It's Shenmue 3. That's good enough for me by miles.

I keep telling myself everyday... whats the catch? i mean, shenmue 3 existing.. like... this is too good to be true.....

Dear all,

My name is Rob Scharr, and I am one of the Kickstarter sponsors joining with Yu Suzuki and Shibuya productions this weekend here in Monaco. It was also a great pleasure to meet Peter and a few others from Shenmue Dojo last night. I hope to fully become a part of this community going forward and hope to speak with as many of the other Shenmue supporters as possible.

I studied Japanese for six years and Chinese for three years, but I am a political scientist by trade, and I will have earned my PhD in that field after a few more months. As wild and wacky as the political situation in my home country- the United States- has become, I will have plenty of reasons to do my best in this field going forward. But a prominent US political figure said something a few years ago that stuck with me. He said, "People don't succeed because they are smart, or wealthy. They succeed because they have passion for what they do. Passion is what really makes all the difference." And as soon as he said this, the first thing that came to my mind was Yu-Suzuki and Shenmue, and I hoped that someday, I could translate my latent passion for Shenmue into results.

I should come clean about one thing. With only a handful of sporadic exceptions, I have not gotten deeply involved in gaming for the past 15 years, and therefore I probably know much less about the ins and outs of the Shenmue universe- and gaming in general- than just about anyone in this community. In fact Shenmue I was one of the very last games that I delved into on any meaningful level, and for reasons I will go into another time, the game changed my life. A couple years after that, my college gaming friends all went their separate ways and I for the most part lost the community with whom I had shared then Shenmue experience in 1999/2000. I was also deeply demoralized by the way Sony and the gaming press dispatched the Dreamcast simply by lying about how much more powerful the PS2 was supposed to be; all Sony had to do was say "55 million polygons per second," and all of the third-party developers flocked to the PS2 like stupid sheep. I was furious at Sony for years, and since Sony had basically remade the entire gaming industry in their own image and I frankly wanted no part of it. Given how much Sony is doing to support Shenmue now, I don't quite hold a grudge against them like I used to, but that's another story. Bottom line, I basically removed myself from the gaming world after the Dreamcast's early demise.

On top of that, Aspect, Sega of Japan's publishing arm, released a book under Yu Suzuki's name that was heavily autobiographical in 2001, entitled "Game Works: Volume I.". Yu Suzuki himself didn't sit down and write the book himself; rather, he was interviewed by a man named Akira Nagae, who in turn compiled a series of interviews with Yu Suzuki with some brief commentary in between. There was never a "Volume II" and I had no idea what plans they had- they might have gone back to Suzuki for more material, or they might have gone to Yuji Naka or someone else at Sega. The book, as it was put together, had a few quirks, the cover was bland as could be, and I might have chosen a different title had it been up to me. From what I can tell, the book sold extremely poorly in Japan, even though it was packed with good information. If Shenmue taught us anything, it is that we cannot necessarily rely on the collective senses of the Japanese gaming masses to know a good thing when they see it, and if the book had have been released in North America and Europe with a few adjustments, I believe it could have easily sold tens of thousands of copies.

With this in mind, shortly after finishing my undergrad in 2002, I translated the entire book into English. Despite Aspect's and my best efforts to find a U.S. publisher, it never happened. At that time, the only gaming-centric publishers (such as Prima) focused only on strategy guides, and mainstream publishers, none of whom knew the first thing about games, all refused to touch it. Efforts took place on-and-off over the years to revive the project, but nothing ever came of it, and after that disappointment, aside from a brief stint teaching Japanese at DigiPen Institute of Technology (which is Nintendo of America's school), my involvement in the gaming industry went back to zero and pretty much stayed there until last year when Shenmue III was announced.

With that announcement, the passion very suddenly began rushing through my veins again, and I made the decision to stretch myself to my financial limits and make the $10,000 contribution on Kickstarter so I would have the chance to thank Yu Suzuki in person. And so here I am in Monaco ready to spend the day with Suzuki-san and my fellow contributors Chao and Amir, both of whom are outstanding people from the UK. Today, I plan to discuss with them what plans they have for voice acting, and I will ask Yu Suzuki- who himself knows much about history, how the end of the Cultural Revolution in China and how the beginning of the economic reform era will manifest itself within Shenmue III's environment. And when the Japanese script for Shenmue III is finalized, we will need people with have not just good language ability, but with a deep and visceral connection to Shenmue in order to do justice to the game's message. Whether I will be one of those people that makes this happen is entirely up to Suzuki-san and his team, but at any rate, I don't feel that we will be well-served if this game's translation is left entirely to contractors with no real connection to Shenmue, as is the case with most games these days.

