Team NINJA was founded in 1995 and is known as the "ninja group" as the name suggests. It is a game development team formed by TECMO and was led by Itagaki Yukinobu when it was founded. The most famous representative works are the "Ninja Dragon Sword" series and the "Dead or Alive" series, which are loved by players around the world for their super production strength. The main reason for players to be completely convinced of them is, of course, the creation of the Ninja Dragon Sword series (hereinafter referred to as "Ninja Dragon") that is known as the pinnacle of action games. Ninja Ninja is the symbol of Team NINJA and their incarnation in the game, Team NINJA is the "Super Ninja Army" that is invincible in the action game world. Today, let's talk about the development of Team NINJA!
To talk about Team NINJA, we still have to start with TECMO. Founded in the 1960s, TECMO entered the gaming industry in the late 1970s. In the SFC era, TECMO encountered unprecedented difficulties, because the manufacturing cost of a large number of FC game backlog cassettes after the launch of SFC was much higher than the development cost of the game at that time, and the game backlog caused many companies to suffer losses, and TECMO had asked Nintendo to give some support to the companies that suffered losses, but was refused. At the same time, the loss of talent within the company also had a great impact on it, and this situation continued until the mid-90s.
In 1995, the era of PS was approaching, tecm0 ambitiously set up a new core production team to produce some very well-conceived works, this team is "Team NINJA", and promoted the then rather young Itagaki companion as the head of Team NINJA, and the first game Itagaki planned was "Dead or Alive", the meaning of its name is to break the ship and fight against the water. This work can be said to be a work in which Itagaki gambled on his future and reputation, and if he did not succeed, he became a ren, so Itagaki named it "Dead or Alive", either life or death.
Even if you haven't played dead or alive, you must know this blonde girl
The establishment of Team NINJA is not only of great significance, but also has an important mission. The task of reviving TECMO fell to Team Ninja, in fact, this development team not only did not have its own signature products at the time of its establishment, but even an independent game was not done, and the important task of this group was to undertake the porting of the "Ninja Dragon" trilogy of the FC and SFC eras to SNES, and the person responsible for this task was Itagaki Company Letter of the year. The talented Itagaki Companion Ishikaki is now affectionately known as the "Sulphuric Face" by the majority of players.
"Sulfate face" Itagaki companion letter
Before 2008, he was the absolute core and leader of Team NINJA, and it can be said that without him, there would be no Ninja Dragon series that now stands at the top of action games. He joined TECMO in 1992 and is very personal and dictatorial. Itagaki named his fighting game development plan "Life and Death Plan", for whom he either achieved fame or had nothing. In 1999, Itagaki began officially planning a sequel to Ninja Dragon Sword, 8 years after the previous work, Ninja Dragon. Itagaki redefined the entire series, he is a true master of game making, he is infused with affection and faith in his work, he does not make games for commercial gain, which is what I admire him very much. Itagaki stressed that the game must be unforgettable, and whenever the tester complained that the game was too difficult, Itagaki would make the game harder. In this way, the resurrected "Ninja Dragon" series began to move towards the peak of the industry with its super difficulty and quality...
Many things in the world are predestined. In late 2000, as Itagaki was planning to revive Ninja Dragon, Microsoft contacted TECMO to develop software for the new hardware XBOX at the time. Since then, the powerful XBOX and Itagaki have formed an indissoluble relationship. He stopped the PS2 version of Ninja Dragon, which was under development, completely indefinitely, and all the forces of Team NINJA focused on the development of the XBOX version of Ninja Dragon. After 5 years of meticulous work, the new Ninja Gaiden was introduced to xbox in 2004. This work from 5 years ago is still being talked about by the majority of players, and bloody, refreshing and difficulty has since become the endorsement of the new "Ninja Dragon". The fluency and rhythm of the battle like a whirlwind cloud made everyone who played it unconsciously marvel. A variety of weapons, flowing moves, rich collection elements, AI super high enemies and bosses, so that the resurrected "Ninja Dragon" almost reached the "perfect" realm, Team NINJA has also become a blockbuster, since then it has become a famous brand of action game production team, known by players as "the strongest super ninja group".
With the birth of The Black Chapter, Ninja Dragon Sword Legend has evolved into a "divine work" level. Of course, this was followed by Ninja Gaiden 2, which was not surprisingly exclusive to XBOX and released by Microsoft Game Studios, becoming the first game to be produced by Team NINJA but not by TECMO. This "god-made" work can only be made by Itagaki Osaku and Team NINJA...
In June 2008, just as Ninja Gaiden 2 was released, Itagaki announced that he would leave TECMO and Team NINJA because of the unfair treatment he had received from the company. When Itagaki left, he also took with him many core members of the Team NINJA team. TECMO then announced the reorganization of Team NINJA and its leadership with Yosuke Hayaya as its leader. Because Yosuke Hayayoshi was attacked by Itagaki because he had previously made Ninja Gaiden ∑ on PS3, his takeover means that the Ninja Dragon series is no longer the exclusive game of the Microsoft platform! In 2007, NDS's "Ninja Dragon Sword: Dragon Sword" was produced by Yosuke Hayaya, "Ninja Dragon Sword ∑ 2" was his first work after leading Team NINJA, "Ninja Dragon" without a sulfuric acid face, and players' evaluations of this game were also mixed.
But objectively speaking, Yosuke Hayaya is not a bad producer, and the quality of several transplanted works of "Ninja Dragon 3", "Ninja Dragon" and "Dead or Alive" on the PSV platform is not low, which is enough to prove this point.
After officially taking over Team NINJA, Yosuke Hayayama said that it is clear that exclusive games will do better than making games on multiple platforms, and different hardware systems have their own physical environments. If you have it alone, you can concentrate 100% of your efforts to optimize him, and then you can balance it with other works. But it is clear that Yosuke Hayay is on sony's side, and he has moved it to PS3, naming both of Itagaki's "Ninja Dragons" as "∑", and the meaning of "∑" is infinite. On June 2, 2009, Nintendo announced at the E3 show that Team NINJA had partnered with Nintendo to develop a new game for Galactic Warrior on the Wii platform, titled Galactic Warrior: Another M. Since then, Team NINJA has ceased to be a professional "ninja group" of the Itagaki era.
The rupture between Yosuke Hayaya and Itagaki seems to have been evident as early as the production of Ninja Gaiden 2, when Sulphuric Face did not involve Yosuke Hayaya in the production of Ninja Dragon 2, but he was working on his own Ninja ∑ and Dragon Sword. He said this himself: "At the time of the production of Ninja Dragon 2, I was working on other works in the Ninja Dragon series, so I was not involved in the development of the team. I really love and value the Ninja Dragon series, and I'm sure it can be made to make it a more attractive game, and I think as a producer, the worst thing is to develop a piece that fans are not interested in. Emmmmm... How is The Legend of Sword Warrior: Ninja Dragon Sword Z explained? (Inabari Keiji came out to carry the pot!) ）
A work that is collectively despised by fans, in fact, the painting style is OK...
Write at the end:
After the merger of KOEI and TECMO, Team NINJA still brings us many high-quality games, such as "Ren Wang" and "Dead or Alive 5". Today, "Dead or Alive 6" is about to be released, and I believe that this ninja group will still not disappoint players. So, when will the orthodox sequel to Ninja Gaiden that players have been waiting for be released? Wait, and hopefully.
While waiting for the Ninja Dragon, you can try Ren Wang.
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