Following the surprising announcement that Team NINJA will be bringing its popular Ninja Gaiden franchise to Sony's PlayStation 3, we figured it would be the right time to meet with Ninja Gaiden Sigma's director, Yosuke Hayashi, to find out everything worth knowing about the game. While his experience in Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black's development (he was project lead on NGB) have prepared him for the rigors of bringing the game over to PS3, it couldn't have prepared him for the onslaught of questions we threw at him. Still, the first-time interviewee weathered the storm surprisingly well, and we walked away with a grip of new info that shows us what to expect out of the ultimate version of Ninja Gaiden.
1UP: Please tell us about your game development background and what qualifies you as the director on Ninja Gaiden Sigma.
Yosuke Hayashi: For the past five years I have been working at Team Ninja. On the original Ninja Gaiden for Xbox, I worked on the combat system, mainly enemy AI and things like that. On Ninja Gaiden Black I worked with [Team Ninja translator and designer] Andy Syzymanski and I was the project lead on that and handled most of the overall duties there, and that experience has prepared me to head up the Ninja Gaiden Sigma project within Team Ninja.
1UP: What are the most difficult things about bringing Ninja Gaiden to the PS3? Is it creating the new content, or is it building/rebuilding a new game, or graphics engine, or whatever you're making specifically for the PS3?
YH: I'd say we're putting the most effort into the graphics. Obviously being on a next generation platform, on the PS3, we need to make sure we utilize the power of that machine to make the graphics as best as we can. Plus, Team Ninja has a reputation to uphold by having the best graphics for every title that we put out. That's what we're spending a large amount of our energies on.
1UP: From what I have seen from the screenshots and the trailer that you guys showed at Tokyo Game Show, the in-game graphics really look close if not better than the CG graphics on Xbox, especially now that those old CG cut-scenes are done in real-time. How improved would you describe NGS' graphics over those of the previous games?
YH: Of course graphic quality is important but obviously our main concern is in playability. We want to have a game that is playable and smooth above anything else. Our graphics are focused in that regard. That's why you'll find that we're changing some of the scenes that were prerendered in the previous game to be in real-time in this one, and that's not us saying, "Okay we've done it; just change the cut-scene." It's so you can participate and actually control the character while those scenes are going on, like in the fight with Goku at the shrine -- you can actually fight him in Ninja Gaiden Sigma. So obviously graphical quality is important but it's not just graphics for the sake of graphics -- it's to try to improve the overall playability of the game.
1UP: So to kind of build on that a little bit, is that to make the cut-scenes real-time and add battles where there weren't battles before, or is it more like controlling things like you can in Metal Gear -- during a cut-scene you can move the camera around and things like that. How do you mean?
YH: It's not so much about surface considerations like being able to move your camera around; it's about increasing interactivity. Ninja Gaiden is a game about fighting and so any changes we would make as far as making scenes that were prerendered before into real-time now is to add interactivity and give you the chance to jump in and control what is happening on screen. What we want to convey is the impact. We believe it is much more fun to play the game than to watch. While cut-scenes obviously do serve their purpose, it's important to get in there and actually be able to interact as much as possible with what is going on.
1UP: How difficult is it to add Rachel as a playable character? Are you -- how do I say this -- are you repurposing Ryu Hayubusa's move sets and animations or are you doing all of those from scratch?
YH: She's going to be completely original. Everything that is being done for her is being done form the ground up. There would be no point in having her play exactly the same as Ryu. You'd lose the point of adding a whole other playable character. We're designing her from the ground up as a "fiend hunter," which is what she is, and have a different play style but still maintain the quality action that Ninja Gaiden is known for. Her actions are going to be more feminine in a sense and are going to be different because she is a fiend hunter and not a ninja, but you're still going to feel like you are playing Ninja Gaiden. The experience will not be changed to the point where you are not enjoying the action.
1UP: Will she be limited to the use of the War Hammer or will she be able to use other weapons?
YH: We're preparing other weapons for her as well and we'll be able to give more details on those as we get closer to when the game releases.
