Team Ninja's Tomonobu Itagaki On Hating Everything (Except Ninja Gaiden II)
Nothing says grumpy like Tomonobu Itagaki. Well known throughout the gaming industry for maintaining a mantra of heavy metal aestheticism, his candidly bitter responses to questions involving Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Taito, and personal legacy each stand as individual triumphs to his personality.
What did you think of the PS3 game Ninja Gaiden: Sigma? I'm told you won't even sign copies of the game...?Itagaki: It was no good.
Why's that? I thought it was pretty good.
Itagaki: All you need to do is play Ninja Gaiden II and then try and play Sigma afterwards and you'll see why.
Despite the fact that it's on a 'next-generation' console there's no evolution whatsoever. That was made not by me, but one of my sub-ordinates who basically tried to copy the success of Ninja Gaiden.
Does that mean we'll never see NGII on PS3?
Itagaki: No because it's a 360 exclusive.
But Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden: Black were Xbox exclusives at the time...
Itagaki: We've announced it as an Xbox 360 exclusive, but I don't own Tecmo the company. But if that were to ever happen it would be a loss of face for everyone involved.
What would you like the series to be remembered for?
Itagaki: I'd like to be remembered as the black sheep of game design.
There's just something about this guy that says, "Whisky double, neat, and get out of my face." Gamers can erase their memories of Ninja Gaiden Sigma when Ninja Gaiden II arrives on store shelves on June 3 for the United States, and June 6 for Europe.
Tomonobu Itagaki Interview [CVG]
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Posted to Video Games on 22 May 2008
· Comments (4)
Other stuff like this: Ninja Gaiden 2, Ninja Gaiden II, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Tomonobu Itagaki, xbox 360
This is the type of guy who talks shit to Godzilla.
Wow! What a twit this man is!
I would hit that so hard.
He's just plain cool, in a Spinal Tap kinda way. And I love his games. ^^
I'm still waiting for the new Ninja Gaiden games to even come close to the old NES series in terms of storytelling and fun. I find the new ones infuriatingly repetitive in addition to crossing the line from "challenging" well into "I'd rather hit myself with a hammer than play this any more" levels of TooDamnHard.