Making of Shenmue

(Chapter 1 | General Series Discussion)

Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby Yokosuka » Wed Nov 11, 2015 10:06 am

If the voicover spoke the names directly, it would have defo sounded as a giant advertising. Perhaps it's a local legal issue.

Switch wrote:
One new thing I learned was that the number of channels on the Dreamcast's sound chip was driven by the requirements from Suzuki for Shenmue. It just shows the influence that he had in SEGA at that time.


Manufacturers always ask their best developers (including most important third parties, especially nowadays) to decide their new hardware, it's almost a prerogative. We're talking about the man who basically made himself the Sega arcade hardware at times thanks his relationship with US military companies. :)

Let's hope he takes the same care about sound quality today despite the restricted budget. We know that Neilo owns a 5.1 cinema btw :
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立って4人でKINECTでのプレイが可能です。
150インチの大型スクリーン、4K解像度、5.1chサラウンドで映画鑑賞が可能です。
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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby Amir » Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:20 pm

Switch wrote:In the scene at 52:00, Suzuki talks about wanting to deliver a "properly-finished, beautiful work" and presses his staff for some ideas about what to do for the last part of the harbor area. I believe they discussing the ending of Shenmue I (one of the developer's also mentions boarding the boat). Fascinating to see an important part of the game being worked out.


Was thinking about this scene, my guess is that when they decided to split the game into two, they didn't have a satisfying ending for the first part. Maybe the boat chapter and fight with Chai was devised at this point? And then maybe they cut it later due to time/budget/disc constraints and settled for the little fight in the harbour (it does seem a bit out of place)?

EDIT: Lending support to the late addition of the boat chapter is the fact that it's not one of the 11 pieces of chapter concept art (Chapter 2 went straight to Hong Kong). My guess is the shifting of the Shenhua chapter to earlier in the story happened early on as a lot of the first preview images were Ryo with Shenhua in Guilin, but we've never seen in-game footage of the train chapter, only a few seconds of pre-rendered CG on the Project Berkley disc.
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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby drunkensailor » Wed Nov 11, 2015 4:49 pm

any video game player should watch this. wow! the be all end all of videogames this is. makes shenmue even more beauitful in retrospect

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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby DreamcastPast » Wed Nov 11, 2015 7:15 pm

Thanks a lot Switch, for giving us all an opportunity to enjoy it. Thanks to all involved.

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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby Switch » Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:38 pm

Yokosuka wrote:Didn't understand what he said about 30 fps and feeling of danger though.

Yeah, it's not clear. Possibly he's talking about how many frames the game should wait before new enemy characters enter to confront the player.

I was able to pick up this extra part of the meeting conversation at 9:13 before the voiceover begins:
Suzuki: Can't you demo it in real time?
Developer: I'm afraid not, this time.

Also looking closely at the video, one of the developer's at the table is controlling Ryo initially, when there are no NPCs on the screen. Based on the above snippet of conversation, the subsequent scene of the fighting is probably a pre-recorded clip for Suzuki's approval.
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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby Amir » Thu Nov 12, 2015 3:17 am

Tweeted Fries a few days ago, got back to me, wonder what they were discussing publishing for, PC or eventual release of Xbox?: https://twitter.com/Ed_Fries/status/664702220605132800

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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby fittersau » Thu Nov 12, 2015 6:43 am

Amir wrote: Tweeted Fries a few days ago, got back to me, wonder what they were discussing publishing for, PC or eventual release of Xbox?: https://twitter.com/Ed_Fries/status/664702220605132800

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Ed Fries seems like a nice enough fellow. Not the same sort of sharks that run the place now bleeding gamers dry for every last penny.
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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby Amir » Thu Nov 12, 2015 6:53 am

Yeah, he even made a Halo game for the Atari 2600: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_2600

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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby fittersau » Thu Nov 12, 2015 7:00 am

drunkensailor wrote: any video game player should watch this. wow! the be all end all of videogames this is. makes shenmue even more beauitful in retrospect



100%

Watching this made me appreciate Shenmue 1 & 2 even more than I do now considering the primitive tools they have in comparison back then to the amazing tools they have now out of the box.

What comes across in that video is Yu Suzuki's uncompromising vision for the game and an enormous emphasis on quality of every aspect of the game. It really shows when we play it, but to see the behind the scenes action for a game we hold so dearly reinforces it so much more.
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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby fittersau » Thu Nov 12, 2015 7:02 am

Amir wrote: Tweeted Fries a few days ago, got back to me, wonder what they were discussing publishing for, PC or eventual release of Xbox?: https://twitter.com/Ed_Fries/status/664702220605132800


So it seems it may not just have been Peter Moore as a driving force to have Shenmue on the original Xbox, but also Ed Fries. Shame about that xbox Shenmue box art.. what were they thinking #-o
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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby fittersau » Thu Nov 12, 2015 7:09 am

Switch wrote: Thanks for everyone's positive feedback to the team on the video captions.


