Shenmue City Was Creator's Secret Plan to Finish Saga

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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Shenmue City Was Creator's Secret Plan to Finish Saga



The Shenmue saga will be completed someday, if enough people play the Shenmue social game.

Yu Suzuki has been one of Sega's secret weapons over the years, producing titles such as Shenmue [http://www.amazon.com/Virtua-Fighter-5-Xbox-360/dp/B000PIPUN4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290003102&sr=8-1] for the company. The latter was a cult-favorite RPG series that never concluded, but Suzuki recently confirmed that if social game Shenmue City becomes popular, the end of Shenmue's story will be told.

Shenmue saw two games released and ended on a major cliffhanger. The saga follows Ryo Hazuki on a quest to get revenge for his father's murder, which occurs in the midst of a larger plot involving mystical objects. The games are free-roaming RPGs with detailed worlds to explore and plenty of NPCs to have many a conversation with. Though Shenmue III has been announced and cancelled multiple times, Sega appears to have no plans to bring it back just yet.

Suzuki revealed that Shenmue City, a social game releasing in Japan, came about when he saw the popularity of Mafia Wars. His idea was to make Shenmue a success through a new game type, and then continue the story if Shenmue City took off. Because Shenmue III has been requested by "tens of thousands" of people according to Suzuki, Shenmue City is his way of attempting to honor their requests.

Suzuki says that he "can't make any promises at present," but "if Shenmue City is loved by users" he will tell the Shenmue story that already exists and takes place after Shenmue II. This may take the form of updates to Shenmue City, but other Shenmue projects were also hinted at. "If service continues, I believe we'll be able to share [the rest of the story] at some point in some form," Suzuki added.

Suzuki also said that Shenmue would probably require more than a single game for its story to be finished, with 11 total chapters already written out. Shenmue II ended with the series' fifth chapter. While Shenmue City may not have been what Shenmue fans were looking for from the series, at least now there's the possibility of the rest of the game's story being told someday, and of Ryo getting his revenge. If Sega really wants to do it right though, at this point it'll have to re-release the first two games so that people can know what's going on.

Source: Andriasang [http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/11/16/yu_suzuki_famitsu_interview/]


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.Warheart

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May 1, 2009
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Refreshing news. I never thought the Shenmue saga would finally get it's closure.

I absolutely loved Shenmue when I was young, back in the Dreamcast days.
 

AboveUp

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May 21, 2008
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1) Create a two part epic, promising a conclusion in the third part.

2) Release the second part on a future generation console and state that the third part is still coming.

3) Include main character in weird party games, and state that the third part might still come

4) Make an unrelated game, and state that the third part is still possible

5) Keep doing this until you've made your entire fanbase completely depressed and alienated.
 

zidine100

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Mar 19, 2009
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I love blackmail in video games, buy our other game or we wont finish the series.

what next buy our game or a cute little animal dies.

who wants to bet that theve already started work on it.
 

Diligent

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Dec 20, 2009
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I had a blast playing it back in the day on the Dreamcast, and the ending was epic and had me wanting more. However, it's been 12 years since Shenmue was released. OVER A DECADE. It's hard to believe that if a conclusion to the story was already out there, they wouldn't have found a way to make money off of it by now.
The fact of the matter is, I no longer give a shit.
 

AzrealMaximillion

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Jan 20, 2010
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I hate when developers play the,"if this game sells THEN i'll make what people actually want".

He should be negotiating with Sega to maybe get the rights to it so he can move to a different company and finish thie series. Hell, tell Sega to make a Sony style HD remake 2-pack out of the games and market them as, "the games that inspired Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain".
 

Oly J

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Nov 9, 2009
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Shenmue was back then, and is to this day my favorite game...for sentimental reasons, but even so I absolutely loved it, the gameplay the storyline the realism everything, I didn't even mind that they didn't use English voices in the original Shenmue II though I did later buy the Xbox version, and the fact that there is still hope for the ending to come out, is just awesome for me, Shenmue upon it's release got nowhere near the exposure it deserved, if more people played it Shenmue III would have been released around 2005 probably. I have several times thought of e-mailing Yahtzee pleading him to make a mock-review of Shenmue III in the style of his Duke Nukem forever review, in the hopes it would get similar results. But I know that to be futile lol but anyway I don't care how they get the money to bring out a third one, I just want to see the series get the continuation and ending it deserves
 

deathyepl

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May 9, 2008
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The big thing >I< want to know is this - does Shenmue City have any sailors? Does it know where I might find some sailors? Do YOU know where there are any sailors? Maybe your mum knows, would you check with her?
 

Low Key

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May 7, 2009
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byang034 said:
Yeah, they have to re release the two games and sell it with Shenmue 3.
You created an account just to say this? Just goes to show how popular the series was and that they need to quit this BS'ing around. Shenmue deserves an ending.
 

Zer_

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Feb 7, 2008
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zidine100 said:
I love blackmail in video games, buy our other game or we wont finish the series.

what next buy our game or a cute little animal dies.

who wants to bet that theve already started work on it.
In this case I'm totally for it. Shenmue was such a unique title. At the time, it as the highest budget game ever... It kept that title for a long time as well.