We all have our own professions, and going forward, I will be the most competent political scientist I can be. But also, going forward, I will go above and beyond whatever is asked of me by Suzuki-san and his team for this game and others that follow; at the end of the day, this isn't about me, but about realizing Yu Suzuki's vision, but I think I speak for all of us when I say that we will do whatever it takes to make this game the kind of success it can be. Even post-release, our work won't be done. It will especially be up to sites like Shenmue Dojo- and in particular, people like Peter, to make sure the press treats Yu-san fairly and also to make sure we pull out all the stops in spreading awareness of (and providing word-of-mouth publicity for) this magnificent endeavor.

Therefore, I hope to become part of this community, even after my long hiatus from the scene.

Thank you.

Rob Scharr

Excellent insight, and thank you for joining Rob! It was awesome to meet you, Chao and Amir last night, one of the many memories from the trip! That and also chatting to you outside the Grimaldi Forum for the first time, waiting on the doors to open!

I hope the day with Suzuki-san goes well, and keep us updated on how it went! I have a sneaking suspicion the next Kickstarter update will be all about your day, but it will be nice to hear from you guys as well, from a personal perspective, how it went. :D

I will be attending TGS 2016 tomorrow and will be looking for anything shenmue related. Will keep you updated if I see anything interesting

Hope you have fun, snoop! Please can you check your private messages if you get a moment? Thanks! :)

Is this week when Tokio's dinner with Yu is helding?

Yep! Looks like Peter made it there okay \:D/

http://i.imgur.com/qy0OaKQ.jpg

I will be attending TGS 2016 tomorrow and will be looking for anything shenmue related. Will keep you updated if I see anything interesting

Hazuki00 wrote: Is this week when Tokio's dinner with Yu is helding? Could it be possible they release a bit of info of the progress?

Yes it is:

https://twitter.com/ShenmueGuru/status/ ... 9996661760

Tokyo game show 2016 was a great experience!

I noticed that this years event was strongly focused on VR and mobile gaming. I checked out all the Sega related stuff which was mostly yakuza based things. The merchandise stand only had badges and marsh mellows like stated earlier in the post. The only way to get badges was from the capsule machines and unfortunately it wasn't my day as you can see from my pictures! Overall great experience it looks like next year will be the year for shenmue.... Maybe

http://imgur.com/HJlLlZd.jpg
http://imgur.com/vFu6JNm.jpg
http://imgur.com/InlQUym.jpg
http://imgur.com/07Utwv6.jpg
http://imgur.com/cz549hk.jpg
http://imgur.com/J39khIT.jpg
http://imgur.com/pTM2iS8.jpg
http://imgur.com/NM8sb1C.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/z4j6bOb.jpg

Sonoshee wrote:

Yu's message:

"We're come to the Great Buddha in Kamakura. The rain stopped with perfect timing".

Not sure if anyone around these forums have mentioned this already. If so, my apologies.

As we all know, some of the Kickstarter rewards include having the backer's face in the game.
It seems to me that, as nice a gesture of appreciation as that may be, we are all worried that it may be immersion-breaking. After all, I certainly don't want to, while walking around 1980's China, everywhere I go seeing the face of a person who funded the game's development, looking completely out of place, or simply to have constant reminders about KS and the game's funding.

Warhorse Studios, the studio developing Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which was also funded through KS, has released a video showing how they are including backers' likenesses within the game and I must say it's brilliant and looks fucking awesome.
Basically, they are turning them into saints painted on the church's walls, and all in keeping with the appropriate art style.

Take a look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZxEqZhqUzY

I sure hope Suzuki and co have seen this video, and are aware of the importance of keeping immersion, and will come up with an equally tasteful way of getting backers' faces in the game and not break its immersion. After all, one of Shenmue's strongest points has always been its immersion.

