Ninja Gaiden II, Part 1

Head Ninja Tomonobu Itagaki discusses making a ninja game for newbs

One of the first things Team Ninja bossman Tomonobu Itagaki asks me is "Have you played Ninja Gaiden?" I tell him that I only got up to the boss fight with Alma before stopping, and he quickly responds, "I'm sorry," before personally demonstrating Ninja Gaiden II.

Most of what people have seen of NG2 so far is Venetian level Aqua Palance, where Ryu fights a bunch of ninjas from the rival Black Spider Clan and takes on a guy who looks like a giant spider himself. This time, Itagaki is showing off Sky City Tokyo, which is the very first level in the game. "When you come home and put the disc in, this is what you see." I quickly notice that he set the game to "the path of the acolyte" before playing.

This level is closer to the visual style of the previous Ninja Gaiden than the bright colors of the Aqua Palace level. Parts of it look like the old-style ninja village from the first game, while at one point Ryu looks out to a landscape full of modern neon lights. In between these views and the expected ninja fights, I'm noticing a lot of tutorial prompts. Sure, they were present in the first level of Ninja Gaiden (where Ayane would throw notes that tell you how to do stuff like jump up walls), but these tutorial prompts have fuller descriptions of what's going on, and even videos of what you're supposed to do. Besides all of the tutorials, I'm also noticing that in contrast to the screens of Ryu fighting 10 ninjas at once, I'm only seeing about three enemy ninjas at a time in this demo. Finally, while Ryu is fighting these ninjas, I notice the new health system, where part of Ryu's health bar actually regenerates when he's out of combat à la Halo (though like Halo, excessive damage will go past the "regenerative" portion and affect the more finite part of his health bar).

All of this is pointing to how Ninja Gaiden II is being made with a wider audience in mind. Ninja Gaiden is considered one of the best action games ever made, but it has a brutal learning curve; most people who didn't know what they were getting into got completely stomped on by the very first boss in the game. Itagaki wants more people to experience Ninja Gaiden II, and has taken a more serious look at the varying difficulty levels and their balancing to make it so.

Itagaki claims that the difficulty mode he's showing off, the lowest one called "the path of the acolyte," is expressly made for newbie players who aren't very good at action games. In Ninja Gaiden Black, the Ninja Dog mode merely added more items but the combat itself was still quite difficult; here, the acolyte difficulty is an overall toned-down version of Ninja Gaiden. The enemies are less numerous, and not quite as adept as the ones you encounter in higher difficulty modes. It's the mode that Itagaki himself says he can finish while drunk.

Of course, there will be higher difficulties for Ninja Gaiden veterans, but for people who couldn't get past Alma (like me), there's acolyte difficulty. At one point, I try to make fun of how easy everything is on acolyte difficulty, by pointing out how slowly the enemy ninja is advancing toward him. He corrects me, noting that "actually, that ninja was missing an arm, so he was in a lot of pain." Acolyte mode isn't a total cakewalk, but it's a toned-down mode that still maintains the rules and internal consistency of the overall game. More importantly, it's a Ninja Gaiden game that I can probably finish.

Sweeney Todd, but with ninjas!

A nice little village interrupted with lots of bloodletting.

We had a chance to speak a little more with Itagaki, after the demo, to get his thoughts on Ninja Gaiden II and how his wife influences the difficulty level of his games.

GameTap: Now that you can switch weapons with just the D-pad, I noticed that you can't really make a switch mid-combo. Have you ever considered a situation where the player can use the sword at first then switch to a scythe to finish someone off?

Tomonobu Itagaki: If this were an entirely combo-based game, and that was the only point to it, then you might have a system like that. But the point is that Ryu is going up against his opponent, and he wants to fight fairly and in a way that befits his character. You can imagine that if we implemented such a system, then Ryu can always make the first hit with his quickest weapon, which would stop the enemy's attack or put him in a defensive posture. Then you switch to a more powerful weapon to finish him off--that kind of takes the fun out of the combat. It'd be like a fighting game where you do a quick ninja dash to stop the guy and then do a pile driver to finish him off. That kind of breaks the balance of the game.

There are a lot of games out there that we don't follow closely, but I know your readers do, things like Dynasty Warriors and such that depend on combo-based gameplay, and that might affect how you look at our game. But the point is, we want to fight fair, and it's about you trying to kill your enemies and your enemies are trying to kill you. We want you to feel that element of risk every time you fight an enemy as well.

GameTap: In Ninja Gaiden, there were about three to five enemies at a time, while I notice in screens and footage for Ninja Gaiden II, that Ryu fights between 10 and 12 guys at a time. Can you talk about this change in amount of enemies that you fight, and if that affects the enemy A.I.?

Tomonobu Itagaki: In absolute terms, you are trying to kill the enemy, and the enemy is trying to kill you. So if the enemy ninjas sent their best guys, it would probably only take about three guys to take you down. But that would be too intense, as you would have to deal with constant attacks all the time. So we thought it might be nice if in the enemies you had, some were really good guys and some ninjas aren't that great. With that point of view, it would be okay to fight about eight or ten guys at a time, because you have varying levels of skill within the enemies coming to get you.

GameTap: Ninja Gaiden has an infamously harsh learning curve; you mentioned that for DS title Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword, you adjusted the curve on that game somewhat since DS players tend to be more casual compared to Xbox Ninja Gaiden players. Has a similar adjustment happened for Ninja Gaiden II?

Tomonobu Itagaki: I think it's important to have a steady learning curve. We want as many people as possible to see everything the game has to offer. Earlier when we asked you about Ninja Gaiden, you said you only got up to Alma. As a person who created that game, I feel pride in my creation that you weren't able to beat that enemy. But as the same time as a producer, someone who wants the game to be played by as many people as possible, I feel kind of sad that you gave up at that point. I think it's important we allow people to see as much of the game as they possibly can.