Feature: Q&I: A Chat With Team Ninja's Itagaki Subscribe to this RSS feed
Team Ninja's Tomonobu Itagaki makes great games, and even greater interview fodder. We sat down with the man behind Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden and picked his brain about the latter's Xbox 360 debut.
Tomonobu Itagaki, the Leader of Team Ninja, has created some of gaming's most venerable franchises. With Ninja Gaiden 2 set to premiere for the Xbox 360 later this year, Games.Net Editor Dave Rudden sat down with the outspoken developer about his upcoming title, and the industry in general.
Games.Net: Could you provide some detail on the AI of the dismembered characters? How many limbs can an enemy character fight with?
Team Ninja Leader Tomonobu Itagaki: They can basically keep fighting until they're in pieces. Even a one-armed enemy can still fight.
Games.Net: Can you cut an enemy at his midsection and have him crawl around using his arms?
Itagaki: You wanna try? We' be happy to try if we could find a sword somewhere! We have to be realistic to a degree.
Games.Net: I noticed Ryu had blades on his shoes when he was wearing claws. Are there any others that will affix to his feet?
Itagaki: No. That's really a unique feature exclusive to that weapon. Of course other weapons will have kick moves as a part of the repertoire, but none with weapons mounted there.
Games.Net: Relative to the first Ninja Gaiden, this one has a much more robust tutorial. Was that a conscious decision to make sure the players understood the mechanics of the game a little better?
Itagaki: Exactly. The first game was great and had a lot of depth, but we weren't necessarily able to get everyone up to the level of skill where they could use everything the game had to offer. Here, we wanted to make sure everyone was on an even playing field, so to speak. You can tell in viewing the tutorial and having the instructions in the menus has increased that part of it.
Games.Net: Besides the dismemberment, are there any other gameplay features in Ninja Gaiden that weren't possible on the original Xbox?
Itagaki: There are a lot of things. Tying into what we just talked about, the tutorial, we wouldn't have been able to something like that in the first game. We could have had a very rigid, traditional, text-based tutorial, but we couldn't have something that was kind of integrated into the game world as much as this one. It's a tutorial, but you still feel like you're being a bad-ass ninja. Also, the Ninpo magic attacks are much more improved and beautiful. When Ryu threw the fireball, the enemies literally burst into flames.
Games.Net: Relative to the original Ninja Gaiden, what other concessions have been made for the game to appeal to the less skilled?
Itagaki: There are four levels of difficulty altogether. The easiest is called "The Path of the Acolyte," and we're giving a lot of consideration to the players on that difficulty level to make it more accessible to them.
Games.Net: Do you have any specific examples?
Itagaki: Some elements of the game design, in and of itself, are different on Acolyte, because it's meant for people who want to see as much of the game as possible and that's their main goal. I really feel like this game is just fun to play; just killing enemies is fun in and of itself. The other three levels are for people who've played Ninja Gaiden, fans who don't want to just to see the whole game; they want to kick its ass! They want to beat the game in the best way possible. So there have been tweaks made to cater to both types of gamers.
What I want to stress to your readers is that the Path of the Acolyte difficulty level is not like Ninja Dog mode [in Ninja Gaiden Black for Xbox]. In Black, there was Ninja Dog mode, but it was artificially boosted because you would get healing items on a regular basis for free, so it was almost like you were receiving performance-enhancing drugs. That's not the way it should be; difficulty shouldn't be adjusted through indirect methods like a band-aid on top, but more direct methods--things that will make the player want to see more of the game and assist them in a way that won't artificially change their experience.
Games.Net: How will Ninja Gaiden 2 improve upon the original's online components in terms of competitive leaderboards and downloadable content?
Itagaki: We're definitely thinking of downloadable content. In the past, when I've said I've been thinking about something, there's been times when I didn't follow through. This time, you can rest assured that I will. It'll be something that will make you say "wow!"
Games.Net: With the release of Ninja Gaiden 2 later this year, hopefully, all three of your famous franchises (Ninja Gaiden, DOA, and DOA Xtreme Volleyball) will have made the jump to Xbox 360. How would rank the transitions of each from the Xbox to the 360?
Itagaki: DOAX is more of a pet project, more of a hobby, so I'll remove that one. In terms of Ninja Gaiden vs DOA, Gaiden is still a franchise in its infancy--we're just moving from 1 to 2 at this point, whereas DOA, I really feel, has gotten to a point where, while there's still things that can be improved upon, it's pretty close to perfection in terms of being a good fighting game. So I think there's still a lot of areas of undiscovered territory in the Ninja Gaiden franchise in terms of core gameplay and design elements. For DOA, when we moved to the 360 because everything was at such a high level of completion, we could focus on things like online play and creating lobbies that feel like an actual arcade experience. Whereas Ninja Gaiden, it's really about pushing the boundaries of what we can do with the actual gameplay.
