News Emperor Cow Meets Tomonobu Itagaki!

[Skilletor]

I'm saying the distinction doesn't exist. This whole "there's 2 kinds of people" BS is just so we can say that anyone who isn't good now never will be, and they're not even worth talking about. I'll have you know, TN and TK don't care about you. YOU already bought the game. They're more worried about that guy who didn't buy the game. They're worried about people who may not buy the next one because they can't figure out what they're doing wrong. This is why we keep wondering why people keep saying people wont' help them. Right here: we keep writing them off as worthless mashers. Maybe we shouldn't worry about getting the community larger. Clearly it has enough people in it that we can pick and choose who we want.

Who said there were two kinds of people? Not me. I never said, "There are people that want to get better and scrubs."

I don't know what you're talking about here. I know LOTS of people who couldn't care less about learning how to play a fighter. They're perfectly content going through single player mode, mashing the entire way, and dropping the game when they're done. I know people who spend more time in SoulCalibur playing dress up than playing the game. If that's what they want to do, that's fine, but that doesn't mean Itagaki is right. You're talking about a person willing to invest time into learning. I know for a fact a lot of people don't want to do that.

Go preach somewhere else.

 

[deathofaninja]

^ I think you are getting a little worked up over nothing.

Anyway while I would never refuse a beer from Itagaki , I really enjoyed this interview. I'm surprised his Japanese really was that good, and that he had been studying it for 8 years.

Itagaki made some interesting points, but I can't agree with him saying the suck ass player will never win. Though I do agree that less sales generate because fighting games are harder to play than other games, but it's not like he ever found an answer to that problem.

The point is... a long time ago he said he couldn't take DOA any higher. He made some great games and characters, but I honestly think it's time for Itagaki to stay away from DOA. I like the direction DOA is going in mechanically. The fact that he is now interested in coming back actually makes him look like a full blown hypocrite.

 

[Russian-chiropractic19]

sadly laughed at the beginning of this interview because of that first question. i of course didn't think the subject was funny at all it just caught me so off guard that someone would ask that when first meeting someone it was major WTF! moment

 

[Skilletor]

Not worked up, lol. I am saying that I'm not saying there is a dichotomy of thought. There are all kinds of players. There are people who give no fucks about the story. There are people who like to do combos and don't want fight people. There are people like me who love fighting games, but know they'll never go on to win a major, but like challenging themselves. There are people who just like the characters and don't care too much about learning, just want to see all the moves and outfits, cutscenes, and tag throws.

There are room for all of them in the community. My point, and what I was originally saying, is that the people I know and have run into that just mash buttons don't try to learn, and DoA has not changed so much that they're not pretty much doing the same moves from DoA2 when they do mash. They don't notice the different stuns, the critical bursts, the power launchers, etc. They don't care.

All I was saying, and exactly what I meant when I said Argentus and I were talking about different types of players. Because he's talking about somebody willing to put time into learning; I was talking about a person who couldn't care less about learning, and will move on to the next flavor of the week soon enough.

 

[Cadaveri]

I find it very funny how he has the moral to talk smack about the current dev teams approach to (sexy)dlc when he made god knows how many skimpy costumes, striptease, etc the lot for doax(s)

Interesting read nontheless, thanks.

 

[Project Bokuho]

Very interesting read!

 

[DyByHands]

I respect the man for having created the previous DOA games and Ninja Gaiden 1 but I seriously think it's time for him to shut the fuck up about DOA forever. At this point, all I can see is a butthurt dev mad at TN for being successful with DOA5. I'm not fond of the sexualization as Cow said in the interview but I also think DOA5 is a huge improvement over DOA4, which if I'm not mistaken, is the perfect fighting game according to Tom.

He just needs to work a lot on that Devil's Third game because to be honest, it looks really bland and uninteresting to me.

This. All this!
Though as a long time fan, I am really looking forward to Devil's Third. And here, I got super excited about seeing a new interview with Itagaki. But pass, again nothing new, damn.

 

[DR2K]

Itagaki failed with DOA4 even by his own litmus. It had little to offer or give to pro players and casuals/intermediate players had nothing to strive for. The skill gap is no different in DOA5 between the 2. Casual players get power blows and more interactions per stage and pro players get to learn guaranteed set ups, frame advantage, critical bursts, use 3d movement, etc. . . A true evolution to everything Itagaki intentionally sabatoged in his misguided belief of what DOA should be.

 

[synce]

lol People still judging Itagaki based solely on DOA4, as if that's the only game he ever made, or no fighting series has ever had a sequel that took some missteps. T4, SC3, GG Isuka, come on now. He also made DOA3, which I think if was released today with proper marketing would be WAY more competitively popular than 5.

