Yu Suzuki’s achievements in the game industry are nearly second to none. Suzuki had his hand in a number of arcade and Sega classics throughout the ’80s and ’90s that revolutionized arcades with Hang-On, Out Run, After Burner, and Virtua Fighter to name a few.
Today Suzuki isn’t known best for his classic titles, but for the cinematic Dreamcast title Shenmue. A game unparalleled in detail at the time of release, Shenmue was toted as being the future of gaming due to its captivating story, detailed visuals, and sheer amount of things to do.
We know what happened to the Shenmue story after the first game. The second part was only released on the Xbox in North America, and the third part just sort of disappeared until this year. Shenmue 3 was Kickstarted and is currently in development for a 2017 release.
We may be two years from the release of Shenmue 3, but we’re over 15 years away from when this documentary was made. And if you’re a fan, you need to give it a watch.
Fansite Shenmue Dojo has subtitled the Making of Shenmue documentary, previously only available in Japanese and aired on the NHK channel in the late ’90s. The documentary crew followed Yu Suzuki and the game’s development for six months because of how revolutionary Shenmue was meant to be, and in many ways turned out to be.
If you’re a fan, give it a watch. The folks at Shenmue Dojo have done an amazing job giving this hidden gem subtitles and it is more than worth the watch if you love Shenmue, Yu Suzuki, or if you’re just one of those weird Sega kids.
