My exact thoughts, reading this headline. What an interesting legacy to leave behind! I never thought about the person behind DoA but reading the twitter thread from his rival, he seems to have been a very interesting character.
I was hoping for the same dopamine hit and bought the new one for Switch and it is very good, but 15 years or so on, even knowing what I was in for difficulty-wise, I don't know if I have it in me.
Ninja Gaiden was great, NG2 combat wise perfected that system. Only game Ive ever gone full nerd on and completed multiple playthroughs of, I usually get bored after the first run if I even get that far. Used to chill out on master ninja listening to music and slaughtering ninjas to stop me falling asleep after training.
Because of his somewhat similar traits (long hair, rockstar/edgelord vibe, ego, puerile game tastes) I always thought of Itagaki as "the Japanese John Romero". A personality type for which I have a grudging respect: probably difficult as all get-out to work with, but brilliantly creative, seems like he has a lot of fun with it, and ballsy enough to defend his ideas. I'm sad he's gone so soon.
He made one very good game (Ninja Gaiden remake), a couple pretty good games (DOA 1 & 2)....and some crap. I was never really keen on his shit-talking media personality, especially since he had long since admitted that it was purely a marketing campaign.
The weird thing about that game is kind of the same issue I have with Mario Kart -- how do you have arch enemies (Mario & Bowser in Mario Kart, Kasumi & Ayane in the DOA "Beach" games) putting aside their rivalry to race or play volleyball?
