Weekly AM2 Vol. 6: Interview with Shenmue Design Director, Masanori Oe

Thanks @Switch

This quote really stood out to me-

In terms of characters, I tried to give them a sense of existence in addition to giving them reality, and in terms of the environments, I tried to make even small objects such as trash cans look realistic.

It is clear during the original games development they really leaned into the idea of ‘reality’. I am curious as some of those insane levels of details were omitted in Shenmue 2 if that was product of feedback, change in direction or potentially hardware limitations?

More interesting to ponder if Shenmue was successful whether they would have continued trying to achieve that level of reality. As we know sometimes insane realism and gameplay don’t always gel.
 
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It is clear during the original games development they really leaned into the idea of ‘reality’. I am curious as some of those insane levels of details were omitted in Shenmue 2 if that was product of feedback, change in direction or potentially hardware limitations?
Yes, the theme of reality was certainly emphasized by Yu Suzuki in interviews at the time, and in the Shenmue Premiere video etc. The seeming drop in detail in Shenmue 2 may have been to do with a reduction in density of objects and/or interactivity as a result of the vastness of its world, although I still find it impressive at what was achieved, with tricks like the Magic Rooms system to fill many of the Kowloon building rooms with objects.

Speaking of the high level interactivity in the first game, I think this impression may be mainly due to all the objects that could be examined or manipulated where the player begins, in the Hazuki residence, whereas the other locations in the game did not share the same level.
 
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