 

[Destroy 0h Boy]

Great read. Thanks!!

 

[UncleKitchener]

Not my kind of beer, but he seems like an alright guy.

Don't really agree with his points, but he has some good ones.

Overall, a very good interview.

lol People still judging Itagaki based solely on DOA4, as if that's the only game he ever made, or no fighting series has ever had a sequel that took some missteps. T4, SC3, GG Isuka, come on now. He also made DOA3, which I think if was released today with proper marketing would be WAY more competitively popular than 5.

Judging by past interviews, he had less of an input on the design decisions of doa3.

Let's all not forget that there are people called designers in development team that do the actual numbers and get the right feel for a game.

 

[Force_of_Nature]

lol People still judging Itagaki based solely on DOA4, as if that's the only game he ever made, or no fighting series has ever had a sequel that took some missteps. T4, SC3, GG Isuka, come on now. He also made DOA3, which I think if was released today with proper marketing would be WAY more competitively popular than 5.

Thing is, Itagaki thought DOA4 was a perfect game or a near perfect game. In other words, DOA4 is most reflective of his vision of the series. If Itagaki produced DOA5 or another DOA game, it likely wouldn't be competitively viable or have a competitive focus.

 

[Kronin]

Thing is, Itagaki thought DOA4 was a perfect game or a near perfect game. In other words, DOA4 is most reflective of his vision of the series. If Itagaki produced DOA5 or another DOA game, it likely wouldn't be competitively viable or have a competitive focus.

To be fair I never gave to much weight to his words about the subject. Surely he was satisfied of DoA4, but I always thought that him stating it as "the perfect fighter" or "the final DoA game" was more the classic move in character from him, one of his usual exaggerate responses for going against the detractors or creting rivalries with the other fighting series.

With Itagaki remaing in lead of TN I'm sure that we would have seen a DoA5 with some differences from DoA4 going against his statement. However I also see very likely that the direction taken wouldn't have been the one followed from TN with DoAD and overall DoA5 series, something that was addressed even from the direct feedback of the western community (last time that a such feedback was given to Itagaki, the answer was completely the opposite one).

 

[Argentus]

I find it very funny how he has the moral to talk smack about the current dev teams approach to (sexy)dlc when he made god knows how many skimpy costumes, striptease, etc the lot for doax(s)

Interesting read nontheless, thanks.

That's the point. He made it for a separate sub series DEDICATED to the fanservice, not clogging up the main game with it.


Whats bugging me is everyone is trying to just dismiss all the (very valid) flaws, just because we have a tournament scene now. NO. Why would you even do that?! Why would you rather have a ton of flaws, rather than be good across the board? I didn't play seriously before 5, so I leave the actual mechanics judging to you guys, aside from my personal dislikes of things like force techs, superfluous mechancis like crit bursts, power launchers and power blows. BUT I still point out everything else that even a casual gamer can see. DOA NEEDS Itagaki back, at least as an art director. DOA has traded slightly better gameplay for being a bland shallow shadow of its former self. And there is literally NO excuse for that.

Its the same reason why I prefer games like Onechanbara and Ninja Blade over Ninja Gaiden's 2 and 3. The latter may have technically better mechanics, but the former is just way the fuck cooler, and therefore, the better game experience.


People are trying to just dismiss everything except the core gameplay and its starting to get on my nerves now. Its not that core gameplay doesn't matter, its that everything else does, too.

 

[Kronin]

@Argentus First of all what is the better experience for you couldn't be the same for others (and I say this agreeing with what you said).Various people on FSD very likely didn't care so much of the casual aspects but on the opposite witsh for a fighting game answering to certain characteristics, so for them is more than enough to have a game in the current state. This is simply a matter of priority.

In second place, it's not possible to have always the best of both the worlds. Itagaki can't return to Team NINJA as simple art director, the only scenario that I can see is him taking back his place as general development leader (for absurd, because i don't think that he could ever return to TN, especially now that they are under the guidelines of Koei-Tecmo and lost part of their freedom... Itagaki would never accept to work in a similar way imo).

Considering how in a such scenario the game would revert (very likely, no one can have the certainty) to the DoA4 standards, I consider better to leave the actual team to the guide of the mechanical game giving them way to improve (or to act for) on the other side of the game. I find this happening with much more chances in comparison with the opposite situation of Itagaki deciding to make a sequel under the technical point close to DoA5.

When Hayashi and his team realized the mistake done with NG3, they worked for creating an improved version of it, not with real additions but getting material from the past for being able to make a decent outcome for satisfying the audience, in foresight to create a proper personal sequel with NG4. After that Itagaki received suggestions or complaints for DoA4 (alpha version or definitive one), he didn't make anything for changing it.

