Ninja Gaiden Series

[Spark Of Spirit]

The weird part is that if they just made a new 2D NG game and called it Ninja Gaiden 4, I'm pretty sure half the fanbase would be pretty upset at it and probably claim it's taking the spot of the "real" NG4 or something.

I just want another 2D NG game without the birds.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

They could easily just give it some random subtitle like they did for Dragon Sword. I don't think anyone really cares whether it has a number attached to it. To real fans of the classics it'll still be the true NG4 regardless, assuming that they actually make it right.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Here you go, EK.

[Foggle]

My friend is a mercenary.

Goddamn it Itagaki!

My game runs at 30. Our graphics engine can draw very beautiful images at 30 frames per second like the Battlefield series.

Aww...

What was the last great game that you played?
I can't remember which order I played, so I can't remember the latest one. Probably Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. That was very fun.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I read that article yesterday. Itagaki is hilarious as always. I do think its kind of annoying how he announced the game so early on in its development since he's been so tight-lipped about it ever since showing off a brief teaser of it 2 years ago. After that we haven't got jack shit except for a couple of interviews and concept art.

As for running at 30fps, I admit its a little disheartening, but I can deal with it if the game at least runs smooth. I mean, its better to have a game running at 30fps without any hiccups than it is to have a game forcing itself to run at 60fps but constantly slowing down and running into frame-rate problems because it can't handle it. That said I get the feeling that the game won't quite be on the level of speed and intensity of a Ninja Gaiden game, but even so I'm sure it'll still incorporate all of the good elements of a great action game into it that were present in NG, and as for the shooter elements of the game that has to do with how well Itagaki can handle making a shooter. I have no idea if it'll be any good, but here's to hoping the talented people at Valhalla can pull it off successfully!

[Foggle]

30 FPS isn't bad or anything (Halo 1 is capped at 30 FPS and runs very smoothly), but 60 is always better for action-packed games such as this one. Personally, I'd rather have a high frame rate than great graphics, but I'm sure Devil's Third will still be totally awesome.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

What was the last great game that you played?
I can't remember which order I played, so I can't remember the latest one. Probably Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. That was very fun.

That's just Itagaki's way of saying that he hasn't bothered playing too much since he's too busy actually working on making his own game. And I'm fine with him liking CoD since according to him his game is really nothing like it, even if he does enjoy that game. I also like how he mentioned that the game will support much better melee combat than just the basic "tap a button to hit someone with the butt of your gun" mechanic that most shooters have. It'll probably be just as important as the shooting mechanics, and the way the game is shaping up it looks like its trying to successfully meld both ranged and melee action combat into a single experience. That's nothing new, of course, but most games that have tried that are usually lacking in one of the 2 areas, so hopefully this game can be good at both of them.

I also like how he emphasized that this game isn't going to be so heavy on scripted events like many of its competitors. That just bugs me about most action shooters that come out these days.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

30 FPS isn't bad or anything (Halo 1 is capped at 30 FPS and runs very smoothly), but 60 is always better for action-packed games such as this one. Personally, I'd rather have a high frame rate than great graphics, but I'm sure Devil's Third will still be totally awesome.

True, but the game can still be have that "fast" sort of feeling to it even at 30fps, but it'll probably sacrifice some of that 60fps smoothness in animations and other areas that were present in Team Ninja games (since those all ran at 60fps), but I'm guessing that more than graphics the decision had more to do with wanting to make sure that the game ran smoothly. Ninja Gaiden II had some bouts of slow-down when there was too much carnage happening on screen, and although it wasn't too frequent, Itagaki hated that. He tends to like to have a lot of stuff going on with the AI and the action happening in the game, so I think that's why he settled at 30fps instead of 60fps. It could also be due to the fact that he's had to adjust to a completely different engine that what he used to work with back when he was the head of Team Ninja, so that's probably a factor as well, but overall if the game runs smoothly and is tons of fun I can forgive it for being only 30fps. At this point I really just want to see some actual gameplay footage of the game in motion (the E3 2010 trailer was just a concept promo of sorts: according to Itagaki the actual game looks a lot different in terms of both graphics and character design than what was seen in that trailer).

