The Project Berkley Bonus Disc | Dengeki Dreamcast Magazine (January 2000)

A mysterious scene from the CG movie on the Project Berkley bonus disc

Japan's Dengeki Dreamcast magazine contained a huge 50-page Shenmue feature in its January 28 edition. Within this feature was a reflection on the intriguing Project Berkley bonus disc that had been released a year prior and even today can be considered to hold an abundance of hints and glimpses as to how Shenmue's plot might once have been (and even could still be) going to unfold.

Magazine page images kindly provided by SkillJim.

Why "Project Berkley"?

In the late 1990s, SEGA's AM2 division, led by Yu Suzuki, embarked on an ambitious venture known internally as Project Guppy. Initially conceived with the title of Virtua Fighter RPG for the SEGA Saturn, the project subsequently transitioned to the SEGA Dreamcast and was renamed Shenmue and the associated code name changed to Project Berkley. Code names were used to maintain confidentiality during development, adding an aura of mystery to the undertaking.

At his GDC 2014 post-mortem talk, Yu Suzuki reveals how the code name changed during development together with the game's title.

In recent years, Yu Suzuki has revealed the inspiration for the name "Project Berkley":

Q: At the beginning the game was given the codename “Project Berkley”, is there any special meaning behind this name?

YS: It’s actually like this [laughs]: because we realized at the start that this would be a completely different game to anything else on the market at the time, and its scale was unprecedented, we wanted to keep the project very confidential. Because of this we wanted to give it a very cool sounding name, like something from a spy movie. In Japan there’s this phrase bakkureru (ばっくれる) meaning to “pretend not to know” or “feign ignorance”, and by coincidence that there is a place in America with a similar sounding name, so we chose this “Project Berkley” codename.

A special feature of approximately 30 minutes, with the same name of Project Berkley, was included with the Japanese version of Virtua Fighter 3tb, released on Dreamcast in November 1998. Containing a CGI trailer, an extended interview with Yu Suzuki and various concept art, it provided gamers with an early glimpse into the project's innovative vision, highlighting its potential to revolutionize gaming.

The Virtua Fighter 3tb release included a bonus disc

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Yu Suzuki on Stage at Network Jungle II: Digitaliland

This post is a translation of a report in the May 1999 edition of the Japanese Dreamcast Magazine about the Network Jungle II: Digitaliland event that was held in the months leading up to the release of Shenmue. During the event, a stage event was held in which Yu Suzuki, Hiroaki Takeuchi and Hidekazu Yukawa talked about the upcoming game.

Related posts:

• Exploring Shenmue Forest at the "Network Jungle II: Digitaliland" Event (1999)
• Shenmue Forest Demo

Recap and Comments from Yu Suzuki's Special Talk

Some incredible images were on show at this event, prompting us to ask ourselves "How on earth did they create that footage?" and wonder how far along Shenmue was in its development. The answers to these questions were to be found in the talk show with Yu Suzuki at 3:00 p.m. Many exciting things were said, including comments by Former Managing Director Yukawa!

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Shenmue Characters Based on Actual People: Susumu Aketagawa, Takeshi Hirai, Akira Nagai, Yoshihito Nishii, Hiroaki Takeuchi, Manabu Takimoto, Hiroshi Tamura, Yoshihiko Tashiro, Hidekaze Yukawa, Kenta Shimizu, Jin Xin Nan, Takashi Matsuda

Several characters that appear in the Shenmue games have in-game models based on real-life people.  This is not surprising in the case of Shenmue III, where several higher-tier backers were included in the game as a reward for their pledges. What may not be so readily realized is that several of the people Ryo meets in the first game of the series, as workers or residents of Yokosuka, were also modeled on actual people, including but not limited to members of the project development staff and people associated with Sega.

Today's post presents the findings of research to identify and gather together as many of these characters from the early games in the series as possible.

Let's get started!

Characters Based on Actual People: Shenmue I

Susumu Aketagawa

In the game: He is the hard-working owner of Yamaji Soba Noodles in Dobuita who is now considering retirement.

In real life: The name and model of this character are those of the voice & recording director for Shenmue I and II, Susumu Aketagawa. He was invited to provide his own voice for the game, but  declined, commenting with a laugh in a 2019 interview that "I wasn't willing to go that far".

When he worked on the Shenmue project, he was approximately the same age as his character in the game, although they do not share the same birthday date. It is unknown whether he is a big fan of soba noodles, although he did mention in the interview that he used to enjoy going for a lunch of boiled whitebait on rice at a restaurant near the Sega offices.

