Q: There are a lot of game players who enjoy battles. What sort of battles can we expect in Shenmue 3?
Yu Suzuki: The battles in Shenmue 3... will differ a bit from those in Virtua Fighter. Rather than tactics, they will be about employing strategy.
For example, positional advantage - making use of the terrain to charge inside or carry out an assault on the enemy. This time I would like to make battles in which this kind of strategy can be employed. Having things break or fall over when knocked into is something many games are now doing. So just doing that is not very exciting. However having one object knocking over another, which knocks over another and so on in a chain reaction - I think that will be fun. Also there will be a system that allows the enemy to discover you. If you are discovered by the enemy, they will chase after you. So if for example 5 enemies see you, then those 5 enemies will keep chasing you.
And so... for example in places like alleyways, if you are familiar with your surroundings then you can purposely draw them over to where you want and overcome them that way. I think it will be fun doing that kind of thing. So to sum up, the environment will play a key role in the Shenmue 3 free battle.
Q: So it will be important to make use of geographical knowledge in battles?
Yu Suzuki: Yes. Also in Shenmue 1 and 2 the martial arts seen are primarily of the style from the northern region of China. Martial arts from the north tend to involve much larger movements and use showy actions like jumping kicks. With Shenmue 3, I'd like to incorporate some martial arts from the south. With southern martial arts, the actions take place right up close.
So in Shenmue 3 I would like to show martial arts that can be used to fight in confined areas. There was already a lot of martial arts in the first episodes but I think everybody is looking forward to finding out the new ones. I think so.
But for Shenmue 3 I'd like to make fighting possible in confined places. Places like in corridors, or on stairs... In fact, people like us who are used to using specific battle approaches in Shenmue 1 & 2 will have to relearn quite a lot. I think so. There will be quite a lot of changes.
Shenmue is more of a story-oriented, cinematic-style game whereas Virtua Fighter is a game that is specialized for exchanging blows. How can I put it... The movements are much faster than for normal human beings. So it's a bit too fast to be realistic. It's a fun game, but from the point of view of realism it's somewhat unnatural. I'd like to make the movements a little slower, closer to those of real fights.