[Spark Of Spirit]

If it's a choice between 60fps and "narrow" or 30fps and "wide" (since he was comparing between those two specific games) then I'd like to see more wide action. Not so much "open world" or whatever, but battlefields with more space like Halo 1 or Reach. With a good enough combat system that could lead to more exciting opportunities.

While 60fps and "wide" would be amazing... Well, next gen!  Consoles are currently hitting their upper limits now, from everything I've seen a game like that can't be made current gen without suffering in some way.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, it could be done if it was being made for a high-end PC and not being scaled down for consoles (in which case it would have to be an exclusive), but barely anyone would have a PC good enough to run that, as that shit don't come cheap.

Knowing Itagaki, its probably going to be the latter of the 2, as he puts a lot of emphasis on the gameplay being completely "voluntary" on the player's part (that's the term he used in one interview, anyways). That is to say that he doesn't want to utilize preset actions like most games do (i.e., QTEs or variations of that, or scenarios in which you HAVE to play one way in order to progress). Also, he's no stranger to large and open levels. Ninja Gaiden/Black was one of those old-fashioned games where levels were big enough to actually warrant a map, and most of the world was inter-connected. You know, the type of game that most action games stray FAR away from being in preference of being completely linear (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but with shallow gameplay most of them have absolutely no replay value whatsoever).

At any rate, I guess I can't really say much until I actually see the game in action for myself. I'm guessing that if everything goes alright in terms of the game's production (let's just hope that THQs recent financial troubles doesn't have any major affects on the production of this game), then we can at least hope to see some real gameplay footage by this year's E3.

[Foggle]

Well, it could be done if it was being made for a high-end PC and not being scaled down for consoles (in which case it would have to be an exclusive), but barely anyone would have a PC good enough to run that, as that shit don't come cheap.

If you want the same graphical fidelity that you'd get from the console version, then yeah. But fairly basic rigs can run Battlefield 3 (which is "wide") at 60 FPS provided they turn the graphics settings down.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, another knock against this game that I just found out is that its one of those games where you can switch the difficulty on the  fly, meaning that its just another case of lazy design, since the only thing changing between difficulties is enemies taking more damage and you taking less. Compare that to previous NG games where enemy sets changed by each difficulty (the higher the difficulty, the earlier tougher enemies appeared, and there were more of them too), and this is yet another step back in content from the long list of stuff this game is excluding.

I'm not exactly sure how anyone at Team Ninja thinks they can defend ANY of these choices as being reasonable and a step up for the series. I understand that change is important to keep a series fresh, and I'd be all for it, but there's a difference between changing things for the better to just being flat out lazy by taking out all variety to a game to make it as standard and derivative as possible. In fact I don't think I even needed to say that sentence. That pretty much just sums up how far this series has fallen.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but with this game only 3 weeks away from release in North America....I really hope it bombs in both fan and critical reception. I REALLY do. At least that way Team Ninja may just get the message that NOBODY is willing to put up with them slacking off on this series just because Itagaki isn't around to force them to actually make a proper game.

[Foggle]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but with this game only 3 weeks away from release in North America....

Seriously? Wow, I hadn't heard about that at all. Definitely won't be picking it up. Probably never will. But if I do, I'll buy it used.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It releases March 20th here, but yeah, its not exactly something I'm planning to buy on day 1 either, like how I did for NG2. That said, I'll probably still pick it up used in the Summer time and play it anyways, just because its a Ninja Gaiden game. But if I hate it as much as I think I will, then it'll definitely be my last NG game made by this development team.

[Spark Of Spirit]

It's out in three weeks?!?

There's been no real hype at all for it, even from casual action fans.