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Team Ninja In-Depth

Posted by Zonk on from the who-doesn't-like-ninjas? dept.

Kimi writes "1up.com had a whole week of Team Ninja coverage the past few days, with exclusive screenshots and a discussion with Tomonobu Itagaki about the Reinvention of DOA. They also looked into DOAX2, Ninja Gaiden 2 on Xbox 360, an exclusive opening cinematic of DOA4, and punky short film created by Itagaki."

19 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. Quality Games by pureseth · · Score: 1

    Team Ninja has been very good at producing quality games in the past, and I really look forward to their future projects. DOA is by far one of my favorite game franchise.. :)

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    1. Re:Quality Games by Zangief · · Score: 2, Informative

      What? since I played DOA on the Playstation and Dreamcast, I only saw a button masher. You learn a good combination or two, and spam your adversary, hoping he doesn't counter. This was so noticeable, that I, as a total newbie on 3D fighters, could win around 45% of the rounds just doing this, against my friend, the owner of the game, who had been practicing for weeks before.

      If a guy who knows nothing and a guy who does, have more or less the same chance of winning, both of them are just playing a glorified coin toss. DOA is a pointless game. I guess that, if you dedicate your life and soul to the game, you can punish button mashers, but the amount of knowledge necessary for this is too high to make it worthy.

      Yes, the graphics are pretty, the girls are gorgeous, and the destructible scenary is interesting, but the gameplay is bad. Period. This is why they did DOA Xtreme Volleyball, because that way they could capitalize what they did best (pretty girls and graphics) and hide their horrible gameplay.

      That said, I haven't played Ninja Gaiden. But seeing that another post around points that Itagaki it is just copying ideas from other games and claiming they are his, I don't have too much faith on it.

      Itagaki is an asshole.

    2. Re:Quality Games by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      Should try adding Soul Calibur and Tekken into the mix. In the same scenario:

      Tekken: Both of you would still flail around hopelessly because those combinations are hard as hell to input and not at all obvious. Most likely you'll input different things but will only hit with one attack anyway.
      Soul Calibur: You'll both throw out attacks, you more randomly than him and in the end the winning ratio will be close to identical but both of your characters look cool doing so.

      I think the same holds true for Virtua Fighter and most commercial 2d fighters (Guilty Gear, anyone?).

      Yes, you can learn to play great in those games but I doubt your friend was really practicing hard so I'm assuming a few weeks of casual play.

      And yes, Itagaki is an asshole with an overblown ego and that should be obvious to anyone who has ever read or watched an interview with that guy.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  2. Raising serious questions about their judgment... by Errandboy+of+Doom · · Score: 1

    (On discussing development suggestions in DOA)"Within those, the destructible cars, that's just a parody of Street Fighter II, so that's ridiculous, so that was gone."

    Clearly we can always use more parodies of SFII. Especially the destructible cars sequence!

    Chun Li v. Honda, FIGHT!

  3. Is it just me... by hollismb · · Score: 1

    Or does Tomonobu Itagaki think he's some sort of God? I mean, the guy is so full of himself it's not even funny. I mean sure, his team pops out a good game every now and then (Ninja Gaiden), but the man is no Miyamoto, even though he seems to think he is.

    1. Re:Is it just me... by Errandboy+of+Doom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "...does Tomonobu Itagaki think he's some sort of God? I mean, ...the man is no Miyamoto..."

      Yes, unlike Miyamoto, who is in fact a God.

    2. Re:Is it just me... by dootbran · · Score: 1

      Scroll to the bottom for god's chariot :D.

    3. Re:Is it just me... by KrisW · · Score: 1

      It's not just you. Every time I see Tomonobu Itagaki trashing someone else's games while talking about how great DOA is, a little part of my brain dies.

      --


      "Think you can take me? Go ahead on. It's your move." --Joe Don Baker in Final Justice
    4. Re:Is it just me... by NexFlamma · · Score: 1

      Sometimes, at night, I like to think I'm Miyamoto... My pet turtle has nervous twitches because of it.

  4. Ugh. Why not just admit they are already been used by kinglink · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Some players might laugh when they hear this, but one of the things that was discussed was "how about making cars destructible?" Or for instance characters hanging from a ledge, and you could stomp on their fingertips causing them to fall off the ledge and die. Or a one-on-five, where it's one guy versus five and you just had this free-for-all and you took them all on. I"

    Funny All those ideas are from old games, as they said busting cars is in SF2, but zones that damage your characters has been there from the NeoGeo Game World Heroes (ok game) Smashing people form the ledge? Super Smash Brothers, and one on Five? well we had 1 vs 2 in MK2, 1 vs 3 Simultanious in Smash Brothers (team based, free for all, 2v2 also) 1 vs 30 in Super Smash Brothers Melee 3 at a time... and many games besides these and then we had Tekken's "adventure" style stages. and so on.

