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发表于 2007-1-15 11:49 · 台湾
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原文共4頁~~
(第1頁) 
As new PlayStation 3 owners inhale their first deep breaths of 2007, a valid concern crossing the minds of the many is, "What the hell am I going to play now?" One appealing option coming up soon in Japan (early summer in the U.S.) is Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Team Ninja's eagerly-awaited reworking of its classic action hit.
As work on the game is progressing full-steam ahead, 1UP recently took the opportunity to derail the development team's progress and coerce Sigma director, Yohsuke Hayashi, into sitting down and giving us the inside scoop on what we can expect out of the game. After all, while people who've never played any iteration of the game have plenty to look forward to, there are a lot of Ninja Gaiden/Ninja Gaiden Black veterans sitting on the fence wondering whether they need to go back into the Black for one more spin. This interview will tell you what you need to know about Team Ninja's first foray onto a Sony console since Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore back in 2000.
1UP: So how long have you guys been working on Ninja Gaiden Sigma now?
Yosuke Hayashi: Obviously there was a period when we were studying the PS3 hardware and figuring out how it operates, so it's kind of hard to define when exactly we started. But basically, last time we met you at TGS and showed the trailer, we said we were at 20%. Now we're at 35%, and we've gotten to the point where we can run through all the stages back to back in the game.
1UP: What's taking the most work in bringing Ninja Gaiden to PS3?
YH: The PS3 has very unique architecture, so there's a lot of work that goes into making sure you optimize the game so it runs best on that architecture. But we're past the point of studying the hardware. Now we know how everything works, so it's about implementing each feature to use the machine to its fullest.
1UP: Since you worked on Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black on Xbox, now that you've had some time to familiarize yourself with the Cell processor and its multiple pipelines and the stuff you've got to work with, do you see any advantages in bringing this to the PS3? Does it help with enemy AI, or graphics processing, or anything specific?
YH: One important thing about the PS3 is the seven SPUs in addition to the main processor, and using those is what allows you to get the best graphic quality. So we have an entire section of programmers which is assigned to figure out how to get those SPUs working on graphics to the fullest. Now we're actually at the point where day-to-day you can see the graphic quality improve before your eyes, so to speak. So if you look at the screenshots we have for you today -- if you look at those compared to what we put out at TGS, there's a big difference in terms of the textures and the atmosphere. You can see the steps we've made since then.
1UP: With Ninja Gaiden Sigma you're introducing a lot of new ideas, or bringing some older ideas to their full potential -- like the water battles. How many of these things were ideas you wanted to use in Ninja Gaiden Black, but couldn't for whatever reason?
YH: I'd say it's a 50/50 split, between things that are totally new ideas for Sigma and things that we wanted to do previously but weren't able to. This is something we haven't talked about before, but there's this period within the story when you're in the city and the army has been called into action, and there's a curfew set in the city. We always thought it would be cool if you had helicopters flying over the city at all times, dropping bombs and stuff on you. But we couldn't do that on Xbox because of hardware limitations, but that's one of the things we're able to do this time around.
1UP: So helicopters are going to be dropping bombs all over the place?
YH: At sections during that chapter.
1UP: Are these things that can hurt you, so you have to watch where you're running?
YH: Yes.
1UP: Can you name some of the things you're bringing to Ninja Gaiden as a result of bringing this to PS3?
YH: There are actually some things that have come out of suggestions we received from people who played the game. The people who are really big fans of Ninja Gaiden are pretty vocal about what they like and don't like. So we received a lot of feedback that provided inspiration for new ideas. One of the things we adjusted as a result of the feedback from the customers was how to improve the usability of the projectile weapons. So one of the things we've done is enabled you to use the bow and arrow while jumping in the air. [Laughs] So that's one of the things we took into account and thought would be a good idea.
1UP: Is there any one specific thing that you wanted to see in Sigma yourself?
YH: One of the things I felt really strong about and is actually going to be in the game, is that Rachel is going to be a playable character -- and I'll go into more detail in a little bit -- but now you're able to change her hairstyle. So you can actually go in and change her hairstyle to match your own preference. That's something I felt really strong about and went the extra mile to make sure actually got in the game. Given the way her character is modeled, I felt there were better hairstyles for her than the default one, so I felt we had to make it that you could change the hairstyle. I just couldn't give it up.
(第2頁)
1UP: Are you married?
YH: No.
1UP: Do you plan to be some day?
YH: [Laughs] Probably, someday.
