Ninja Gaiden III got absolutely panned when it came out. Critics and series followers alike were incredibly disappointed with the final product.
To say the least, developer Team Ninja wasn’t anticipating that kind of reaction.
While speaking with Gamasutra, director Yohei Shimbori said that “everybody at the studio was pretty shocked”:
“…everybody at the studio was pretty shocked. It really made us take another look at the game and why that reaction was there. One of the things that I learned was the power of having a series behind you, and what it means to be part of a series. There are existing fans out there, and you have to think about the people who have supported the series for so long, and you want to make sure that the game that you make appeals to them first, and satisfies those fans first.”
Team Ninja is hoping to fix things with Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge. The new edition features dismemberment, tougher AI, a new playable character, new weapons, enemy types, online co-op, and more.
New Art Academy will be getting some downloadable content in Japan next week.
For 150 yen each, players can purchase one of three packs. They are as follows:
– Summer Foods pack: learn how to shade with paints using an ice cream lesson and berry mini-lesson
– Boats pack: learn about pointillism to bring out colors in both paint (blue boat) and pencil (white boat mini-lesson)
– Animals pack: learn how to recreate fur and feathers in pastel with a cat lesson and chicken mini-lesson.
The DLC goes live on October 4.
Lexis Numerique was recently asked if the studio would be interested in working with the studio. Marketing and business development director Djamil Kemal responded by saying that “it is really hard to work on a Nintendo platform.”
Kemal feels that “Nintendo just doesn’t push its WiiWare and other digital games.” Kemal has some doubt that Nintendo will be making a big push toward digital releases with the Wii U.
Kemal’s comments in full:
“In theory, yes, but to be totally honest it is really hard to work on a Nintendo platform. Not because of technical reasons but we feel that Nintendo just doesn’t push its WiiWare and other digital games. They do blockbuster-style games like in previous eras, but if you look at what is happening with WiiWare at the moment for instance, there no proper marketplace, making it really hard to check out the latest releases. For us as developers, we need to know that the company releasing a new system are going to push digital games heavily, and what we have seen with WiiWare doesn’t make us think Nintendo will.”
This week’s Nintendo Download includes the following featured content:
Nintendo eShop™
THE “DENPA” MEN: They Came By Wave – Mysterious little creatures called “Denpa” Men float around near radio waves. You can’t see them normally, but you can find them and catch them in this dungeon RPG for Nintendo 3DS. (For Nintendo 3DS™ / Nintendo 3DS™ XL)Quarth® – Originally released in 1990, Quarth is a blockbuster puzzle challenge that’s guaranteed to knock your socks off. Race back and forth in your powerful Block-buster ship and destroy the blocks before they blow you up. (For Nintendo 3DS / Nintendo 3DS XL)
Tecmo Koei opened an official website for Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper. It can be accessed here.
At the moment, the site contains a page explaining the new features in Hyper. There’s a few small images to see as well.
