Tomonobu Itagaki—creator of the Dead or Alive series, and the person who revived the dormant Ninja Gaiden 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.
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....
