I’m really not a big fan of Dead or Alive. In fact, I really don’t like it at all. Part of this stems from the fact that I really suck at fighting games, and feel no need to attempt to get any better at them, something which really isn’t helping my attempts to review the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology right now. The other problem I have with it is the breast fetish associated with the game - the one that attracts the kind of drooling 13 year old male fanboy that only ends up hampering any attempts to mature not only the medium itself, but gaming journalism too. But I’m pretty much over that, now that I know that series producer Tomonobu Itagaki has a water-tight excuse for it - he’s always drunk!
The man behind games like the Xbox’s Ninja Gaiden and the now completely excusable Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball says he’s not even sure of the point that drinking to come up with “crazy ideas” turns into complete nonsense because he’s “drinking pretty much full-time”.
“In the last ten years,” he volunteers in an interview with kikizo.com. “I think I had better ideas when I was drinking whisky. When I am drinking shochu, that’s a conservative drink, so the ideas are not that great. Beer is just like water to me, so it just helps me and everyone else loosen up a little bit, it doesn’t really contribute to coming up with ideas.”
This probably also goes some way to explaining his now-famous comments that his top 5 worst games of all time have been Tekken, Tekken 2, Tekken 3…you get the idea. I mean, that truly sounds like something that you could only really come up with while drunk. Or at least, something you wish you could come up with while drunk - it takes practice and dedication to be a drunk of Tomonobu Itagaki levels. So if you’re not coming up with the “loose and fun” ideas that you’re after, he offers this suggestion: “It just means that you haven’t been drinking enough. Haha! Not often enough.”