1UP: Some gamers have criticized the War Hammer as a not very effective weapon, at least in the hands of Ryu Hayabusa. Will you be making any adjustments to the War Hammer to make it more powerful?
YH: We're going to make the War Hammer as interesting as possible when you are playing as Rachel. It's not going to be just a direct port of what was in the previous game but our focus is on making it so that the War Hammer gives you more freedom of movement, not just in terms of pounding or hitting with it, but also in grabbing enemies and throwing or having her do more athletic moves like kicks and stuff. We're currently in the process of designing all sorts of attacks that use the weapon but also allow her to use various kinds of athletics and physical attacks.
1UP: Now that Rachel is coming to Ninja Gaiden Sigma in the form of a second playable character, can you play the whole way through the game as her, or will she only show up for certain sequences, or will she exist only in a completely separate and external sequence like Resident Evil 4 for PS2 where Ada Wong's side story is a completely separate mission?
YH: Basically we want everyone to experience everything the game has to offer in the main story mode. What you're going to have is Ryu is still the main character and he's the focus, and the story itself is not changing a huge amount in that sense. What you're going to find is that at certain points in the story you are going to be able to play from Rachel's perspective and you are going to see events unfolding from her viewpoint and see aspects of the story that you couldn't see before. That's going to allow you to dig deeper into the Ninja Gaiden world so to speak and learn more about the universe and learn what went on behind the scenes. We also realize that there are going to be a lot of people who want to play as Rachel a lot the time. In addition to having her elements within the story mode she's also going to be playable in the mission mode. You're going to be able to go in there and select her and play through the missions like the ones that were in Ninja Gaiden Black, and you can play them as her so you can enjoy straight up fighting using her character.
1UP: So will all the mission modes from NGB make it over to NGS, and will there be new missions as well?
YH: It's not so much that we are bringing them directly over from Black, you know, because we're going to have new enemies and things too, and you don't want them to be the same as they were in a previous title, but it's going to fall in the same philosophy in terms of giving you a place to concentrate on fighting without doing the adventure portions of the game. We're obviously not taking a step back from Black at all. You're going to feel the same amount of surprise in terms of content as you did when playing NGB.
1UP: In the trailer, water running seems to be [important] in Sigma. You could do it in NGB but most people never realized it because there wasn't any particular need for it. But now it looks like you have incorporated water running elements into the game. How much did you add to the game using this feature?
YH: The important thing to remember that Ninja Gaiden is an action combat game where combat is the most important thing that's in there. That is why water running wasn't compelling in the previous game because it didn't have much to do with that. What we're really focusing on this time is, although you might not be able to tell specifically from the trailer, we've completely revamped how the water running controls. You'll be able to fight while you are running on the water. We want to make that a more interactive experience and give you a reason to use it by giving you situations where you're going to run to different areas on water and giving you different enemies to fight during those sequences.
1UP: Would you say that NGS, when it is released, will be a showcase for just how good games can look on the PS3?
YH: Of course we aim to be number one with everything we put out. We still feel that NG is one of the best action games on the planet and that when NGS comes out then it will be the best action game in the world at the time it comes out. There are other action titles in the PS3 lineup so we want to go head to head with them and show the world what Team Ninja can do and, especially for the people who have never played NG, this is what we can do. We'll be saying "This is what a Team Ninja action game looks and feels like."
1UP: Let's say you're sitting down with a gamer who has a choice -- he can play this fresh version of Ninja Gaiden or he can sit down with Devil May Cry 4, an all-new game. What would you tell that gamer to get him to play NGS instead of DMC4?
YH: You know my personal opinion in that situation would be I would say that I think the DMC games aren't really about combat per se; it's more like you have enemies but they are only there for the purpose of making you looking good. They're really just placed in the environment and then you're tasked with how you can defeat them as stylishly as possible while racking up as big a combo as possible. It's a very one-way street. Whereas for us, Ninja Gaiden is a combat game and an action game. You're here to fight and you want to have real opponents to fight and that's our philosophy. The enemy should fight back and should be trying to kill you just as hard as you're trying to kill them. That would be my main point of argument in saying, "Look, our philosophy is that we think you should have a challenge and be able to enjoy what we feel is real combat instead of having ornaments and see how high of a hit combo you can get against them."
