Team Ninja's Itagaki on designing for Wii

This is exactly why I'm not interested in any games on the Wii at this point. If you want a good single player game that focuses on fighting with weapons, Ninja Gaiden should be at the top of your list. The type of gameplay that this and similar games such as Devil May Cry and Onimusha have evolved from fighting games, with dashes, rolls, supers, reversals, combos and many other gameplay elements that won't easily transfer over to the Wii. These are my favourite kind of games, and I'm quite happy with how the genre is going, and I really don't see where the appeal is supposed to be with the whole "omg realistic swordfights with the wiimote" philosophy. Anyone who knows anything about the hit properties in these games, and the dexterity required to pull out certain moves with buttons will know that an analogue device such as the wiimote simply isn't suited to the genre. Don't expect Red Steel to receive the same kind of praise, that's all I have to say.

You know he sounded pretty specific to me. Games are fun because small inputs let you perform big moves. That's why we have such awesome system mechanics these days because of simplicity of the controller inputs (ie buttons and sticks). Make the inputs too big, say goodbye to the kind of advanced game systems we're used to.

^This is a little outdated don't you think? Once the game is included at Evo and has the largest cash prize out of any fighter ever, it's pretty safe to say it's earnt it's respect by now. Sure it hasn't earnt my respect yet, I'm happy to keep playing 3S until the scene dies out. BTW David do you go to the weekly 3S touneys?

Wow...

You shouldn't get into a habit of dismissing MvC2 and GG as mashers dude. They are among the most technical games on the market, and saying they're just mashers really speaks volumes about your level of knowledge regarding the genre. If you weren't a writer and weren't supposed to have some kind of integrity it wouldn't matter. Obviously I see this as a problem. You gotta realise that this is the internet dude. One click away I'm reading discussion from the top players in the world on these games, another click away I'm reading scrubby noob **** about NG having camera problems and fireballs taking weeks to learn.

I like this site because you have good news updates and release lists and so on that's relevant to Australia. But sometimes you guys appear pretty damn ignorant.

^Good to see you understand the problems, pretty much exactly as Itagaki said. See what i like about Itagaki is he knows what skill level gamers are capable of, and he expects gamers to get to a decent skill level. DMC3 is similar to NG in that the game is deep enough to let you reach a high level of play, and from what I've seen in videos it allows you to reach much higher skill levels (than NG), even if it doesn't demand as much from you just to get through the story.

This is not Nintendo's attitude. Nintendo sees these kind of games as intimidating, and they want novices to be able to pick up and understand their games, and have instant fun. Ironically, it is almost impossible to find their games fun without a sufficient challenge. I still like the gameplay in Mario and Zelda, they're very polished, but they hardly give you anywhere to progress once you've finished them.

What worries me is that now the PS3 has a motion sensitive controller as well. As PS3 will be the home for most of the good action games next gen, overuse of the tilt function will be an annoyance. Hopefully the gimmicks attract more people, but if they value what they already have, then they'll let us just switch the damn tilt controls off. If I have to tilt the damn controller mid combo in DMC4 or Onimusha 5 I'm not gonna like it.

Where did you get this from? Like I said, it really goes to show your ignorance towards these games. Have a read of this article:
http://www.sirlin.net/archive/game-balance-part-2-a-detailed-example/
And get an understanding of the GGXX game system.

As for MvC2, watch the Evo trailers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIdOGy1-iIw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOHslbh7Twg

Watch part of the Duc vs Sanford $6000 money match:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghiEdB0juos

Is that the game you were playing 5 years ago? Or are there a few gameplay techniques in there that you’re totally oblivious to? Dude if you like fighting games, you should have at least kept yourself up to date on the drama that’s been going on with MvC2 in the past 2 years. It has been the biggest spectacle in competitive fighting games since Daigo’s parry moment. It’s been far more serious the past 2 years, as for the past 2 years there hasn’t even been any major developments in 3S. Japanese Yun, Chun and Ken players have dominated, end of story. There’s been great developments in Australia’s 3S scene, but clearly you aren’t interested in that.

You don’t have to be a master of all games and all moves, but you should at least familiarise yourself with the basic system and rules of the games you’ve bought and played for christ’s sake. Especially if you’re going to be writing about these games later on and want to sound like you know what you’re talking about.

That’s an incredibly scrubby thing to complain about. Incredibly scrubby. You should have learnt to recenter the camera early in the game, and then concerned yourself with far more important things. To complain about the camera at this point is totally redundant. It’s not perfect but it works. You’re just looking for any reason you can find to make yourself believe that Nintendo know what they’re doing and Itagaki doesn’t. It’s pretty clear you’re masquerading as a hardcore gamer, but you’re really just a little Nintendo fanboy, clinging to petty arguments and hyping yourself up about G rated Wii games. I mean continuing to miss the point about the inherant problems with the Wii controller and what that means for fighting/beat em up games, combined with your lack of general knowledge about fighting games doesn't really paint the best picture.

GGPO

We're talking purely in terms of input here. Of course you can make a great game with the wiimote, and the controls may not be the most important thing in the game.

Look at Resident Evil 4, the shooting was less accurate than a keyboard and mouse setup, but the game was more fun and designed better than a lot of top tier shooters, despite having inferior controls. Resident Evil 4 made concessions to allow it to work with the control scheme they implemented. If they upped the AI, sped up the enemies, and so on, eventually you'd get to a point where the control scheme that they implemented won't work.

Will Wright and Miyamoto don't make games that demand the split second timing and accuracy of pure action games, like NG. Will Wright's games are far more cerebral, and Miyamoto's tend to have a balance of a little creative thought, and some low level reaction based gameplay. I'm not going to make a claim that you should prefer one type of game to another, but when the lead developer of NG says he's worried about how less talented developers will go about input for the Wii, you can reach the conclusion that the games you're playing on the Wii won't require the same kind/level of skill that an action game like NG requires.

It is my opinion that less challenging games based on combat and reaction get boring too quickly. This is because they leave you no opportunity to increase your skill, and as a result it shortens the life of the game. So comparing the combat in something like Zelda to NG is a complete mismatch. But up until now a game like NG would have potentially worked on Nintendo's platform. These days a game like Zelda will work, but a game like NG won't work.

That. Is. A. Problem.

If you don't understand my point, **** you, you're an idiot.