Ninja Gaiden III Was a "Japanese Hamburger"
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
This reads to me as though they are focusing the blame for failure in the wrong direction. They made the game and it flopped. Whether or not they tried to tailor it to a western market is irrelevent. All that shows is that they failed in their intent. The article could also be read as though they were implying that the very act of creating a game for the West inherently has less worth than one for East (though it might be cynical to interpert it that way).
What is all this about comparing themselves to Ubisoft anyway? they're right in that they are not in the same division as them - they're not even playing the same game. If they wanted to take notes from a developer who has successfully created games for the West, they need look no further than Platinum Games. Lots of similarities in budget, intent and style there.
In short: the whole article seems like they are making excuses and dodging the blame.
What is all this about comparing themselves to Ubisoft anyway? they're right in that they are not in the same division as them - they're not even playing the same game. If they wanted to take notes from a developer who has successfully created games for the West, they need look no further than Platinum Games. Lots of similarities in budget, intent and style there.
In short: the whole article seems like they are making excuses and dodging the blame.
What part of appealing to the west was throwing out all the weapons? The game just looked like a half baked cash grab to me.
As a vegetarian the whole meat analogy has me a bit queasy, but asides from that this all sounds like good news. A game company fully acknowledging that they made a huge mistake in moving away from the franchise's core fanbase and toward a larger audience, is promising to correct that error next time. 'Bout damn time, and can't wait to see the next installment (or new IP, whichever comes first).
I think Other M's gameplay combat was really great, save for the sense dodge because mapping a quick dodge to the directional pad meant you could easily dodge and avoid projectiles and enemies simply by tapping move haphazardly instead of using a more intensive reaction/timing function. However since I suppose that Team Ninja was responsible for mostly, perhaps only the combat because of their history they did a great job.j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
I think that NG3 was pretty great, however it makes sense that it fell short after reading this. It makes sense and is great to hear that they'll be playing to their strengths despite the market instead of simply mimicking the conventions of the western industry.
I'd say that the removal of the weapons was in that they tied the weapon system too much to the storyline. When your entire story consists of how Ryu's bloodthirst has awakened the demonic sword he wields and that sword is now essentially consuming him you can't just allow the player to use another weapon and never touch the sword. Of course, I agree with you that the limiting of weapons and fighting styles was a huge problem for me as well even though I often preferred to use the dragon sword in the previous titles.newwiseman said:
Beyond that, I'd say that the most obvious design aspects borrowed from stereotypical popular western game design would be the over reliance on cinematics, the extremely linear play focused on cutscene -> hallway -> cutscene, and level design focused more on spectable than solid varied play. And one can't forget the face roll difficulty on the standard difficulty level followed by BS difficulty choices as opposed to solid balanced difficulty on the higher levels. That's definitely a hallmark of stereotypical western design.
The thing is, the cursed arm premise could have worked. It's just that Team Ninja went about it in all the wrong ways. They tried to impose a sense a guilt onto the player that doesn't stick, especially when you compare to the previous games. I mean... really. With MAYBE the sole exception of the lowly ninja at the bottom of the waterfall in NGB, every human enemy that's been turned into sliced or ground luncheon meat by Hayabusa's assorted tools of ass-whoop pretty much deserved it.gigastar said:
And that's just the story. Don't get me started on the completely random characters you're apparently supposed to care about (who the fuck is Sanji?!), the completely random bits of Hayabusa's arm wigging out (and, ironically, also making Hayabusa completely invincible...), the manual controls for mundane tasks, the constant info prompts (that the game mercifully allows you to turn off), the lack of weapons, the wonky combat engine... I could go on.
Observation: Hmm... now I know how all those DA2 detractors felt. Imagine that.
To be fair, "Shadows of the Damned" or whatever the fuck the trial mode is called is what's up. Smacking up Imps and Van Gelfs with the scythe has never felt so awesome. You know, when the game isn't making you slide headlong into an enemy's sharp pointy thing.j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
Because apparently a certain cockbite who shall remain nameless thought it would be a far better idea to introduce a story where Hayabusa almost comes off as a heartless murderer than to make any real improvements. Darker and edgier and all that shit.LazyAza said:
And I still say that NGB is one of the few games to do its difficulty properly. You didn't simply fight enemies who did more damage (what I like to call "DMC Syndrome") on higher difficulties. You fought new enemies with new attacks. The Red Flame Ninja from Master Ninja difficulty... [shudders]
I can't help but wonder what EA would say if they replaced Team Ninja. Probably something like:
"All the critics are a small but vocal minority, the game was doomed to fail because we can never satisfy the vocal critics" ect ect....
It's refreshing to see somebody own up to their mistakes and admit they done fucked up. I enjoyed Ninja Gaiden and the sequel. This was just a mess, hopefully they go back to their hardcore roots and give us what we really want. Ninja sushi apparently.
"All the critics are a small but vocal minority, the game was doomed to fail because we can never satisfy the vocal critics" ect ect....
It's refreshing to see somebody own up to their mistakes and admit they done fucked up. I enjoyed Ninja Gaiden and the sequel. This was just a mess, hopefully they go back to their hardcore roots and give us what we really want. Ninja sushi apparently.
Cause round-eyes can't grasp using more than two weapons thanks to the bro-shooters.newwiseman said:
Concerning what he said about not making Japanese hamburgers, yeah, he's right. Stop trying to make crappy knock-offs of western properties. Do what you do and do it well and people will buy. Just use some common sense and don't try to make a game that needs to sell 10million units to break even, it won't. Make something good and fiscally responsible that will appeal to a niche. Many other companies from Japan are doing quite well with that model.
Sad face? But I'm a vegetarian!Moonlight Butterfly said:An easy Ninja Gaiden game is like going to a steak house and getting a salad.
I'll get a steak, I guess.
Why can't they just make a like Japanese RPG game with cool characters? In the style of Final Fantasy 7 and earlier.
The early games had some cool characters and it still wasn't all that sexist. Which is something Japanese game companies need to stop doing if they port things to the west.
Give us a game with flashy battles and a fantasy story. Look back at Final Fantasy 7 and such to see how people loved them even though if it was turn based RPG.
The early games had some cool characters and it still wasn't all that sexist. Which is something Japanese game companies need to stop doing if they port things to the west.
Give us a game with flashy battles and a fantasy story. Look back at Final Fantasy 7 and such to see how people loved them even though if it was turn based RPG.
It's quite understandable that he would read into your first comment as being a but snarky, even if it wasn't intended. It seems like you can't go a few days on the Escapist without reading some article or forum post about how the Japanese developers are doing it wrong, or they need to be more like Western developers. It's gotten to the stage where if it looks like it's a comment shitting on the Japanese game industry it most likely is, the rare few like yours that are asked out of actual interest are just sad casualties or war so to say.Zhukov said:
And can you really blame him for the misunderstanding? There are few on the Escapist such as yourself that have no understanding of Japanese games or their merits, it's best to be on the safe side and explain your question in the beginning to avoid looking snarky.
I like JRPGs but I would rather Japanese action game devs stay the hell away from JRPG tropes and do their own thing rather than copy from other genres like everybody seems to be doing atm.Zefar said:
I think the artsyle that many action devs like Team Ninja, From, Grasshopper, Platinum & Kojima Productions have is very fitting for the games they make, its refreshing compared to cutesy moe, anime / kingdom hearts styles that's overused in other Japanese games. The original Zone of Enders is a good artstyle for action games that has that 90s anime movie look, shame we don't see more of it