TGS 2006: Ninja Gaiden Sigma Interview
What is possibly the best action game ever made get upgraded for PS3.
by David Clayman

September 28, 2006 - Just after TGS closed out we visited the TECMO offices to get a close look at their biggest announcement at the show: Ninja Gaiden Sigma. We sat down with Andy Szymanski of Team Ninja to discuss the game's new and improved graphics, weapons, and enemies and why what is possibly the greatest action game on the market today is a perfect fit for PS3.

IGN: How are you handling the story, is it extended from Ninja Gaiden Black?

AS: The story of Ninja Gaiden Sigma basically is the Ninja Gaiden that you all know and love. It's not going to be expanded in length per se. What we are doing and you may have noticed from the trailer is that Rachel is now available as a playable character. We're having certain segments where you'll get to see the Ninja Gaiden story and universe from Rachel's perspective. You'll see certain events that may have happened off camera while you were playing as Ryu in the first game and you'll get to see more detail of the Vigorian Empire.

IGN: We saw at least one new boss in the trailer, are you adding new boss battles to the game?

AS: There are going to be revamped enemies in general, not just bosses. Obviously at this point we're still 20% in development so there are still a lot of things that need to be decided going forward. Just as far as the trailers goes there was the boss with the whip that was in Ninja Gaiden Black in the mission mode if you were able to get that far. She'll be incorporated into the game itself, we also showed the web footed enemies on the water so there's definitely going to be new enemy characters. We'll have more details as the game nears its release date.

IGN: We also saw the dual katana, what are you adding in terms of weapons?

AS: Yes, one of the things we're most proud of at this point is the dual wielding katana, which adds a whole new element to the combat. It's a whole new weapon from the ground up. One of the things we're definitely focusing on is improving the usability of the projectile weapons like the shuriken and bow and arrow. The main goal of that is not only to improve the feel when you use them but to make them more effective in overall combat so that you're able to enjoy swapping out from melee combat to projectile weapons.

IGN: How ground up is this project? Are you adjusting the camera, and adjusting the controls completely?

AS: As you can see there are a huge amount of visual improvements to the game. This is Team Ninja we're talking about so we're never going to leave everything as is. As far as what I can tell you from the trailer - you're talking about graphical improvements, weapons and enemies - but another thing that isn't quiet so visible like Rachel being a playable character are the improvements we're making to the general combat system. We're making it more speedy, tweaking some of the animations, and especially focusing on the AI. Ninja Gaiden is a game that's well known for the enemy AI and we'd like to tweak that further using the power of the PlayStation 3.

IGN: So is the difficulty going to be on par with Black?

AS: As far as the difficulty goes we understand that people had concerns with the difficulty of the first game and we addressed those in Ninja Gaiden black with Ninja Dog Mode. We're definitely not going to be taking a step backwards from Black. Our goal is to get this game out to a broader audience on a new platform so we're going to reexamine the difficulty angle to make it as approachable as possible for all skill levels. That includes people who are new to the series, but we also want to include those high difficulty levels for people who have been playing Ninja Gaiden for awhile.

One thing I do want to stress about difficulty is that as you know Ninja Gaiden's fun factor is based on how challenging it is. The kind of thrill you get after beating a hard boss is proportionate to how difficult it is. So as we tweak the balance with the goal in mind to make the game more accessible we want people to know that we're not going to dumb down the game completely. We want people to be challenged we want them to challenge themselves.

IGN: Are you going to keep the mission modes that were in Black

Yeah, you're going to have Ninja Gaiden Black, and you're not going to feel like "why didn't they include this?"

IGN: What about online modes?

AS: We're only at twenty percent so the only thing I can say definitively is that we will be supporting the Karma leader boards we had before so you can upload your scores and compare them with people around the world to see who is the better Ninja. As far as other stuff goes we're still talking with SCE discussing the PlayStation 3 online strategy as a whole and they're being very cooperative.

IGN: Are you interested in holding another Master Ninja Tournament at any point?

AS: It's too early to say anything right now. Looking at what Sony's doing we're going to consider all of our options.

IGN: Another thing we saw in the trailer was the water running. This was possible in the original game but wasn't used very often. Is it going to be a bigger factor in Sigma?

AS: Yes, water running was a feature but it was underutilized. We're making it so that you can actually fight on water and as long as you keep running you can slash. You saw in the trailer Ryu performing the Inzuna drop above the water so on-water combat is one of the new features in the game that has a wow factor.

IGN: How is the PlayStation 3 controller working out, is it a good fit for the game?

Well sure, we were still used to the Xbox controllers the first time we picked up the game but the controller is ultimately the device you use to interact with the game so once your body gets used to it, it works out fine.

IGN: What is Team Ninja's strategy with this series? Is it now going to live on PS3?

Our goal with Ninja Gaiden Sigma is that we have what we feel is one of the best action games ever made and we want to bring it to as many people as possible. We don't consider anything to be the definitive version of Ninja Gaiden. We want to have the best action game in the world at the time of its release. Itagaki-san blazed a trail with Ninja Gaiden and now we're broadening that trail by bringing the game to PS3.

You said the game was early but what types of graphical upgrades are you adding to the game? We could see the falling leaves, some new particle effects, and the fire effect that looked new.

The nice thing about PS3 is that now we have a Sony PlayStation platform that has enough power to run Ninja Gaiden. Not only can we run the game in its original form but we have enough power to do something extra. We're pretty confident that even if we just brought the game over in its original form we still have one of the best action games on the market just in terms of gameplay. But since this is Team Ninja we're not going to settle with that. We're using the extra power for graphical upgrades. If this trailer is at 20% completion you can imagine how the full game is going to look.

IGN: Thank you for your time

没翻译直接转什么来着

翻译

估计最后这句话比较有看头哦。

If this trailer is at 20% completion you can imagine how the full game is going to look.

NB大了，LOL