Ryuji luchi started to play Shenmue

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Arcadio

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Shenmue II
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Ryuji luchi(井内 竜次) has wrote hundreds of songs like Shehua’s Theme for the Shenmue series.He hasn't posted a video on Youtube since a year ago.I noticed that he started playing Shenmue on Youtube in the day before yesterday.I was surprised that this seemed to be the first time he'd played Shenmue in twenty years.As one of the major developers of the Shenmue series, I'm really curious what he has to say.
 

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Interesting, wonder if anyone (@Switch ) who knows Japanese can pick out any tidbits he may throw out there?
 
I was watching this the other day. It was pretty surreal. Just from memory, he mentioned frequently whether or not the music playing was his. I thought it was kind of funny when he was examining things in Ryo's room after the opening cutscene, he said something to the effect of, 'This song is such a classic. I wonder who could have written it?' very facetiously. I remember he said that the first FREE BGM playing once you enter Sakuragaoka was something he started writing with just the two sustained notes, and he was really surprised by the full BGM it turned into.

He talked a bit about different tracks that were either recorded for streaming playback, or internally generated. Specifically he was talking about all the jingles (outside the tomato store, etc) being internally generated sound. I guess he was saying that Takenobu Mitsuyoshi is the voice in the recorded tomato store song.

He talked a little bit about how early on the whole sound team worked together for a period of time, and he contributed some sound effects for footsteps on a particular material. I didn't quite catch it, but I thought he said he wasn't sure what kind of surface they ended up being used for. One of the viewers also asked about any instructions from YS that he happened to remember. It sounded like there might not have been a lot of instructions that he got, in general, but he said he remembered that Yu wanted the FREE tracks to be a bit atmospheric.

On a related note, there was this moment where he was remarking that the BGM in the FREE sections wasn't changing at all, and said that he was pretty sure he had figured out how to have the arrangements sort of dynamically change over time. One of the viewers mentioned that the tracks change with progression in the notebook, but it sounded like he was talking about something a little bit different than just the track changing.

Just something that stuck out about him playing the game: He went to buy cassette tapes in the tomato store, and on the very first purchase he got the second prize, I was shocked. (He picked Space Harrier. Good man.) There was one of those cassette tapes, I think, that he mentioned having an uncredited author, and because of that he couldn't talk about who wrote it.

Sounds like he's going to keep going, and potentially continue playing the game on stream, so I'm looking forward to future streams from him.
 
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Very interesting stuff. Wish I could understand Japanese! Hope he keeps going through all three games! Wonder who that uncredited author is...


Michael Jackson. Imagine!
 
Rydeen said:
On a related note, there was this moment where he was remarking that the BGM in the FREE sections wasn't changing at all, and said that he was pretty sure he had figured out how to have the arrangements sort of dynamically change over time. One of the viewers mentioned that the tracks change with progression in the notebook, but it sounded like he was talking about something a little bit different than just the track changing.
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There's unused variations of FREE 1 within the game's files - maybe this is what he's talking about? It looks like that idea didn't get very far off the ground...
 

Part 2 is up on his channel now. I've only watched the first ~13 minutes so far, but two things jumped out at me that I had mention:

1) He set up his keyboard as an audio input for his stream, and started out the video by playing a little bit of The Night Falls on it. That got the blood pumping.

2) Apparently Kenji MIyawaki is in the chat under the alias "WACKY"; Thought that was pretty wild.

Otherwise just a pretty normal stream of Shenmue, so far.
 
Rydeen said:
I thought it was kind of funny when he was examining things in Ryo's room after the opening cutscene, he said something to the effect of, 'This song is such a classic. I wonder who could have written it?' very facetiously.
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I just wanted to kind of redact this, because it seems I potentially misinterpreted his tone. I thought he might have been trying to be coy about pointing out which songs were his, at first, but he said this again in the second stream, and it seemed he genuinely wasn't sure who wrote it (it was a different BGM this time, though; one of the FREE segment BGMs). He and Miyawaki started to kind of guess at whose it might have been.


24Nathan said:
Interesting..."Wacky" was a name used when he posted on the Shenmue.com Muecas page, as @Kiyuu points out here: https://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=335907#p335907
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Yeah, there were some old-timers in the chat who recognized him immediately, so his cover was blown, even before Iuchi decided to announce it.

Not many other highlights to share from this stream, but he played quite a few live renditions throughout, and asked for viewers to make requests in future streams, at the end. One of the people in the chat ("Fukuhara Masayuki" lol)) asked how much of the music in Shenmue III was new music of his. He just confirmed the public statement about all the music in Shenmue III coming from Shenmue I & II (either recycled, or previously unused), but said that he would also like to have the chance to work on new material for the series again.

Fuku-san had a follow up question about what his involvement was in Shenmue III, and he responded by just saying that he assisted with promotion for the Kickstarter.

Somehow after hearing those answers, I sort of started to feel like there might be some kind of movement behind the scenes. It's more likely that it's just coincidence, or maybe he's just trying to promote his craft (which is pretty brilliant), but the timing kind of intrigues me. It seems like an interesting time for one of the original composers to be playing the game for, basically, the first time--he was part of some of the bug testing for the original release, but hadn't played it at all, otherwise--and streaming it. That, along with Miyawaki being present makes it seem kind of like it could be more than just coincidence. It's partly this, in combination with the Sega twitter 'poll,' that makes me kind of wonder if Sega. Yu, and/or others might be trying to gauge a broader fan engagement with the series. I guess I'll be interested to see whether or not Miyawaki will be something of a permanent participant in these streams or not.
 
Very interesting. Can't wait to hear more of these. I watched the first one all the way through, and the second one is on my agenda today. Heard some clips already of his playing, and those songs played live are gorgeous.
 
What is he saying here?


Translation doesn’t make sense.
 
I can't see it. Says the tweet is unavailable. Who was it posted by?
 
It was Ryuji Iuchi.

I was able to save what it said - “ シェンムーの曲を弾いてみたやってみようと思って数度許可求めるも返信なし…。残念”
 
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Interesting. Maybe he is talking about a live performance of the theme, either on stream or channel or something else?
 
mjqjazzbar said:
“ シェンムーの曲を弾いてみたやってみようと思って数度許可求めるも返信なし…。残念”
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Ah, okay. So it says:
'I thought I might do a stream/video playing songs from Shenmue; No response to multiple requests for permissions.... unfortunate.'

I'm not sure if the requests were ignored by Sega, Youtube, or someone else entirely, though.
 
@Rydeen has already done a nice summary of the first part, but for anyone interested I've just compelted a more detailed translation of Ryuji's commentary, focusing on the parts that relate his music or anecdotes about the development project.

I loved the way he carefully turned off the lights before leaving the room - it shows just how much he appreciates the Shenmue spirit!

https://www.phantomriverstone.com/2020/04/ryuji-iuchis-music-commentary-shenmue.html
 
It makes me sad that he's playing the PS4 version, which butchers a lot of the music. It's by far the worst version of the game when it comes to audio.

I hope he doesn't think that's the way FREE 1 has always sounded.
 
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