    It's fine that they take from those games but they act like they have unique ideas but the fact is these have ALL been done before and good enough where they arn't reinventing the wheel, they are just taking the good ideas from other vehicles.

  5. Re:Ugh. Why not just admit they are already been u by gl4ss · · Score: 1

    basically their idea to reinvent doa is to make it into something that's just not a 1 vs 1 fists on fighting game(more into something like smash brothers or something..).

    or into ninja gaiden.

    the interview is pretty lame and useless to read unless you're a fanboy out of ammunition and want to make an ass of yourself.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  6. I sense a little hostility... by SkyFire360 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From TFA:

    1UP: Like Soul Calibur palette swaps?

    TI: Bringing up Soul Calibur suggests that Namco likes to do that sort of thing, but let's not broach that today, because we don't want to waste our time on that kind of petty stuff. I think the technique of recycling characters and changing the names and keeping everything else the same just to add meaningless volume is the worst thing you can do, I hate it. I don't have time to talk about something so despicable when we have so much other stuff to talk about.

    While the highlighting was my addition, this really drives home a point. I design graphics engines for shader-related hardware (read: game consoles), and still I was not aware of the absolute animosity that existed between the game designers. These are some very srong words from a very respected developer towards another very respected game designer. Are there rivalries like this amongst American developers, or is this part of the demographics that I have yet to understand? Can anyone comment on the American market?

    1. Re:I sense a little hostility... by Ykant · · Score: 1

      Those DOA guys have always been a hostile towards all other development houses. At least, in interviews. Still a little sensitive about the razzing they must have gotten after the Beach Volleyball game, I guess?

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    2. Re:I sense a little hostility... by ravyne · · Score: 1

      Actually, he did just the opposite. While the interviewer brought up Soul Caliber and implicitly Namco, Itagaki brushed those details aside to speak specifically on the "palette swaps." Sure he calls it dispicable (and it is, from a game design point of view) but he puts it out there in the broader sense of games in general, not just Namco or any specific designer. Sure rivalries exists, but they're professional rivalries for the most part, not personal ones. Actually, the section you quoted doesn't even mention a specific designer anywhere. You're reading something into it that simply isn't there.

    3. Re:I sense a little hostility... by PhotoBoy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There is generally a lot of respect and mutual admiration between game designers. Itagaki is something of an exception; he's extremely arrogant and he's always saying nasty things about other developers and their games.

      He also recently called gamers who couldn't finish Ninja Gaiden on normal difficulty "pussies" (well it was translated as that). I tried pointing that out at 1UP.com here but the asshole running that page kept editing and deleting my posts. I don't know why he has a comments box if he's going to delete and edit anyone that doesn't agree with him, but the point stands, Itagaki is incredibly conceited.

    4. Re:I sense a little hostility... by Traiklin · · Score: 1

      he want's to be a rockstar but doesn't want to learn any insturmants (or just can't get anyone to join him). so he went with games, becoming one of the biggest assholes in the industry along the way, when that didn't pan out he wanted to get started in the porn industry, naturally he was turned down because of his looks so he did the next best thing, started up his own company, created a fighting game and put in a bunch of girls who's breasts would bounce around.

      whenever they come out with something he act's like it's never been done before, their starting a new trend with games, their creating a new genre of gaming, everyone will fallow in their footsteps. Yet they use sound effects from other games (Ninja gaidens Orb gather sound was the exact same one used in DMC), they use stuff that has been done in other games and claim it has never been done before.

      as far as I am conserned the guy doesn't belong in gaming, he has no respect for other developers, no respect for gamers and no respect for the industry.

    5. Re:I sense a little hostility... by KrisW · · Score: 1

      I'm assuming that animosity isn't always there, at least not as much. Itagaki is just an asshole.

      --


      "Think you can take me? Go ahead on. It's your move." --Joe Don Baker in Final Justice
    6. Re:I sense a little hostility... by MrNash · · Score: 1

      Haha, looking at the guy's comments on 1Up, it's hilarious the way he thinks it's somehow okay for an individual to be arrogant simply because they're successful. That just defies logic. Someone should stick him in a room with a dozen highly successful people that get to treat him like crap for an hour, then we can see what sort of tune he's singing after.

  7. So not a Tekken fan then? by mei_mei_mei · · Score: 1

    His top five hated games are all Tekken! http://teamninja.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3144194 Plonker.