Tecmo’s Perfection: A Tribute to Tomonobu Itagaki

In case you haven’t heard, longtime Tecmo developer Tomonobu Itagaki recently surprised the gaming world by announcing his resignation from, and subsequent lawsuit against, his now former employer. If his name doesn’t ring any bells, you’ll certainly know his work: His Team Ninja is responsible for the Dead or Alive series and the latter-day re-imagining of the Ninja Gaiden franchise (which began with the Xbox release in 2004 and continued to the recently released sequel for the Xbox360). The popularity and success of the games on his resume aren’t the only components of his legacy, however. Itagaki is just as well-known (maybe more so) for his often controversial opinions about not only his own games, but the work of his peers as well. In case you are unfamiliar with his musings, I’ll sum them up for you: He is a god who manufactures orgasmic perfection in polygonal form. If you make games and you aren’t him, you’re a no-talent hack. Especially if you make Tekken.

(Note: there is a YouTube video within this article that features some racy video game footage. Granted it’s YouTube so there’s no nudity or anything too graphic, but I wanted to warn you anyway. Maybe don’t open it at work is what I’m trying to say.)   

I’ve always had a very low tolerance for extreme arrogance. I especially have a low tolerance for it when I feel it isn’t sufficiently backed up. And more often than not, it seems like the loudest mouthpieces are never anywhere close to being the best in their respective fields (how well did that last Limp Bizkit album sell anyway, Mr. Durst?). This phenomenon is especially prevalent in video games. The true legends are, for the most part, extremely humble and also respectful of their contemporaries. How much trash-talking or outright bragging have you ever heard from Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, Will Wright, Shinji Mikami, Mark Cerny, or Sid Meier? It always seems that the most outspoken, opinionated personalities in gaming are the ones who just aren’t on a high enough level to give them the “right” to be the braggarts that they are. Lorne Lanning, Dave Perry, even Nolan Bushnell (gaming “forefather” though he may be) all talk far more talk than is proportionate to their walk. But I’m not going to elaborate on them, because they don’t hold a candle to Itagaki in regards to people who have been given far too much freedom to talk far too much utter nonsense.

I’m not going to look up and link to all of the quotes floating around where he slams other companies. Or even his own, as he now says Ninja Gaiden Sigma for PS3 - which members of his own team made but he himself was not in charge of - is “no good”. Way to support your people, pal! You can find all kinds of quotes and quips for yourself if you’d like. My intention here is to put his own work under a microscope, and detail why he simply is in no position to put himself on such a nauseatingly high pedestal.

The Dead or Alive games are fun, no doubt. They are fast-paced and easy to play, and don’t require the level of commitment that most other fighting games ask for in order to be competitive against anyone other than the AI set on Very Easy. But let’s be clear here: DOA is no Soul Calibur. And DOA is certainly no Virtua Fighter. DOA is to 3D fighters what Guilty Gear is to 2D ones: more flash and rock-n-roll than hardcore, technical fighting game. Which isn’t to say that’s a bad thing. The problem is that Itagaki paints a different and inaccurate picture with all of his boasts. Instead of just being honest and saying “We make fun, fast fighting games with jiggle-chested babes thrown in for good measure”, he goes on and on about the masterpiece that each one of his games are, and how the competition can only dream that they’ll ever be as good. This is especially ridiculous when you consider that the DOA series has just been resting on its laurels since DOA2, making basically the same game two more times with parts 3 and 4 with very little in the way of improvement beyond the obligatory extra characters and shinier graphics. Sure, picking on any one game franchise for simply inching forward with each installment is unfair given that so much of the industry works in this manner, but fighting games should be (and usually are) different. Look at the evolution of the Virtua Fighter series from its first through fourth core installment. Look at how Tekken has changed from parts 1 and 2 to part 3, and then from part 3 through part 5 (though arguably not always for the better). And with both of those franchises, they’ve had “side games” to the main series when they just wanted to either try something different or add or tweak a few things. Virtua Fighter 4:Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution::Dead or Alive 2:Dead or Alive 3/4. Street Fighter did that for years, releasing version after version of SF2 before finally giving us the TRUE (and extremely different) sequel in SF3, which then has gone on to do multiple versions. Granted, they also charged full price for the home versions of each of these updates, but at least they came out quickly. DOA has had only 4 installments across 11 whole years. When you are going to take that much time to give us a comparatively short-numbered franchise, each one better be damn different.