Mate, you deserve every kudos you get for this work, translating/subbing/timing is extremely time consuming. You do it pro bono for the love of Shenmue and the community, yourself Ziming and many other postive contributors in the Shenmue community magnify a deeper appreciation of "What's Shenmue?" around the world. So thank you! =D>

Switch wrote:
One new thing I learned was that the number of channels on the Dreamcast's sound chip was driven by the requirements from Suzuki for Shenmue. It just shows the influence that he had in SEGA at that time.


Yeah, he really is boss, demanding hardware to suit his magnum opus.

Switch wrote: One funny thing about the original Japanese voiceover is that the actual names of any companies or products are never spoken - instead they are shown in text on the screen. Even "Shenmue" is never mentioned directly. So for example Yamaha becomes "a large firm that manufactures musical instruments" and so on, leading to some amusingly round-about descriptions.


It's such a freakingly annoying Japanese characteristic to "beat around the bush" without getting to the point, but having said that since it's such a cultural accepted norm, there is much unspoken empathy in Japanese culture that many westerners won't understand and appreciate too.
Last edited by fittersau on Thu Nov 12, 2015 9:49 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby Amir » Thu Nov 12, 2015 7:13 am

fittersau wrote:
Amir wrote: Tweeted Fries a few days ago, got back to me, wonder what they were discussing publishing for, PC or eventual release of Xbox?: https://twitter.com/Ed_Fries/status/664702220605132800


So it seems it may not just have been Peter Moore as a driving force to have Shenmue on the original Xbox, but also Ed Fries. Shame about that xbox Shenmue box art.. what were they thinking #-o


https://twitter.com/petermooreea/status ... 9296176129 Ouch... :P
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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby drunkensailor » Thu Nov 12, 2015 1:54 pm

fittersau wrote:
Amir wrote: Tweeted Fries a few days ago, got back to me, wonder what they were discussing publishing for, PC or eventual release of Xbox?: https://twitter.com/Ed_Fries/status/664702220605132800

Image



Ed Fries seems like a nice enough fellow. Not the same sort of sharks that run the place now bleeding gamers dry for every last penny.

lol what?
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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby Amir » Thu Nov 12, 2015 4:38 pm

https://twitter.com/Ed_Fries/status/664882373402587136

Image

https://twitter.com/Ed_Fries/status/664882523067953152

Image

Looking at the Dorimaga interview at the time of the Japanese release of Shenmue II for Dreamcast, I'm guessing Suzuki planned for a PC port for a while, if not an Xbox port, and the PC-like architecture of the Xbox made it an obvious choice of console to port to (though it still took them 8 months, and Shin Ishikawa said they had a little trouble with transparencies):

Q: Hypothetically speaking, if there was the possibility again in the future, what would be your choice of hardware? Ah, before asking that - is there any potential for a port?

Suzuki: Porting Shenmue I and II across to other hardware wouldn’t be impossible, but due to the sheer size it would materially be a tough job to take on. The easiest and most likely option would be the PC, in a year or two. That’s because the PC has, in a sense, the ability to handle anything and has few constraints.


viewtopic.php?f=5&t=48967

I think this puts the Peter Moore thing in a new light; maybe Suzuki knew the Dreamcast was going to fail even before the release of the first game, and was considering other publishers/consoles early on, including Microsoft. Then someone at Microsoft probably asked for it to be an exclusive so people would buy their console, but seeing as the Japanese release was so close they settled on North American exclusivity.

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Re: Making of Shenmue

Postby Yokosuka » Fri Nov 13, 2015 1:45 pm

Amir wrote:
Switch wrote:In the scene at 52:00, Suzuki talks about wanting to deliver a "properly-finished, beautiful work" and presses his staff for some ideas about what to do for the last part of the harbor area. I believe they discussing the ending of Shenmue I (one of the developer's also mentions boarding the boat). Fascinating to see an important part of the game being worked out.


Was thinking about this scene, my guess is that when they decided to split the game into two, they didn't have a satisfying ending for the first part. Maybe the boat chapter and fight with Chai was devised at this point? And then maybe they cut it later due to time/budget/disc constraints and settled for the little fight in the harbour (it does seem a bit out of place)?

EDIT: Lending support to the late addition of the boat chapter is the fact that it's not one of the 11 pieces of chapter concept art (Chapter 2 went straight to Hong Kong). My guess is the shifting of the Shenhua chapter to earlier in the story happened early on as a lot of the first preview images were Ryo with Shenhua in Guilin, but we've never seen in-game footage of the train chapter, only a few seconds of pre-rendered CG on the Project Berkley disc.


At some point of the production, Shenmue I was planned with 2 out of the 16 chapters. I read it from the Yu's bio.

So the boat chapter was supposed to be the true ending of Shenmue I.

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