1UP: As one of the leading visual contenders on the PS3, is there ever a concern internally that you may make this game look better than Ninja Gaiden 2?
YH: [Laughs nervously] Well, as far as where the Ninja Gaiden series is going in the future, you'll have to talk to Itagaki-san because I know he has a lot of ideas in his head about where he wants to take the series. He's kind of the pioneer of our team and he gives me inspiration and has taught me everything I know. I kind of follow in his footsteps and broaden his creations to reach more people. With that being said, obviously our goal is to make NGS the best looking PS3 game that it can be when it is released. That's really what our team is focused on and that's our main goal. When this game is released we want people to say this is the best-looking, best-playing action game on the system.
1UP: Keeping those two things in mind and now seeing how far you've come with Sigma already, if you were to draw a parallel between how the PS3 and the Xbox 360 stack up against each other, do you have any interesting anecdotes about what you view as a strength in one versus a strength in the other?
YH: I think for this generation it's much less about the specific hardware differences as it is about the skill of the developers and the personal preferences. You know, you have our game that we're doing up in our visual style on the PS3 hardware, but then you look at what Itagaki is doing with Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 on the 360. That's got a totally different visual style. It's not a question of better or worse but what is that person going for in terms of how they want the game to look, which is why you'll find that things will look different on different hardware in different situations depending on who is developing and who is pushing that hardware. This team may want to focus on this specific element and therefore it is going to look like this on a certain hardware. It's really dependent on the skill of the developer who is working it and what they are able to get out of it, first of all, and what kind of overall image they are looking for. Are they looking for realism or are they looking to accentuate this particular visual feature or this technology and that's, I think, really going to be the key, and not this number-by-number or feature-by-feature comparison of only the hardware.
1UP: Well, would you say that both machines are generally capable of producing similar results? I guess it's easier to do one thing on this machine but you're still going to get the same end result on the other if you put enough work into it?
YH: We're currently at 20% completion on NGS. We did the trailer for Tokyo Game Show in about a month and a half. That tells you how far we were able to get with that hardware and we still have a ways to go before we approach the Team Ninja level of quality ultimately, but we think we're on track. It's really -- once again, talking about hardware now -- difficult to say because yes, you may be able to get the same result but it really comes down to the skill of the person who is using it. If you have an incredibly talented artist and give him a set of charcoals and a set of oil paints he's going to come up with two images that look very different, but it's going to be hard to say which picture required more skill. He may be more used to painting with oils or may be more used to charcoals but if you practice with it, then it is the skill and the medium and what the final result is that you are shooting for. I think that no matter what platform you are on, if you have skilled people who have a unique vision that that they are aiming for, then they are going to be able to achieve it no matter what platform they are on.
1UP: Is Sigma going to have all the features found in Ninja Gaiden Black, like the adjustable camera and whatnot?
YH: Yes.
1UP: Will you be taking advantage of any of the online functionality of the PS3 to upload world rankings and scores?
YH: Yes, it's going to have the karma rankings.
1UP: Will the result rankings be the same, from Ninja Dog on up?
YH: Yeah, the basic concept that people are going to upload their scores onto a leaderboard to compare and see who has got more points is not going to be changed. We might refine the scorekeeping and maybe change that around a little bit so it's easier to understand, but the concept is going to remain that same.
1UP: You may have touched upon this before but I just wanted to clarify again: Sigma is going to contain the majority of the content from the previous Hurricane Packs that were included in Ninja Gaiden Black?
YH: Yes. It may not be the exact same way as it was in Black, but you're definitely not going to feel like we're taking a step back from Black at all. It's going to have what Black had and then go deeper.
