Tomonobu Itagaki, by contrast to most Japanese game designers, is not humble or understated. It was with some surprise then that he admitted faults in some of his prior games.
“Look, I’ll say it: the boss character in Dead Or Alive 4 was definitely too difficult. I’ll apologize for it. I’m the one who did that, and I’m sorry,” he said.
“But, look, Ninja Gaiden, it was absolutely intentional that it be that difficult. That game was a revival version of a classic game for old-school gamers, so I wanted to make the hardcore happy,” he continued. “Ninja Gaiden 2, though, I really wanted more people to enjoy that, but… we ran out of time for balancing. That was a tragedy. Really.”
Itagaki, however, returned to form when he returned to talking about his latest game. “For Devil’s Third, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. We’ve got support from THQ’s testing team, and we’re going to work really closely with those guys to balance out the game.”
“It’s going to be the best game ever,” he added.
Source: CVG {link no longer active}
