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Comment by corysama | Hacker News Reader

A lot of people hated the forklift segment. “Why am I coming home from my job to relax by doing another job?” was a common refrain.

The article is a stretch, but is is downright mundane compared to the explanations of game designs I’ve heard straight from the mouth of Japan’s rockstar designers who made them. They enjoy wearing sunglasses and black leather jackets and getting extremely abstract about game design.

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That was the problem. The game's lead, Yu Suzuki, was not primarily a game designer. He was known to push ahead games with revolutionary graphics, see Space Harrier and Virtua Fighter. But he was nowhere near as good at game design as Miyamoto or Naka.

I loved Shenmue for the immersive experience which was unchallenged at the time. It was the first of its kind, and for a long time no other open world game paid as much attention to detail. But its traditional gameplay mechanics were weak.

AFAIK he also invented the quick time event in that game -- the scourge of 'interactive movie' games ever since.

I think the design is pretty great, we have a virtual fighter combat system with training, (and many hardcore fighter game fans appreciate Virtua fighters mechanics) we have an arcade with actual games from the era, we have a gacha system. But the point wasn't to make an arcade, the point was to create something like a real world where you can walk around and explore. It's not about dopamine hits.

I think one famous mechanic besides 3d fighters that Yu made, was the arcade that has a vehicle you ride on.

Well the forklift part only happens for a very short window, so it sounds like those people didn't really play through it. The point was Ryo needed to raise money after a thing happens.

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