Not long after the release of Shenmue ~Chapter One: Yokosuka~, the Shenmue Complete Guide, with its distinctive black cover, was published in Japan by SoftBank under the Dreamcast Magazine brand. Included in this guide was a special in-depth feature that looked back on the game’s ambitious development.
In this post, we will be translating the full piece into English. It's a fascinating glimpse into how Yu Suzuki and his AM2 team transformed an experimental RPG prototype into what would become one of the most groundbreaking titles in gaming history.
The translation begins below.
A Year and a Half Following Shenmue
AM2, Sega’s most powerful development team, has produced countless hit games. But around the end of 1996, its head, Yu Suzuki, began to go quiet. Spurred by a shift in direction within Sega, Suzuki took on the RPG genre for the first time. As he became more and more immersed in his new project, before anyone realized it, it had grown into a massive undertaking involving an extraordinary number of staff members.
What would become Shenmue ultimately took over four years to complete. But the Shenmue you hold in your hands is still just the beginning.
What exactly is Shenmue? We take a closer look to find out.
Together with the announcement of a new Virtua Fighter game at The Game Awards, Sega released a mini-interview with Yu Suzuki to commemorate the "30th anniversary" of the Virtua Fighter franchise. As part of this, a short video interview with Yu Suzuki was released.
(Technically, Virtua Fighter premiered in the arcades in 1993, with the December 1994 timing most closely tying in to its release on the Sega Saturn console in November 1994).
Within the interview, in which Suzuki recalls development of the original Virtua Fighter, Shenmue also gets a mention in relation to the background graphics:
"The backgrounds in particular are a variety of Asian themes, which I like. The detailed renditions were quite noteworthy to me. I faintly* feel some similarities with Shenmue".
- Yu Suzuki (official subtitles)
*Note: Suzuki's words don't actually imply "faintly"; a closer translation would simply be: "I feel some similarities with Shenmue".
In a past interview with 4Gamer in 2017, Suzuki declared "Going forward, I'm aiming for graphics you can smell". And so we can take his comment about the background and scenery graphics seen for the new Virtua Fighter as high praise:
"They've grown more and more realistic, so much that you can almost smell them."
Suzuki is also impressed by the battles seen in the footage for the new Virtua Fighter game, especially its collision detection as seen by the following line. Note: this is a full translation of his words; the video subtitles are incomplete:
"[In particular,] when your punch lands on your opponent, there's a moment where the hit is absorbed by the flesh, and then the power is transmitted, sending them flying".
Achieving this level of detail into battles echoes something Yu-san mentioned he wanted to achieve himself (and demonstrated with a slow-motion punch to his own face!) during the Shenmue community interview by the Shenmue Dojo and Phantom River Stone earlier in the year.
View the Video
A transcript of the interview subtitles follows below.
Video Transcript: Sega Mini-Interview with Yu Suzuki
Q: Now that Virtua Fighter is looking at its 30th anniversary, could you say a few words?
Yu Suzuki: Happy 30th anniversary! I'd like to thank everyone for these 30 years, building the Virtua Fighter brand into what it is now. When we developed the world's first full 3D fighting game, I can still remember working on it, and excitedly wondering how it would be received by the public.
Q: Could you share your feelings on Virtua Fighter?
Yu Suzuki: The Virtua Fighter characters back then were built out of what looked like cardboard boxes.
They didn’t look anywhere near human. Internally, we called them names like Robo 1 and Robo 2, since they looked like robots. Virtua Fighter has evolved since then, and now the characters finally look human. Thinking about it fills me with emotions.
Q: Could you talk a little bit about your thoughts on the announcement of a new Virtua Fighter game?
Yu Suzuki: These are just my feelings after watching the footage, but the backgrounds in particular are a variety of Asian themes, which I like. The detailed renditions were quite noteworthy to me. I faintly feel some similarities with Shenmue.
They've grown more and more realistic, so much that you can almost smell them. That's how believable they look now. The part that leaves the biggest impression on me is the battling. Even just the demo looked really good. I get the feeling this one is going to be a big hit.
The main point of focus is the "collision detection". When your punch lands on your opponent, there's a moment where the hit is absorbed by the flesh, and then the power is transmitted, sending them flying.
It feels incredibly realistic, and I feel like the battle systems have gotten really close to what I've always envisioned.
Q: Could you say a few words about the future of the Virtua Fighter series?
Yu Suzuki: Now that I've heard that the RGG [Ryu Ga Gotoku] team is going to be working on Virtua Fighter, I'm very excited. I hope I can play it soon.
This is the last part of our 4-part series comparing the 1980s' manga "Kenji" and Shenmue. In this post, we'll translate an interview with one of the developers of the hit arcade game Virtua Fighter, to gain insight into influences in its creation, to understand how the manga may have provided inspiration, and by extension may have helped to shape the game that eventually became Shenmue.
Part Four (this part) - Insights From a Virtua Fighter Developer
Virtua Fighter, Virtua Fighter RPG and Shenmue
Soon after the release of the first Virtua Fighter in 1993, Yu Suzuki went on a trip to China, primarily to gather materials for the upcoming Virtua Fighter 2 which was released in 1994.
This post contains the contents of a TV interview held with Yu Suzuki and other guests on the Japanese TBS channel in February 2022. The interview was originally shown on TBS as an episode in a series called X年後の関係者達 ("X Years Later: Those Who Were Involved") where key figures reflect and comment on past accomplishments.
This time the episode featured Yu Suzuki, joined by three others from the game industry at the time, with the MC being Kazlaser, a Japanese comedian who is known for his love of Sega, who participated through a video link. Suzuki talks about the development of some of his hit arcade games at Sega in the 1980s through to the 1990s. (Shenmue also gets a mention!)
--- Start of transcript ---
Narrator:
Let's go back 37 years, to 1985.
In the world of arcade games, where tabletop cabinets once dominated, two revolutionary games emerged in succession. The world's first motion-sensing game, Hang On. And UFO Catcher, which still boasts immense popularity today. The name of the company reshaping the landscape of game centers with its ideas and development power was: SEGA.
What enabled Sega to consistently produce groundbreaking games one after another?
X years later, former members of Sega's arcade division gather for a reunion.
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 that has been voted this time is:
"Yu Suzuki on Arcade Game Development at SEGA + Keiji Okayasu on the Virtua Fighter Port to the Saturn"
A TV interview with Yu Suzuki on the Japanese TBS channel in February 2022 will form the basis of this upcoming post, in which he discusses several of the arcade games he developed while at Sega in the 1980's through to the 1990's, such as Hang On, R-360 and Virtua Fighter.
Comments from Keiji Okayasu (who later went on to become Game Director for Shenmue I and Director for Shenmue III) will also be included on the technical process and challenges involved with the much-lauded port of Virtua Fighter for the Sega Saturn.
Welcome to the third and final part of Daniel Mann's scanlation of a manga about the early days of the legendary games creator Yu Suzuki. The original was published in 2019 by DenFamiNicoGamer,
In this part of the interview, Yu Suzuki talks about how Virtua Fighter evolved, and paved the way for the development of Shenmue. The manga ends with a tribute to the legend that is Yu Suzuki.
