>>718531425
The game was extremely rushed, and they split development of the sequel into two teams: SH3 and SH4 making them at the same time. Sh3 was mostly the SH2 team while SH4 was mostly new people which is why they play and look so different.
Given the time frame of 18 months they did an excellent job making something cohernet.
But if you pay attention to the narrative and story, it's a mess, with characters popping around and teleporitng.
It's long suspected that the original story draft was too dramatic for Konami and they reworked it into a the sequel story we got.
I think the original draft is a teenage pregnant girl running away, who doesn't have any connection to Harry Mason.