The VMU file of shenmue 2 has the folowing

Header 128 Bytes
VMU Animation 1536 Bytes (3 images of 512 bytes each)
The last 7556 bytes of the file its the real data of the game

The VMU CRC16 its stored in position 0x46 and 0x47, the two bytes have the little indian value of the CRC of the whole file, for CRC calculation those two bytes have their value set to 0


The 7556 bytes of the data have another CRC somewhere, because the game wont load a save whit these bytes modified. I make 3 saves whit the only change its the game time and save time and the changing bytes are 6A6,6AE,6B0,6C0,6C1,6C2,6C3,149C and 14A4

I think the values 6A6 and 6AE its game time and save time
6B0 its the number of save, because the first file have value 1, second have a 2, and the third a 3
6C0,6C1,6C2,6C3 should be a CRC32, for the moment i didnt found what range, i calculated the CRC32 value starting after 6C3 and also the CRC32 of the whole 7552 bytes, but the result its differnt than the one found in the file.

If we found the range of the CRC it could be broken. I will try next to modify bytes at the end and start of the 7552 to found the last from the start and first from the end that can be modified without the game refused to load it

I login here again after many years to just say....yes, its true, i still think i am dreaming. I read the news yesterday moring while i was in the bus goint to work and just when i arrived home in the afternoon i pledged 310$

I want Passport to return. I do not think it cost a lot to have this again. Actually most of Passport content is not truth online content. Most of the content was stored inside the disk. The text with the information of places, people and attacks was not in the disk but should not be a problem to have that data inside the HD game, it is just a few extra KB.

The only Only content will be leaderboards and message of the day, to have it or not wont make any big difference in cost.

The only stuff you'd have to worry about being shut down would be game specific content. In Shenmue passport's case, since none of it is realtime they could theoretically just build some web-based APIs and those would be cheap to maintain since they could be hosted by the same servers that host their other websites.

I don't think we'll get a direct port of Shenmue Passport though. It's just not something that games do nowadays. I would be surprised if some of the features did not return as extras, but I can't see them keeping it as-is for a direct port.

All the features of Shenmue Passport except Leaderboards and Message of the Day are not real online content. The content is stored inside the GD but they make it to require internet connection to promote that Dreamcast was capable to have online features. Passport Disc requires to be connected to view that content even for features that are 100% inside the GD like change of capsule toys.

The only content thas is not available inside the GDs are the text of places, moves and peoples profiles but that is just a few KB of txt files. Even the character models loaded in their profiles are stored in the GD, the only online content is the text.


If they will make a direct port of the original games i dont think it will be too hard to keep Passport but make the game not to require internet connection. They only need to add the profiles text and maybe disable leaderboards in the PC version.