Left: Susumu Aketagawa in the game is the owner of Yamaji Soba Noodles in Dobuita. Right: directing a recording session for Shenmue around 1998 (top-right) and in a 2019 interview (bottom-right).

Aketagawa-san's profile: retirement from the noodle business beckons.

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Poll Result: Patrons' Choice Topic for May 2021

Every month Phantom River Stone holds a poll among our patrons to choose a topic for the blog in the coming month. After tallying the votes (including accumulated votes from previous months), the winning topic for April 2021 is...

"Shenmue at Network Jungle II: Digitaliland" 

At the technology showcase event "Digitaliland" in early 1999, Sega had an entire area devoted to promoting Shenmue ahead of its eventual release at the end of the year, called "Shenmue no Mori" (Shenmue Forest). Attendees were treated to video trailers, playable demos, figurines, art and merchandise for the game as well as stage events throughout the day.

One of  the stage events held was a talk show featuring the game's creator Yu Suzuki, game advisor Hiroaki Takeuchi and Hidekazu Yukawa (the Sega former managing director who featured in the "What's Shenmue" demo). 

We'll be translating highlights from their discussion as they talk enthusiastically about the game before the event attendees.

Watch for it on the blog in the near future!

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[Part 3] Shenmue Discussion with Yu Suzuki & Developers | IGN Japan

This is the third and final part of our summary of a video interview with three key members of the development team for Shenmue III who were also core project members in the earlier titles: creator and game director Yu Suzuki, animation producer Hiroaki Takeuchi and second director Keiji Okayasu. The interview was held by IGN Japan's Esra Krabbe.

If you haven't yet read the first two parts, you can find them here:

• Part One of the video interview summary
• Part Two of the video interview summary

Shenmue I & II's Drink Machines

Okayasu recounts that the thing that surprised him the most when he was working on the first two Shenmue games was when Suzuki wanted to put in drink machines. "They didn't have any meaning with respect to the gameplay, you see. You put your money in, the can drops down, you drink it... and that's all."

However, he saw the sense in Suzuki's thinking that drink machines are a common sight for a town, and buying a drink from one is something you might do if you had some pocket change.

"There needs to be consumption in order to create a cycle," explains Suzuki, making a circular motion in the air. "My intention when I created them was to form a cycle by connecting several such small elements together, although in practice I wasn't quite able to reach that point".

Were the winning cans a part of this?

"To some extent, yes, as motivation for players to continue buying cans," Yu nods.

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[Part 2] Shenmue Discussion with Yu Suzuki & Developers | IGN Japan

This is the second part of a 3-part summary of a video interview with three key members of the development team for Shenmue 3 who were also core project members in the earlier titles: creator and game director Yu Suzuki, animation producer Hiroaki Takeuchi and second director Keiji Okayasu. The interview was held by IGN Japan's Esra Krabbe.

• Part One of the interview summary can be found here.

The Boat Chapter

When asked about the legendary chapter that takes place on the boat from Yokosuka to Hong Kong, Yu Suzuki is slightly wary. "I don't want to say too much, since I may make some use of it later," he says with a smile. "During the journey various incidents and encounters take place on board."

Official Shenmue Side Story "Chai & Ryo"

Takeuchi adds: "The scenario has been written as a base, but that won't simply be used as it is. We would then add things to it like fun gameplay elements and so on, while thinking of the overall balance".

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[Part 1] Shenmue Discussion with Yu Suzuki & Developers | IGN Japan

To commemorate the release of Shenmue 3 earlier this month, IGN Japan's Esra Krabbe spoke with key members of the development team, who were all also on the project team for the first two games: creator and game director Yu Suzuki, animation producer Hiroaki Takeuchi and second director Keiji Okayasu.

In this post we share some of the highlights of the discussion. Due to length, we will split this over a number of parts. A link to the video can be found at the end of this post.

Early Concept Art

Displayed on the table are folders containing some colored concept sketches. Yu Suzuki comments that these were created during development of the original Shenmue games, with some being from the start of the project which began "4 to 5 years" prior to the release of the first game in 1999. The figure wearing Chinese-style martial arts clothing is Akira from Virtua Fighter, as the idea at that time was to make him the main character in a story centered around Chinese martial arts - indeed, Yu Suzuki wrote a set of scripts that encapsulated the story, called "The Legend of Akira".

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Interview with Yu Suzuki on Shenmue 3 [Gamersky]: Full Transcript - Part Two

This is Part Two of a full interview transcript with Yu Suzuki held in China, carried out by Gamersky.com and translated by yuc02 (contact him at the Shenmue Dojo).

The interview continues below. Go here for Part One.

