[HO] SHENMUE III

Trent from Shenmue Master : Could you tell us how the Shenmue III testing phase is going?

Yu Suzuki: We’re at the wrapping-up stage now. So we’re focusing on polishing it up and bug-fixing, as well as making fine adjustments to the game.

Q: You have explained that 10 players could have 10 different ways of playing in Shenmue III. Could you give an example of that?

YS: For example… for things like fighting, or saving up money, some people might choose to train every morning from the beginning, and do wood-chopping and other jobs to save money steadily. Others who aren’t like that might earn money only when it’s gone, or only start training after they lose a fight.

Also, about the way people save money, there are some people who only use as much as they need, a little at a time, while others might earn money in one shot and then splash out on buying lots of food items. Or some might go to the casino, convert everything they have to cash, and kaboom! They put it all down on a single bet. Or people who try to looks for the cheapest vegetable prices, even by a yuan.

It’s hard to think of a good comparison… Like someone who rides a taxi just to buy vegetables a dollar more cheaply. It’s people that worry about the small things who end up making a loss overall, and the opposite for those who take care of the big picture. It really brings out the player’s own personality.

Quite seriously, I’m considering having people play the game as part of the recruitment test for YS Net! Because it really shows what the person’s personality is like.

Q: Regarding the new combat system, will Ryo have to fight several opponents at the same time?

YS: Yes. Sometimes you’ll have one opponent and there are times when you’ll be facing 2 opponents, 3 opponents or many opponents.

Q: How will Ryo lock on to the opponent to hit?

YS: There’s a function for changing your enemy target, but the closest enemy to you will automatically be targeted.

TRANSLATOR: So it’s a soft lock?

YS: Yes… But Shenmue uses the term « soft lock » to mean something different. So it’s really an automatic target change. And you can also change target manually. Yu Suzuki shows me the right stick of a PS4 controller to illustrate his answer.

Q: Will Ryo be able to use throws or is it a feature you had to give up?

YS: Well, for example there won’t be ones like the Overthrow or Vortex Throw, this time. But in their place, I’ve devised various battle systems especially for Shenmue III, so I don’t consider that the battles themselves are inferior or of lower quality. I think the battles in Shenmue III have shaped up to become even better than before.

If you’re interested in the battles, try having a look at them when you play the demo tomorrow.

Q: Will Shenhua follow Ryo all the time and everywhere in Shenmue III?

YS: No.

Q: Will Ryo have to go to bed at 11:30pm like the previous Shenmue?

YS: It’s 11 pm! It’s different between Bailu village and Niaowu, but in general you go home by 9 pm and sleep at 11 pm.

Q: Recently you have published pictures of a Shenmue museum called « Save Shenmue », How did you get this idea ?

YS: We had this large, splendid building so that’s why I thought I’d use it for the Save Shenmue building. Although originally this location was going to be a hotel.

Q: Is there any connection with the #SaveShenmue fan campaign on Twitter?

YS: The fans had a « Save Shenmue » campaign, and so it’s a building that was created for the fans.

Q: Will we be able to work with a forklift by moving crates and racing against other competitors?

YS: There is a part-time job with a forklift. You will move goods from a warehouse to a cargo ship, as well as the other way round. Occasionally there will be an arcade machine on the cargo ship, and if you unload that then the next day it will be set up at a game arcade, and you’ll be able to play that game.

Q: Among the playable mini-games, are there any that are musical?

YS: No, there aren’t.

[Showing slide with an image of a violin]

YS: That’s an item.

Tomes de compétence Shenmue III

Q: Were you already working on Shenmue III on the Dreamcast in 2001?

YS: From the beginning there was a screenplay on which I was basing the game. And, of course, I was thinking ahead. Although Shenmue III is quite a bit different from the screenplay I had in mind back then.

