Tecmo’s premier coders at Team Ninja have a new boss to step in and attempt to fill Itagaki’s shoes. 1Up.com has nabbed comments (via an interview he did with Kikizo.com) from Team Ninja’s new leading code-man Yosuke Hayashi–and he isn’t shy about his plans for his predecessor’s action series legacy, Ninja Gaiden. In the interview he stated:

“Regardless of what Itagaki-san said before, in time, what the consumers, the gamers are looking for is going to be the next chapter — the future of an outstanding series. We feel that we’re in a position of being able to make that call, and to provide pure entertainment that’s going to be enjoyed by action gamers and our fans. That calling is already there — we feel it, and therefore we will continue to work towards a future for the series.”

Regardless of what we may think of Itagaki personnally, the Ninja Gaiden series is the standard to which all action brawlers are held due to his vision of what an action videogame should be. I for one, am eagarly anticipating NG Sigma 2, to see if there may be some game play clues as to where Hayashi would like to steer the series. My hope is that Team Ninja doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater with the re-working of future Ninja Gaiden titles. NG is one of the few games period that has a distinct presence or “soul”–for lack of a better term–that you feel when you play it. They would be wise to build upon that and evolve it further than to “dumb it down” into a cliche of the genre that the Ninja Gaiden series defined.