The demo wasn't long, and then after it was played, the room fell silent for a long time. No one can believe what they just saw. After a long time, someone finally broke the silence: is this really a picture that can be developed on SS? ”

Yu Suzuki stood up, his confident expression the same as when he promised to pay his salary if he lost money when he was working on "Sleepwalking America" a few years ago. He pressed his hands on the table and replied simply with two words in an unquestioning tone: Yes! ”

A moment later, the room erupted in applause. The development plan for the game was immediately cleared, and no one in the room could have doubted how successful the game would be when the development of the game, which only had one demo, was completed. Because in their eyes, it will become a masterpiece that can compete with giants such as FF and DJ, or even surpass them far away, and truly transcend the times. ”

"So the development plan for Shenmue, which has become synonymous with legend and pathos at the same time, was thus glauded."

Jester couldn't help but admire the courage of Hayao Nakayama at that time, and the ambition of Yu Suzuki, which was definitely not a development decision that an ordinary game development company could make, 70 million dollars in development funds for a game, and it was in the mid-to-late nineties.

It's unbelievable.

In fact, Jester thought about it carefully, the reason why Sega made this decision in the first place, in addition to being moved and shocked by the game that Yu Suzuki depicted for them, may also be to save his own unfavorable situation in the console market.

Because when "Shenmue" first appeared in the Sega high-level meeting, the host of Sega at that time, Saturn, which was also known as SS, was almost at the end of its life.

Square Enix has completely broken with Nintendo and turned to fully support Sony, while Enix, who has always regarded Square Enix as an imaginary enemy. It was also unexpectedly announced at a celebration dinner held by Sony that the DQVII, which was originally predicted by many to be released on SS, would be released on the PS platform.

Almost everyone in the industry knows that the vice president of SCE at that time, Tokuzhong Huijiu, muttered excitedly: "With the guarantee of "DQ", our career is as safe as a rock in the blue sky on our heads." "This flurry of blows. Sega fell into despair, but did not give up the struggle.

What has to be convinced by many people later. For the host Saturn, and even for Sega, "Shenmue" was indeed born in a kind of savior posture at that time.

Although Hideki Okamura, the head of Sega's software affairs department, once bluntly said to the media: "Sega hates RPGs", this does not mean that Sega does not understand what Japan's No. 1 RPG genre means for a Japanese console.

However, Sega's efforts to evolve this ancient genre were a step further when it was making Shenmue, and if successful, it could lead to a new wave of new genres, with immeasurable benefits in all respects.

So Jester can fully understand Sega's confidence and expectations for "Shenmue" at the beginning. Because he is also a game maker, in the minds of the makers, this game is not just an evolution of an RPG, but an iconic memory that will lead the way forward in a new era.

Of course, because the SS function was too much to fulfill Suzuki's ambitions, Shenmue's development plan was postponed to Sega DC.

While working on the draft of the game he was going to make Zuò, Jester recalled the bits and pieces about "Shenmue", and thought of "Shenmue", and he naturally thought of Yu Suzuki, who is still in Sega, of course. Yu Suzuki in this era is completely different from the Yu Suzuki in his memory.

However, the only constant is. Whether it is this world or the Sega in his memory, Yushi Suzuki has always been one of his most admired game makers, and can even be compared to Shigeru Miyamoto, the god of games.

Just like when talking about Nintendo, it is impossible not to talk about Shigeru Miyamoto, and when it comes to Sega, it is impossible not to talk about Yu Suzuki.

As the only character in the Japanese game industry who can be equal to Shigeru Miyamoto, the god of games, as a game producer, Shenmue certainly won't just be a flash of inspiration in his mind. In fact. The idea of "Shenmue" was created from scratch and took a long time. Then refine the idea. And design a corresponding systematic game development template, which has a long period of precipitation as the basis.

Reminiscing about the entire development of Shenmue. and the subsequent development direction of video games, Jester also had to admire Suzuki Yu's long-term vision and ambition at that time, which was really convincing.

In Suzuki's mind, the understanding of the RPG genre is probably ahead of most of the game makers of the same period, and it may be more than a decade ahead.

The ideal RPG in his mind should have a fully interactive background, if there is a world in the game, then this world should have most of the factors in the real world, and most importantly, every thing in this world will change with the change of this world.

This was a very large and crazy idea, and the most direct result was the voice acting of more than 1,000 NPCs seen later in Shenmue 2, and the exaggeration that the drawers in the rooms on each floor could be opened.

To put it simply, then everything in this game is a unit contained in the same bit, and these units have independent movement trajectories, and the trajectories will be affected by the change of bits and then turn back or distort, and the dominant bit changes is the player's progress in the game.

This concept was initially conceptualized by the Sega Ace Development Team AM2, which at the time was known as Project Berkley.

The original object of the plan was based on "VR Warrior" and developed with Crystalline as the protagonist. Later, the concept of this project was further extended and finally realized in the production of Shenmue, which also received an official name - "Full Response Visual Entertainment", which is also the full name of the genre name of the game "Shenmue".

And what is the full English name of all-response visual entertainment?

full-ive-eyes-, the abbreviation of English, is free, which is the same as free English.

That's why it's a game like this, a game of the free world, a free world, in fact, its original meaning is all-response visual entertainment, of course, it's more understandable and more vivid to say free.

The most famous masterpiece of this genre is naturally famous in later generations.

That's GTA.

Of course, the GTA game series appeared before Shenmue, but the GTA before GTA3 was not the same game as the GTA series we played later, and in GTA2, it was just a bird's-eye game.

It can be said that it was precisely because of "Shenmue" that inspired R Star and produced GTA3 that shocked the world at that time.

The concept emerges in a way that transcends the limitations of a game genre, and it can even be said that the result of realism in the game genre has made its significance break through the standards defined by the industry.

It represents not only the genre of Shenmue, but a standard that will influence the entire gaming industry in the years that followed, and a revolutionary totem in the history of game evolution, which was born out of RPGs, but far beyond what RPGs can cover.

From the experiencer's point of view, as the game progresses, the entire game world will be affected by what the gamer does, and this influence will also react on the gamer itself, and this influence also has a large scope and staying power.

From Jester's point of view, it is necessary to build a huge virtual world based on the changes in real life, in Suzuki Yu's own words, that is, "Shenmue" will realize a fully conscious cityscape where residents live and work in the way of reality, the seasons will change, meteorological factors will affect the progress of the game, and players must find ways to make a living in order to survive, and so on.

This qiē was almost unbelievable at the time. If you don't understand what kind of madness this rhetoric represented in those days, you just have to play GTA to get a general idea.

Yes.

Jester now wants to make a game like this.

A free game.

What is in front of him now is not only a blank in the development technology of this kind of game, but also a vision that completely surpasses the entire era for at least ten years, and most importantly, the function of the game console.

On this generation of Dreambox2, such a game is completely impossible to achieve, even if it can be achieved on the next generation of consoles, it is still unknown, however, Jester still wants to try, in fact, this is a very, very big pie.

Draw a pie for all players.

Even Jester believes that as long as he describes the game world he wants to complete in words on the carnival, then the players of this era will tremble, because such a game is something they have never seen or even heard of.

The more I thought about Jester, the more excited I felt.

He felt that he had to talk to the hardware development department, and while Jester knew that it was taboo to suddenly ramp up a console a third of the way through development, it was if he could achieve the 'free' game he wanted to do in the next era.

That's worth it, too. (To be continued) R580