Shenmue 3 Director Yu Suzuki Interview - Fighting System’s Complete Revamp [Part 2]

Original text from https://www.gamersky.com/news/201812/1135488.shtml

YS = Yu Suzuki

Q: You announced that Shenmue 3 would be released in China via WeGame for the PC and Oasis Games for PS4. How did you assess and decide on these two partners?

YS: Shenmue had not yet been officially released in the Chinese market prior to this, so it was important for us to find a reliable partner to expand the series. WeGame is the biggest PC gaming platform in China, with a large player base, so we along with Deep Silver believe that WeGame will be very influential to us in reaching out to new players and markets. In addition we believe as a platform WeGame provides very good marketing and localization services for the developers, which would be very helpful for a new IP like ours. As for the console version, Shenmue used to be a console-only game, and many console players have a lot of affection towards the Shenmue franchise. Sony gave us a lot of help during the Kickstarter process, and as Oasis Games is an important Chinese partner to the PlayStation business, we therefore have a lot of faith in them.

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Interview with Yu Suzuki on Shenmue 3 [Gamersky]: Full Transcript - Part One

We recently posted a translation by yuc02 of a report summarizing an interview held with Shenmue III director Yu Suzuki and animation producer Hiroaki Takeuchi at the recent G-Fusion Tour event in Xiamen, China.

• Yu Suzuki's China Interview Report Part One: Shenmue III Details
• Yu Suzuki's China Interview Report Part Two: Early Game Development Years

Today's post, kindly translated once again by yuc02, is a full interview transcript, carried out by Gamersky.com.

The translation starts below. Part Two to follow in a separate post.

Shenmue 3 Director Yu Suzuki Interview - Fighting System’s Complete Revamp [Part 1]

Original text from https://www.gamersky.com/news/201812/1135488.shtml

Following WeGame’s invitation, the author had the privilege to meet with Shenmue 3 director Yu Suzuki (YS) and animation producer Hiroaki Takeuchi (HT) in Xiamen, and with fellow journalists conducted an interview about the state of the game.

Shenmue 3 director Yu Suzuki (left) and animation producer Hiroaki Takeuchi (right)

Q: Apart from the location of Shenmue 3 being set in Guilin, what other aspects of Chinese culture will be represented? The first two games in the series contained the Chinese martial art Bajiquan; will Shenmue 3 introduce more martial arts styles?

YS: In my early game development years I visited China numerous times, and learned Bajiquan from Master Wu [Master Wu Lian Zhi], with whom I still keep in touch and meet every year, although not on this occasion. I am quite familiar with China, and have visited Xiamen’s Kulangsu for cultural studies, and learned about Chinese architectural styles for the game. We did not carry out any studies on new martial arts, but have incorporated other Chinese styles such as Xingyiquan in the game, although these will not be part of Ryo’s repertoire; rather they’ll be styles owned by other characters.

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Yu Suzuki's China Interview Report Part Two: Early Game Development Years [YouYanShe Publication Group]

This is the second part of a translation by yuc02 of a recent Chinese-language article reporting on an interview held with Shenmue III director Yu Suzuki and animation producer Hiroaki Takeuchi at the recent G-Fusion Tour event in Xiamen, China. The report was published on sohu.com.

Part Two below focuses on Yu Suzuki's earlier years in game development. Go here to read Part One.

Dialogue with Yu Suzuki On the Birth of Shenmue - Part 2

Original text & images from http://www.sohu.com/a/283337668_628730

Aside from Shenmue, we also talked with Yu Suzuki about stories from his early game development years, as well as his views on the video gaming industry. Although his iconic status as one Sega’s top developers in the 80s and 90s has meant that much has already been written about him, it was still fascinating to hear his views and stories in person.

Prior to working on Shenmue, Yu Suzuki’s work mainly revolved around arcade gaming. At that time many titles were developed from his AM2 studio (Outrun, Space Harrier, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop etc.). One can say that he’s worked in, as well as advanced, almost every gaming genre available.

But in actual fact, he was still not fully satisfied, and wished to try more things on the home gaming front. Yu Suzuki explained that “At the time the golden rule with arcade games is that average play times must be limited to 3 minutes per credit, and given the 30 seconds or so for changing between machines, that left around 2 mins 40 seconds for the developers to showcase the game".

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Yu Suzuki's China Interview Report Part One: Shenmue III Details [YouYanShe Publication Group]

Today's post was contributed by yuc02, who has translated a recent Chinese-language article reporting on an interview held with Shenmue III director Yu Suzuki and animation producer Hiroaki Takeuchi at the recent G-Fusion Tour event in Xiamen, China. The report was published on sohu.com.

