In a tiny Gamescom booth, in the business area separated from the hustle and bustle of the Koelnmesse chaos, NEKCOM founder Xiangyu Luo and I may have become BFFs.
With a translator converting my questions into Mandarin, I’m not sure how much he understood – but his eyes lit up when I made a reference to Shenmue, my all-time favourite franchise.
“[Series creator] Yu Suzuki is a genius,” he says. “When I went to Tokyo I visited him. I really respect his work.”
I suspected the upcoming Chinese action RPG Showa American Story may be inspired by the groundbreaking Dreamcast series when I saw its latest trailer.
Minigames include a shooter clearly inspired by Space Harrier and an OutRun-style racing game – both originally designed and directed by Suzuki in the 80s, of course.
This is a bizarre PS5 console exclusive, and quite unlike the deluge of gothic Soulslikes coming out of China right now.
It’s inspired by a rumour that circulated in the 80s, during the Japanese economic boom. Chinese whispers warned that Japan had enough money to buy the United States, and so Showa American Story asks: what if?
In my demo, Hollywood is Neo Yokohama and Japanese immigrants have formed gangs based on the Walter Hill movie The Warriors.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.pushsquare.com/previews/forget-the-soulslikes-this-bizarre-new-ps5-game-is-channelling-shenmue-instead