 

[just_me]

Those same reviewers are the people who say it's not a fighting game, no? Let's not cherry pick our information if we're going to consider it gospel.

No one claims that DoA is not a Fighting Game at all. The general method to identify a Fighting Game is something like: "Health Bars with a Timer in between at the top of the screen - Check, UI Element that shows you how many rounds you won/have to win- Check, Chars placed on both sided of the screen at the start of the round- Check... yeah that's a fighting game". If anything reviewers claim that DoA is not a deep, but mashy and shallow Fighting Game.
And thus these are indeed the players Itagaki talks about, players that are new, or know hardly anything about the Genre and for those players not much has changed. Most characters will still do the same "visually pleasing moves", if you just press PPPPPPPPPPPPPPP. Or look at Rig: making proper use of all his tools arguably requires some practice, but if you just mash K and a few directions he will still do neat looking stuff...
Though I don't know against which type of player "just press the buttons randomly [...]at some points lead to that beginner’s first victory"...
The AI? That's entirely possible if you just jump right into story mode, DoA5 story mode seems to be far less frustrating than DoA4's on it's default difficulty.
Other beginners? Well chances are pretty high that one beginner wins if two just mash away, no?
Experienced players? Well that absolutely should not happen, should it? Because that's poor game design imo, since it simply means you made a game so shallow that experience and knowledge do not even give you enough of an edge over someone that just does random stuff to ensure victory (and that wasn't even true in DoA4)

It really doesn't sound like he's talking about about players with experience with other FGs, since I think their first instinct is to try to figure out the basic mechanics (by either look things up, or jump into training mode) and not roll their face on the controller. But even for those people DoA5 is not a whole different beast in terms of complexity than previous iterations. But DoA4 was like "look this stun does not allow an instant hold... unfortunately not enough to get another hit in", while DoA5 is more like "look this stun does not allow an instant hold, I can get a free <insert movespeed> move"
Breaking DoA4 apart felt kinda unrewarding I guess, since you could only find stuff that's "meh at best". So for the most part Shimbori made few small changes at the right spots, that have a huge impact on the depth but none on the "casual appeal" imo.

 

[Skilletor]

lol People still judging Itagaki based solely on DOA4, as if that's the only game he ever made, or no fighting series has ever had a sequel that took some missteps. T4, SC3, GG Isuka, come on now. He also made DOA3, which I think if was released today with proper marketing would be WAY more competitively popular than 5.

Yep, because doa4 was itagaki's response to seeing competitive doa3. He made conscious design decisions because he thought we were playing the game wrong.

 

[Argentus]

Yep, because doa4 was itagaki's response to seeing competitive doa3. He made conscious design decisions because he thought we were playing the game wrong.

Which....I can't fault him for, like it or not.

He made a game with a vision in mind, and people weren't playing how he intended, so he tried to rectify it.

It'd be like Monopoly became about competitive loan sharking and tax evasion, the makers would be all "THE HELL thats not what I made the game for!" and try to change things to get rid of that in the next version.

But then someone else got ahold of the game in the version after THAT, and brought back the tax evasion and loan sharking and focused on that, while the original monopoly guys had left. The original monopoly guys would surely be unhappy that their baby didn't grow up as they had planned.


Same deal with what happened to Zoom in the comics, honestly. Original writer created him as an Anti flash whos massively powerful, faster than any flash, but a personal enemy of wally west, who was intent on teaching Wally what tragedy was, so he'd understand the horrors of the world and be a better hero. Other writers got ahold of him and instead turned him into a standard "evil twin" who could be outpaced by the heroes, and was flanderized into being a generic "let me help you" villainous dr phil towards all heroes. This all defeated the point, and when the original writer got ahold of him again, he basically killed him off so others couldn't misuse him again.


Not a perfect analogy, but just bringing up the point that the original creator has every right to be unhappy when other creators take a different direction with their....creations.

 

[Skilletor]

He can be mad or rant all he wants. As a consumer, I'm glad he's not working on a product in which I have an intent to purchase.

 

[Kohlrak]

^ I think you are getting a little worked up over nothing.
Anyway while I would never refuse a beer from Itagaki , I really enjoyed this interview. I'm surprised his Japanese really was that good, and that he had been studying it for 8 years.
Itagaki made some interesting points, but I can't agree with him saying the suck ass player will never win. Though I do agree that less sales generate because fighting games are harder to play than other games, but it's not like he ever found an answer to that problem.
The point is... a long time ago he said he couldn't take DOA any higher. He made some great games and characters, but I honestly think it's time for Itagaki to stay away from DOA. I like the direction DOA is going in mechanically. The fact that he is now interested in coming back actually makes him look like a full blown hypocrite.

