Rikitatsu wrote: Peter wrote: Hazuki00 wrote: Three weeks still to the gamescom, it looks like a never end! Sometimes it seems like a dream that we are going to see Shenmue 3, I never lost faith but It was almost impossible for me and now we are only three weeks to see it properly!
How will look like Shenhua, Ryo and the "old" characters?
How will it be to play with the new free battle mode after Suzuki's new ideas?
How big will be the game compared to Shenmue 2?
Will the NPCs have their own daily routines as they had in previous games?
How will look like the NPCs?
I have tons of questions!
I have most of these questions covered, in one way or another. But if you have tonnes, by all means say. Anyone can think of any questions they can think of then knock yourselves out. But think about them from the point of view of them being questions he can answer. There's no point asking him, "uuhh, when's the rewards going out?". Those are Awesome Japan's & Fangamers responsibility.
If I may... Can you ask him how long the game is planned to be, compared to the two previous games?
I really liked how lengthy the S2 was, and I'm hoping since S3 also takes place in three locations, we would spend considerable amount of time in each of these locations, enough to get familiar with all of them.
Also, are there plans to get in contact with Ren, Lan Di, and Joy's English Voice actors to reprise their roles in Shenmue 3? Last I heard they were eager to get on the project, but they've yet to hear from YsNET.
The first one I am working on, but it's a bit harder to try and word it than I imagined. He has already kind of answered that question in the Nico Nico interview in 2015, where he said that each experience is different for each player due to their age, playstyle, attention span etc. It could take someone 20 hours to complete the game, where as it could take someone 60 hours. The context of the question though was the fact that games in general are now played by all age groups, and that he creates his games to tailor the player in terms of difficulty (QTEs getting easier after numerous failed attempts for example).
But when asking a question like that, it leads to a bunch of specific questions like, as you say, the areas. How big is Baisha for example, can then correlate into how long it takes to complete etc. From experience, you do need to really nail down a question juuuust right, to really get the best answer from him. This is also with the language barrier, as the conversation doesn't flow as normal. For example, if you talk to someone about a topic, a specific details may come up where you immediately ask, and then you go off on tangents. Because of the translation between languages, it's very much stop/start, with no real method of natural conversation flow. So you have to get the question
bang on, otherwise you waste time dwindling on something which could be useless info. The interviews are usually between 15-30 minutes depending, and you would be surprised how quickly it flies by.
The second part is easy. Firstly, they won't cast or record until the game is essentially finished. Around the 90% complete mark is when the voice acting is done. Eric went through it in Japan for us, and also told us about how fully complete cutscenes were there to be watched, in order for the cast to get into character, and have a sense of what exactly is going on in each scene. What's the context of the voicework, and what emotions should be portrayed at that time.
Also, I talked at the dinner with the executive producer about the original cast (to put a good word in for Eric, as I had promised him over a few pints the night before), and he said that they will be trying to contact them, but, with time and age affecting, well, everyone, their voices will still need to match the character. There are also some of the original cast who have gone completely off the radar too. One in particular, only ever did Shenmue as a professional voice artist, and since then, her whereabouts are unknown. He suspected she just had a family and chose a different career path away from voice acting.
To be honest, at this stage of production, it's a bit of a wasted question since I already know the response would be, "we will be contacting artists in the future", or words to that effect.
Just to add, I have about 20 questions already(that will be cut down once I've decided what's most important), which make up a sort of pathway through the interview. A beginning, middle and end. They would cover all the usual questions people ask. But Yu-san loves technical questions, that's his forte. Anything along those lines are great, although I am not a technical person. Questions that are a bit outside the box are always better than, "hey so will Ryo look like Ryo in the game?"