Itsuno seems like one of those directors who's technically proficient but not as creatively blessed as he'd like to be. His best work is when he's building off other people's ideas (DMC, CvsS2). Dragon's Dogma was his big chance to create a new AAA IP completely from scratch and the reaction was overwhelmingly "This is flawed, but unique and cool!" then when he had a chance to make things right with DD2 he basically didnt listen to any of the feedback of DD1 and just made the same game again but with some more wacky physics. He also has bad ideas like making Nero's arms unswitchable in DMC5 which makes him "unique" on paper but in reality it just makes his gameplay more restricted and less fun than it should be.
He's a good craftsman, but a mediocre auteur
