GamePro Q&A: Itagaki Speaks On DOA Xtreme 2

By David Chen
September 06, 2006 15:35 PM PST
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We recently spoke with Tomonobu Itagaki, the head of Tecmo's infamous development clan Team Ninja. Here are Itagaki's thoughts on Dead of Alive Xtreme 2, his favorite games, and other topics of note.

[Xtreme 2 isn't] a gamble, it's a winning hand. Putting it in terms of Chess, it's maybe two or three moves before checkmate.

--Tomonobu Itagaki, Team Ninja

GamePro: So...is there really enough new stuff here to warrant a sequel?

Tomonobu Itagaki: You know, it's about wanting to do Jet-Skiing. Speaking more specifically, there are two main reasons behind doing a second game. The first is that I really like Jet-Ski games, and I really wanted to work on one. And the other reason is that there were a lot of requests from fans that wanted to have DOAX on the 360, and so I thought I needed to provide that for them.

GP: By your description, what genre does this game fit into?

Itagaki:Proudly speaking there's two genres this game fits into. One is that it's a vacation game; and the other of course is sports. As you may know, any time I'm going to work on a new sequel, I always take a look at what was lacking in the previous game, and how best to remedy that or ad new features.

One main thing was that people weren't totally grasping the concept -- "What's a vacation game?" "What is this supposed to be?" So one of the things I'm really focused on this time is that it can really be enjoyed just as a sports game.

GP: A leading videogame website asked you why not include a trampoline event, and your answer was very intriguing: "Would you like to see your girlfriend bouncing on a trampoline?" It's an interesting point, and illustrates how the Western media might be more focused on sexuality...

Itagaki: Of course, this game does have a sexual aspect -- that's obviously a part of it. The key is you need to express that sexuality [while maintaining] the undercurrent of the love of the character. If you just show the character in a sexual or erotic situation without showing respect for that character, treat them like an object -- I don't think that's erotic at all. I think it's because you have feeling for that character that you can look at that situation and feel the love.

GP: Do you think your fans share this perspective? Fans of the game? Fans of the DOA world?

Itagaki: You know, it's not so much about the DOA series or DOA fans in particular, it's more general. I mean, when you're defining what's sexy -- that's more of a philosophy than it is about one specific element.

It really is about, where do you draw the line? In other words, you could have a girl who's just bare-naked, jumping rope. But I don't think that's sexy at all. It looks stupid, ridiculous. The point is you want to capture the girls acting natural, in a natural environment. Their demeanor, the way they'd really act. If you were to show something like, you know, naked girl jumping up and down on a trampoline, or jumping rope, or whatever, it's obvious that they'd have to be forced to do that. So it's losing any sense of sexuality that it could have possibly had. And this is really a question of philosophy, and how you draw the line.

GP: Drawing a line. How about Rumble Roses XX? Does that cross that line? Not that your game is similar, but It's natural that many would draw comparisons...

Where do you draw the line? In other words, you could have a girl who's just bare-naked, jumping rope. But I don't think that's sexy at all. It looks stupid, ridiculous.

--Tomonobu Itagaki, Team Ninja

Itagaki: I can't really comment on that game specifically. It's not something for me to decide -- it's up to the individual. What I was talking about is something that's an undeniable truth, which is that sexiness or eroticism that's based on love or passion for a character or person is always going to be more compelling that one that's based totally off of physicality or whatever. This is just a truth. What games and what elements fit into what category is up to each individual person.

In other words, if you think that just making a skimpy outfit that shows as much skin as possible is sexy, well that's just dumb. You can't focus on only that.

To add one more thing to the sexuality discussion: what I've been talking about is really a mainstream fact -- what does your average person think is "sexy." There's always going to be people who are obsessed with niche elements, and I'm not really concerned with appealing to those people. What I'm focused on is providing a sort of standard, mainstream sexuality within this game.

GP: Going back to the first game, it feels as if the player is with the girls, not necessarily being the girls. When you get back to their room, it feels like they're talking to you, and not that you're sharing their thoughts. They're engaging with the player. It's unusual...

Itagaki: I wouldn't say that's off the mark. Particularly in the first game, it's aimed towards the fans. You're trying to show a different side of the characters, and to involve the player as much as possible.

GP: You've made it clear before this franchise is first and foremost about relaxing. Do gamers want "relaxing"?

I do think that this is something gamers want. If they didn't care about it at all, then you wouldn't have seen the sort of controversy that we had with the previous game.

I wouldn't expect people to spend their hard-earned money to buy a game just to relax and have a vacation on the beach. It's more about spending time with these characters, and enjoying being around them. If all you want is a vacation, you go on a vacation. But here are women that don't exist anywhere on the planet, only within this game, and you're basically -- the reason you'd buy this game is to spend time with them, and enjoy hanging around and doing various activities with them.

GP: How about the gift giving system? Will it be as abstract as the first?

Itagaki: It's going to be drastically changed.

GP:...That's it?

Itagaki: I like to throw the conclusion out front, and then talk about it.

GP: Oops, sorry.

Itagaki: First of all, I think that the present giving mechanic of the last game was difficult for people outside of Japan to understand, because it was sort of related to hostess clubs, where you're going there to talk to a girl and you often give presents, and they don't always accept them, things like that. So it might have been tough for people who aren't familiar with that.

These kinds of clubs are a refuge for lonely guys that go in and spend all of their money on presents to give to girls, but the girls are there to work so they might throw it away. You might have this fancy club, but who knows? You might buy a diamond ring and give it to a girl and she might just throw it in the trash.

GP: And you're...speaking from personal experience?

Itagaki: This is the absolute truth -- the reality. This is not based on personal experience, it's just reality. You know, my philosophy, as far as game design is that I try as much as possible to make games that don't rely on any specific culture or region.

But since the first DOAX was a kind of pet project of mine, I included in there elements of that hostess club aesthetic that might not be well understood outside of Japan.

Basically, I think the problem was that that aspect of the game -- that is, giving someone you care about a gift and having them throw it away, or disregard it completely -- this is something I think people can understand. But it played too much of a role in how the game worked. That's definitely something that I look back on and think was one of the issues with that game.

I think that it made the overall progression kind of masochistic. Because there was just too much of that kind of negative reinforcement. But what we're trying to do with this next one is move things in a more positive direction -- make it more optimistic -- so that everything you do has some result.

So for the first time today, I will reveal how we will drastically change this system: I'm going to remove all the trashcans from Zack island.

GP: Which means that no one can dispose of presents.

Itagaki: Yes. Given those issues that were in the first game and knowing that that kind of held back a lot of people, I really want to make it so that things that you do aren't ever gone to waste; that all of the effort that people put into the game trying to get different swimsuits for each character will have some sort of positive result, no matter what.