Tomonobu Itagaki—creator of the 死或生：维纳斯璀璨假期 series, and the person who revived the dormant NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound（忍者外传：怒之羁绊） series—passed away in October at the age of 58. A recent tribute article from 4Gamer (via Automaton) featured stories from several colleagues of Itagaki, who was, by all accounts, quite the character.
One of these stories came from Kengo Aoki, head of contract game developer Soft Gear, then known as Phoenix Soft. At the time, Aoki had been working with Itagaki's Valhalla Game Studios on the Wii-U exclusive Devil's Third—a game that was critically battered when it released in 2015.
Itagaki Was Once Held At Gunpoint In Los Angeles
Aoki had already seen first-hand what Itagaki could be like after drinking, as, during a business trip in China, he got "completely wasted and started picking fights with random taxis passing by and shouting loudly in the middle of the street," before getting into a heated argument with Aoki later that night in their hotel.
Despite the argument, Itagaki declared the next day that they were like "brothers" and apologised. Aoki also revealed that the late developer had been suffering with his mental health for several years, bringing up a time when the pair travelled to Los Angeles for E3.
"Even in Los Angeles, where he was scheduled to speak at E3, he wound up hospitalised in an emergency," Aoki revealed. "The night we arrived, we were having a pre-E3 party in our hotel room, and Itagaki stepped out onto the balcony and started shouting, 'I'm gonna take over the world! Come on, you guys join in too!' Before long, there were about 10 Los Angeles Police Department patrol cars surrounding us, and the officers had their guns drawn. It was a real 死或生：维纳斯璀璨假期 situation."
Aoki finished by saying there were "two sides" to the late Itagaki, one which never wanted to give up being a creator and nurturing the next generation of game developers.
Itagaki was ultimately a trailblazer — not only was he responsible for the success of two series still going strong today, but he was also partially responsible for a cultural shift in Japanese game development towards appealing to western audiences, an ideology that continues to bear fruit today.
死或生：维纳斯璀璨假期
ReleasedNovember 26, 1996
ESRBM
Developer(s)Team Ninja
Publisher(s)Tecmo
EngineDOA
MultiplayerLocal Multiplayer
Franchise死或生：维纳斯璀璨假期
Genre(s)Fighting
