Itagaki has died

[Dark Jaguar]

https://kotaku.com/tomonobu-itagaki-deat...2000636025

We all remember this guy for his revival of the Ninja Gaiden games, his showmanship and his arrogance, and well, yes his lustful female character designs (which... he's free to do, but not free from others discussing the implications).

I think the most hilarious interview I saw with the guy involved his shock at Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma's sixaxis feature... namely that it "jiggled" the female player character's chest.  He was very surprised to hear about that and wondered if the developer was "doing okay".  Clearly, he had a limit, and that decision in the Sigma version crossed it.

[A Black Falcon]

This is pretty sad.  He was only 58, too young!  Nothing I've seen says why it happened, leaving only speculation.  He certainly was known for smoking and probably also drinking so it could have been that.  Whatever the cause though it's really sad.  I know he is a controversial figure for various reasons, but his persona in older interviews was pretty entertaining.  Also, I don't know if I mentioned this much, but I really like the Dead or Alive series, his games particularly.  I have played DoA6 on and off since its release, though it's been a while since I played it, but DoA 4, his last one, is the best one in the series for sure.  I'd pick DOA4 as my favorite 3d fighting game, probably with DOA2 or DOA2U in second.  Yeah, the games certainly emphasize the looks of the female characters, but the core gameplay is fantastic.  It's faster and more exciting than Virtua Fighter and I've always kind of hated Tekken.  Soul Calibur had a moment there but didn't hold up quality-wise either, and I don't like those games quite as much as DOA.  DOA's hold system is kind of a frustrating luck mechanic, I think it is a major reason why the series never took off from a pro fighting game scene sense, but oh well, I think it mostly works.  It does lead to random wins and losses and I usually do dislike randomness in games, but as someone pretty average at most games and who definitely has never been great at fighting games, winning sometimes when it seemed like I was losing is fun.

As for the modern Ninja Gaiden series, those I never got into at all.  I remember trying to start the first one for Xbox but quickly giving up.  I doubt I beat even a level of it.  The third-person action game genre is never one that has interested me much.  I've never been interested in pretty much any game in that genre unless you count, uh, Oni I guess.

And then he was out at Tecmo (probably in part because of a sexual harassment claim that got him demoted) and ended up doing nothing of note in his last decade, after that Wii U game he did.  That's also sad, I was hoping he'd make something good again.  It's a really disappointing end period to his life, but at least he did something before that and gained notice for it.  That's more than most people get.