1up recently got to sit down with Tomonobu Itagaki, the head honcho over at Team Ninja to talk about DOAX2. The main topic of discussion was the overall poor reception that the game received from critic and fans alike. How does Itagaki reconcile so much bad press? Easy, he ignores it.

So basically, Itagaki completely ignores the countless complaints about how atrocious the gameplay was, and instead harps on how pretty the game is. He also insists that the jet skiing game is the best in its genre, and we all know how competitive the jet skiing genre is. He refuses to acknowledge any of the criticisms that have been levied against the game. It seems like he thinks that because the game is so pretty we should ignore all of the game’s faults. He also explains the origin of the ridiculous mini-games like the butt battle. In Japan, there are several TV shows where bikini models compete in similar contest so Itagaki thought it would be a funny throwback to add them to the game.

Team Ninja will be opening the “Crystal Boutique” in the Xbox Live Marketplace where users will be able to buy swimsuit packs that if they don’t feel like earning them in the game. All of the items will be available for purchase and you will be able to mix and match with which swimsuits you want. Itagaki also mentions the online aspect of the game and how it was more or less tacked on to the single player. This is why players are restricted to using only default swimsuits in online play. He specifically lists a number of items that simply wouldn’t work with online play. In what is possibly the best part of the interview, Itagaki speaks about the money exploit that forced Team Ninja to patch the game. Itagaki explained how he didn’t want to look back at his history of games and see the economy of New Zack Island destroyed by inflation. I’m glad to see that Itagaki truly cares about the consumer. If you feel like hurting yourself, the full interview can be found here.