Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z isn't just Ninja Gaiden meets Dead Rising

Creator Keiji Inafune feels zombie-slicing ninja title Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z is more than just a natural blend of two established titles.

Speaking to Destructoid, Inafune said his experience as creator of Dead Rising is not necessarily an important factor on Yaiba's development.

"Yaiba is not purposefully trying to be influenced from Dead Rising. They are both [my] games, so the zombies made for Dead Rising and the zombies that are here will of course have some similarities," he said.

"But you can't just cut zombies down and leave it at that. That's not going to be a fun game. You have to think, okay, ninjas and zombies, put those together and see how do we make that fun. What kind of chemical reaction comes from that combination?"

As a spin-off to the Ninja Gaiden series, Yaiba must of course have some of the same DNA as its progenitor, but Inafune's also determined to ensure his game is open to those who find Ninja gaiden a bit inaccessible.

"It should have a Ninja Gaiden feel to the combat, the kind of responsiveness of a Ninja Gaiden game, but this is not a main Ninja Gaiden game. Yaiba is its own thing, and we need to make it accessible to people who maybe come in for the zombie aspects," he said.

"They like zombie games and they're not used to the technical aspects of Ninja Gaiden. We need to be as open to those players as well so they don't quit in two seconds. Once we have that, we can think about how to make a deeper combat system and offer those sort of technical challenges for people who want that as well."

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z was developed by Spark Unlimited, and Inafune hopes it will show Japanese gamers that western developers can make fun games. It's due on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in early 2014; we finally got to see some gameplay recently.