By bbayle – Posted on 07 Oct 2022 at 09:00
Yu Suzuki is one of the big names in Japanese video games, on the one hand for his influence at Sega, and on the other hand for the Shenmue series.
When we think of SEGA, we immediately imagine this famous blue hedgehog, which is about to make its big comeback in the open world in Sonic Frontiers. But it would be simplistic to consider the Japanese firm under the simple prism of this famous mascot. A certain Yu Suzuki also represents all the craziest aspirations and creations of the company during the 80s, 90s and 2000s. Yu Suzuki, to put it simply, is Virtua Fighter, Shenmue, Daytona USA, and many other games that remain among the craziest arcade experiences today. We come back to the history of this video game giant.
The Pope of 3D
Yu Suzuki was born in 1958 in Kamaishi in Iwate prefecture in Japan, and began studying electronics at the scientific university of Okayama. After graduating, he quickly joined a rapidly expanding firm in 1983: SEGA. He was first hired as a programmer and producer: for example, he developed Champion Boxing on SG-1000 the year he was hired. During the 80s, he directed many arcade game projects, such as Space Harrier, Enduro Racer, Super Hang-On, After Burner 1 & 2, Power Drift… But it was in 1993 that he obtained recognition from the community as a whole, with a very ambitious fighting game for the time: Virtual Fighter.
Virtua Fighter is quite simply one of the first games in history to offer real-time 3D (like Virtua Racing released a year earlier, but with less impact). Mortal Kombat will be directly inspired by it a few months later. It’s not Yu Suzuki’s only invention, as in 1999 he released Shenmue, easily considered one of the best Dreamcast games. Shenmue introduces a new mechanic, still used today in many games: Quick Time Events. If they are today much decried because considered by many as a little lazy mechanics, they were quite simply revolutionary for the time. Shenmue gets an incredible critical reception, so much so that the license has become cult over the years. Yu Suzuki announced in 2015 the return of Shenmue with a third episode financed entirely via Kickstarter. This third episode did not receive the expected success, but that in no way tarnishes the reputation of this man who is so influential in video games.
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