(New Interview) from the producer of TEKKEN ? huh...
http://www.1up.com/news/lack-itagaki-trash-talk-saddens-tekken-harada
Tomonobu Itagaki spent the better part of two decades at Tecmo and Team Ninja, where his major projects included developing the Dead or Alive fighting game series and making sure you knew the competition (Tekken in particular) wasn't any good.
He
left the developer several years ago and is now working on action game
Devil's Third at
Valhalla Game Studios.
In other words, he's no longer in the fighting game business and therefore no longer trash talks the competition -- and it's exactly that which Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada misses.
Speaking with 1UP at the Tokyo Game Show last month (look for a 1UP cover story on Tekken soon), Harada brought up the subject of Itagaki and how he's sad that the notoriously frank developer is no longer around to spice things up.
"I'm thinking about Itagaki and when [former 1UP editor James Mielke] was with you guys that was a big topic -- the 'what are your five most hated games?' article where he said 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 were all Tekken, right? If Itagaki was still making Dead or Alive, I'd like to ask, out of all the current Tekken titles we have planned, what's his favorite. His answer would probably be Dead or Alive anyway, and that he hates all Tekken, but it'd be an interesting question."
"In the past, Itagaki had always mentioned various things about Tekken and stuff, especially on 1UP in his articles with Milky," he continued. "And there were a few times when I got pissed at what I saw, but I'm kind of realizing that when I saw what he was saying -- after he quit Team Ninja, I think he was asked about fighting games and what he thought, and apparently Itagaki said, 'Well I don't make fighting games anymore, so I'm not really in a place to comment on that' -- I felt kind of sad when I saw that."
Harada explained it used to be "interesting" to see what the competition was saying, and how both Tecmo and Team Ninja would frequently look at magazines to see what had been said about them by the other. It was "a lot more enjoyable to work when you have rivals like that, and when they continue to decrease it really is kind of sad," he said.
When we told Harada we would be interviewing Itagaki the next day, he said, "I would like to tell Itagaki that I would love to see him work on another fighting game." He thinks it would get people more excited if Itagaki were still around to make the sort of comments he used to.
It may all sound very friendly, but Itagaki could be very harsh when discussing Tekken. As Harada referenced, years ago 1UP asked Itagaki to
list his five favorite and five most hated games. His favorites were very reasonable --
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time,
Dragon Quest II. His most hated were the first five Tekken games.
In a separate
interview, he shared some thoughts about
Tekken 5 in particular: "First they put in all of these half-finished 'features,' then they take them right out again. Tag fights, elevation differences, walls. I don't know if it's because they're impatient, or because they lack the ability, but no matter the reason those guys are a pretty weird bunch. Any of those things would have become a bonafide feature if they took the time to do it right (laughs). Oh, and come on guys, let's quit trying to hide the prehistoric nature of the main product by tacking on some absurd 'bonus game.' I have been saying this for 5 years, haven't I? If you have the time to make an action-style 'bonus game,' why don't you create an honest-to-god action game and sell it as a standalone product? Oh, and if you're going to bother including such a 'unique' form of ball play, you should do a beach volleyball game instead (laughs)."
When we told current Team Ninja boss Yosuke Hayashi about Harada missing the old rivalry, he wasn't keen on rekindling it himself.
"I've only met Harada-san a few times, so we don't have that deep of a relationship, but we are definitely trying to make Dead or Alive the top fighting game, and something that will put everything else to shame," he said. "If you see the play video that we released, you'll see that what we're trying to do is take the fighting genre to another level. Essentially, it's about what's in the game. We'll see whose game is better received."
Asked if he'd rather focus on what his game is all about rather than talk, he said, "Basically yeah -- we want to show it through the game. You know, we're making the best game that we can. The rivalry between Harada-san and Itagaki-san and the comments that Itagaki-san might have made -- those of course are part of the history -- but we want to show through the game just how good of a game we can make, and have people feel that in the game. Otherwise it's just words. And if we were to come out now, without showing anything, and just say, 'We're a new team; we're going to make a new Dead or Alive 5 and we're going to kick everybody's ass,' nobody's going to believe us. So now we have something to show -- we'll show the game, and prove ourselves through the game."
So while Hayashi would rather keep the focus squarely on the product Team Ninja is developing, what does Itagaki think about his former studio keeping quiet?
"That's because they [Team Ninja] are ordinary Japanese people," he said with a chuckle.
"Harada and I are crazy people. So I'll say something -- I'll give him a call."
