An Interview with Yu Suzuki by Nagai Industries | Gamescom 2019

We're very pleased to share a new interview that was held with Yu Suzuki at Gamescom 2019 by a passionate Shenmue fan known in the community as Nagai Industries, who in doing so brought a long-held goal of interviewing Yu to reality.

About the author:

Nagai Industries can be found on Twitter and is an indie game developer inspired by the Yu Suzuki's teachings and a freelance journalist.
A Russian-language version of this interview article has also been published on Gameland.ru and can be viewed here.

This interview would not have happened without the enormous support of the Shenmue community, of which I became an active part in 2014, when a friend of mine and I started developing a small Shenmue-inspired game — Lucky Hit Challenge.

At that time, the sequels of forgotten game series were popping up on Kickstarter, one by one. We dreamed that, sooner or later, one of these such sequels would be Shenmue III. In the fall of that year, we released the Lucky Hit Challenge in which the player could win money playing Lucky Hit and spend it on the in-game Shenmue III Kickstarter. This project was warmly received by the audience, and two years later I started developing a new project: the social application #ChawanSign that would generate Shenmue memes in augmented reality. It is this project that soon led me to an interview-meeting with Suzuki.

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SEGASaturno Interview with Yu Suzuki at Gamescom 2019 | Translation

We're very pleased to host today's guest post: an interview with Yu Suzuki about various Shenmue topics, which was carried out by Alfonso "Ryo Suzuki" Martinez  from SEGASaturno at the recent Gamescom event. 

• The original version of the article is in Spanish and can be read here at the SEGASaturno website.

The article starts below.


Yu Suzuki met with us again at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. A few months ago, we were granted an interview with him at MAGIC Monaco. He was very kind towards us since he already knows us from previous occasions, being fully aware that we usually go to all the possible events related to Shenmue III.

The Japanese master showed us the instruction manual in physical format of the demo that will be available to the backers soon. He seemed proud of this and somewhat enthusiastic.

He also asked us if we had already tried the demo in the Deep Silver booth, but we told him we would do it the following day. Yu-san seemed to be very interested to know our opinions, since he knows we are big Shenmue fans.

This is the brief interview we were able to have. It’s somewhat shorter than usual, but this was expected because we were at a big event like Gamescom, and they have to cover many appointments with journalists.

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[4Gamer] Interview with Yu Suzuki at Gamescom 2019 | Translation

We present a new interview with Yu Suzuki on Shenmue 3 from Gamescom 2019, this time from Japan's 4Gamer.

This is our translation of the interview, which begins from here.


4Gamer: Thank you for your time today. Please tell us first of all about the present status of Shenmue 3.

YS: The current state is that we're making various finishing touches and balance adjustments, and carrying out small bug fixes. Things such as modifying motions, improving the appearance and adjusting collisions. The balance adjustments are not just for the battles; we're also tuning the balance of the economy.

4Gamer: If the balance of the economy is broken, then that might lead the whole game breaking, mightn't it.

YS: Adjusting the balance is really tricky. Even when I build something expecting that 30% of new players will be able to clear it, when they actually test it out, only about 20% might manage to do so.

In any case, in terms of its level of completeness, I'd say "90% or above". If no bugs that stop the game from running (called "Class A" bugs) are found, then what we have currently could be released. That kind of level.

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Famitsu Interview with Yu Suzuki at Gamescom 2019 | Translation

Famitsu.com has published an interview with Yu Suzuki on Shenmue 3 that was carried out at the recent Gamescom 2019 event. This is our translation of the interview.

Note: there is a (minor) story spoiler pertaining to general story content in Shenmue 3 which I have enclosed in a spoiler section.

The translation begins from here.

Currently In Progress: Debugging and Last Adjustments

Q: Is the content of this Gamescom demo the same as the one at E3 2019?

YS:  It has been touched up compared to the previous one. At E3, the gameplay time was set to 15 minutes making it hard to grasp the gameplay loop, so this time we've smoothed out that process and increased the play time to around 45 minutes.

