Ninja Gaiden Series

[Spark Of Spirit]

So I got Ninja Gaiden on the VC.

Yeah, it was worth it for save stating. That way I can practice bosses or sequences as much as I want, but I still don't use it mid-level. Though I was tempted to when I got to the part before the boss in 3-2... man, that last jump.

Then I got to 4-1 and that badly placed soldier crouched before the jump. I have no shuriken, so I have no way to reliably hit him. This game can be a real shame at times, because outside of cheap enemy placement (the birds are coming up!) the level design is pretty great and the story is fun, too. I'm glad I got it for portable play.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The first Ninja Gaiden is a classic. It has some undeniably cheap enemy placement and some really frustrating jumps, but no one can deny that at least 95% of the game comes down to the player's own skill and timing.

I do feel that Ninja Gaiden II managed to balance out things the most, though even it has its fair share of cheap enemy placement.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus (Yeah, its a mouthful, I know) is releasing on the PSV next month. Apparently it has some additional content not in the console version while retaining all of the content that Sigma 2 already had, with the exception that it restores the blood from the original version of NG2....and that's about it. Its really not much news, but I felt like mentioning it anyways since its the most interesting (read: only) thing happening with the Ninja Gaiden series right now.

Man, it really sucks when one of your favorite series is down in the dirt like this to the point that the only thing that I can think to bring up about it is a port of the console version of the game to an already near dead handheld system. Oh well, it'll still probably be the 2nd best game that the Vita has to offer by default, next to Ninja Gaiden Sigma, if only because nothing else on that system interests me in the slightest. You'd think Sony would have gone out of their way to support it with software after hyping up so much at E3 a couple of years ago, and yet its already on death's row. Well, that's Sony for you, I suppose.

[Foggle]

Can't wait for Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge Sigma Plus next year!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Since we haven't heard anything about Devil's Third's production in ages, I'm just going to assume that the whole project has fallen through and that the game is officially dead, and Itagaki just doesn't want to admit it yet. In that case, I think that Tecmo should immediately reach out to him, apologize to him whether they were right or wrong just so that guy can live with his ego, and get him to agree to make a new Ninja Gaiden game. That's the only way I could see this series redeeming itself....and its never going to happen.

It really sucks that Itagaki had to meet with so much bad luck in the development of Devil's Third. To be fair, it was partly his own fault for signing on with THQ (well, it'd be a joint fault of both him and Kanematsu as well, with the latter being the CEO of the company). He should have probably done more research and predicted that THQ might go under before the development of his game was complete. That said, you can't really blame anyone for the company that developed the engine, which he was originally going to use for the game, going under. That was unpredictable and you can't really expect anyone to have reasonable seen it coming. After that, it was reported that Itagaki, while still working closely with THQ, ended up in an agreement with Vigil Games to use their Darksiders engine to develop his game. And then THQ gave the rights for Devil's Third back to Valhalla Games Studios and parted ways with the developer. Then THQ went bankrupt, and Vigil Games is the ONLY company that didn't get bought out by another publisher. And....they pretty much have gone under (or inevitably will go under if they haven't already) if I'm not mistaken, and being that VGS was using their engine to develop DT....yeah, that game's pretty much kaput, now.

[Foggle]

I'm pretty sure THQ would have been just fine if not for uDraw, which didn't even come out until after Itagaki signed a publishing deal with them. Hardly his fault, if that's the case.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Its just such a shame. You've got the lead developer behind the old DOA and 3D NG games. He made Dead or Alive 2 which, while not a hardcore tournament fighter, was a really fun and highly praised fighting game for its time, bringing a lot of inventive ideas to the table with its really interesting use of environments, and it backed up its graphcial prowess with really fluid animations and tight controls, making for some exhilarating combat. The other DOA games Itagaki made weren't as great as this, but they were certainly solid. Then he made Ninja Gaiden Black, which was hailed as one of the greatest action games of all time, even in the presence of high competition such as the equally acclaimed Devil May Cry to stand against. It was an amazing game that was made even better through the "director's cut" version of sorts in Ninja Gaiden Black. After that he made Ninja Gaiden II, and while  the game got screwed due to having its production severely rushed because of Itagaki having to leave the company, it still managed to be a truly great game (if you could look past its flaws), and one of the best offerings in the genre for this generation. Its nowhere near as good as something as polished and fine-tuned as Bayonetta, but it still stands out for its unique approach to combat and having some of the most satisfying melee action of the genre, even to this date.