1UP: Because some girl is going to love you. You're a very sensitive guy. "Honey, why don't you change your hair today?"
[Laughs]
1UP: I agree with this idea, because Rachel's design was always a bit overt on the bondage/fantasy angle. Now you can soften what is objectively a pretty extreme look. Do you have any costume changes planned?
YH: Ah, we also have it so you can change her earrings. And while the hairstyles have absolutely nothing to do with how the game plays -- it's totally a visual aspect -- the earrings are actually going to provide something similar to what the armlets did for Hayabusa. You'll find items in the game where you can change her earrings out to give her different special abilities.
1UP: I like you. You give very straightforward, honest, interesting answers. Sometimes I gotta work Itagaki to the bone to get a straight answer out of him. [Turns to translator] You know what I'm talking about!
[Laughs]
1UP: What's cool about this is that it suggests that you guys have a good instinct towards what Western gamers want to see more of in Japanese games -- the customization, the personalization. Western gamers like characters to be a reflection of their own personal tastes, whether it's something small and minor, or something much greater like you'd find in an MMO. Western gamers really enjoy that sort of thing, whereas Japanese gamers seem content with Tidus looking like Tidus for an entire RPG... What other fun stuff do you plan to add?
YH: Those little touches are important, and the reason we're able to do them is because we have so much faith in the original strengths of Ninja Gaiden as an action game and the fact that we feel like we don't have to play around with it too much. But at the same time we can't include too much of that stuff. It's fan service, whether it be the earrings or the hairstyles or whatever. You do that too much and we've got another beach game on our hands. [Laughs] And if you want that, then feel free to go into your local game shop and pick up a copy of that, but our main focus is on the action game. But we want to include those little touches for the people who have been with the series for a long time.
1UP: Now with the graphics, is it true that you're redoing every last texture for the game?
YH: You know, I talked about this a lot at TGS, but the new stuff we're adding -- Rachel as a playable character, the new weapons -- are all for the existing fans so they'll have something new to relate to as a reason to play this game. But we also know that there are a lot of people out there who haven't played the game, so the graphics is something we can use to catch the eye of those people. So I can assure you that when Sigma comes out it will be the best looking action game on the market. And yes, all the textures will be completely redone.
1UP: That must be a massive undertaking, since the game is so big.
YH: That's right. That's how serious we're treating this game. It's not just a port to us. For us it's a chance to take the best action game on the market and introduce it to a whole new generation of gamers.
1UP: Are you taking the opportunity to adjust any of the blatantly obvious puzzles in the game? Like, okay, here's a door at 12:00, and there's only two paths, one at 9:00 and one at 3:00, and there's a monster on one side and a chest on the other. Or how about a chest at the back of an underwater maze? That kind of stuff.
YH: We are aware of the fact that some of those were counterintuitive, so we're reexamining all of the puzzles and key-fetching quests and all that stuff to make it a little more intuitive and a little more natural, so it's not like everything is going to be the same.
1UP: What about changing it so that instead of getting a key out of a chest, if you fight a monster that holds the key?
YH: Back when we were doing the original Ninja Gaiden for Xbox, it was the first time we ever did an action game. We took a lot of clues out of the Zelda book of adventure gaming, as how the puzzles and stuff worked. I think it worked at the time, because we all respect Zelda. But now that we know that we have a quality combat system that can stand on its own, we realize that we don't have to pad things with a bunch of fetch-quests and things like that. But obviously we are talking about Ninja Gaiden on PS3, so it's not going to be completely redone, but we do want to arrange things and make it a little more intuitive for everybody.
1UP: Can you tell us a little bit about Ryu Hayabusa's upcoming confrontations with Gamov?
YH: I don't want to get into the reasons why you fight him, because I don't want to spoil the story at this point, but we're putting a lot of effort into the Gamov character. You know how he uses two pistols? What people don't realize is that they're both different. If you go back and look at the screenshots we released at TGS, if people look at them closely, you'll be able to tell where those pistols were manufactured. We've got a guy on staff who's a real gun fanatic. By looking at the manufacturer of those pistols, you should be able to tell just about where the Vigoor Empire is located.
(第3頁)
1UP: That's going to get a lot of Ninja Gaiden fans in a big discussion over Gamov's back story, I think. On another topic, do you plan to add Gamov to the mission modes, if you wanted to fight him over and over again, and do you plan to give Rachel some missions as well?
