Behind The Scenes With Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2’s Lead Programmer

Hello, I am Yasunori Sakuda, and I am the Program Lead for Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. This is our penultimate post, so I aim to make it best yet for you!

Let me begin by telling you that I became a programmer because of my pushy father! It was when I was 10 years old. My father gave me MSX instead of NES that I really wished him to buy. I started playing with it and I noticed that I could make plain program based on BASIC and that started my interesting in that field. I could make basic games instead of playing other peoples! It was amazing. The first title I became a part of project was Dead Or Alive 3 in Team NINJA and I was in charge of “Snow falling” in snowy mountain stage. Yes, there was a role just for falling snow! After struggling a little to get the right kind of snow, I did succeed in making a small amount of snow falling which nobody had expected of me. It was really impressive and I got the honour of being nicknames “Snowman” by the team. After DOA3 and my success with the snow, I joined a couple of projects including Dead or Alive 4 and I was promoted chief programmer of “NINJA GAIDEN SIGMA”. All from MSX and some snow! Very impressive!

My team is consist of 13 members, some of us are already veterans but we also have some very young programmers who are looking at games with new perspectives. We are very good at combining our talents and help each other every day to achieve our goal. We are very encouraging team! We are like the A Team! For example, a member of the team isn’t just in charge of only one project, but will be working on a couple things at the same time, like tool creation for CG staff, A.I, physics etc… we are all switchers but it keeps ideas fresh and the team stimulated. If one programmer was assigned to one field only I bet we wouldn’t have been able to achieve this game! However we HAVE achieved success because we helped each other and went for the same goal. I think Hayashi-san said it in his blog, but we are a very democratic developer, we are a family and we look after each other. And I am the Snowman, so I’m cool all the time!

I have to admit, it wasn’t always that way. We fumbled our way with NINJA GAIDEN SIGMA since we started development on it even before the PS3 launched. Looking back those days, I honestly regret that we couldn’t bring out the potential of PS3 enough. But based on that experience we could review what was good and what was bad about NINJA GAIDEN SIGMA. This was actually very good for us because it has now meant we can develop this new game efficiently and get the very best out of our development. Our skill with the PS3 has made a quantum leap but there is so much more to explore with the console! We have worked the PS3 to the bone and brought out whatever we could from the console.

Personally if we had more time, there are always new and fresh ideas that any programmer would like to squeeze into the final code. There has to come a point where you draw a line though and agree that you have done everything in your power for the title you are working on. I think the expression is ‘not over working the pudding’. Don’t worry though, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is going to be a very tasty pudding! I think, for my home work next time I really would like to build up “PS3” system from scratch if possible, to see how it works, to get under its hood. It would be like having my old MSX back again! I really need to discuss a lot about it with Hayashi I think! Please enjoy Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 until then though. Even with such a little home work I have, I guarantee that this game is something we are really proud of and you won’t get bored.