P.S.: By the way, and getting a bit off topic now, I'm getting so many Shenmue vibes from Kingdom Come. While they're certainly very different games, the amount of attention to detail and to realism, and just its overall ambition, really remind me of Shenmue back then. And, like Shenmue, I get the feeling that it will be a game that people will either love or hate. As for me, if they make sure the game also has good characters and good story and quests (and the animations do need some work still), I'll probably love it, though I remain cautiously optimistic, as I know how such ambitious games often turn out to be a disappointment.
Anyway, there already quite a few developer videos and interviews, but a good taste of the aforementioned attention to detail and to realism can be seen in this video, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlK3MURumeE

Snoopbob2006 wrote:

YakuzaFan should make this their website header.

Great photos Snoop congrats atleast on the Ulala badge!

From Google Translate: "Dining in Yokohama Chinatown. Chinese food is still delicious!"

https://twitter.com/YSNET_Inc/status/776744432628408320

Boom got it Went to TGS with Peter and Adam Sipione. Awesome item

Boom got it :) Went to TGS with Peter and Adam Sipione. Awesome item :) http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160918/19aa15b3bc16a8c2348677f91418c13e.jpg
Nice, how many attempts did it take? With only a 4% chance of a hit, that's an extremely elusive item!
Incredibly.. I got it on my first try. Peter and Adam not so much.. i'll leave them to comment on how many times cause I sure as hell lost count. In the end, its an extremely rare official item that im proud to have joining my collection. :)

Holy shit snoop you went too?! Peter, Adam Sipione and I went on Sunday. What day did you go? Sorry you didnt get the badge. Was super hard to get. All of us got it with varying hit rates.. I was lucky enough to get it on the first try..

Haha yeah I was there on Saturday tried to get the badge but at 200 yen a try and I couldn't afford too many attempts! I didn't realise you were in Tokyo how long are you here for? Hit me up if you want to hang out I'm free on Wednesday.
Tough break.
I'm already back home down south in Fukuoka.
Peter will be there until tomorrow I think though so you should contact him.

Holy shit snoop you went too?! Peter, Adam Sipione and I went on Sunday. What day did you go? Sorry you didnt get the badge. Was super hard to get. All of us got it with varying hit rates.. I was lucky enough to get it on the first try..

Holy shit snoop you went too?! Peter, Adam Sipione and I went on Sunday. What day did you go? Sorry you didnt get the badge. Was super hard to get. All of us got it with varying hit rates.. I was lucky enough to get it on the first try..

Haha yeah I was there on Saturday tried to get the badge but at 200 yen a try and I couldn't afford too many attempts! I didn't realise you were in Tokyo how long are you here for? Hit me up if you want to hang out I'm free on Wednesday.
Tough break.
I'm already back home down south in Fukuoka.
Peter will be there until tomorrow I think though so you should contact him.

Ahh man I wish I knew you were around! Well if you are ever in Tokyo before the end of January let's hang out! Yeah I got in touch with Peter but unfortunately I think he has been too busy with TGS and interviews to meet up which is understandable.

Holy shit snoop you went too?! Peter, Adam Sipione and I went on Sunday. What day did you go? Sorry you didnt get the badge. Was super hard to get. All of us got it with varying hit rates.. I was lucky enough to get it on the first try..

Haha yeah I was there on Saturday tried to get the badge but at 200 yen a try and I couldn't afford too many attempts! I didn't realise you were in Tokyo how long are you here for? Hit me up if you want to hang out I'm free on Wednesday.

Holy shit snoop you went too?! Peter, Adam Sipione and I went on Sunday. What day did you go? Sorry you didnt get the badge. Was super hard to get. All of us got it with varying hit rates.. I was lucky enough to get it on the first try..

Ehm... sorry to bother, but by any chance did Adam Sipione give you any news on his upcoming documentary "A Gamer's Journey: ..."? I'm dying for news about it =P~

Holy fuck, this is an old thread. Is hannamarin an advertising bot?

Anyway, I guess I'll share something to try to help bring this old thread back to life. I was diagnosed with dysthymia (I guess now it is called persistent depressive disorder?) in 2013. Apparently I had this shit since I was about 12 years old. I only saw a psychiatrist because I became alcoholic as fuck and basically my job forced me to go see a psychiatrist. Psychiatrist also thought I possibly had social anxiety and ADD but he didn't give me an official diagnoses since he figured it all came from the long-term depression. Basically no matter what I did in life, I was never happy. Like people would tell me I did great things but I always thought I could do better and felt shit about it. I could go into further detail, but it was typical for anyone who has depression; negative thoughts about oneself and lack of motivation. Social life was pretty much nonexistent due to low self esteem and social anxiety. There was one point where I was seriously suicidal. I decided to reject treatment for a few months and things went seriously south. Thankfully I seriously studied why one would be suicidal and managed to convince myself that suicide is always irrational for a physically healthy person.

