A Video Game Designer Continues to Attack the Press for Not Playing His Terrible Game Properly

This is terrific. Glossy haired and perma-shaded Japanese designer Tomonobu Itagaki, the man who once brought the Ninja Gaiden franchise back from the grave and gave gamers a whole new appreciation of breast physics with his Dead or Alive fighting (and, um, volleyball) series, still won't let it lie that nobody likes his newest game, the Wii U-only Devil's Third. (Which I wrote about over here, back in July.)

The melee-combat-mixed-with-shooting action affair, riddled with glitches, cornball dialogue, countless awful clichés and gameplay so tired it's practically in a coma, came out last week and completely missed the UK top 40. In Wii U-exclusive sales terms, it could only sell enough copies (in the middle hundreds, I'm told) to reach number eight, one place higher than FIFA 13. Again, that's FIFA 13. People are genuinely still buying new copies of FIFA 13. I no longer know what the real story here is, either.

Anyway, reviews have been kind enough to give it an average score, a Metascore, of 42 (out of 100). I've played a healthy chunk of it, under no duress from anyone because I am clearly an idiot, in the comfort of my own home; and I really must stress, if it wasn't already quite clear enough: This is a very bad video game. It's suffered from engine moves and various delays, and bless Nintendo, truly, for stepping up to publish it when it'd been abandoned by prior suitors, but really: It's completely crap. Nobody has enough time in their lives to waste on games like this when so many good things are out now, and imminently.

Itagaki has taken this very personally. When the first (p)reviews were coming out, universally negative, he suggested that those writing the pieces in question simply weren't any good at the game. He claimed that the Wii U's GamePad, which comes with the console, wasn't the right controller to use—it was better to spend another $60+, on top of the cost of the game, to pick up a Pro Controller and USB keyboard. His deluded perspective on his creation—understandable, to some degree, of course—extended to calling Devil's Third a "breakthrough" for the games industry, and that it was going to take shooters "to the next level." Of shit, ultimately, but I'm certain that's not what the man was implying.

And now Itagaki has turned on the very procedure of how the gaming press tackles new titles, reports MCV. "I'm going to guess that most people reviewing the game weren't given a chance to evaluate it properly," he posted on Facebook. "We designed the online multiplayer to be enjoyed with tons of people, but it seems dozens of reviewers were only allowed to try the game in a closed environment. As you can imagine, no one can effectively evaluate the playability of multiplayer games under these conditions."

Except, actually, of course they can. Now that Devil's Third is out, at retail, owners can indeed enjoy its multiplayer element in the company of literally tens of other players. It doesn't change a thing, and while reviewers did experience the mode under certain restrictive conditions, the gameplay remains the same. This is a tremendously dated shooter whose multiplayer component, while undeniably more fun than its solo campaign, is still extremely flawed. Weapons clip through the environment, revealing your position to opponents, and it features microtransactions, FFS.

Before its release, there was the most slender of suggestions that Devil's Third, having overcome so many unfortunate setbacks to even come out, could become something of a cult hit on a system seriously lacking titles that aren't Mario-related in some way. That it might be a fun, but disposable, flashback to macho shooters of yesteryear, steered by a past master of the action genre. But it's not. Really, it's not, and if anyone's telling you otherwise, ignore such gibberish. Want an online shooter for your Wii U? Get Splatoon. Want a broken game that still has a certain, I don't know, nostalgic charm to it? Get Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. Okay, don't get that. Just don't buy shit games, yeah?