This year’s E3 wouldn’t be the same if the folks from Team Ninja (though one that’s somewhat not as awesome with it’s rockstar leader Itagaki Tomonobu having left the studio) didn’t release more cool stuff about the latest and third entry in their Ninja Gaiden action-adventure franchise.

Ninja Gaiden 3 returns with it’s iconic ninja-hero, Ryu Hayabusa, and more blood and severed limbs that a gamer can shake a Wiimote at. The series has always been about extreme violence and always been known to cater to the hardcore of the hardcore gamers out there. The Ninja Gaiden series never catered to the newbie gamer. They even  had a hilarious way to help out gamers who could never master the game by creating an “easy” difficulty level simply called “Ninja Dog”. Team Ninja’s newest lead designer, Yosuke Hayashi, mentioned that this latest game will not have it’s difficulty level  toned down for the casual gamers out there who will have some major difficulties getting past the game.

That’s the good news in addition to how the game just looks gorgeous (like all past games in the series), but one thing shown at this week’s E3 really dampened my excitement for this third entry: inclusion of QTE (Quick Time Events) where a player presses a series of buttons to accomplish an event. QTE’s I consider as part of the “pussification of hardcore action games” and games like those in the God of War series (which I love but could’ve loved even more if they got rid of the QTEs) rely heavily on such gameplay mechanics.

Ninja Gaiden 3 should be about testing a gamer’s skill and not how fast they can press a combo of buttons shown on the screen to finish an event. Other than that disappointing news most of the announcements by Team Ninja about this title still will have me dropping some cash to buy and play it. Here’s to hoping that Team Ninja doesn’t drop a ton of QTEs in this game. No amount of severed limbs and bodies or lakes of hot, steaming blood would be enough to balance out a ton of QTE’s in a game that never needed them.