Q: In terms of content, people will be able to experience gameplay at the start of Shenmue 3's story, in Bailu village..?

YS: Yes, you'll be able to play through things like events and the gameplay loop, at Bailu village. However, being a demo version, the content differs a bit from the release version.

I consider Shenmue 3 to be what people call open-world, but it differs from other open-world games so markedly that if you take the same approach as those when playing it, you won't get what makes it special; and I suspect that may lead to a conclusion that "different = bad".

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Yu Suzuki's Signing Sessions at Gamescom 2019

"Last day of the signing sessions"

While at Gamescom, Yu Suzuki held multiple signing sessions in the public exhibition hall, with long queues of fans forming to meet the master. This post contains a selection of some of the pictures shared on social media over the period.

Shenmue III promotion at the Deep Silver booth was most impressive. Above, large panels ensured it could be spotted from afar with an eye-catching image of the Stone Pit's cave with the giant carved mirrors and burning flames .

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Analysis: New Shenmue III Screenshots From Gamescom 2019

Three new still shots of Shenmue 3 have been released, showing off more of the game's detailed environments.

Screenshot 1: Evening Dining in Bailu Village

The first screenshot is a night scene of customers seated at an outdoor table. In the background an elderly man (perhaps the proprietor) is seated at a table laden with sausages, cake and other food items. The customers are turned in his direction - they seem to be getting hungry.

Screenshot #1

The heavy wooden beam and hanging rope in the foreground can be recognized as being the Bailu village well, as seen in this capture from E3 B-roll footage earlier this year:

The Bailu village well

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New Trailer "A Day In Shenmue" Released at Gamescom 2019

Fan-snapped photos and hand-held recordings of a brand new Shenmue 3 trailer on show at Gamescom 2019 have been flying around the internet, and now a direct feed of the trailer is available - and it looks magnificent!

Titled "A Day in Shenmue", it includes scenes of combat, arcade games, exploration and even some interactions with Ren (the rain pouring down during this scene makes for a striking atmosphere). The voices of this version are in English.

We will be writing up an analysis of the trailer's content in a future post.

The trailer was also announced in a Kickstarter Update which included a photo of Yu Suzuki at the Shenmue 3 booth, where he will be continuing to hold signing sessions.

Source: Shenmue.link news

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Yu Suzuki Visits Aachen Old Town | Gamescom 2019

This is the week of Gamescom 2019, with a series of press events already having taken place throughout the day (with some glimpses of Shenmue 3 which we will cover in the next post!). The actual show properly kicks off on Tuesday August 20th, with the first day being for trade and media only.

Yu Suzuki has also of course traveled to Germany for the event, and after arrival took some time to visit the city of Aachen, located an hour's train ride to the west of Cologne. Koch Media has shared photos of his visit to the city's old town and historical center.

Based on clues in the photos, we can even identify some of the locations.

Yu Suzuki poses next to a sculpture of a horse.

This horse is one of a number of galloping horses in a bronze sculpture outside Aachen Central Railway Station.

Horse sculpture seen from the front

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Yu Suzuki's Attendance at Gamescom 2019 Announced

YS Net has announced that Yu Suzuki will be attending this year's Gamescom event - together with a nice VMU-style graphic of Yu above the Gamescom logo.

Gamescom is an annual event held in Cologne, Germany, and this year will run from Tuesday, Aug 20, 2019 to Saturday, Aug 24, 2019. The first day is for trade visitors & the media, with the remaining days being public days.

Regarding Yu's activities at the event, the update confirms that:

• Yu will be hosting a meet & greet in the public area, and
• He will be holding media interviews in the business (non-public) area

While further details on plans for Shenmue III at the event are not known, Gamescom was the event at which The Prophecy trailer was released last year, and with Yu Suzuki's presence confirmed at this year's event it will be a good opportunity for promotion of the game as we come up to 3 months before its release date on November 19th.

Source: link to announcement

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