Ninja Gaiden 3 Q&A with Peter Garza from Team Ninja

Words by: Jennifer Allen | Posted on: Tuesday 27th September, 2011 | Filed under: Features, News.

Jen was very fortunate to interview Peter Garza, the Overseas Producer for Team Ninja, while he was over in the UK for Eurogamer Expo. As a key team member in the development process for Ninja Gaiden 3, we checked in with him as to how things were going for it.

Xboxer360:: Tell me a bit about your role within Team Ninja

Peter Garza: I’m the overseas producer for Team Ninja. That involves making sure the game is available in other languages outside of Japan so obviously translation is in there. I don’t translate everything. We use agencies. I will oversee the translation though. I also receive most of the recordings for castings. I’ll sit in there and give direction where needed. I sit with Team Ninja so I’m there embedded with programmers, artists and the director and producer close around me. I get to take part in more the game design and concept meetings. So I can give random input into game specs so that’s all the fun stuff. Then I also have to get ratings and packaging in order and working with the marketing teams here in the UK and in the States and check that we’re all speaking the same, working in the same direction.

Xboxer360: Not much free time then?

PG: No, not much free time! [smiles] But it is a lot of fun. Actually being there and being embedded with Team Ninja and seeing the game come together and being able to give input on how things take shape or saying ‘Hey, what if we do this or do that’. You know, I’m not the Western God of what I say goes. They know what they’re doing. They’ve made the games. So it’s nice for me to just be able to be in there and just be one part of that team, just one person on that team.

Xboxer360: I’ll admit that I love the first two NG games but I’m absolutely awful at them. I’ve replayed the first one numerous times but I’ve never actually completed it. I’ve got a friend who manages to be amazing in a way that means I watch him and he just seems to know everything. Will there be any compensation in the new game for people like me.

PG: Sure.

Xboxer360: People who need help basically!

PG: Sure. Well one of the important things we considered in Ninja Gaiden 3 was when we were thinking about that. Obviously it’s something we want to think about as we want as many people as possible to enjoy the game. When we were thinking of ways to get people in, we figured it wasn’t just a matter of difficulty levels and having ten difficulties and there you go. I don’t think anybody wants to choose ‘Easy’.

Xboxer360: No, it’s a bit embarrassing.

PG: Exactly. There are people with the history of the game who have left because it was too difficult and there are people who haven’t played a Ninja Gaiden game before and so they’re going to be new to the system. And so for those people it’s less about difficulty and more to do with a playstyle. So that’s why we incorporated Hero mode and playstyle. That’s for people who want to concentrate more on the story and just go with the flow basically. Enemies will still be attacking you. It’s not like we just have stupid enemies standing around not doing anything. They’re actually more aggressive than the normal difficulty and in another playstyle but there are aspects going on behind the scenes where you’ll get help with auto guard, auto evade. The controls might be a little more forgiving. So that should help players who are new to the series or lapsed fans be able to enjoy a Ninja Gaiden game from start to finish and not feel embarrassed for choosing easy. It’s not a matter of difficulty, it’s a matter of a different kind of playstyle. A different set of skills that you bring to the table so that’s why we have set up a Hero mode and then we have the Hero playstyle and the Ninja playstyle. The Ninja playstyle is for existing fans and that want the more gamey challenge.

Xboxer360: Will it still be as difficult for the people who have mastered the previous games?

PG: Absolutely! You know part of the problem we face is the huge gap in skills so that the people who have played it and completed it, their skills are way up here [points high in the air] and the people who are either new to the series or have thrown their controller away…

Xboxer360: The people who are rubbish basically like me?

PG: Yeah. There’s a huge gap in skills so that’s why we were thinking it’s not just about difficulty levels, it’s just a different set of skills, a different range of skills. But yeah the hardcore fans who have been there and wear it like a badge of honour. You know ‘I cleared Ninja Gaiden, master ninja, ultimate ninja!’. We definitely want to keep that challenge there for them. That’s within the history of the titles. These fans have supported us throughout the years so yeah that’s not going anywhere. We describe it as different entrances into the same context. Just trying to get it as open as possible. [smiles]

Xboxer360: Will there be anything like the Ninja Camera function…the Ninja cinema from before? Will that be expanded upon?

PG: I know they’re still using it. I’m not sure at this point if they’re actually expanding upon it. But I believe it’s in there.

Xboxer360: There’s been a lot of talk about how there’ll be more consequences to Ryu’s actions. How will that play out?

PG: We’re trying to think of violence in a more mature aspect. Not just the splatter type of violence. More of the brutal, visceral kind of violence. And Ninja Gaiden 3 revolves around, the story revolves around showing Ryu as the dark hero. Dark heroes in order to do good, they sometimes have to do bad things! And we want to really get the player involved in that and for the player to feel that they are that dark hero as well. The consequences will play out in the course of the story, it’s not that we have a morality gauge. Good or bad. There’s no branching storyline. But what we’re trying to do is work in gameplay and story into a more seamless experience and not just have, you know, orbs pop up and yeah you do the good thing and the meter goes up a little. So some of the aspects you’ll see are the consequences of his actions.

