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A presentation for the new social game Shenmue City was held on Monday in Akihabara, finally showing the public exactly what this new chapter in the series will look like. A few details were also confirmed regarding the nature of this game, while the release date remains unknown.
Among the guests at the presentation, which included former Sega mascot Segata Sanshiro, was creator of the original Shenmuegames, Yu Suzuki. He spoke to the crowd and answered a few questions for Famitsu about the new game as well as the future of the series.
As previously reported, players will not be controlling former protagonist Ryo this time around. Instead, players will chose from the townspeople of Yokosuka, the setting of the original game. That's also where this game will begin, although it was revealed that future updates will allow players to travel to Hong Kong as Ryo did in Shenmue II. There will be a combat system for players to battle one another (as well as "bosses") with characters falling into one of three groups: fighters who use kung fu, fighters who use weapons, and magic users.
Shenmue City will not be for any home console. It will be playable on Japanese mobile phones as well as a new Yahoo online gaming portal. As you can see from the screenshot on the right, while the game makes use of images familiar to fans, the display has been optimized for smaller devices.
Given the popularity of Shenmue among gamers, it was inevitable that the subject of a "Shenmue 3" would come up. Yu Suzuki responded thusly: "I feel like I want to make '3' on par with the previous games, and there are many requests from the fans for it. Tens of thousands have petitioned for it, and I want to take charge of this series as best I can."
However, he said he "wanted to try and make a social game," something he noted didn't even exist as we know it when Shenmue first came out.
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