Ninja Gaiden 2 Preview
"Ninja Gaiden is a franchise that was born on Xbox... this is our mainstream. It's only natural that the sequel should be on Xbox 360," Tomonobu Itagaki says through a translator to the small, but crowded, audience gathered to listen to him speak about the upcoming Ninja Gaiden 2. IGN is the only media outlet in the room; the crowd comes from a small army of Microsoft marketing and PR agents eager to listen in. That's because Microsoft announced at this year's Tokyo Game Show that it would be publishing Ryu Hayabusa's next adventure for Xbox 360, ensuring its exclusivity.
What followed was a wonderfully candid discussion about what went right with Ninja Gaiden, what could have been done better and what we can expect in 2008 for Ninja Gaiden 2. Xbox Live details, multiplayer modes, gameplay nuances and more were all on the table and you might be surprised by some of the responses we were given. So watch the video interview and then read on for more details.
Since Ninja Gaiden's revival as a franchise in 2004, Tecmo and Team Ninja have not been shy about refining the game through new releases. The downloadable Hurricane Packs, Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden Sigma all sought to improve on the original. Ninja Gaiden 2 is being treated as full sequel in every sense of the word. Itagaki isn't afraid to admit there were issues with Ninja Gaiden, but looks forward to putting the experience to good use. "When we look at this as the true sequel, one of the most important aspects is going back and saying 'What worked and what didn't?' and cutting out the things that didn't."
What worked was fast paced action and violence. When pressed to tell us a few of the things he would have liked to include in Ninja Gaiden, but couldn't, Itagaki went on to talk in great detail about the new blood and dismemberment features. The blood won't just spray out in plumes; it will have a more "viscous" feeling to it. Decapitations and limb dismemberments are moving from comical effects to gruesome and gore filled scenes. It's not just a visual kick in the pants, either. Ninjas and members of the military wont give up when they lose an arm or a leg -- they'll get angry and desperate. The AI patterns of your foes will change depending upon how many pieces you've chopped them into. Each move for any particular weapon will have its own percentage chance to remove a body part.
The dismemberment mechanics carry over into the ninpo usage as well. Itagaki likened the ninpo magic to a bomb in a classic arcade game -- the last resort attack you use to wipe the screen clean. Depending on the situation, the Ninpo effects will be different in Ninja Gaiden 2. The example we were given was the hurricane ninpo shown in demo videos. This sends blades of wind out, killing any enemy in the immediate vicinity. Those farther away might only have a leg or arm sliced off.
A ninja with no arms isn't much of a ninja at all, but Team Ninja is including at least one game mechanic that encourages players to fight to the finish rather than leaving their enemies maimed but alive. The health bar in Ninja Gaiden 2 regenerates over time, but will only do so after a battle has been totally finished. Running away or leaving an enemy wounded but alive will prevent the health bar from refilling on its own.
A lot is changing or being added for Ninja Gaiden 2. Weapons are now mapped to the d-pad, allowing players to switch on the fly without having to go to the pause menu. We asked exactly how much a Ninja Gaiden veteran would have to learn to start playing. "It's not so much that the controls are going to be changed on a per button basis…that will be more or less the same. But because the game has evolved so much, many of the subsystems of the combat will be different. You have what we call the obliteration techniques, which is being able to finish off an enemy very stylishly. Using projectile weapons has also been changed a bit; it still uses the same button but how it is controlled is a bit different.
Ninja Gaiden helped to pioneer and push forward the idea that games could be updated and expanded through Xbox Live. Needless to say, we're expecting big things from Team Ninja now that Xbox Live has become such an integral part of the Xbox 360. No plans are set in stone just yet, according to Itagaki. "It's interesting that you ask that question right now because I'm just in the middle of thinking about what I should do for the download content for Ninja Gaiden 2."
The Hurricane Packs were viewed by Team Ninja as a means to fix some things it didn't like with Ninja Gaiden, though the team had a small dilemma regarding its release. The percentage of Xbox Live members was much smaller than it is today, so the downloads couldn't reach every owner. That is why Ninja Gaiden Black was created.
That has all changed. The continued evolution of Xbox Live is giving Itagaki reason to look at downloadable content in a new way. "Now with 360, we have a much higher percentage of people that are logged onto Xbox Live. We also have a greater definition of what the download content is. We have all of these useful categories defining what kind of content we can put onto that service. I think I'm going to treat the downloadable content this time around as something that can extend the play experience for people that bought Ninja Gaiden 2."
Though Team Ninja has gotten its feet wet with online multiplayer gaming in the Dead or Alive series, don't expect that to carry over into Ninja Gaiden 2. That mode did exist, at least on paper, at one time according to Itagaki. "The development of this game has been going on for over a year already, so we have tested a lot of features out and one of those was a versus mode." Modes pitting Hayabusa against Hayabusa, or Hayabusa against a series of lesser ninjas were explored, but eventually scrapped. "I think there are a lot of possibilities for something like that, but if we really wanted to do it right it would have to be its own separate packaged game…it wouldn't be something that we would want to do in a small way just to throw in as an extra feature."
Co-operative play sounds like it is out as well. Itagaki sees Ryu as a solitary ninja taking down massive armies with no support. Adding a co-operative mode wouldn't fit that image. Itagaki remained open minded about the idea nonetheless. "Now I'm not one to dismiss an idea just because it might not fit with the image of the game, so I did explore the possibility of including co-op play. Things that came up were ideas such as Hayabusa and his ninja dog or Hayabusa and his pet hawk. You know, something that could be a companion that wasn't necessarily human." In the end, the hawk was dismissed as not having enough depth in the gameplay. The dog idea, Itagaki told IGN, could work and he said he would keep thinking about it.
Another to-be-determined element is the mission mode made popular with Ninja Gaiden Black. "It sounds like you automatically assume there is going to be a mission mode," retorted Itagaki when we began talking about it. "I really haven't decided how to approach mission mode in Ninja Gaiden 2, if at all... right now we're really focused on the core gameplay." Itagaki continued by saying he knows how popular those challenges were for the hardcore gamer and that he will put a lot of thought into it.
In fact, he knows just how important that hardcore gamer is to the success of Ninja Gaiden 2. To the question of whether we can expect as big of a challenge as we got with the master ninja mode of Ninja Gaiden Black, Itagaki simply replied, "Of course." Toughest achievement points ever? We're betting on it.
If you've played Halo 3 or Dead or Alive 4, then you know how open Team Ninja is to collaborations. The Hayabusa armor in Halo 3 is simply great. But would you believe that a partnership with Hideo Kojima almost came to be? "A few months ago I was talking to Kojima-san from Konami and we were discussing the possibility of putting Raiden from Metal Gear Solid into Ninja Gaiden 2. That's something that we examined and looked at, but I don't think it's going to be able to happen. It just didn't work out."
With Ryu traveling the world in Ninja Gaiden 2 and Itagaki remaining tight lipped about the story, it looks like it's impossible to predict exactly who or what we'll bump into along the way.
More screenshots can be seen at the linl up top!
Video interview can be seen here.
(0) 
