A Nicer Ninja

Team Ninja goes back to the fundamentals to bring a user-friendly Ninja Gaiden II to the Xbox 360.
5/23/2008 1:58 PM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 4

Crispy Gamer: One of the big additions you're adding to the game is the ability to record when you're playing through the game. Are you planning on doing anything with a Web site to show which gamers are really skilled?

Itagaki: Well, you know they'll be linked to the leaderboards, right? You can see who's number one and download their clips and see how they play.

Crispy Gamer: Are you thinking about doing any contests in relation to that?

Itagaki: We've obviously up to this point been so focused on getting the game done. I think we're going start to have time to think about stuff like that, but I think regardless of whether or not we do an official event or contest, people are going to be looking to see who's number one. We've made the leaderboards much more specialized than in the previous game, so you'll be able to look at different categories to see who's number one in each.

Crispy Gamer: Are there any plans for downloadable content?

Itagaki: I'm thinking about some bonuses to add on. No major game changes. Of course, we announced something about downloadable costumes today.

Crispy Gamer: So you're thinking arena challenges and things like that?

Itagaki: Yes, that might be something interesting to do if we could do it well. Personally I think -- we had something like Mission Mode in Ninja Gaiden Black -- that was really for the hardest of the hardcore, so I really didn't think it was all that fun. If we were going to do something like that, it would have to be more compelling.

Crispy Gamer: Something more well-rounded so hardcore players and players like me will be able to enjoy that kind of content?

Itagaki: Yes, definitely. The point is, the first Ninja Gaiden didn't have the bandwidth to support all sorts of different skill levels, and that's an important concept of this product.

Crispy Gamer: Obviously, violence in videogames is a constantly brought up thing -- especially with Grand Theft Auto IV coming out. You've got limbs being lopped off, there's a lot of blood. When designing the game, do you balance that so people don't bring it up, or do you just say the hell with it and do what you want to do?

Itagaki: I feel it would be stupid to approach this completely ignoring and throwing all caution to the wind and doing anything that we wanted. I think it's important to follow the rules and regulations that have been set out by each ratings organization, right? That's what allows us to sell the game in the first place. Something that I've been talking about is saying it's not just looking at the rules and saying that we can do this but we can't do that. It's also looking at the morality aspect. The one thing that I feel about this game is that even if you took it to a region that had really strict ratings, the people in that country wouldn't have morally objected to it because it's fighting to the death. Yes, there's blood, but you're not involving innocents, or children, or anything like that.

The key is, is someone who is playing the game going to feel uncomfortable or not, and I think that we've been able to treat violence in a way that it doesn't cross that line.