Funny you should say that...
How I feel about this whole thing, the interview is very positive, I like most of what Suzuki has to say, but I'm disappointed that he thought Shenmue III was what the fans wanted and that was his main goal, I think Shenmue III is what the CASUAL fans wanted
"Lucky Hit, Arcades, silly voice acting, big Chinese city" all of that is what a loud Youtuber who's played Shenmue once thinks Shenmue is all about and unfortunately that seems to be all what Suzuki heard about what fans want and that might actually be fine, if it wasn't such a low budget version of those things on top of no story. If I'm gonna play Shenmue just for mainly it's side activities, It'd be much cooler if it was a AAA title with outstanding trail blazing graphics, cutscenes, voice acting and animations and if you can't provide that, I'm A OK with it, then make sure the story, gameplay and characters are pushed to the forefront instead and the last gen graphics and janky animations and even the janky combat wont bother me in the slightest.
I'm not saying we don't all want those things but I think most of us here can all agree those things were secondary and not what kept us all coming back for more. What we loved was the characters, the charm, the lore, the atmosphere, the legend, the music, the fighting, the attention to detail, the story, the way where if you search hard enough, till this very day, it is possible to find something new in Shenmue I & 2 which is borderline scary. We love all those things but those things are nothing without the main story and characters being the solid foundation, I think we've learnt that with Shenmue III, I said it at the end of my review as well Shenmue III felt like playing a tech demo where you get to do all the fun activities in the game but the meat of the game is not actually there. So it's disheartening Suzuki sacrificed the main course for just a plate full of side dishes because he thought that's what the fans wanted, hopefully now he understands that the side dishes without the main course still tastes decent but it still doesn't give you that magical TRUE Shenmue feel without the main course which was the story and characters.