Osamu Murata, ex-sound creator of Shenmue, recently started Tweeting about how he feels towards Shenmue Town being announced as a mobile title for hand held platforms. Murata didn’t hold back in stating that this would result in a huge drop in quality and that that is something Yu Suzuki, Shenmue’s original game designer, would never have wanted for the franchise. In fact, Murata makes it very clear that Suzuki would have preferred for the franchise to have seen the light of day on the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.
“I have complicated feelings about Shenmue appearing on Yahoo! Mobage,” Tweeted Murata. “I actually worked on Shenmue, working quite a bit with Yu. However, Yahoo! Mobage is being started up by a friend of mine.
“What makes this complicated for me is that Yu has lowered the quality. Shenmue above all else required top quality. There was no compromise for quality in Shenmue, and if there was compromise, Yu would get extremely angry as us.”
“When I think about the the current state of Sega and Yu that required Shenmue to become a light game, I have complicated feelings,” he added. “I’m certain that he wanted to release Shenmue on PS3 or Xbox. This is definitely not how Yu feels about Shenmue. The sound of the bikes, the sound of glass, the facial motion of kids, how the flags were made to stand, the walking motion, the running motion, the pursuit of beauty for the female characters. He worked so hard even if he would collapse or get sick.”
It’s actually hard to read all of this and not feel frustrated about the direction this series is heading. What is still considered to be one of the greatest franchises ever released is going to be lowered to nothing more than a mobile installment that does not do the series justice whatsoever. Knowing that this game should have seen the light of day on a next-generation platform only makes matters worse.
I’m sure fans of the series are going to feel as though they’ve been betrayed as their loyalty and long winded cries for a proper sequel have obviously fallen on deaf ears. We’ll see where this goes from here and hopefully one day, another Shenmue sees a console release.
At this point I want to see the series novelized so I can just read the story. That’s why it was so good in the first place anyway.
*cries out for a hero*
It’s still insane how well the graphics of the first Shenmue hold up today.
When I was at work I pulled up the site on my break and saw Ryo Hazuki and I almost started hyperventilating. I nervously clicked on the article and thought of a thousand different scenarios as to what it might be about as it loaded. Then, to my dismay, I hear it’s some stupid mobile game. Maybe this is their way of getting more money to fund a proper Shenmue III but come on, at least do it by putting it on PSN and XBL instead of mobile.