Q&A with Ninja Gaiden Sigma's director

Ninja Gaiden: Black has been doing the critically-acclaimed rounds on Xbox for a few years now and it's still our second favorite game behind Halo. To all the people who cried "It's too hard" we'd like to say that it's not hard - you're just not playing right.

Black is making a comeback, under the moniker Ninja Gaiden: Sigma, on PS3 with more bells and whistles attached to it than we originally thought. The screens look awesome and it's one of the games we're looking forward to checking out on PS3. With that in mind CVG wanted to know more and managed to catch up with Tecmo's Director of Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Yosuke Hayashi.

How is Ninja Gaiden Sigma coming along? Are you finding it easy to get to grips with the PS3?

Yosuke Hayashi: I would say that the current completion level of development is 50 percent. The mountain-top we're aiming to reach is now within sight, and I'm pretty confident that Ninja Gaiden Sigma will be the number one action game.

Our development team is no longer a stranger to the PS3 platform. They are now familiar with its characteristics and can handle it much better than before. Things are going pretty well here.

Where will Sigma differ most from the original Ninja Gaiden on Xbox?

Hayashi: All the materials are created from scratch in Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and we have further refined the action engine because that is vital to the overall gameplay. So, the feel you'll get when you play Sigma will be a totally new and improved experience.

What we did with Sigma is quite similar to adopting a totally new design and specification for a car - it's going to be endless if I start counting the differences from the original. It's not that we simply added something to it but more like we have improved the car's engine.