Ninja Gaiden 3 is in development, and it's no secret to avid followers that this will be the first NG title to be an completely original development not based on a previous work. Though the action looked serviceable enough, and violent enough to satisfy, something seemed to be missing. Specifically, an over-the-top amount of violent payoff to match the on-screen action. When asked about whether they would be returning to the all too famous decapitations and dismemberment characteristic to the Ninja Gaiden series since its reboot back in 2004, This is what Team Ninja had to say about the matter:
"We don't think people want to see that anymore," they were reported as saying at Gamescom last week. "They've already seen it."
Yeah right.
More like "We aren't talented enough to have a full dismemberment system in place on both consoles."
I'm seeing a pattern here. To this writer, it seems like excuses wrapped not in good intent, but in their own shortcomings as a developer, especially with their notoriously abrasive, yet perfectionistic leader gone. Let me explain.
Tech savvy gamers know for a fact that the 360 has a higher fill rate than the PS3. In terms everyone can understand, this means it has an ability to display more polygons on screen at any given time. In terms of Ninja Gaiden, specifically it's sequel, it meant they were able to have a fantastic gore/dismemberment system in place that even occasionally compromised the game's otherwise rock solid framerate, slowing things down when there were simply too many bits and pieces flying about.
It's my theory that this system, one that bogged down the 360 at times, was just about impossible to port over to the PS3. While it's a trial indeed to port over (and in some cases, upgrade) the vast majority of the game's assets intact, that wasn't the difficult part. The most difficult part would be getting that gore under control on the PS3...and they couldn't. They dropped the ball, and gave an excuse.
“Each game has its own concept and with Ninja Gaiden 2, the focus was on extreme violence. But with Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, we really questioned whether violence is a necessity for a game, so we decided to move away from that trend. So the violence ‘approach’ is not the way we approached the development of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. Being able to unlock higher levels of gore would be out of kilter with the concept of the game.”
Motion controlled breasts were not, however.
Remarkably similar, no? The quality of Team Ninja's games have been in decline ever since Itagaki left, and Yuusuke Hayashi keeps proving time and time again that he cannot uphold that standard since his departure, instead masking his shortcomings in tired excuses like this. I heard nothing of this in the original Ninja Gaiden port, which had the decapitations intact and took the time to improve visually...but the source material was from the last generation of hardware. The second game takes advantage of a specific next gen hardware advantage and has that specific feature cut. The third game is multiplatform out of the gate and has every aspect cut. That can't be coincidence.
The funny thing is, while he may be fooling anyone else blind enough to accept that tripe, this was all to familiar to the MGS2 debacle on the Xbox, one that is all too familiar.
Last generation, a perfect example of this was Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance on the original Xbox. Being a port of the original MGS2: Sons of Liberty on the PS2, the game was specifically designed to take advantage of the system's strengths, most notably the console's fill rate to create the still amazing to this day rainstorm in the tanker chapter. When this game was ported to the Xbox, the textures were better, the sound was better, and overall the game had a much cleaner look. However, the rainstorm was a bit too much for the system's architecture (particles, natch), and what was a perfectly smooth experience on the PS2 turned into a slow motion spectacle worthy of Zack Snyder on the Xbox, turning every scene outside the ship into a slideshow. Was it the Xbox's fault? No, it was more Kojima Productions' doing by not optimizing the game on different hardware, deciding that it would be easier to just dump it on the Xbox intact and let the chips fall where they may.
This is exactly what I feel is going on here, except instead of leaving the original game concept intact come hell or high water, they're instead omitting aspects of the game, leaving the fans to stare and shake their heads in bewilderment every time a new statement like that comes out. Yes, Ninja Gaiden is a great action game, but part of that enoyment comes from the visceral action, and yes, later on, the absurd amount of gore that came as a result. Omitting those aspects (using us as an excuse no less) is only going to hurt them in the long run, because as far as I can see, the God of War series is still going pretty strong, and Kratos has never run into an enemy face unworthy of evisceration. Imagine if Sony Santa Monica said they were cutting the gore from the PSP version of God of War, stating that it was time to tell a more "mature" tale for a different audience unfamiliar with Kratos. You'd think they were full of shit, right?
Exactly.
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