New DOA4 details

Team Ninja's Tomonobu Itagaki has revealed a few more details of Dead or Alive 4 for the Xbox 360 to Japanese magazine Famitsu, before going on to take a pot shot at his fellow developers.

Itagaki revealed that DOA4 will feature more than 20 characters, each with storylines that interweave as the game progresses.

It'll mainly revolve around Helena, who wasn't featured in the E3 trailer since Team Ninja want to give her a proper debut at a later date. Itagaki also confirmed that the DOATEC Tri Tower base, which did appear in the video, will play an important part in the story.

New characters will include Kokoro-chan, a Japanese bloke who's trained in Hakkyokuken - a fighting style which will be familiar to Virtua Fighter fans. But Itagaki says DOA4 will offer an improved representation of the style, which he describes as "cool".

Then there's a lady who's currently known only as "the mysterious masked wrestler" - she's a mate of Tina's, apparently, and an expert in Mexico's Lucha Libre fighting style. Team Ninja developed her animations with the help of some actual pro wrestlers to make sure they got everything just right.

Itagaki says the game is around 15 per cent complete - adding that there's not much development time left on the calendar. Indeed, since Tecmo has already confirmed that the game will launch with the Xbox 360 in November. Good luck, sir.

He then went on to describe the Xbox 360 as "the world's most powerful game machine", before complaining that Japanese developers put on a poor show at this year's E3 and inviting them to come and have a go if they think they're hard enough.

"At a time when such an awesome machine is appearing, why aren't you trying harder? Are you the software makers that represent Japan? I was hoping to see what kind of beautiful scenes you could make for the [Xbox 360], but there was absolutely nothing.

"There are probably some developers who read this and say 'What's this fool talking about?'" He continued.

"In that case, you should bring forward something more exceptional than what I've made." FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.

Any developers interested in seeing what they're up against can find some screenshots for the game here.