The article translation is in two parts, with this being Part One.

The translation starts below.

Dialogue with Yu Suzuki On the Birth of Shenmue - Part 1

Original text & images from http://www.sohu.com/a/283337668_628730

“A video game is a reconstruction of reality, but it doesn’t mean that the game will be more addictive the more realistic it is. What interests gamers the most will always be the gameplay.”

On December 16th, following an invitation by WeGame, publication group YouYanShe arrived in Xiamen, and participated in the G-Fusion event along with Shenmue’s creator Yu Suzuki. Aside from the announcement that WeGame will publish the Simplified Chinese version of Shenmue 3, we also chatted with Suzuki-san, and learned many things about Shenmue, Chinese culture and his experiences during the early development years.

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Shenmue III: Yu Suzuki Talks On Stage in Xiamen [Video | ENG Subs]

On December 16th, Yu Suzuki took to the stage to talk about Shenmue III to an audience of gaming fans at the G-Fusion Tour event that was held in Xiamen, Fujian province in China (as announced at the end of November).

As with the recent Tokyo Game Show, animation producer Hiroaki Takeuchi also took part.

The following items were announced during the stage talk:

• There will be a version of Shenmue III released with Simplified Chinese subtitles.
• The distribution of Shenmue III in China is to be handled by Tencent (on the WeGame platform) and Oasis Games (for PS4).

Also during the talk, a slightly modified version of the "The Prophecy" trailer for Shenmue III was shown, with Chinese subtitles, to a warm reception from the audience.

We have added English translated captions to the video which can be viewed below. Or, if you prefer to read a written version, a full transcript of these follows.

Video (ENG subs): Yu Suzuki & Hiroaki Takeuchi on Shenmue III

Watch the video of the talk below: 

Transcript

Yu Suzuki (YS): Everyone, I'm Yu Suzuki. I'm glad to be here today.

Hiroaki Takeuchi (HT): Nĭ hăo! My name is Hiroaki Takeuchi.

Q: We've heard that you've come to China several times. Is this your first time in Xiamen?

YS: I've been here once before, about 3 or 4 years ago. I came to research the circular tower-like structures of the Hakka people, which look sort of like missile bases.

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1998 Shenmue Premiere 20th Anniversary [Video | ENG Subs]

Today, 20th December 2018, marks the twentieth anniversary of the Shenmue Premiere, an extravagant event that was held in Yokohama in 1998 - as well as in five other cities around Japan thereafter - at which Yu Suzuki introduced his groundbreaking new game, Shenmue, to the public.

The free event lasted for two hours and included a live orchestra, videos and live gameplay. Every attendee also received a bag packed full of Shenmue items such as a T-shirt, CD single and Shenhua figurine to take home with them. For those who wanted more, many other items of Shenmue merchandise could be bought in the lobby.

• To see the amazing items included in the bag of souvenirs, see this related post: Shenmue Premiere Bag (1998) | Shenmue Merchandise

Premiere Video (Digest)

In the following months, Sega released a ten-minute digest video of the Yokohama premiere.

A frame from the Magic Weather demonstration.

The digest video touches on the following:

• A snippet of the live-orchestra performance of the Shenmue theme.
• The characters in Shenmue
• Magic Weather (using a test environment with multiple "Water Dragon" and other shops)
• In-game conversations

Enjoy watching a young Yu Suzuki showing off the features of his game in the video below (with English captions that I created a few years ago for the Shenmue Dojo):

This video was included on the first volume in 1999 of Sega's Dreamcast Express series of demo discs, among with several other videos and demos.

The cover of the Dreamcast Express Vol.1 disc, on which the Shenmue Premiere digest video was included.

A full-length video of the premiere event was also made available but unfortunately the extreme compression used at that time rendered it almost unwatchable; we hope that perhaps someday the original recording may be unearthed from Sega's vaults.

One of the MCs at the event, actress Reiko Chiba, is still a good friend of Yu Suzuki to this day. A few years ago, she posted a photo of herself at dinner with Yu and animation producer Hiroaki Takeuchi on Twitter.

Yu Suzuki, Reiko Chiba and Hiraoki Takeuchi (link to tweet)

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Fan Photos of Shenmue at Network Jungle II Event in 1999

Shenmue was featured at "Network Jungle II: Digitaliland," an expo for games making use of networking and digital communications held in Tokyo in 1999, to promote the game in Japan ahead of its release.

One of the stage events had members of the public competing to "dub over" lines from Shenmue. One participant spoke as Ren using a regional Kansai dialect, which must have caused some hilarity among the audience.

