Game Informer: Shenmue 3 64 Rapid-Fire Questions with Yu Suzuki

ket · Oct 4, 2019

MilesQ said:
Lan Di is misunderstood?

Did he misunderstand his way to murdering Ryu's dad? Come on, fam.

I mean iwao murdered lan di's dad too so...

Aurica · Oct 4, 2019

It has whac-a-mole, but it's a 7.5? That seems illogical.

ThEoRy... · Oct 4, 2019

MilesQ said:
Lan Di is misunderstood?

Did he misunderstand his way to murdering Ryu's dad? Come on, fam.

I'm not sure if you misunderstood that statement earnestly or were intentionally doing so for the lols. My interpretation is that Lan Di is misunderstood by the fans. Meaning that his motivations have yet to be fully revealed. Iwao was definitely involved in some shit back in the day. It's entirely possible that Lan Di's origins are quite similar to Ryo's. It's all perhaps a matter of perception.

AllMight1 · Oct 5, 2019

Kida said:
So excited to have Tom back xD Yu Suzuki is a treasure.

Speculation:

I think Lan Di and Ryo are both being manipulated by the head of the Chi You Men who I think could be Yuanda Zhu.

I've always thought that the ending of Shenmue involves :

Ryo and Lan Di are going to fight together against a bigger menace and that Lan Di is going to sacrifice himself to redeem himself.

JunkerXseed1013 · Oct 5, 2019

This was too good, wish it was even longer. Regardless of how Shenmue 3 does, Yu Suzuki will forever be a legend in the industry.

ParsnipForest · Oct 5, 2019

Nagoshi probably doesn't like people implying that he has Yu to thank (in some shape or form) for Yakuza, because it's his baby. I get it. As for Yu, he probably doesn't see much of a connection between Shenmue and Yakuza, considering their tone is completely different, nor do I think he'd want to take credit for something he didn't work on.

Romain · Oct 5, 2019

bell wood's jet cola said:
Any idea why?

Nope. I only know that it was a bad idea to ask him about Shenmue 3 at E3 last June. And that's too bad as I had a bunch of Shenmue-related questions I wanted to ask him.

Ryuman · Oct 5, 2019

People pit Yakuza and Shenmue against each other in their fanboy wars all the time so I'm not surprised neither Nagoshi nor Suzuki appreciate the comparison questions. Of course there could be more to it.

MilesQ said:
Lan Di is misunderstood?

Did he misunderstand his way to murdering Ryu's dad? Come on, fam.

Aside from getting the mirror he was literally doing what Ryo is doing right now: Avenging his father's supposed murder.

MouldyK · Oct 5, 2019

bell wood's jet cola said:
Any idea why?

This is from last year: From Shenmue to Yakuza, Toshihiro Nagoshi looks back on an illustrious career of Japanese game development

I was a supervisor on the team at first. As the project progressed, as you know, it had become bigger and bigger, and I couldn't put up with it any more. It was one of the turning points in my career. I talked to Yu Suzuki, as well as talking to my boss in the development division at that time, and said I would like to have my own division. And they made it happen for me. But we really could not see the end of Shenmue, and I was called by our CEO at the time. He said to me, 'Please get this game finished' [laughs]. So I was a producer and director for the final months of the project. I'd reviewed the whole project, looking at what kind of plan they had and the remaining workload. It took me more than a month to understand what was going on.

The CEO asked me how much time would be needed, and I told him six months. Myself, and the programmer and designer I most trusted, called the whole team and told them we had to finish the game in six months. We did it, but it was a tough and bitter project for me [laughs]. Suzuki-san also knew he had to finish the game soon, whatever the final result. He's the kind of person that, if he wants to do more, cannot stop himself, so someone must be there to do it for him. Our CEO knew that I was the only person he would listen to. Hard as it was to be asked to do it, I knew why it had to be me [laughs]. There's only one reason for why the project turned into such a panic. Suzuki had been creating arcade games for so long, and didn't write planning documents. But for console games, you have to have a blueprint, and it was such a big project.

He had a policy that we should not decide how a game should be on paper before we started making it. But we have to have guidelines, otherwise there's a risk that we overrun and fail as a company. Even if it was someone else's game, I learned the importance of that balance once again. I still think it was an epoch-making game at the time. If there had been a line producer or someone who was good at managing things, I believe the outcome would have been different.

So I don't know really, but I found that s good insight and might explain why he don't have fond memories of it.

Romain · Oct 5, 2019

ParsnipForest said:
As for Yu, he probably doesn't see much of a connection between Shenmue and Yakuza, considering their tone is completely different, nor do I think he'd want to take credit for something he didn't work on.

That's not it at all. Here is what Yu Suzuki told me when I asked him what he tought about Yakuza last year:

Yakuza and Shenmue games share a lot of similarities but... Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Yes, both games are alike. But Shenmue was the first game of that kind to be truly open world and SEGA really liked and supported it. After Shenmue, Yakuza kept the ball rolling which allowed SEGA to be at the forefront of the open world genre with Nagoshi-kun as the Director of the Yakuza project. And I think that it's a good thing that SEGA kept going in that direction. I'm very happy that things happened this way because great titles like Grand Theft Auto came out of all that.

Here is the full interview (in French) that quote is from: http://www.gameblog.fr/dossier_1128_shenmue-3-systeme-de-combat-developpement-version-switch-yu-

Tricky I Shadow · Oct 5, 2019

Ryo Hazuki said:
Shenmue III and their visit to Yu Suzuki is talked about in the latest GameInformer roundtable at 40:10.

Tons of great info here.

It's interesting how the returning voice actors were specifically told to sound stiff/awkward just like the previous two games.

bell wood's jet cola · Oct 5, 2019

I can get why asking Suzuki about other people's games is a waste of his time and an interviewer's time. He simply has no interest in games he didn't make. He's said as much

Ryo Hazuki · Oct 5, 2019

Definitely excited to play the bootleg Chinese arcade rip-offs of classic Sega games, lol. The fact these were all under the direction of Suzuki is pretty interesting to see how they turn out.

ParsnipForest · Oct 5, 2019

Romain said:
That's not it at all. Here is what Yu Suzuki told me when I asked him what he tought about Yakuza last year:

Here is the full interview (in French) that quote is from: http://www.gameblog.fr/dossier_1128_shenmue-3-systeme-de-combat-developpement-version-switch-yu-

Well that's good to hear. I probably missed this because it's in French. I'm glad Yu is proud of what his understudy has gone on to achieve.

Game Informer: Shenmue 3 64 Rapid-Fire Questions with Yu Suzuki

ket

Aurica

音楽オタク - Comics Council 2020

ThEoRy...

AllMight1

JunkerXseed1013

ParsnipForest

Romain

Senior Editor, Gameblog

Ryuman

MouldyK

Prophet of Truth

Romain

Senior Editor, Gameblog

Tricky I Shadow

bell wood's jet cola

Ryo Hazuki

ParsnipForest