YH: Yeah we're planning on including both of the things you mentioned. We'll be adding missions to include a comprehensive variety of enemies, as well as a subset of missions where you play as Rachel.
1UP: If you were to say how much of the game you play as Rachel -- since you're only playing during certain stages as her -- how much of the game do her missions take up?
YH: I'd say you play as Rachel for about 20 percent of the game, and the reason for this is that it's still Ninja Gaiden. We want to focus on Ryu Hayabusa as the super-ninja. Rachel is a supporting character. The fact that she's playable is as a treat for fans, who've asked for that and would look forward to it, but she's not going to replace him as a main character. That's not to suggest her portions will be really weak, though. We're spending a lot of time to make sure that even though she's not the main character of the game, it still feels like Ninja Gaiden, and yet gives a unique experience. This way it gives you a little bit of a different flavor and breaks up the pattern a little. And now we've gotten her to the point where she's turning out really well.
1UP: Will she have any pivotal or significant boss encounters of her own?
YH: Yeah she will have boss encounters, and for the most part, you'll have to fight a boss every time you take control of her for a section.
1UP: In the original Ninja Gaiden for Xbox, there was that one part of town where there was an Xbox sitting on top of a building if you knew where to find it. Are you guys going to stick a PS3 there?
YH: [Laughs] Well, you're going to have to wait and see on the final version. You'll have to jump up there and see what's there.
1UP: Definitely won't be an Xbox.
YH: I don't think I'll tell anyone what it is until the game comes out. [Laughs]
1UP: I'll assume it's going to be something cool.
YH: Look forward to it for the first time when you see it in the game.
1UP: Are you planning to include the emulated ports of the original, original Ninja Gaiden games?
YH: Well you know we included the ports and emulations of the original trilogy of Nintendo games for Ninja Gaiden and then the arcade version for Ninja Gaiden Black, so people could have the entire collection of the past games all at once -- not only so they could play them, but so they could see how far the series has come. For us, with Ninja Gaiden Sigma -- I don't want to sound like a broken record -- but we're trying to introduce the Ninja Gaiden franchise to a whole new generation and group of people. We look at this as the first installment of Ninja Gaiden in the 21st century, so we're not going to be including any of those ports in Sigma. Rather we're going to provide the best Ninja Gaiden that we can for the year 2007.
1UP: Are there any changes to Ryu Hayabusa himself that we haven't talked about?
YH: When working on the Xbox, we tried to make Hayabusa look his best by using the tried and true methods of making the textures look as good as they possibly could without using a lot of fancy programming techniques. But now since we have the PS3 hardware, what we've done is instead of relying only on textures, we're using a technique called 'multi-mapping,' where every surface you see, whether it's the texture of the clothing or the skin or the veins or eyeballs -- all of those have this realistic mapping technique. I think if you look at the close-ups of the screenshots we released at TGS you'll see how things have evolved. But it's definitely a more three-dimensional quality in terms of how the model is set up. If the model in Ninja Gaiden on Xbox was like an oil painting, now the character models are more like sculptures.
The artist who's working on the Hayabusa model, is studying human anatomy very closely, to understand skeletal structures and muscle structure. So the amount of sheer information you're going to see when you see the character model in terms of how the skeleton is set up and how the muscles are arranged is totally different due to what we're able to do with this hardware. If you pointed to a person and asked the artist "What is the name of this muscle?" he could tell you.
1UP: So will every character in the game benefit from this attention to detail?
YH: Yeah, every character will.
1UP: What diffi***y level will the game start out on? The same as Ninja Gaiden Black? Harder? Easier?
YH: Ninja Gaiden is a game where part of the enjoyment of it comes from overcoming obstacles, so we don't want to dumb it down too much. If you think about the diffi***y as a staircase, the number of steps you're going to encounter on each floor is going to be the same. But when people play the game, they get better as they go along. They improve the longer the game goes on. The problem is for the first Ninja Gaiden that first step was too high. So we want to make it easier to walk up the staircase at the start, but it'll still be challenging.
1UP: Will you leave the Ninja Dog diffi***y option in?
YH: Ninja Dog mode is still going to be in there, and the design philosophy is going to be the same as it was in Ninja Gaiden Black. It's to take that staircase and bring it down a few steps, but keep the overall curve there so you're still being challenged. We don't want to bring it down where it's possible for just anyone to beat it, and we don't want to suggest that PlayStation gamers are less able gamers, by changing anything too much.