All this amounts to a guy who has talent. If NG2 is the type of game that he could make under the worst possible conditions, you'd have to wonder what he and his team could come up with if given free reign and enough time to make the game that they wanted to. The guy clearly has talent as a developer, and always brings something unique to this games that aren't so apparently obvious on the outset, but the brilliance really hits you when you actually sit down to play the games that he makes. Now, as for Devil's Third, it felt like he was going in the right direction with it. The game had a lot to do with military warfare given Itagaki's interest in the subject-material. However, he was clearly putting his own signature over-the-top spin on the genre, putting an equally heavy emphasis on melee combat, and even went so far as to stress that unlike Call of Duty games (which he admitted to liking), his game would not rely on scripted events and would be more about giving you the freedom to play through the game the way that you wanted to. That's something I've really been wanting more of from the genre. At any rate, all this sounded great on paper....and by the looks of it, I assume that it'll only ever stay on paper. The game has been in development for way too long and undergone so many problems that I don't even know if VGS can afford to finish it. Even if they can, all of the damage it has gone through in development hell will probably be clear as day, and the game will probably be a disaster if its ever released if only because there's no way that Itagaki and his team could work out all of the technical problems that it would have after so many abrupt changes in such a short period of time, and they couldn't afford to delay the production of this game for a few more years to make it all work out fine. So, in the end, the game will either come out or be a disaster, or Itagaki and company will have to abandon the project entirely and come up with something new, which will probably have to be a smaller-budget game that's more fit for download than the full-blown retail AAA kind of title that he was going for. In some ways, it might not be such a bad thing if he and his team are forced to make lower budget games and use more creativity to make them stand out, but its really unfortunate that his project will likely never see the light of day, or completely bomb even if it does get to that point, now.

[Foggle]

I still don't think Devil's Third is dead. If a publisher doesn't pick it up soon, maybe they'll look to Kickstarter or something to crowd-source a digital release? Also, I doubt it'll be a disaster if released, even with the development hell it's been through.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I still don't think Devil's Third is dead. If a publisher doesn't pick it up soon, maybe they'll look to Kickstarter or something to crowd-source a digital release? Also, I doubt it'll be a disaster if released, even with the development hell it's been through.

Well, it was mainly the part about the game having to completely switch to a new engine when it was already so far along in production that made me think that a lot of technical problems could arise in the process. To be honest, I know next to nothing about the technical aspects of how these games are made, so maybe my worry is just me being completely misinformed and naive in the workings of the process of game development. That said, it sounds like that was a major blow that really held back the development of this game and even may have set it back by quite a bit. But I suppose we'll have to wait and see what happens as things unfold later on this year.

As for VGS, though, last I heard they partnered up with the Korean PC developer Doobic in order to finish the production of their game, and Doobic was even going to work on the PC port of Devil's Third. That said, nothing else has been announced since then, so my best hope is that Itagaki and company are just really hard at work developing the game as quickly but efficiently as possible. I really don't have high hopes for the game anymore, but if the game really does end up getting released and at least manages to turn out to be good from a critical standpoint, then I'd have to give huge props to Itagaki and VGS for being able to salvage good material out of a series of disaster announcements like that.

[Foggle]

Hopefully this will make you feel a little better.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That picture is old and only reminds me of a dream team that will never come to be. You suck at cheering people up, Foggle.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, this is actually kind of old news, but Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge has is coming to the XBOX360 and PS3 next month. This is probably when I'll finally buckle down and get the game since my inner Ninja Gaiden-fan has to be able to say that I at least completed the game once.

Don't get me wrong, I still fully expect it to be garbage, but I just can't resist the urge to still play through the full thing. It just doesn't feel right if I completely ignore the game, being what a huge NG fan I am, even if it fully deserves to be ignored. Its sort of like how I absolutely HAD to play through DMC2 and get it over with before moving onto 3, just so I could say that I honestly gave the game a try, even though I knew full well going into it that I would hate it.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Nintendo really should have tried to save the game if it was that far along like they did with Bayonetta 2. Because I'm not really sure who else would publish it without sending it out to die.

[Foggle]

Nintendo really should have tried to save the game if it was that far along like they did with Bayonetta 2. Because I'm not really sure who else would publish it without sending it out to die.

I bet Devolver Digital would do it if they could. Though it'd most likely only ever see a PC release due to how big Devil's Third probably is.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Its a real shame, because in Itagaki's last interview (which was over 6 months ago), he claimed that when THQ gave the rights to Devil's Third back to VGS, the game was already 70% done. It was at least close to complete enough for THQ to attempt shopping it around to other publishers, but nobody would bite given the track record of how poorly most Japanese developed action games sell these days (with only a few exceptions being present, of course).

While I think the game would be great, it sort of does make sense that it wouldn't perform that well. Even Itagaki's best action game, NGB, didn't do THAT well. It sold less than a million copies on its own, and only managed to make 1.5 million copies when its sales figures were COMBINED with NGB's (meaning that both releases of the game sold under a million copies). Ninja Gaiden Sigma's sales were even worse, as they barely managed to scrape half a million sales. Mind you, these aren't bad sales by the standards of an average action game, but given the huge critical acclaim that the first Ninja Gaiden got, those sales figures were surprisingly low compared to any of its competitors, like DMC and God of War.

Publishers probably figure that whether Devil's Third was any good or not, it still probably wouldn't sell well, and while that really sucks, its probably true. I mean, even Vanquish didn't sell all that well despite rave reviews and a dedicated fan-base for Platinum Games. I guess more people would rather play a highly scripted and completely "safe" TPS game than something that tries to be a bit different in favor of something new and exciting.