E3 Lineup Preparations

If they tossed out a nuclear weapon like Virtua Fighter 3 too, then at this first E3, Sega would steal far too much of the spotlight.

Business was business. You had to leave your friendly competitors a sip of soup, or who would play with you in the future?

After leaving Yu Suzuki's development team, Nakayama Takuya turned into the cubicles of the First Development Department.

The atmosphere here was noticeably more relaxed, and there was even a faint scent of oolong tea drifting in the air.

Koji Oba was gesturing at a wireframe model on the screen. When he saw the managing director come in, he did not bother with empty formalities like standing up and saluting. He simply kicked a chair under Takuya's backside.

"Is this Joe Musashi's new design?" Takuya pointed at the screen.

"Not entirely. We're trying to move Shinobi's whole setup into a new perspective relationship." Koji Oba pressed a few keys, and the image on the screen began to rotate. It was not the kind of flashy full-3D spin meant to show off technical skill, but was locked at a subtle angle—an oblique forty-five degrees.

This was the so-called "2.5D."

"Interesting." Nakayama Takuya leaned in for a look. "But this thing has a fatal flaw. When the player jumps, they never know where they're going to land. It's very easy to create that frustration of 'I clearly jumped across, so why did I fall into the pit?'"

"That's why we added a highlighted ring of light under the protagonist's feet—in other words, a shadow." Koji Oba pointed at that inconspicuous little black dot. "And we set different brightness levels for ground at different heights, so players can more easily find, at the first moment, the ground that's at the same height as they are."