Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword sneaks onto DS

New details have emerged from Japan regarding Team Ninja's newest Ninja Gaiden game for the Nintendo DS, straight from the creator, Tomonobu Itagaki himself.

By Matthew Fitsko

Tecmo's Team Ninja recently announced that it would be releasing Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for the Nintendo DS, which would be a supplemental game to their upcoming PS3 title Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Although information is scarce at the moment as the project is only about 30% complete, Famitsu.com has released a set of screenshots and preliminary game details to pique the interest of the Ninja Gaiden fan.

First, it has been confirmed that the game will be set in the same timeline as Ninja Gaiden Sigma, although both games will have completely separate storylines. The story will also be somewhat lighter in tone than previous titles in the series, with a few comic touches added for the younger gamer. The game is labeled as an action/adventure title, and is set to include some environmental puzzle-solving and ninja action, although the game's producer, Tomonobu Itagaki, is quick to ad that Ninja Gaiden is, first and foremost, "pure action".

The game will be full 3-D, and oddly enough, it will be played by holding the DS sideways, with action taking place on one screen with a map showing you your surroundings on the other. The biggest surprise, though, is the announcement that the game's main character, Ryu Hayabusa, will be controlled entirely with the stylus (except while guarding). For example, tapping and holding the stylus on one part of the screen will move Ryu to that spot. Double-tapping with the stylus makes him jump, and tapping on an enemy while jumping will launch a shuriken attack. Ryu can also pull off special ninjutsu moves, accomplished by tracing ancient characters with the stylus, much like Black & White for the PC, or the Xbox RPG Arx Fatalis.

The April 13th issue of Weekly Famitsu magazine also contains an interview with Itagaki, the highlights of which have been translated below:

Why did Team Ninja decide to develop for the Nintendo DS?
Up to now, we've made games for home console systems, establishing ourselves with three major pillars: fighting games, action games, and the "enigmatic" Dead or Alive Extreme series (laughs). So we thought we'd give ourselves a challenge this time around. We've never developed a game for a portable system before, so developing this title was a new challenge for us. We first thought of making a portable game a long time ago. We struggled deciding between the PSP and the DS, but it was the distinctiveness of the stylus that sold us.

Are there any new characters?
Yes, there are. There are some characters who will be appearing to bridge the gap between this and future games, and there's also a female character. She's not Hayabusa's pupil, but she trained with him.

Is she Hayabusa's ally?
Yeah. I'm giving things away here, but you control her at the beginning in the tutorial mode. Since you use the stylus so much in this title, there's a lot of new controls. So we felt the need for a tutorial mode to practice the controls, but then we thought, Hayabusa, the super-ninja, practicing? So we decided to use the female ninja for the tutorial. The tutorial is set up so that the female ninja is following Hayabusa's example. Of course, she'll also appear outside the tutorial, too.

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