RIP Tomonobu Itagaki

[Tron 2.0]

Person behind DOA and Ninja Gaiden 2004 has passed away.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/legend...-2004-has-died

[Spartacus]

The man sure seemed to have a thing for jiggly physics. I don't care for fighting games, so the most memorable experience I have with Dead or Alive is searching through countless copies of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball for the Xbox to collect all 6 special promotional lenticular cards that was included with some copies of the game. A rare and sought-after item for collectors.
I found the 2004 Ninja Gaiden too difficult and as a result, stayed away from to series . It wasn't until Ninja Gaiden Ragebound for me to get interested Ninja Gaiden again. But since then I've played and enjoyed all of the Souls games, which are notoriously difficult as well, so maybe I should give Team Ninja's Ninja Gaiden another chance. Frankly, we currently seemed to be inundated with Ninja games.
Well, rest in peace San Itagaki! I wonder if they buried him with his sunglasses on.

[kupomogli]

The letter he left to provide to his fans was pretty nice. Not a huge fan of his games as I like the games but not a huge fan, but then again I do like the DOA series more than most fighting games because it's a great series that is also simple to play, very similar in desig to the Virtua Fighter games which is where he got the inspiration from. I actually didn't like Virtua Fighter 2 or Fighting Vipers while I did like DOA2 and later, and when playing Virtua Fighter 4 the additions to the game made it far better than earlier the earlier games, so maybe Sega took some inspiration from Itagaki afterwards? Itagaki wasn't part of DOA5 but Jackie, Sarah, and Akira are all in the game and feel like their Virtua Fighter 4 counterparts.

@Spartacus

I think you'll like Ninja Gaiden 2. The first Ninja Gaiden is also level based, but it's got an explorable world that is much more like DMC3 in a way. Ninja Gaiden 2 is more linear and I feel like this is a better design for this game.

Based on an interview from Itagaki, he wanted the enemies to be more relentless, he felt like the AI to a lot of these games like DMC, etc were dumb, so enemy AI while come at you on Ninja Gaiden, but they don't take turns, they'll just constantly attack, throw stuff at you, circle around to get a better position on you, and on the second game if you delimb enemies you can then execute them for invincibility frames, but if you're not paying attention they'll drag themselves to you and if they grab you they'll do a desperation attack to take massive damage.

You could always pick up the PS4 version of the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection, import at Play Asia for $45, or the games themselves may be backwards compatible with the Xbox Series X or Xbox One. Should fix the framerate issues on Ninja Gaiden 2 for the 360. The two games are different, the PS3 version reduces the amount of enemies but increases the damage, on master ninja you will die in a single hit if you're grabbed, while the 360 version has many more enemies at once but they are easier to cut limbs and execute. The core game is the same but they play different. I'd recommend watching this review from The Electric Underground or atleast listen to it, it's a pretty long review. This is one of the few Youtube reviewers that isn't a complete shill when new games release(check out his Ninja Gaiden 4 review for example, the one that everyone else praises.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEsbgi-G-0Q