Ninja Gaiden 3 Targets Immersion

The fact that Japanese game developers are very different from their Western counterparts has been clear for quite some time but one of the developers working on Ninja Gaiden says that the team in Japan creating the game is keen to adopt the best ideas coming from the West.

Peter Graza, who is a localisation producer working at Tecmo Koei, has told GamesIndustry.biz that, “I definitely see a split between standard Japanese game developers and Western developers.”

He added, “It’s going to be hard for them to completely merge. Seeing and hearing both sides sometimes I wonder about how this gap is going to get closed. Games in Japan exist in a different space for entertainment than in the West. Games in the West are very much going for that cinematic experience. Games in Japan are pretty much equated with toys. They’re playthings.”

It seems that Tecmo Koei is paying attention to how gaming development is evolving in the West and that they are trying to adopt some of the elements that have proven successful.

The developer is saying that the team that is working on Ninja Gaiden 3 have played a number of Western made hits, like the first and the second Portal titles from Valve and Dead Space, the horror shooter from Visceral and Electronic Arts.

It seems that the biggest concept that they have picked up is immersion and one of the main goals of the team working on Ninja Gaiden 3 is to make the game capture all the sense and the imagination of the player.

The game has already been criticized by long term fans for some gameplay and character choices.

Ninja Gaiden 3 will be launched on the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 during 2012 and the developers are also putting together a version for the Nintendo Wii U.