(第4頁)
1UP: Speaking about PlayStation gamers for a second, is there any concern that by the time the game ships that Sony still won't have sold enough units to make this a financially worthwhile venture? And is there any temptation to drag out development until it does have a bigger installed base?
YH: Let's look at the history of Team Ninja in general. We've released launch titles for a number of systems, right, so we've never really worried about how many hardware units have sold. This one isn't any different. A lot of developers use the excuse, "Oh, well the hardware doesn't have enough units out there so we're not going to develop for it." In our case we think, "Obviously someone has it." So we think you should make a game good enough to get everyone who owns that hardware to buy it. That's the ideal goal, right?
1UP: On the technical side of things, what's the highest resolution Ninja Gaiden Sigma will support and why?
YH: Well, this game is going to support 720p, and that is because we have determined that this is optimal resolution to get the best quality images out of the PS3. There are companies out there that are developing games at 1080p, and the problem is that they're really pushing the limits of the hardware at that resolution, and I think that if you examine it objectively you will see that in order to get the best balance of performance and image quality then 720p is your only choice. I think that the companies that are making a big deal out of making games at 1080p are either underestimating their ability to get their games to run well at that resolution, or they're basically just using that as an advertising gimmick. I'm confident that if you want to make the best-looking game you can on PS3, then 720p is your only choice.
1UP: Tell us a little bit about how Rachel plays.
YH: We've just recently within the last couple of days gotten her onscreen in playable form. As you know our goal with Hayabusa is to make the coolest action game character. So what we're saying now is that if Hayabusa is the coolest male action-game character, and the best-controlling, fastest action-game character, then let's make Rachel the best female action-game character. As you know, there are other action games coming out for PS3 with female lead characters, but I can guarantee you that Rachel is going to kick their asses. We've tweaked everything so that she plays differently than Hayabusa, but is still fast and controllable and feels -- I don't have a better way to put it -- female. She her actions aren't as calculated and aren't as efficient as Hayabusa's. She has a certain elegance to her that's explicitly female, and so just going in there and playing with her and seeing how she controls, it's obvious that we're going to have a really great character on our hands.
1UP: Explicitly female? What does that mean -- she's going to have a pillow fight attack or have a tantrum?
YH: [Laughs] We're trying to make sure that all of her animations and each individual action have a certain intangible element so you can tell she's female. And we're also implementing our other famous projects' physics engine, of course with Itagaki-san's permission. We're making even more improvements so that you'll know that this is a woman.
1UP: Did you bring in a female martial arts mo-cap actor to enhance Rachel's animations?
YH: Yeah we have a female motion capture actress doing this stuff, but what Team Ninja has done in the past is that we never use the captured animations directly. We give those to the animators to use as a basis, but we add a lot of hand-done details to make it look even better and give it a sense of the super-realism. If you have a game about ninjas, you can't get real ninjas in the studio to mo-cap them. So we have to enhance things.
As far as Rachel goes, we couldn't get real ninjas in the studio in to mo-cap for Hayabusa, so by that token we couldn't get real fiend hunters in real life to come in to do Rachel's moves either. [Laughs]
1UP: Is Rachel restricted to a specific weapon, or can you get others, and can you level them up like Hayabusa's?
YH: Yeah, she has multiple weapons. I won't say how many, right now, but you can switch them out and they will also level up just like Hayabusa's.
1UP: Are there any multiplayer elements in Sigma? Online or off?
YH: It's not like we couldn't do that from a technological standpoint. We could have implemented it if we wanted, but we have to stay focused on the concept of our game, which is to provide Ninja Gaiden to a new platform for a whole new group of people, so we're not making fundamental changes in the way the game operates. But I can guarantee you that there is a group of people within Team Ninja who are working on multiplayer ideas, so don't rule out the possibility in the future.
1UP: Lastly, can you give us a little back story about Rachel and her role in Ninja Gaiden Sigma?
YH: In the first game, the focus was all on Hayabusa and his story, so Rachel and her background and her past didn't get a whole lot of focus in the game, besides the fact that Alma is her sister and Alma got turned into a fiend. But if you read her profile in the instruction manual, you'll see that her family has a history of retaining fiend blood and they all have the capability to be turned into fiends. So what we're doing is we're taking that element, and within the game explaining why that is and what has caused that in the past, and expanding on those ideas.
1UP: Are you going to use that story arc to suggest that the same thing could happen to Rachel as well?
YH: Exactly. In fact you're going to find out in very specific terms why that is the case, and all the dangers involved with that. That's going to be part of her story arc.
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