[showing images of Niao Sun & Miao village]
YS: This is Niao Sun, who I mentioned earlier. She’s the Phoenix, one of the Four Big Bosses. Lan Di guards the East. Niao Sun is the South. The West is someone called Byakko [Japanese pronunciation of White Tiger, Baihu in Chinese]. The person for the North hasn’t emerged yet.

Q: Will the QTE system in Shenmue III have differences compared to the first two Shenmue games?

YS: Yes, there are some differences.

Q: I’ll try it out in the demo tomorrow.

YS: The demo play doesn’t have any ordinary QTEs. There’s QTE-like gameplay in the sparring.

Q: Is there an element or feature of Shenmue III that you are particularly proud of?

YS: Hm… The balance of the move scroll system, and the balance of the economic system. They’re properly balanced. It’s kind of hard to explain, but for me personally, this is something that I’ve been able to do in Shenmue III that I wasn’t able to in Shenmue I and II. Various elements are inter-connected; they don’t just stand alone.

Also, I think the volume of voice recording and translations in Shenmue III is much greater than in I and II.

The NPCs are unique and have a lot to say, which should be rather fun.

Q: In Shenmue III, there will be flashbacks. How will they be triggered?

YS: You can make an international phone call to characters from the past such as Fuku-san and Nozomi. You’ll be able to see flashback scenes then.

Q: Are the flashback scenes made in Unreal Engine 4 or the original engine?

YS: I won’t comment on that just now.

Q: What do you plan to do right after the release of Shenmue III?

YS: I’d like to start making Shenmue IV straight away, if I can find a partner quickly.

Q: You won’t take a break?

YS: Just for a bit.

Q: Thank you very much!

YS: Thank you.

During the opening day of Tokyo Games Show 2019, a stage event for Shenmue III (PS4/PC) was held at the SEGA booth. Creator and Director of Shenmue, Yu Suzuki, took center stage where he proudly proclaimed: “At long last, we will finally release Shenmue III!”

4Gamer had a chance to sit down and chat with Yu Suzuki after the event…

4Gamer: Thank you for your time today. We had the opportunity to play the trial version of Shenmue III earlier, but found the considerably strict 45 minute time limit to be a little irritating…

Yu Suzuki: Really, was it that short? (Laughs) At this time, it is a trial version and it picks up just a little bit after the opening of the game. Beforehand, there will be a couple of tutorials and spots to help guide players to understand the course of events from Shenmue II, so I think it will be a little easier for players to pick up and play in the final retail version.

4Gamer: The game is just under 2 months away from release. We would imagine it’s a busy time for you with various promotional events and the like, but has the development cycle considerably settled down?

Yu Suzuki: You could say that. Our team is still hard at work continuing to polish the game. We are also further balancing parameters and currently bug fixing. We also have numerous QA testers checking for major game breaking bugs.

4Gamer: It has been four years since the announcement of the Kickstarter at E3 2015. Looking back on the past four years, can you name one moment in particular that stands out the most?

Yu Suzuki: It’s a feeling that I would describe as 4 years of turbulence. (Laughs) As you may know, Kickstarter requires set goals from the outset. The initial budget we asked for with Shenmue III was two million dollars, but if you stretch beyond the initial set goals then the budget grows considerably.

Since then, the budget has increased thanks to the co-operation of our publishers (Deep Silver). Thus the content of the game has been considerably upgraded from where we initially started.

Normally, the projected targeted budget is fixed so the project is planned in accordance, but with Shenmue III the plan changed each time the budget increased resulting in a better product. However, the process has not been without its hurdles.

4Gamer: If the original plan changes then it is only natural to expect both the schedule and structure of the game to re-adjust accordingly, correct?

Yu Suzuki: Although one might say to make it scalable, there are various limitations to deal with. For a person that is used to making full customs such as me, there have been numerous difficulties along the way. Nevertheless, Shenmue III does have a much larger volume than we originally conceived. At first, I honestly wasn’t sure whether we could make a fully-fledged Shenmue.