The voice/mo-cap actors for Ren (Takumi Hagiwara), Shenhua (Hazuki Ishigaki) and Ryo (Masaya Matsukaze) in the Japanese versions introducing the dubbing competition

Later Yu Suzuki also took the stage together with Hiroaki Takeuchi, and Sega Managing Director Hidekazu Yukawa (of "What's Shenmue" demo fame).

From left: Hiroaki Takeuchi, Sega Managing Director Hidekazu Yukawa and Yu Suzuki.

Most images that can be found online of this event are rather low-resolution (understandably, due to bandwidth considerations at the time), so it's fascinating to get another glimpse from someone who was actually there.

Photo credit: @kohji_nakazawa via Twitter

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Yu Suzuki: Shenmue III Latest Information (TGS 2018)

View the video below the article text.

At the 2018 Tokyo Game Show on September 22nd, Yu Suzuki and Shenmue III animation director Hiroaki Takeuchi spoke for a short time on the topic of Shenmue III. 

The Shenmue topic was a special section within a larger presentation about a VR game created by JPPVR (and their software subsidiary VReS) for which Suzuki is general producer. Sitting next to Suzuki and Takeuchi is Taichi Shibuki, the CEO of VReS.

• This was Yu Suzuki's second appearance on the JPPVR stage at TGS,  See the video (subtitled) of his earlier appearance on one of the event's Business Days: Yu Suzuki Tells Arino-Kacho About Shenmue 3 at the Tokyo Game Show

Kicking off the talk segment is a showing of the latest Shenmue III trailer, "The Prophecy," with its announcement of the release date of 27th August 2019, giving it some additional exposure to the Japanese domestic audience.

Apparently Takeuchi had been invited casually by Yu to join him for the stage session without knowing details of what it would be about, and he does a good job of heightening the sense of excitement for the game's upcoming release.

Partway through, Takeuchi switches to the growling voice of "Mr. X", a fictional masked character that he used to play in the 1980s, appearing in Young Jump magazine and the video game magazine GTV. (Alas, these efforts are largely ignored by the announcer!).

Yu touches on the current activities of the game's development, indicating that the battles are being fine-tuned. He also states that he won't be travelling to China as wants to "avoid being beaten up" - a reference to his 1994 research trip for the original Shenmue games where he was famously dealt an accidental blow from his friend Master Wu Lian Zhi during a martial arts demonstration.

Something that leaves a deep impression is the extent of the dedication that Yu has to the development of Shenmue III. He reveals that he often works through the nights and catches up with naps during the daytime. Takeuchi even cracks a joke about his reduced alcohol intake compared to the days of Shenmue I & II!

One of the highlights of the talk for me is when Yu Suzuki expresses the joy he gets from being able to create Shenmue III: "After it's over, I want to go back and start creating another, as soon as I can."

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Shenmue at TGS 2018 | Event Visit Report

On Saturday, September 22nd, I joined the flood of eager game fans attending the first Public Day of the 2018 Tokyo Game Show. Information about the event in the days leading up to it indicated an exciting amount of Shenmue-related content, including a panel discussion, SEGA merchandise including a new official Shenmue T-shirt, and a hands-on play area at the SEGA booth for Shenmue I & II. Yu Suzuki himself had even made a surprise on-stage appearance during the Business Days.

Here is a report on everything Shenmue I encountered on my visit.

Getting to the Event

The day that dawned was gray and drab, with the smell of possible rain in the air. The event venue, as usual, was in Chiba prefecture at the sprawling Makuhari Messe convention center, so my alarm clock was set even earlier than Ryo's usual waking time for departing on the hour-and-a-half train journey.

Upon arrival at the convention center's train station, kitted out in my vintage Shenmue T-shirt I joined the flow of passengers heading in a single direction - no need to consult a map!

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Commentary on Kickstarter Update #78: "Then, Now and Tomorrow"

An animated greeting from the Shenmue III Development Team

As a Christmas Day present to backers, a new Kickstarter update has been released. In addition to the animated greeting above (which features Shenhua, Ryo and Chai), the main part of the update takes the form of a video interview with Yu Suzuki reflecting on the past 2.5 years since the announcement as well as looking forward to the year ahead.

The interview was conducted by Hiroaki Takeuchi, Shenmue III's Animation Producer who also worked together with Yu as an animation advisor on the original Shenmue.

Related link:

• Video interview with Hiroaki Takeuchi, Shenmue III Animation Producer (July 2015)

In this post we will highlight some of the main topics Yu mentions, as well as pointing out one or two minor corrections for the English subtitles.

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