Sorry to bump this, but I wanted to share a concept art screen I made based on these sprites, because I really liked them. Hope you don't mind.
http://mooncalfstudios.com/images/shenmue%20adventure.jpg
I'd love to see this happen. Imagine if 1 & 2 were remade with this style of gameplay, but with Streets of Rage style battle gameplay mixed with this old school point & click adventure. Shenmue 3 could be made on a budget of something insanely small, if it too followed this style. I doubt Yu would get behind the idea, but it's nice to dream.