After about 3 years in therapy, I feel that I am fairly cured. Social anxiety is completely gone but no idea to tell if the depression is gone without more time. Psychiatrist tells me my lack of social anxiety is a coping mechanism for something negative that happened to me a few years ago, but I don't think that is true.

http://i.imgur.com/74ujtH0.jpg

Was an absolute pleasure finally meeting the Snoopbob after 14 years! Also the awesome translato we have had doing great work for the past 2 years, Switch, for a coffee on my last day in Japan.

It's a shame we didn't have more time, but we will meet again for sure!

Holy shit snoop you went too?! Peter, Adam Sipione and I went on Sunday. What day did you go? Sorry you didnt get the badge. Was super hard to get. All of us got it with varying hit rates.. I was lucky enough to get it on the first try..

Ehm... sorry to bother, but by any chance did Adam Sipione give you any news on his upcoming documentary "A Gamer's Journey: ..."? I'm dying for news about it =P~
Part of the reason I was with him was helping him work on the doc. It's gonna be good ;)

Speak of the "devil" :-o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qicL0eRghfs

Peter, who was the man at your left over the dinner?

His name is Hari-san. He is an executive producer on Shenmue 3

Looks like it was great fun, seems strange that we used to pray that there would be anything Shenmue related at every TGS and now it's a reality.

I am diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, and it absolutely sucks. I know that depending on who you ask, OCD is classified as either a biological or mental disorder, but it's controversial if the cause of it is genetic or from some sort of brain damage from something like TBI or a infection and simply an offset of something else. It is nothing like what the media or people think it is, essentially it's intrusive thoughts they keep repeating themselves repetitively that somethings wrong when there's nothing wrong, and creates doubt about well..everything. Fortunately, I have had it under control for quite some time now, but lack of sleep definitely will trigger it. Also have anxiety =/

My father had bipolar disorder and killed himself when I was 17, so that does run in the family as well unfortunately.

12th October

$6,650,332 --> $6,650,399 (+$67)

72,914 backers --> 72,915 (+1)
13th October

$6,650,399 --> $6,650,662 (+$263)

72,915 backers --> 72,917 (+2) (Avg. $131.50)
14th October

$6,650,662 --> $6,650,764 (+$102)

72,917 backers --> 72,918 (+1)
17th October

$6,651,609 (+$845)

72,926 Backers (+8)

Damn, nearly $1000 over the weekend alone.

I think that's also referring to press conference/press event demos (most of which consumers never get to see live), which are prevalent in the traditional AAA press cycle. In order to impress the media those sections of the game are focused on and polished heavily, detracting from other elements of development.

Shenmue III isn't in the same position at all, the backer demo will likely be the first time anybody gets a really close look at the game, and a good chance to provide development feedback.

https://s10.postimg.cc/6uozm06q1/IMG_20161014_130755_775.jpg

French fan site Shenmue Master has published its new interview with Shenmue III co-producer Cédric Biscay, which can be read in English at this link .

Cédric speaks of his role in the revival of the series, and again stresses the importance of Sega releasing new versions of Shenmue 1 & 2 on modern systems.

The campaign to #SaveShenmueHD in time for Shenmue III continues every 3rd of the month with the traditional Tweetathon. You can pre-load a message for automatic participation on the day at TeamYu.net/HD

His next video should be recorded using Reshade (SSAO, GI, DOF, Lens flare, bloom) when do it right it gives the game a new dimension, almost like playing a remaster.

I've been mession around with it an the Screen Space ambient occlusion alone makes the game 100% more beautiful.

Notice the contact soft shadows that Ryo ( and everything actually) casts to the environment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwX51lRH2Xs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-EfHPrI0o

With Halloween upon us, it is time to get into the spirit, so…

http://i.imgur.com/h5bmhPF.jpg

And yes, that is a Kenji Miyawaki original!

