A new developer diary for Shenmue III has been published by Ys.net, focusing on the music of the Shenmue series. The interview clips with Yu Suzuki were recorded in August, but provide insight into Suzuki’s mind with regards to music philosophy in games and in Shenmue III in particular.

The topics covered include: the types of music that Suzuki likes, the variety of roles he has taken on in video game music composition in the past, and his current focus in music composition. Suzuki says that his primary role is establishing a concept or thematic direction for music, and notes that since Shenmue III takes place in China, he is aiming to capture the atmosphere of China in 1987. Suzuki also expresses fondness for the erhu.

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It might seem like it’s been a while since we’ve seen an official update from the Shenmue III team. Recently, an interview with Keiji Okayasu was released by the team, announcing his new role as sub-director for Shenmue III’s development. While Keiji Okayasu works for studiofake (established towards the end of Shenmue II’s development), and Yu Suzuki still maintains his position as main director over Shenmue III, Suzuki approached Okayasu to assist in Shenmue III’s development as he has done in the past.

This interview offers insight into Okayasu’s involvement with the Shenmue games (previously a member of SEGA’s storied AM2 team,) including his past difficulty in understanding Suzuki’s creative vision. Additionally, he speaks about his journey to understand what he believes to make Suzuki an avant-garde developer, which is in part tied to Suzuki’s insistence on considering the vantage point of those who aren’t “hardcore gamers.” Now that Okayasu is part of the team, he is particularly striving to maintain the Shenmue series’ strong sense of atmosphere.

We’ve attached below the five-minute Okayasu interview by way of ShenmueDojo, a Shenmue community resource. Be sure to watch it! Spliced throughout the video are some quick glances at the development room. The interview is accompanied by a rather nice piano arrangement of the main Shenmue theme…

While the Kickstarter for Shenmue III is concluded and development is underway, YsNet is still accepting additional financial contributions to assist with the development of Shenmue III. Titled the Slacker Backer Campaign, contributions here will be added to the Kickstarter total accumulated this past summer and will be collected via PayPal.

A nice feature of this campaign is that there are preorder bonuses attached to this campaign (albeit not exactly all of the same ones as before.) If for example you missed out on preordering a physical copy at $60, that’s an option here. There are English and Japanese campaign links for those who are interested. As of this article’s writing, there are exactly 100 days left to contribute. The backer count (from the time of the Kickstarter to now) is inches away from 70,000. Many Stretch Goals from before still exist, but it’s most likely that YsNet will only develop features as they track with expected donation levels, so if you’re looking for more interesting features from Shenmue III you know what to do.

There is also a new FAQ section at the bottom of the Slacker Backer pages that may offer some notes for your interest.

Additionally, I’d like to take a moment to ask our readers to consider supporting the remastering of previous Shenmue titles on avenues such as gaming forums and social media. While Shenmue III will feature some materials that can help newcomers more readily immerse themselves into the franchise, playing the first two games directly is an incomparable experience. And isn’t it desirable to spread the chance to play the games in the Shenmue franchise, at least to try them out, with as many people as possible? Shenmue is a property that Yu Suzuki, the parties involved in development (for all games,) the fans, and Sega can be proud of.