Thoughts on Team Ninja games @ TGS2011

by beargirl1

am i the only one that totally forgot that the Tokyo Game Show 2011 was this week? there's really nothing that's ever at that show that i care about.. unless it's about Ninja Gaiden or Dead or Alive. the announcement of Dead or Alive 5 came as a crazy shock to me as @zynxero tweeted it to me in the early morning. they've shown some stuff on Ninja Gaiden 3 (a trailer, and some gameplay details)...

Ninja Gaiden III: [TRAILER] [GAMEPLAY]

Trailer analysis/thoughts

so.. there's this army dude or something begging for his life.. alright. I GOT A FAMILY, MEN.
Ryu Hayabusa being the cool dude that he is, he slices the guy up for being a bitch. the begging part was a little weird. can't say i expected that in Ninja Gaiden.
Ryu's walking on clouds or something, having weird flashbacks. Joe Hayabusa, Ryu's father, and has the least ninja-ass name ever is back.. and blindfolded!
now there's this general dude.. no idea who he is. i guess Ryu's working for the army now or something? he says that ninja are ghosts from the forgotten age.. i'll admit that ninja in a modern setting is kinda dumb, so i guess he's right?
now some dude in a red robe talking about how Ryu's killed a bunch of dudes. i guess this trailer is focusing on moral choices?
Ryu's arm sucks up a bunch of red stuff, some lady screams MEEEEEEEEDIC for some weird reason, and the trailer ends.

the trailer has made me realize how much Ninja Gaiden is straying away from making any sort of sense. i mean, i can only assume that this trailer is focusing on the whole "Steel on Bone" part of the game. that's pretty much where the developers want you to feel like you're actually cutting through someone-- a real human being. i guess they're striving for a "oh man, you totally killed like 30 000 people. how do you feel about that?" feel, just like what MGS3 had with The Sorrow. unfortunately, i don't feel like Ninja Gaiden is the series for this kind of stuff. i mean, in past games, Ryu has had no problem killing a bunch of dudes, and sending heads all over the place. there were achievements for getting 1000 kills with each weapon in Ninja Gaiden II for christ's sake. i do kind of like how they're trying something different, though.

granted, i-- or anyone, doesn't know a bunch about the game yet, so who knows. it might make sense in the story, but i'm not counting on that in the least. nothing really makes sense in the modern Ninja Gaiden games in terms of story. it's all kind of crazy, and it just sets up for crazy boss battles. i hope it's a bit more interesting now, since it just seems like they're doing something cool with the story.

Gameplay thoughts

oh look! the Quick Time Events aren't there.. kinda. over time, the button prompts that show up to finish off an enemy disappear as you progress through the game, so i guess they did that for the TGS demo since people kinda freaked out about that stuff at E3.
this is the same demo we saw at E3, it looks like. this time, they added all of that morale choice stuff. at first, it's the same scene from the trailer, it seems with that russian dude begging for his life. wasn't too sure if this was being controlled by the player or not, but i can only assume so from the camera angles and stuff. the camera cuts between the backwards shot of Ryu walking towards the dude, and a view of the dude begging for his life. he ended up getting destroyed by Ryu. good stuff.
it's more killing, and then you come across more dudes that are unarmed and begging. now it looks like you have a choice, which i'm kind of glad to see.
that's about it. the demo ends and it's back to Team Ninja talking about NGIII. they're detailing the.. online mode? at this point, it seems like no one at that event even cares. there's just a lot of plate noises so it sounds like this is in a restaurant or something.
the dude says that the online mode will focus on cutting down other ninja. so.. this pretty much means there's going to be a death match in Ninja Gaiden? that sounds.. really weird, but depending on how they make it, it could actually be really intense, and a lot of fun.
there's 8 player multiplayer modes, and you can customize your ninja with colors and stuff. they talk about.. challenges in the ninja world, and fighting Hayabusa himself..? this is starting to sound more like an MMORPG or something. very weird. they leave it at that, too. i can't say too much about that.

Ninja Gaiden III is looking like a ton of fun. while it's not exactly the direction that Ninja Gaiden should go in, it's still looking like a fun game-- although some would argue that it doesn't look like a good Ninja Gaiden game. i'm not an expert on Ninja Gaiden-- i just really like the games, so i can't speak for the more hardcore fan base. with Itagaki's departure, and this being the first new Ninja Gaiden game since, it's nice to see that Yosuke Hayashi isn't shy in making change. he's moving things forward, and i'm pretty damn happy to see that Ninja Gaiden still has a future--albeit a possibly different one.

Dead or Alive 5: [PRE-ALPHA FOOTAGE]
first off, i'd just like to say that Dead or Alive just might have the worst fan base in the entire world. augh. it's a shame that a pretty cool fighting game series is paired with a community that makes me want to eat my face.

yeah! so we're in.. Tokyo.. or New York.. we're in a city, and it looks pretty good so far.
Ryu and Hayate teleport onto this dangerous rooftop. Ryu looks like Ryu, and Hayate looks really weird. i'm not sure what it is about his face. i just expected him to look more ANIME.
the fight begins, and everything looks really nice. the fog and lighting effects look neat, and there's a poof of smoke whenever someone gets hit. it looks like they're going the Tekken route like how they did with DOA: Dimensions.
the environments look just as interactive as ever. Ryu running through stuff and breaking it, and moving cones around. also, Ryu totally blows the fuck up when he gets punched into a power generator thingy. that makes some girder move and break off a column in the stage. this is probably one of the only times in the series that i can remember where things you do affect the environment in real time without switching to a different floor in the stage.
Hayate pulls off some finishing move on Ryu, and sends him hanging off of the building. not sure if this is a stage specific finishing move like in MK, or it's solely for the trailer. regardless, the video fades to twitter/facebook links to Team Ninja, all while you hear a punch, a truck hitting something and the announcer declaring a KO. talk about cliffhanger.. in the literal sense.

i thought this trailer was fine, especially for a reveal trailer. while all the moves look exactly the same from DOA4, the game looks pretty good. a small problem with the DOA games since DOA2 was the lack of any distinctive style between any of the games. all of the games looked the same, and the characters all looked the same due to the fact that everyone looked like they had plastic skin. this time, it looks like they kinda dropped the anime-ish look and made it look a little more realistic, which i really like. Hayate looks weird, since he always looked ANIME, but this is pre-alpha footage so i could be completely wrong about all of this. i'm just hoping a realistic style will mean less awkward boob jiggle. i'm excited for the stage-altering stuff that went on when Ryu exploded. that could be really fun if Team Ninja get creative with it.

hell, if they refine the formula a little, have a ton of cool, creative stages, some crazy new characters, MORE THEME REMIXES and Aerosmith, this could turn out to be really cool.

those are my quick thoughts. i just wanted to share them, even if not many people might care for these games. thank you for reading!