But one person who will not be going out to do trick-or-treat this year is this man.

http://i.imgur.com/MTKJBnJ.jpg

Yu-san has been hard at work to bring us the biggest treat of all, and now he has begun the momentous undertaking that is the signed rewards! Everyday Yu-san has been putting his signature to the Kenji Miyawaki illustrations, and thanks to your gracious and sincerely appreciated support, the number of illustrations to be signed is reaching the 5,000 mark!

Maybe next year Yu-san will be able to go trick-or-treating in his Ryo costume…

From all of us of us here, Happy Halloween!

I love the halloween art! So cute

I may have to print that out for a poster since the HD version was released.

Thanks for the update!!

I can only imagine the emotions Suzuki-san is going through signing everything for his fans. <3

I love the halloween art! So cute :)


Truly? Personally, from the start of the campaign I've wondered about the reason of this juvenile and, for the lack of a better word, corny theme, along with its corny fonts and over-enthusiastic, marketing-like exclamations.

As an appreciator of the overall imagery of Shenmue, from character and environment design to the cinematography, and also its immersive and enthralling atmosphere, I gotta say overly "cute", gleeful and jolly manifestations and exclamation points aren't really things I relate with the whole aesthetics and, more importantly, concepts of the series. It doesn't reminisce capsule toys and, for all of its quirky characters, this goofiness of sorts seems ill-placed in the world described in the original writing. As a crowdfunding project, I would say it detracts a lot more new fans than otherwise.

Trusting in Yu Suzuki, I'm confident this pertains exclusively to the campaign team's design and visual culture ineptitude and that it won't somehow seep through to the actual game.

Hopefully they finally start putting out the screens at a decent quality. Have we had *any* 1080P screens since the reveal?

As most of you have already said, I think we'll have a re-reveal trailer at psx, based on several tweets of Cedric. And about magic 17, they sure that will show some screens or a short video, after all, shenmue is the big project of shibuya, how couldn't be there?

That'd be cool!

A live demo would work better at MAGIC than somewhere like PSX. The audience at PSX would be wondering why nobody has been shot within the first minute of gameplay.

Maybe even a live demo of the demo.

Screens and hopefully details about the backer demo, if we haven't heard about it already by then.

We could have Shenmue 3 at both PSX and Magic. That's my hope at least!

However, I don't think Yu Suzuki will attend the Magic next Year.
(In part because of this tweet: https://twitter.com/cedricbiscay/status/775385801677045760)

Let's assume Shenmue 3 WILL be at the Magic. What can we expect?
Just new screenshots, or maybe a teaser showing the new characters models (if not revealed earlier)?

What LGS said.

Cedric doesn't seem to know exactly what will be at MAGIC '17 in terms of Shenmue III just yet. If it was the re-reveal I don't think he'd give that answer; because Shenmue III is a guaranteed ticket-seller and hyping it up as the first proper look at the game would be beneficial to him and MAGIC.

What we know for sure is that there are no plans for a big update before December. That doesn't guarantee a December reveal by any means, but when I asked:

Is it safe to say we may get something big in December, or is there no plan for that either?

His response was:

I am not a spoiler ! ;)

He's playing coy, but given he directly said they have no plans for a big update before December, I don't think he'd dodge my question like that if there was nothing in the pipeline.

Now, as for PSX, it's just educated guesswork that it'll be there based on Yu being in LA the same month, and the obvious Sony connection.

It could appear at The Game Awards (though I doubt it, PSX is a better fan-oriented venue), or just a big Kickstarter update around Christmas, but given what the Japan dinner backers have said about what they saw (and it being old material at that), a big, public re-reveal seems like an imminent inevitability rather than something we're just dreaming about.

So is it possible we won't get the big re-reveal at Playstation Experience in Decemer and have to wait until Magic Monaco '17 in Feburary?

Nice to know something Shenmue will be at MAGIC next year.

And it's all 'bout Shenmue :D

https://medium.com/@ShenmueForever/interview-de-c%C3%A9dric-biscay-novembre-2016-92caf44a4da8#.p9l8r21xa

SF — Will the fans once again be in for some surprises about Shenmue 3 at the next MAGIC?

CB —We have been working on this but I don’t know yet which form it will take exactly.


SF — We know that this has been asked to you on a regular basis, but will the PC version eventually be available as a reward in the PayPal Slacker Backer campaign?

CB —It’s planned, yes, but as I have been saying for months, I’m aware that time seems long on this matter.

I miss seeing random thoughts. Did that thread get deleted?