Of course, you can’t talk about DOA without going into its spin-off, the DOA Xtreme [sic] series. First there was Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball for Xbox. I’ll admit I was initially really excited about this game. I love volleyball, and I love volleyball video games. It started with Kings of the Beach for NES, which my brother and I played the hell out of it, and it continued through the long-overdue resurgence of volleyball video games in the last generation. Beach Spikers for Gamecube, Summer Heat Beach Volleyball for PS2, Outlaw Volleyball for Xbox…I had to have them all. I enjoyed Beach Spikers and Outlaw Volleyball quite a bit and played them both for a significant amount of time (I just couldn’t get into the play mechanics of Summer Heat). And I was still ready for another in DOAX V-ball. I’d be lying if I said I was completely turned off by the notion of the multitude of unlockable bikinis of gradually decreasing size and the option to watch them jog on the beach and lounge by the pool, but in total and absolute honesty, I just wanted another good volleyball game above all else. Plus this one also promised a whole beach resort with which to explore and frolic on, including minigames, a casino, and a whole “relationship system” with which you try to build alliances with the various other girls on the island. Well, most of those promises fell flat. For one thing, you couldn’t actually just WALK from place to place; when you weren’t in an actual activity, it was just a series of static screens and menus. An example: First I’d select to go to the shop from a menu to buy some accessories, and I’d see a shop in the background of the next menu, where I made my selections. Then when I wanted to go to the casino after that, I’d select it from another menu, and poof, there’s the still shot of the casino. Then I’d choose poker, and bam, there’s the static shot of the poker table. I could’ve swore I was playing this game on an Xbox, not an SNES. In a post-GTA3 gaming world, not being able to just freely and physically walk from place to place is practically unacceptible. The gambling stuff was sort of fun I guess, but it’s hard to get into video game poker when you don’t see a single character on screen, just the table and the cards magically flying around. The supposed relationship system was a complete crapshoot, and it seemed totally random whether another girl accepted my gift or not. It’s always fun to save up and buy a really expensive bathing suit for another character to wear, only to have her hate you for some strange reason and not accept it. And then it was gone forever. But whatever, I did say I just wanted a solid v-ball game, and all this peripheral stuff shouldn’t have mattered anyway, right? Well the v-ball was average at best. It was way too simple (which I suppose was sort of the point, but it wasn’t to my liking), and there was no way to adjust any of the rules of the game (for example, the serving team wasn’t the only one who could score a point, EITHER team could; and you couldn’t change this. Boo.). It was fun for a few games, but not enough to carry a whole game. None of the aspects of this game were strong enough to carry a game, and putting them all together almost made it work as a total package, except that as I said it just didn’t feel like a cohesive experience. Oh, and you could only play in “two week” intervals each time, and then it was over and you had to start again from scratch with zero dollars. Awesome! Okay, so it was a decent enough game for what it was, just a collection of lazy summer activities and girl watching. But again, from the guy who we are supposed to believe makes nothing but pure gold, it just wasn’t good enough, especially not for an Xbox game. Besides, the concept was nothing new: Japan has been making games like this for years. This is just the first one that was released here and had any degree of real polish, for whatever that’s worth.

Sales and reception of DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball were good enough to warrant a sequel, which came to the Xbox360 in 2004. It was basically more of the same, with a few new activities and the expected bump in graphical quality. I will admit outright that I never played this game, but after my overall disappoint with the first one and the subsequently poor reviews, I didn’t want to. Based on what I can gather, actual gameplay took a backseat (more so than usual) to eye candy this time around. A significant amount of time seemed to be placed on the “breast physics” in this game. DOA has always had massive jiggling mammaries, but now each boob actually swings and sways independent of the other. Fine, so this is next-gen and everything in a next-gen game should have real-world physics placed on it, but give me a break. Maybe it was a necessary evil when you already designed these girls and their DD-cups that you have to make them move the way boobs that are that big would move, but then you have to make sure you at least do it “right”, not make the breasts jump and swing wildly when the girls so much as turn their heads (see video above). Plus, you should then try that much harder to make sure the actual game that takes place around their curves is as equally well-crafted and next-gen. From what I’ve seen and read, it wasn’t. The DOAX series went from a fun, flirty summer to a Girls Gone Wild commercial passing off as a game. I also didn’t even touch on the tan lines, and I’m not going to.

Of course, we can’t forget about Ninja Gaiden. I have to tread somewhat lightly when I talk about this game, because it is an extremely well-regarded and highly respected title. For me, it was just too damn difficult. Maybe I’m old-school, but I don’t want an intense duel with every single character in a game, starting with the very first one I face. But I did enjoy it for as long as far as I was physically able to get in the game, and unlike other games where I wonder how everyone else but me can be so very, very wrong (and no, I’m not going to give an example now), I can and will concede to the popular opinion of Ninja Gaiden and its merits. I didn’t play Ninja Gaiden II, but the buzz so far seems to be positive. Alright Itagaki, I’ll give you this one.

Still, it’s not enough. If Hideo Kojima made only Metal Gear Solid – my all-time favorite game - and the DOA series, and was an arrogant jerk, I still wouldn’t respect him either. To be honest, I think that even if Shigeru Miyamoto had his current resume but Itagaki’s attitude and personality, it wouldn’t sit well with me. And Miyamoto could probably get away with it. The point is, I view Itagaki’s leaving Tecmo as fantastic news. I don’t doubt that Team Ninja is full of extremely talented designers, programmers, and artists and will do just fine without him, maybe better now that they can choose not to slave away on the minutiae of the female form and put that work towards things like gameplay and innovation. Tecmo owns everything connected with DOA and Ninja Gaiden and is free to continue on with those series’ as they see fit. We’ll see just how far Mr. Cocky can go without a great team under him, and without long-established franchises and characters to mine from. It is completely up in the air at this point what his future plans are, but there is no way a man like him can live out of the spotlight. Surely we’ll have to endure months of interviews from him about his resignation and his supposed mistreatment from Tecmo, as he rides that publicity wave for as long as he can. After that, when he emerges with whatever new project he’s pushing as the greatest thing since the push-up bra, I’m sure gaming journalists will be lining up to snap pictures of his smug, sunglassed face and be eager to hear his thoughts on how horrible the gaming world has been in his absence and how his new game will change everything. And I’m sure it will; after all, somebody has to be the first one to realistically capture the effect that water has on a white t-shirt against human skin.