1up has published the second part of the Yu Suzuki interview, in this second part Yu Suzuki talks more about what Shenmue 3 would have been like and where he has been these past few years.
As for Shenmue 3:
“This is not actually in the game, but as an example to give you an idea of what I mean by deeper dialogue, when Shenhua and Ryo are at home, Shenhua will ask Ryo if he would like to drink tea or coffee and the player will select one or the other. Or, Shenhua will ask Ryo a hypothetical question like: “There are four animals; a monkey, cat, dog and bird. You are crossing the river but you need to leave one behind. Which one will you leave behind?” And the player has to choose one. Shenhua will ask lots and lots of questions like these and the answers will get stored in the game and affect the outcome of the player’s relationship with other characters. It’s like a personality test. For example, the person who leaves behind the monkey is the type of person who leaves their wife.” –Yu Suzuki
Damn, the man is brilliant. Makes me want to play it now. Other stuff in the interview are comments like 360 being the Dreamcast 2 and Yu Suzuki talking about Nagoshi. Some good stuff, read it here.
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That interview was AWESOME! The questions posed weren't always the best but the interview was great because Yu Suzuki is great.
There is SO MUCH GOOD SHIT in that interview, Shenmue related, Sega related and Dreamcast related.
I'm off to have a cold shower.
AWESOME interview and all around feature…but where's the Shenmue Online questions?
Wives are monkeys! Everything makes sense now.
Incredible interview. Always great to hear anything about Shenmue.
neuroticism personafied (EVEN A DECADE LATER):
JM: What do you remember as one of the craziest things that Suzuki-san asked you to do?
TH: There were a lot of things that didn't make it into the game. The hardest thing, and it doesn't even show on the screen, was the phone cord and handcuffs. The phone cord wasn't even showing up on camera, but he insisted on making it look realistic. I even made an eight-minute video presentation for the phone cord, but it didn't make it into the game. Another thing that was difficult were handcuffs, because you had to connect two independent characters. These were minute details, but very difficult to program.
YS: But if you're able to program handcuffs, the phone cord problem should have been simple since they're similar in concept — connecting two objects.
TH: So I solved it, but it wasn't even used in Shenmue 1 — only Shenmue 2, only for a split second.
YS: Hirai-san has a point, but the phone cord looked like it was made of steel. It was a solid U-shaped cord. It looked so stiff.
TH: But in the end, I got it programmed to bend and even stretch like a real cord. I wondered why we couldn't just use cell phones.
JM: Probably because the game was set in the '80s.
YS: It should have been much easier than the handcuffs. I'm convinced.
What an awesome guy he is. 1up is really doing something great here.