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 3 of 4

Crispy Gamer: Is there an option in the game to cut the blood?

Itagaki: No.

Crispy Gamer: Was there ever a point in development of the game where the blood in the game was even more prominent than it is now, to the point where you guys were like, "Okay, this is getting into Monty Python territory, here. We've got to dial it back just a bit..."?

Itagaki No we've always had a target level that we said, this is the amount that will make a visual impact without going over the top.

Crispy Gamer: What are you most proud of with this game versus other games in the series?

Itagaki: It would have to be the actual combat, and all we've done to make it more fluid and more dynamic, and more organic. Every encounter is different depending on the actions that you take -- that's really the core of what makes this game fun and the biggest improvement over previous iterations.

Crispy Gamer: In a lot of interviews that you do with the press, they always ask you about different action games or fighting games to get a response from you that's rather negative about those games. What have you played in the last year that you actually enjoyed?

Itagaki: GTA IV was good -- pretty fun. As you guys know, in terms of just graphical quality, it's maybe not as a high quality as other things out there. There's so much you can do, and so much interaction, I think that it's a pretty incredible achievement. Yesterday, I stole a motorcycle and drove it into the ocean -- that was what I did yesterday for fun.

Also, I thought Burnout Paradise was really good. It was done well.

Crispy Gamer: This is the third game you've done on the Xbox 360, and I'm sure there's things you've learned programming-wise on the Xbox 360 that's helped you with this game. Is there anything that you guys learned working on this game that will help with the next DOA -- or whatever you're working on next -- that will make it even better?

Itagaki: I think with Ninja Gaiden II, it was less about learning about the hardware and more about going back to the fundamentals of game design -- going back to square one and looking at what we wanted, and incorporating that into our design philosophies.

I think that people who have played all my games in the past are going to be really surprised when they play this, because it's really more user-friendly in a sense. It incorporates a lot of new ideas in terms of game design. I think you can extrapolate from that that my next project is going to be completely different -- it's not going to be related to anything I've done so far.

Crispy Gamer: Are you still overseeing multiple teams?

Itagaki: No. Bringing this game to completion required the resources of the entire team, so now that this is done, everything is going to be reset. We're starting a new cycle then. I'll have the opportunity to talk about my future plans later on this summer -- maybe around July timeframe or so . Hold on until then to find out more.