1UP: In terms of difficultly, what are you aiming for with Sigma? Are you aiming to be as hardcore as possible, or because of the fact that is it on the PlayStation platform now do you view the prospective audience and consumers as something different from the Xbox audience?
YH: Yes, we are aware of the difficulty issues and we do want to make the game more accessible -- going along with the theme of this project, which is to take the NG franchise that we have, which is this incredibly superb action game, we want to widen it out to envelop an even larger audience. In order to do that we need to make the difficulty more accessible. The whole point of NG is it needs to be challenging; you need to feel every time you come up and you're fighting an enemy, you're fighting for your life. We're not going to make it easier by just dumbing down the enemies or making it so that you can kill them with one hit or, you know, give you tons of life or something like that. It's really going to be more about looking at where we need to tweak it and still make it challenging enough so that we're always challenging people when they play and then they are challenging themselves to always get better and better.
We're going to have multiple difficulty levels just like we had in NGB. We want to cater to everybody. People who are new to the series should be able to jump in and while it won't be easy at first, hopefully they'll be able to progress smoothly. People who have played it before should be able to jump into one of the harder difficulty levels. We don't really think of it in terms of "because we are going on the PlayStation, we need to make it easier" or anything like that. We don't think of PlayStation as being less hardcore or anything like that. It's just simply that the concept of this game is to take the NG franchise and expand it and with that in mind we want to make the difficulty more accessible in the same vein.
1UP: For people who have played it already, with NG and possibly NGB, who might be on the fence wondering whether they want to play this game again for the third time, what would you say the is the big attraction for them?
YH: Of course, like I said earlier, one of goals is to bring new people into the fold, into NG, that haven't had a chance to experience it before. At the same time we also want to make it attractive to the people that are fans of the series and to that end we're adding all the new features. Most of the new stuff we've added is actually more intended for fans of NG, because we think that people who are approaching the series for the first time are going to be blown away by how the game controls and all the battles because they've never seen an action game like this. For people who have played it before we're showing things like Rachel being playable; that's something people can immediately latch onto. Bosses that weren't in the game before now -- there are [new] bosses you can fight.
1UP: Like Gamov?
YH: Yes, those are things on the surface that are easy to see even just by looking at the trailer -- a new weapon or what have you -- but we're also making changes below the surface too, like trying to improve the pace of the battles or tweaking the AI a little bit and adding new enemy types and things like that. When you buy the game... visuals aside -- obviously the visuals are going to be improved; I don't think I even need to talk about that -- but visuals aside, when you buy the game and put it into your PS3 and start playing, no matter how much of a seasoned veteran you are, you're not going to feel like you are having the exact same experience that you have had before. We want to say to people that this is NG on a next-generation platform graphically and gameplay wise in all respects. I hope that all newcomers to the series and die-hard NG fans will all check it out. Besides, you gave us a 10 for NG Black and so we're going to do what we can to make it worthy of a 10-plus, or maybe even a 20! [Laughs]
_________________ There will be two kinds of people.. Those who raise the bar and those who get smacked with it.
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Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:05 am Post subject:
Reno_fan wrote:
Thanks for quoting the interview, 'cuz 1up doesn't load (as always)
No problem I know their servers are crap so quotign when I can is always best. _________________ There will be two kinds of people.. Those who raise the bar and those who get smacked with it.
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Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 12:57 pm Post subject:
Many peopl;e have this problem. I had it too but I have multiple avenues to see it. _________________ There will be two kinds of people.. Those who raise the bar and those who get smacked with it.
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Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 8:16 pm Post subject:
Not not so much the link than some people just can't get into 1up.
My first browser is at a stand still.
Next one perfect.
1up got compatablity issues. _________________ There will be two kinds of people.. Those who raise the bar and those who get smacked with it.
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Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 11:33 pm Post subject:
I was tlakign about 1up in general on another forum they could not get in either.
At one point till I leared that one browser cna cut though. _________________ There will be two kinds of people.. Those who raise the bar and those who get smacked with it.
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