Well , he is the director , the writter and one of the game designers . so who else is supposed to know about the scope of shenmue 3 aside from him ?- How Suzuki-San can know that his game will be 30 hours long, but hasnt decided yet, if there should be flashback sequences (which presumably are videos) is puzzling as well. But ok, lets give him that benefit of a doubt.
Right, you see this is always the problem with these Big Name Kickstarters when its just that one name. Yu Suzuki did incredible things at Sega. With his teams. Of also very talented people. The budgets he enjoyed for OutRun and Space Harrier were obviously not Shenmue level, but they were still notable. This stuff was still cutting edge technology being produced by one of the hottest shit videogame software and hardware developers on the planet.
Yu Suzuki in the modern era has none of that. It's the opposite of Kojima waltzing out of Konami with almost his whole team intact. A lot of said Sega/AM2/Shenmue teams either stayed on at Sega (Yakuza and those facial animations eh!) or similar jobs at other companies. Those that didn't either faded into obscurity and have come back to make stuff for the first time in like 17 years. That's... a lot of rust to shake off. While also adapting to "this is all the money, there isn't any more".
Now when it was early days, many hoped, me included, Yu would be able to put together a competent team and launch right into production and just really knuckle down on asset creation so we could get the biggest world possible. Skip to today and core animation systems have just been chucked out and all the character models look pretty shit after 2 years. Even the 2 main characters. That's... you know thats bad news for a project with 1 or 2 years more of dev left.
In retrospect, this game being made in Japan was a problem. There just isn't the same indie culture of amateur devs over there just waiting to stumble into the right project as there is in the west, and perhaps particularly Europe. If you're good at 3d animation you're already at Sega/Square/Capcom/Platinum etc. This IS going to be made by students fresh outta college, and perhaps even more problematically, they're being directed by someone that is also having to relearn how to make this sort of game after 17 years. Someone who's perfectionism drove Shenmue's budget into absurd realms and doesn't seem to be delegating well all those years later.
A guy who is easily in the top 10 game creators of all-time and you're talking about delivering.
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This is not Yu Suzuki and AM2 and the best and brightest Sega have to offer working on Shenmue 3. This is whoever he could get at the time. With environments, they got good, but with character modelling and animating, they got bad. If they can fire and re-hire due to enough noise being made over how unacceptable this stuff looks, now is the time. Coaching everything in "well its not done yet!" is how average shit like Mighty No 9 crawls out and people either pretend to be blindsided or actually are.
Honestly I don't see Yu Suzuki hiring any joe bloggs (following an interview plus submission of a portfolio) without knowing if they are up to scratch.
p.s. I left the gif in becuase it is hilarious.. That stream was magical.
I still hope that I am wrong - but just campaigning for people to "not look at the omens" is not what I am very likely to support.
This is a rational reflection of the proceedings..
"Have faith!"
"Just wait."
"Believe!"
and
"He can fix all of it, he still has time and some money..."
aren't necessarily.
I frankly think this fan-made trailer is just as effective if not more so- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miydtGdp-qo
I want at least someone to give a shit about moving away from the Virtua engine for the fighting mechanics.
In retrospect, this game being made in Japan was a problem.
It was made pretty clear from the first time Yu Suzuki mentioned combat, back in 2015, that we weren't getting the Virtua engine. He said he wanted the combat to be more cinematic, not as hard to learn, and make the moves easy to pull off instead of button combos. That could be why no one seems too surprised.
I love how the game is in turmoil because they showed a trailer too early. People sure can cook up wild, baseless speculation if they're bored enough. Dev admits game development is hard. Shocking.
Honestly, the only thing that bums me out a bit from this interview is the confirmation of forklifts. Initially Yu Suzuki said it didn't make much sense to have them in Shenmue III, but because the internet wouldn't shut up about forklifts we're now getting them, I guess. As far as side activities go, forklift driving is fine and mildly satisfying, but it was also way overdone in Shenmue. I doubt it'll be more than an optional thing in Shenmue III but still, I can't help but see it as a pointless "for the luls" addition. They could've spent that time on something new.
This interview is gold. Very interesting what he said about the first area being like Shenmue 1, and the 2nd being like 2.
forklifts confirmed!!
