gang leader” who linked together various parts of the development staff. Perhaps it won’t be long before Oyama directs an entire Zelda game.

Toshihiko Nakago

Zelda Debut: The Legend of Zelda - Technical Programmer

Most Recent Work: Skyward Sword - Supervisor

Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka are well-known pillars of Nintendo, and they’ve worked together on numerous titles since Super Mario Bros. in 1985. Miyamoto’s influence is documented widely, and Tezuka also had a hand in Zelda, scripting the earliest games and directing them up until Link’s Awakening. Yet there’s a third member of what Nintendo President Satoru Iwata describes as the company’s “golden triangle,” and his name is Toshihiko Nakago.

Nakago began his career in the 1980s at a Nintendo subsidiary called Systems Research and Development, where he helped create decidedly non-game software for office computers. With the advent of the Famicom, Nintendo needed programmers, and Nakago turned his attention to games. Alongside Miyamoto and Tezuka, Nakago helped create such titles as Super Mario Bros., Excitebike, Donkey Kong Jr. Math, and, of course, The Legend of Zelda. Nakago handled much of the technical side for the games, squeezing the most expressive graphics possible out of the console’s first-generation limitations. He was the programming director for A Link to the Past before moving on to a supervisory position with Ocarina of Time and later titles.

Nakago now serves as president of Systems Research and Development, and he’s effectively turned over design work and programming duties to Nintendo’s newer generation. Yet he supervises much of Nintendo’s current output, including such Zelda installments as Twilight Princess and Spirit Tracks. In that capacity, he still works alongside his comrades from the early days of Mario and Zelda.

Yoichi Yamada

Zelda Debut: The Legend of Zelda - Co-Director

Most Recent Work: The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes - Game Planning Lead

Another long-term architect of The Legend of Zelda, Yoichi Yamada started off with one of the more contentious games in the series. He and Tadashi Sugiyama directed Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, which spawns debate even today with its side-scrolling departures from typical Zelda viewpoint. Yamada also had a hand in another divergent Nintendo sequel, as he designed levels for Yume Kojo: Dokidoki Panic, the game that would become Super Mario Bros. 2 in the West.

Yamada’s collaborator Sugiyama moved to other Nintendo sectors and produced games from F-Zero X to Wii Fit and Star Fox 64. Yamada would work on other titles as well, Super Mario 64 and Star Fox among them, but he never strayed too far from The Legend of Zelda. After working on Wave Race 64, he co-directed Ocarina of Time with Yoshiaki Koizumi, Eiji Aonuma, and Kid Icarus creator Toru Osawa. In fact, it’s hard to find a Zelda game from the past decade that doesn’t credit Yamada in some capacity: as a supervisor in The Minish Cap, as one of ten assistant directors on The Wind Waker, as a sub-director on Twilight Princess, and most recently a planner on Skyward Sword.

Yusuke Nakano

Zelda Debut: Ocarina of Time - Illustrator

Most Recent Work: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D - Illustration

Print-quality checking may not be the most glamorous job in Nintendo’s corporate hierarchy, but it was an important stepping stool for a young Yusuke Nakano. When the company sought illustrators for Nintendo 64 projects, Nakano’s art impressed Yoshiaki Koizumi enough to be part of Ocarina of Time. Nakano created many of the illustrations for the game, including the brawny redesign of Zelda’s guardian Impa. From then on, he and the Zelda series were closely linked.

Nakano since worked on several other Nintendo titles, including Wave Race: Blue Storm and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, but he’s most prominent through his Zelda artwork. Majora’s Mask, The Wind Waker, and The Minish Cap all show Nakano’s blend of influences, which include Ashley Wood, Mike Mignola, and the fantasy stylings of Frank Frazetta and Richard Corben. There may be considerable thematic difference between the Zelda games and Corben’s lurid comics in Heavy Metal magazine, but Nakano’s technique brings the two together.

Among all the Zelda games to see Nakano’s touch, Twilight Princess shows it the most. In a 2006 interview with Nintendo Power, Nakano revealed that the game was his favorite project to date. He influenced Twilight Princess from its earliest phases, and the darker tones and fiercer fantasy elements clearly show Nakano’s favorite flourishes. The most recent console Zelda, Skyward Sword, doesn’t show his style quite as overtly, but it’s still there—especially in the first official artwork he created for the game.

Satoru Takizawa

Zelda Debut: Ocarina of Time - Character Designer

Most Recent Work: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Graphic Supervisor

Take a close look at the logo for Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. It was the first thing art director Satoru Takizawa created at Nintendo. Formerly a member of the company’s extensive debugging department, Takizawa emerged as a designer of various enemy characters in games: a giant eel in Super Mario 64, a pulsating blob creature in Star Fox 64. He pulled similar duties on Ocarina of Time, creating that game’s version of longtime antagonist Ganon.

Later Zelda games, Wind Waker and Majora’s Mask among them, also show Takizawa’s designs for Zelda foes. It wasn’t until Twilight Princess, however, that Takizawa became art director on a Zelda title. The game’s elaborate environments and shadowy looks are no accident; both Takizawa and illustrator Yusuke Nakano were influenced by epic fantasy in their younger years, and Takizawa developed an affinity for world-building from a visual standpoint.

In a 2006 interview, Takizawa stated that the Zelda games don’t strive for realistic scenery as much as they aim for something akin to “a great painting” or “a miniature landscape garden.” He most recently put this to work in the development of Skyward Sword, as well.

Todd Ciolek is a freelance writer covering mostly video games and anime. He can be followed on Twitter at @kidfenris