4Gamer: Since the release of Shenmue II in 2001, it has been a little more than 10 years since you last led a large-scale project. Has there been any change in the way you work since then?

Yu Suzuki: I can’t say that my concepts, policies or way of thinking have really changed in any way. However, this time around we started with no team in place. So we began by recruiting talent. In the past, I was the type of creator who engineers custom game engines from scratch, but since we are using a pre-existing game engine (Unreal Engine 4), I needed to completely rethink my approach.

As I mentioned earlier, I also struggled with the ever-changing budget affecting our plans. I have been making games for more than a decade, but this time around I gained a lot of new experience in the process.

4Gamer: It seems there were many processes that were not there before.

Yu Suzuki: Since the core fundamentals of Shenmue have been left intact, Shenmue III may have a completely different approach in terms of its backend, but I believe that we have managed to craft a game that still feels very much like the world of Shenmue.

4Gamer: When one brings up the name ‘Yu Suzuki,’ it usually conjures up an image of an individual unwilling to compromise his artistic intent and creative vision. Would this be a fair assessment?

Yu Suzuki: Is that what people really think? (Laughs) I feel like I’m always compromising to some degree or another.

What I usually think about is how best to maintain my vision to be as pure as possible by not mixing it with other sources. What to protect and where to change usually depends on the game in question, but I always do my best to stay true to my conceptual ideals wherever possible.

Still, at the end of the day, this is ultimately a business. There is still a deadline to meet and there is no such thing as inexhaustible funding. So there will always be many components unwillingly changed in the process to adhere to the budget at hand.

4Gamer: Understandable. Speaking of which, can you tell us of one such compromise you had to make?

Yu Suzuki: For Shenmue III we added the ability to eat food in order to replenish Ryo’s stamina. But one of my initial ideas for Shenmue III was to explore and incorporate the relationship between food and martial arts into the game.

To give an example, when practicing a certain technique, it would be preferable to eat lamb instead of pork. Or for another technique, it would be ideal to exercise while practicing the Art of Qigong.

(Translator’s Note: Qigong is a heavy breathing exercise for the cultivation of both mind and spirit.)

In fact, there is a rather deep relationship between food and martial arts, and I initially set out to explore this idea in Shenmue III. But for the time being, we had to settle for “I can’t run when I’m hungry.” I could go on and on with these minute details. (Laughs)

4Gamer: So you were thinking about the really detailed parts of reality. Speaking of which, economics seem to be a key factor within Shenmue III but there were some details left unexplained in the trial version. Could you please elaborate more about the economics of Shenmue III

Yu Suzuki: Absolutely. Let’s assume you need money to buy things in game to progress. Then there are various ways to obtain money within Shenmue III Some players may devise a way of getting money through utilizing their Kung Fu skills in the many street fights found in the game, while other players may choose a more honest means. Or another player may earn their fortune through gambling.

Even though the objective remains the same, the player will find the process for themselves and choose between each. So I like to reduce the number of tutorials and let the player find their own way, because if you dictate one method then it becomes the only method.

I think it’s a rare feat to let the player discover their own path in modern day games.

4Gamer: We have time for one last question. It’s only a brief one, but do you have any plans for the future post release of Shenmue III Are there any ideas you have in mind or is there a particular genre that you would be keen to explore?

Yu Suzuki: As you may already know, Shenmue III will of course not complete the saga, so if circumstances allow for it then Shenmue IV is considered to be the next step. As long as the fans remain vocal, then I will do my best to finish the rest of the saga for them in return.

Other than that, I’ve had a keen interest in fantasy games for quite some time and given the right opportunity, I think I would like to make one someday.

I’m also very interested in VR, but for people like me that are always demanding greater video quality, the lack of processing power hurts. At any rate, once the hardware inevitably catches up, I would be very keen to create a VR game.

4Gamer: Thank you very much for your time today and we here at 4Gamer look forward to both Shenmue III and your future projects!