You might have noticed something going on with [Ryu's] arm. The red stuff on his arm. That’s a curse that gets placed on him very early on in the game. And that curse sort of thrives on the fact that he kills people and has killed as many people as he has, including in the past games. And you’ll see that curse change and progress throughout the game as he kills more and more people. And the gameplay, that’s kind of how you power up his techniques or super moves. But you have to kill people in order to have that supermove powered up. For his enemies as well. In this sequence we’re showing here, they’re human enemies. In the past, you had ninjas or monsters or whatever. In order to focus the story and the action more on his humanity, we needed to make you empathise with the enemies. And so the enemies that you face, they’ll actually scream in fear, they’ll try to run away, they’ll plead for their lives. And so then hopefully when the player can go and cut someone down and deliver that final blow to an enemy who isn’t just a monstrous enemy but someone who’s saying ‘Don’t kill me’, that should hopefully give you a different feeling when you’re playing through it. And I think that’s an example of the kind of emotional connection that we’re trying to put into Ninja Gaiden 3.

Xboxer360: I know, between the second and third Ninja Gaiden, there’s been a lot of games like GoW3 and Bayonetta. Have things like Bayonetta in particular influenced any decisions with regards to NG3?

PG: We definitely look at other games. And not just action games. You know, the creators have also played Portal 2 and Dead Space. So we definitely look at what’s out there. But I don’t really think that there’s anything that we can say ‘well they did it like that so we’re going to do it like this’. One thing that I can say is that the team is going for is more the immersive experience. We want to make it a modern action game, modern gameplay design, modern game design elements. That’s why we’ve taken away essence from the past games and the orbs that come out of dead bodies. We’ve got rid of those. There are no dragon statues that are randomly and conveniently placed throughout the world that magically heal you or magically transport you to a shop to buy a power up weapon. We’ve tried to really use metaphors for these gameplay aspects, use metaphors that work within the world and within the story that makes sense as sort of this immersive experience. We want to keep you in the experience and not have you think ‘Oh it’s just a game’. And that’s where I think we’re going to be different from Bayonetta. I think we’re closer to God of War but still possibly even more immersive.

Xboxer360: More brutal but slightly more realistic sort of thing?

PG: Yeah. We still obviously have sword play from the past and we know how to do good swordplay and action and we don’t want to throw that away. We’re not making a deep character study. It’s Team Ninja. We know we make action games. We’re just trying to add in, I don’t know about add in, but make it less of a ‘game’ game because it seems like games are moving towards more of an immersive and cinematic experience. So if you want to look at Ninja Gaiden and make Ninja Gaiden 3 a modern action game. Not just an action game in the Ninja Gaiden series and we’ve done it this way in the past so we’re just going to keep doing that. We want to look at where games are now and where they might be going and let that influence the Ninja Gaiden game a little.

Xboxer360: I’ve heard there will be some kind of stealthy sequences?

PG: Well, those are, yeah there are some parts in the London stage where you’re going through a smokescreen killing enemies. That’s there as a sort of variation in the tempo of the piece.

Xboxer360: Will they be essential for progression or optional?

PG: If you don’t sneak around, you’ll face a harder challenge. But we don’t want to make that the fore of any kind of gameplay. We know that people aren’t used to sneaking around in a Ninja Gaiden game. They’re used to running around and jumping on anything that moves. So those elements and also the new climbing, those are more for adding in variation and a little bit of spice to the overall tempo. If the tempo is just battle after battle after battle then it’s all just going to get monotonous so you add in a little bit of variation like stealth mode to change things up a bit.

Xboxer360: And there will be multiplayer?

PG: Yes, there is. Right now we’re looking at co-op missions with two player co-op. You can jump in and choose a mission and tackle it together. There’s also 8 player online team matches and battle royale and deathmatches. The concept around online is called the World of Ninja so within the SP mode, you’re playing as Ryu Hayabusa. In the online mode you’re actually starting out as a rookie ninja, lowest level ninja out there. There are several aspects that you can customise such as the look of your ninja and you’ll sort of be fighting with the other ninjas throughout the world to finally reach the top echelon of ninjas.

Xboxer360: Is there a form of levelling up system?

PG: There is a form of it. You’ll be able to unlock new moves so yeah there will be levels and ideally there will be one top ninja of the world.

Xboxer360: In the single player, can Ryu evolve or develop new skills?

PG: In the SP we really want to focus on the story and showing him as a dark hero. So there will be power ups throughout the course of the story but it’s not like you’re going to go to a random shop and just buying a weapon and powering it up. Where it makes sense in the story, you will get new weapons through events in the story and you’ll gradually power up, unlock new moves and gaining new powers. So yes there are, there is some sort of growth to his powers. But it’s tied very closely with the developments of the story.

Xboxer360: Thank you very much for your time!

PG: Thank you!

Ninja Gaiden 3 is set for release in early 2012. Jen is already itching to suck badly at the latest instalment (and secretly hoping that Hero mode gives her a fighting chance)

About Jennifer Allen

Jen's been playing games for longer than she can remember (20 odd years) and has been writing about them for 4 years. In her spare time she likes to pretend she can train her guinea pigs to do tricks. She should stick to chocobos.

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