Mighty No 9's
In retrospect, this game being made in Japan was a problem. There just isn't the same indie culture of amateur devs over there just waiting to stumble into the right project as there is in the west, and perhaps particularly Europe. China and Korea even have better teams ready for dev like this. If you're good at 3d animation in Japan you're already at Sega/Square/Capcom/Platinum etc. This IS going to be made by students fresh outta college, and perhaps even more problematically, they're being directed by someone that is also having to relearn how to make this sort of game after 17 years. Someone who's perfectionism drove Shenmue's budget into absurd realms and doesn't seem to be delegating well all those years later.
Ayyyyyewe could fill an entire area in Bailu Village with all the nonsense you're spewing here
*edit fuck me here's Pie and Beans on about how industry legend Suzuki doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt despite literally building genres because reasons
So I want to ask about the legacy of the series. Where do you see it going from here? Do you see this as you doing a coda, or do you see it as the start of something new for Shenmue?
Translator: Thats a tough question!
Suzuki: Hmmm ! Im not sure we can continue the so-called legacy of the series. I know that of course, there are a lot of Shenmue fans, and Ive been hearing a lot of requests from people that no matter what the style or no matter what it is, they just want more Shenmue. Im not sure if I can make a legacy or not, but I will say that itll be far better than nothing I just want to entertain.
I think that probably after we finish this, the next one, Shenmue 4 it will be coming. I have to do something I have to start something so the next one will come.
New interviews provide quite a bit of insight in the future prospects of this project
http://metro.co.uk/2017/08/28/shenm...can-make-the-whole-game-you-imagined-6885083/
GC: Existing fans obviously love the game, but what I wonder is how younger players react to this style of game. How closely are you sticking to the style of the originals?
YS: Shenmue has always been very unique, I think, and so theres nothing else thats very similar. But I do not think its a problem overall as what has changed in the modern games world is that people are now used to playing different types of games that may not be action-based and have a lot of story. Shenmue may still feel strange to them at first [laughs] but I hope that in itself will be attractive to many people, and that they will find it interesting for that reason.
The style of game will be very similar to the original, but we will of course be adding some new features as well. The style of control from the original game is one thing that will be updated, but that is natural given modern controllers and the advance of that type of technology.
C: And on that point, my major concern is that the original was for a long time the most expensive video game ever made. But even with the record Kickstarter support the budget for Shenmue III seems a lot smaller.
YS: As you know open world games cost a lot! [laughs] So it is challenging for me to deal with the budget issue. Even after we completed the Kickstarter project I have been looking for other partners to join us and as you know we have now partnered with Deep Silver. So Im now comfortable in saying, Dont worry, I can make the whole game you imagined! Even if the sense of size cannot compare with the biggest open world games, that is impossible without a much bigger budget.
Multiplayer.it actually saw these models although they did not have textures.
Good stuff dude thanks for this.Hi! I did the VG247 interview, so thanks for the kind comments. I was really pleased to get to chat to Suzuki, big fan and all that.
Wanted to elaborate a little on the facial test demo thing I saw - basically, it was the old models, the ones we saw before (IE, the 'off' Ryo) and Suzuki casually showed me a video that was a couple of minutes long where we just saw a bit of everything, from exaggerated teeth-clenched anger to more subtle expressions, then the same again for Shenhua. Suzuki kept saying "ignore the models, but this is the type of animation we're working on, ignore the models though".
I say 'fairly decent' and I don't want anybody to excitedly extrapolate that to 'mind blowing' - it's mega early stuff but it looked like with some work they might be on track to end up on par with other open world RPG-y games, basically. What I gathered from Suzuki was that when they changed the character models the bone structure changed and that meant they had to retool the facial animations and didn't have time for this demo. It looked okay, though, and hopefully they can match or exceed that in the final game. PR told me after the interview he hadn't shown anyone else that video all week (and this was the end of the second-to-last day), so I don't know if anyone else saw it.
You missed the best bit:
GC: [looking at notes] I was going to ask whether you wanted to apologise for inflicting QTEs on the world, but suddenly that seems very disrespectful.
YS: [laughs]
You really think things are this simple?They should have kept fighting engine or bought it. From scratch is expensive.
You really think things are this simple?
For many people, a lot of things 'are' that simple until they find out the truth that is, lol.