General Shenmue & Shenmue II talk

Shouldn't he be working on Shenmue 3 instead of making other games? o_O
Lots of studios have multiple projects going and this is early days.

Even Yu needs a rest from Shenmue and I'm sure he's still actively involved where needed.
 
Shouldn't he be working on Shenmue 3 instead of making other games? o_O
Devs often work on multiple projects, and he's probably at a point now where the foundation for Shen3 is built and he's overseeing and less active in the production process... just guessing though...
 
Shouldn't he be working on Shenmue 3 instead of making other games? o_O
I could be completely off-base, but I would imagine that Yu is more of a big picture guy at this stage of his career. I'm confident that development can run smoothly without his day to day input.
 
Switch did a good write-up:

https://www.phantomriverstone.com/2018/09/yu-suzuki-to-produce-new-vr-battle-game.html

Sounds like there's barely a game yet and they brought him on board to figure out how to actually make a game people want to play. The way I see it, Yu Suzuki gets some more money and he keeps his programming/creative skills sharp working on something else. Nothing wrong with that. I'm just sad he had to take such a long break and we missed out on years of great new innovative Yu Suzuki games.
 
I wonder who oversees Shenmue 3 while Yu Suzuki is producing other games. I was looking at the returned staff from Shenmue 1 + 2 and none of them fit the bill.

Maybe you're all correct and because the foundation is built Yu can step back. It's just hard to tell if that's true from the recent trailers.
 
People over reacting because of the new produced Yu Suzuki game, like if he never multiproject before, like releasing the same year Shenmue II and Virtua Fighter 4... I think that a portion of this fanbase is always willing to enter panic mode all the time. Multi projectimg is a standard not only in videogames but also in movies.
 
thats really nothing to worry about. just look at Toshihiro Nagoshi at Sega,
he was working on Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami 1, Yakuza 6, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Fist of the North Star Lost Paradise,
Judge Eyes and some other Sega projects - all of those games in a time period of 4 years.

most of the time, the heads of the projects have nothing to do with the fine work, bug fixing, engine tweaks and so on.
its not like they are sitting there at a desk and making all the animations themself.
 
Personally, I want him to make more games. That’s what he’s best at. I want him to finish Shenmue, of course, but he’s at his best when he’s productive. I think he must be so welcoming the opportunity to try his hand at something else while he gives so much of himself to Shenmue.
 
No offense, gentlemen, but I don't think comparisons between Yu doing multiple projects in the early 2000s or comparing Yu to the likes of Toshiro Nagoshi are valid here.

In the early 2000s Yu was one of the biggest game designers in the entire industry and Sega's billionaire CEO and owner Isao Okawa basically gave him a blank cheque to his private bank account. Yu's situation in 2018 is nothing like it was in the early 2000s.

Toshihiro Nagoshi is today one of the biggest game designers on this planet and is Chief Creative Officer of a 4000 employees Sega Corporation. Comparing Yu who runs his own little high-quality indie studio with a few dozen employees to people like him is pointless.

If my memory is correct, Yu hasn't finished a non-mobile game since Sega Race TV which was in 2009 I think. If we look at his track record for the last 10 years, he's also got a bunch of cancelled projects on his CV like Shenmue Online and Psy-Phy (for the record: I'm not saying it was his fault, these projects failed). Given this track record, it's only natural for people to react a bit "wary" when hearing that he's going to work on side projects while his first major game in many years isn't finished.
 
It's weird because I haven't done a playthrough of both games in a long time. Usually I play one or the other (depends on my mood) but I can't remember when I played 1 and 2 in succession. It really allows you to pick up on recurring themes that you might have missed if you played one of the games in isolation. Xiuying and Guizhang both say something along the lines of 'you still don't understand your role here' to Ryo, which I find quite ominous. What do they know about Ryo's role that we don't?
 
Last edited:
Not sure if I'm reading this correctly, but it seems like two of the original staff from Shenmue are working to make sure the number of bugs is "zero" by the time of the Japanese release: https://jp.ign.com/tgs-2018/29274/news/iii

EDIT: Here's the gameography of Hiroshi Noguchi; looks like he did debugging on Shenmue II back in the day: https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,84489/
I was chatting to Switch while this was going on and his translation was what you're saying.

It just further backs up the common theory that D3T were put in a no win situation with the releases in Europe and the US. Sega wanted to take advantage of the Shenmue 3 announcement but the games were not ready. Sega Japan obviously pulled rank and said no they are not releasing until ready.

The fact that Sega are giving a couple of people to the project to help is something and gives me confidence that they will be fixed for the JP releases.
 
Not sure if I'm reading this correctly, but it seems like two of the original staff from Shenmue are working to make sure the number of bugs is "zero" by the time of the Japanese release: https://jp.ign.com/tgs-2018/29274/news/iii

EDIT: Here's the gameography of Hiroshi Noguchi; looks like he did debugging on Shenmue II back in the day: https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,84489/
This is something I wanted to hear and great news, thanks for posting this.
"Mr. Kasahara said seriously about "bugs in overseas version of" Shenmu I & II "which is on sale ahead of time," There were too many defects. "

"While I quarreled with overseas development companies," I'm having trouble if I can not fix it, please fix it! "Mr. Kasahara showed the stick of the original staff with a strong tone.

"Because I was making an original version, I would never want to put out anything inferior to that," he said, "Every day until the launch of Japan, we check every day until the bug becomes zero, and we fight I'd like you to fix it. "

I mirror that sentiment to the full.
It gives me more hope that in the long future we could have the greatest versions of Shenmue I&II that can then be the base for any other future re-releases like on the switch.

Edit: They are the ones interviewed at the start 4:10 to 19:30 by IGN JP
 
Last edited:
I guess the worry was that if they released it late November, it'd get trampled by the juggernaut that is Battlefield V, whereas in Japan barely anyone will pick up that game in comparison.
 
Back
Top