Tecmo's Tomonobu Itagaki is never at a loss for words. He's one of the most quotable developers from Japan and isn't afraid to voice his opinion on the competition -- a rarity among Japanese developers. Thankfully for him (and perhaps a bit unfortunate for the competition), Itagaki's bravado is exceeded by his talents. After heading up the Dead or Alive franchise and most recently, delivering the incredible Ninja Gaiden, he's gearing up to release Dead or Alive Ultimate. Here are some of his thoughts on the game.

On DOA Ultimate's levels:

"I did not reuse anything from the previous games. Of course I kept some familiar stages from the previous version, but I totally built them again from scratch. The new stages are obviously completely new. It takes the team about six months to create a new stage. Whether it's a brand new stage or a recreation of a familiar stage, they both take six months. The reason it takes so long to recreate the old stages is that I really want to maintain the tradition, look, and feel of the original."

On the new interactive moves:

"In DOA Ultimate, there are a lot more element-of-surprise moves, visually I mean, like when Tina throws Leon into the elephant. This is one of the reasons I have so much fun making games -- by surprising and delivering enjoyment to the player."

On why he chose to redo DOA:

"A couple of days ago I had a conversation with the president of Sega. We talked about the fact that we can bring new games, new ideas, and new concepts to the market, but as a developer it's really important to maintain the tradition, maintain what we already have, and brush up on it. There aren't many ideas or concepts that we don't already have."

On DOA Ultimate's online play:

"Our online technology is pretty advanced and I really believe that DOA Ultimate will have the best graphics out of all the online games out there. I doubt that anyone else can surpass this quality. Latency will be no problem. We've been working on this for four years."

On frame rate rumors:

"I think there's a rumor out there that the online frame rate is down to 30 frames per second. That's not true. It is 60. If any DOA game ever runs at 30 frames per second, it'll be a shame. At that time I will leave the company…if that ever happens."

On DOA 4:

"As you know, the main character of DOA and DOA 2 is Kasumi, and the main character of DOA 3 is Ayane. The main character of DOA 4 will be someone else -- of course from the characters we already know."

Interview read on 1up.com"