And this right here is exactly what we should take from this interview.

Who said there were two kinds of people? Not me. I never said, "There are people that want to get better and scrubs."
I don't know what you're talking about here. I know LOTS of people who couldn't care less about learning how to play a fighter. They're perfectly content going through single player mode, mashing the entire way, and dropping the game when they're done. I know people who spend more time in SoulCalibur playing dress up than playing the game. If that's what they want to do, that's fine, but that doesn't mean Itagaki is right. You're talking about a person willing to invest time into learning. I know for a fact a lot of people don't want to do that.
Go preach somewhere else.

And the ones that do get treated as if they don't. You don't know what you're doing, go play the computer for a bit. Wait, no, it's cheating and has super reactions, you'll never learn from that. Hey, try command training. Wait, nah, most of what you use in there isn't even useful. How about dojo! That's right, Dojo and reading frame data teaches you when to us what attacks, just like a punching bag teaches you how to fight!
Yes, no one at all is willing to invest into learning this game.

That's the point. He made it for a separate sub series DEDICATED to the fanservice, not clogging up the main game with it.
Whats bugging me is everyone is trying to just dismiss all the (very valid) flaws, just because we have a tournament scene now. NO. Why would you even do that?! Why would you rather have a ton of flaws, rather than be good across the board? I didn't play seriously before 5, so I leave the actual mechanics judging to you guys, aside from my personal dislikes of things like force techs, superfluous mechancis like crit bursts, power launchers and power blows. BUT I still point out everything else that even a casual gamer can see. DOA NEEDS Itagaki back, at least as an art director. DOA has traded slightly better gameplay for being a bland shallow shadow of its former self. And there is literally NO excuse for that.
Its the same reason why I prefer games like Onechanbara and Ninja Blade over Ninja Gaiden's 2 and 3. The latter may have technically better mechanics, but the former is just way the fuck cooler, and therefore, the better game experience.
People are trying to just dismiss everything except the core gameplay and its starting to get on my nerves now. Its not that core gameplay doesn't matter, its that everything else does, too.

Thank you. Though, beware, the amount of people who are going to read this before spouting again seems to be next to nothing.

No one claims that DoA is not a Fighting Game at all. The general method to identify a Fighting Game is something like: "Health Bars with a Timer in between at the top of the screen - Check, UI Element that shows you how many rounds you won/have to win- Check, Chars placed on both sided of the screen at the start of the round- Check... yeah that's a fighting game". If anything reviewers claim that DoA is not a deep, but mashy and shallow Fighting Game.
And thus these are indeed the players Itagaki talks about, players that are new, or know hardly anything about the Genre and for those players not much has changed. Most characters will still do the same "visually pleasing moves", if you just press PPPPPPPPPPPPPPP. Or look at Rig: making proper use of all his tools arguably requires some practice, but if you just mash K and a few directions he will still do neat looking stuff...
Though I don't know against which type of player "just press the buttons randomly [...]at some points lead to that beginner’s first victory"...

Have you even listened to our critics, or have you just tuned them out?

The AI? That's entirely possible if you just jump right into story mode, DoA5 story mode seems to be far less frustrating than DoA4's on it's default difficulty.
Other beginners? Well chances are pretty high that one beginner wins if two just mash away, no?
Experienced players? Well that absolutely should not happen, should it? Because that's poor game design imo, since it simply means you made a game so shallow that experience and knowledge do not even give you enough of an edge over someone that just does random stuff to ensure victory (and that wasn't even true in DoA4)
It really doesn't sound like he's talking about about players with experience with other FGs, since I think their first instinct is to try to figure out the basic mechanics (by either look things up, or jump into training mode) and not roll their face on the controller. But even for those people DoA5 is not a whole different beast in terms of complexity than previous iterations. But DoA4 was like "look this stun does not allow an instant hold... unfortunately not enough to get another hit in", while DoA5 is more like "look this stun does not allow an instant hold, I can get a free <insert movespeed> move"
Breaking DoA4 apart felt kinda unrewarding I guess, since you could only find stuff that's "meh at best". So for the most part Shimbori made few small changes at the right spots, that have a huge impact on the depth but none on the "casual appeal" imo.

And you are right that he's talking about completely different people. Beginners are not experienced players. He's saying that beginners don't have enoguh experience to get into the game, and he planned the game out so that that was how beginners would slowly build up and become experienced players that no longer mashed.