The original Ninja Gaiden was released on the FC in 1988, by which time the MD had already been launched.
This time, Ninja Gaiden was being developed directly for the MD, so it would naturally surpass the original in both graphics and gameplay.
That's why Kobayashi Tetsu had initially been able to tolerate Hideo Yoshizawa's slow pace—after all, the MD platform was a completely different beast.
But this time, he had no choice but to step in.
As for the level design, Hideo Yoshizawa and Satoru Iwata were already brainstorming. With the addition of the experienced Development Division 2, Team Ninja's development process had accelerated significantly.
Even accounting for the diminishing returns of adding more people, this "veteran guiding the rookie" model was still much faster than their previous approach.
Meanwhile, Kobayashi Tetsu was planning several major Boss battles.
The design philosophy he had mentioned earlier couldn't be fully implemented in the current game—after all, the platform was still in its early stages and couldn't support such complexity. However, simple item-based counters could still be created.
When Capcom developed Mega Man, its difficulty was also notoriously high, but Mega Man actually had a core solution: choosing different forms for different levels. Those seemingly complex stages actually had a difficulty gap—unless a player was a complete idiot who tried to fight Ice Man without the proper equipment.
This line of thinking could be applied to the development of Ninja Gaiden.
"The first Boss doesn't need to be too difficult. To fit the setting of a modern urban samurai, the enemy will be designed as a buff guy piloting a mech. In turn, the player will have some choices when fighting the mech—for instance, jumping up to throw shuriken directly into the cockpit, or dodging and slashing at its legs."
Kobayashi Tetsu sketched and wrote, continuously refining the design for this battle.
Some features that would have been difficult to implement on the MS or FC platforms became possible thanks to the Mega Drive's superior performance. As Kobayashi Tetsu pondered, he kept instructing the development team to incorporate these ideas into the game.
Fortunately, Team Ninja had accumulated a vast amount of assets over the past year—enough discarded designs to last through a sequel. Otherwise, recreating all the assets from scratch would have been a major hurdle.
After nearly a month of collaborative effort, Ninja Gaiden was finally completed on January 20th.
Within Atlas, Kobayashi Tetsu organized a brief playtest for the staff.
Naka Yuji was the first to raise his hand. "It's good, really good! This is going to be a huge hit."
Kobayashi Tetsu stared at him. "You haven't even played it yet, so how can you say it's good?"
"I haven't played it, but my heart is one with the President," Naka Yuji said. "It's telling me that even if it wasn't good before, it's definitely good now that the President is involved. In this regard, I'm willing to call the President the God of Video Games."
"..."
Kobayashi Tetsu took a deep breath.
He wanted to scold him, but the man was just too good at flattery!
Deeply moved, Kobayashi Tetsu proceeded to ignore Naka Yuji's opinion.
The others weren't as adept at sucking up as Naka Yuji, and they chimed in with a variety of opinions.
Overall, the internal feedback at Atlas was quite positive.
Kobayashi Tetsu nodded inwardly.
Of course, internal reviews weren't entirely reliable. The next step was to produce a few cartridges to send to Kadokawa Game Magazine for a media demo, and another few to the Atlas Offline Experience Store for closed beta testing.
Though they called it "closed beta testing," there was actually no time left to make any changes to the game.
Kobayashi Tetsu had to get Bandai to deliver the cartridges within the next two weeks so he could distribute them across Japan.
"It's a shame we have to delay the North American release. We just can't get the stock there in time!"
There was no other choice. The North American players would just have to suffer, and Hideo Yoshizawa would take the heat!
Hideo Kojima looked up sharply.
Finally, it's not me! This is too good to be true!
February.
Despite the production shortfall, Bandai still managed to run their lines as much as possible, completing a partial batch of about 100,000 cartridges and shipping them to stores across Japan.
Ninja Gaiden's sales were destined to suffer.
Kobayashi Tetsu was helpless, but it was still better than having no stock at all. He thought it over and decided to instruct the specialty stores that had signed agreements with Atlas to slow down their distribution.
A little artificial scarcity would help.
Let the players suffer, and Hideo Yoshizawa can take the blame!
February 14th, Valentine's Day.
Kobayashi Tetsu calculated his schedule.
Today, he would choose a lucky girl to go to the cinema with him to watch the movie Ninja Gaiden!
Who would be so lucky?
Of course, all of them!
A man as magnanimous as Kobayashi Tetsu would never abandon any of his girls to go see a movie alone.
His time management skills had to be impeccable.
Naturally.
The game cartridges were announced for release at various game stores on the same day.
Central Avenue, Shimayose Game Store.
Iwasaki Isao looked up at the poster before him. Against the backdrop of a neon-lit cityscape, a ninja stood proudly atop a lamppost.
"That's pretty cool!"
Iwasaki Isao patted his wallet.
The wicked Atlas is trying to rob me again.
Atlas's first-party new release, Ninja Gaiden, was priced at 6,500 yen per cartridge!
Iwasaki Isao had gone to see the Ninja Gaiden movie today. The experience felt quite novel, and Sanada Hiroyuki was indeed very stylish.
Although Iwasaki Isao still couldn't get over Sanada Hiroyuki's GG performance as Zhuge Liang, he decided to accept it for now, given that the movie's quality was still considered excellent.
"An Atlas first-party game—the production quality definitely won't be bad."
Iwasaki Isao took a deep breath.
"Uncle Shimayori, give me a copy of Ninja Gaiden!"
Shimayose Yosuke crossed his arms, striking the same pose as Ryu Hayabusa.
"Sorry, we don't have that."
"Huh?! Then what about the Ninja Gaiden merchandise? The one with Sanada Hiroyuki's signature."
"Sorry, we don't have this either."
"Gah?!"
Iwasaki Isao was dumbfounded.
What kind of store is this? You have nothing in stock!
Shimayose Yosuke vented his frustration: "I mean, you're really asking a lot. This isn't your first time dealing with Atlus, is it? Their in-house titles are always top-tier. You only showed up at noon, but the cartridges were sold out by morning!"
Iwasaki Isao started to speak, then stopped, finally sighing in disappointment.
True.
This is Atlus, after all.
"Then... can I come back tomorrow?"
"Come back tomorrow."
"Can you reserve one for me?"
"I'll reserve one for you!"
Iwasaki Isao felt a wave of relief. He thanked Shimayose Yosuke and turned to leave.
Unexpectedly, he still failed to buy the Ninja Gaiden cartridge the next day.
It wasn't until the third day, when Iwasaki Isao staked out the store entrance at dawn, that he finally managed to buy a copy.
Looking at the cartridge in his hands, with Sanada Hiroyuki's signature on the cover, Iwasaki Isao was nearly moved to tears.
"Why is Ninja Gaiden so hard to buy?! Other players must be fighting me for it!"
Today, he must play Ninja Gaiden immediately!
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