I did this "annualy" a couple of years ago, two or three times. It's a fun way to experience the game for sure.
Really shows you how little there is to do on some days and how much on others. Of course watching the intro and then putting the game aside for 4 days is already one hell of a start.

Had another Shenmue III dream this night. It was... strange. But at least parts were nice.

It started off in some bavarian looking town square off all places. There was definately some German singing going on in the background. In the beginning it was first person but after a while it turned to a familiar view and I was controlling Shenhua with a free camera.

Then it turned to the lost train chapter apparently. Curiously this is already the second time I dreamed of Ryo around a train. Anyway it was a QTE scene and I was anxious how it would play out. It was a really cool one take like shot with the camera constantly panning from outside the speeding train, following Ryo as you saw him through the windows, beating up a bunch of guys in very stylish QTE fashion on his way through. The button prompts were a little hard to follow as the action on screen just took me so much and the display was a lot smaller and more towards the bottom of screen. The sounds were also a lot more quiet and I was expecting more of the new system.

Then it turned into a full on shooter. I was surprised how many people had guns and that Ryo fired back. It even went as far as Ryo manning a machine gun mounted on the back of a car that raced through an area crowded with bad guys. It was... disturbing.

It was definately Shenmue III all along because I knew I was playing it the whole way through the dream. I even hat a lenghty conversation with Yu Suzuki, where he tried to speak German, wich turned out quite good after a while. :-k

This came unexpected. I was in doubt at first but after reading what that team has pulled off in the past I'm reassured they're going to do a great job and we'll end up with a nice looking character roster.

By the way that new character reminds me of Kureha from Ninja Gaiden a lot!

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/ninjagaiden/images/c/c9/Kureha_ninja_gaiden_sigma.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090918023833

I think those are in there because they didn't use the final version of the game for the Xbox port but some earlier built.
That's exactly what I've been thinking for quite some time now. It sure sounds like a feasible explanation for some of the grave mistakes in design and music they made. Surely they must've gone through all the files while converting them and porting them over so things can't just be overlooked.

The worst offenders for me are the motion blur during fights, the wrong textures on the Bellwood's vending machine and how they ruined the BHW music and used the wrong tune when getting of the boat in Guilin.
Then there's the whole deal of removing parts of the enviroment in some areas, mainly in the Green Market Qr. They also simplified some textures and surfaces. A lot of transparent glass has been replaced by solid pieces of metal and just look at how flat the roof of Superior Sweets looks on the Xbox. These can't be for performance reasons with the Xbox having such an easy time with the game but maybe there were visual issues with the improved shadow system or something.

They've also been very lazy when bringing the game to the PAL region. Sure it's nice that we naturally got both version but the game is entirely in English. The DC version had the menu, help and notebook text translated into various European languages. Also no 480p support. Of course not.

So I was watching todays AVGN christmas episode and something really surprised me.
The Nerd makes a funny joke about how just reading something fixes his car. He picks up some game magazines and flips through them. And out of all the things he has what is the first one?

https://i.imgur.com/CWNAU23.jpg
I don't know if there is any meaning at all behind this. Could just have been chosen at random. I still find it awesome to see "Shenmue" in one of his videos. Even though in a very strange way. :lol:

Why should a Virtua Fighter based system change to something Tekken based?
I don't really like the thought of switching to something not YS and I don't like that system all that much honestly.
More importantly Yu Suzuki is someone who doesn't get influence from other games so why would he ever think of copying something?

I definately don't need a whole lot of change to the system we already have. Just some minor tweaks to the camera and lock-on so it's even more controllable. It should not be simplified to feel like other open world games. It should still feel like a fighting game. Might have its downsides in a group fight but shines all the more in a 1v1 situation.

https://i.imgur.com/Qq6N9b3.jpg

It's the season of giving and sharing and 2017 is nearing it's end so it's time for this year's final Kickstarter update!
In a casual conversation Yu Suzuki and Hiroaki Takeuchi reflect on Shenmue III's creation so far and we get some insight what is done right now and looks into the future, forward to 2018, the year of Shenmue. Merry Christmas!

Links: Video Interview | Kickstarter Update #78 | Forum Discussion

Get some sense back in here please, even if may require to remain silent.

Well it's somewhat of a Shenmue item, considering you can buy one and use it in the basement.
But a lightbulb is a very generic thing, symbolising just about any "idea" and there are 1000s of other things that I would rather link with Shenmue.

Abraham_1 wrote:Another one I can think of is how Tom says he’s leaving for America tomorrow and yet he appears to board a plane there that night.

I think the plane shown in the cutscene is just a symbol. It's not the one that Tom is actually supposed to be on. It admittedly confused me too.

It didn't mean to entirely miss to buzz around Magic but it was still a somewhat concieous decsion of mine not to look on the computer too much. Seems I didn't miss too much.

As I have started to not expect too much from the updates I wasn't hoping for something big at all but this still felt very light on content even with that mentalitly. I like the new screenshots and some of the extra footage in the extended trailer is great and I'd say better stuff than what was shown to everyone in the regular trailer but it's still old old footage and it's still not uploaded by them for the general public. Still need to know what Yu was saying and the subsequent new interviews but if they aren't holding back a lot of stuff the whole 20th anniversary release thing seems another bit more likely.

While checking back some footage of the 70 Person Free Battle that I recorded I noticed that the game replaces the low-poly Ryo from the fight 1 frame early for the following cutscene. This made an interesting comparsion gif.

I could never bring myself to get those move legitimately. It just requires way too much luck and thus time.
Only ever did it on old Demul with a quick save right before dropping the ball, moving it inch by inch until the drop would land.

So big congratulations on getting the damn thing! Make sure to check out that move video because one of the moves has an extension that is unexplained in game.

There are lists of the various leaderboards that someone made shortly before the Passport Disc went offline in 2002.

http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45554

I have a hunch that this isn't everything that was on the leaderboards. For one thing someone must've surely scored better than that. And also I have memories of uploading a darts score that would've landed VERY high on this leaderboard, yet there is nothing that matches what I remember. Maybe the 17-18 years that have passed since have taken their toll, I certainly can't remember the exact score and place I got anyway, but I'm very sure it was just a little over 700 points and that I wasn't near the top of the board at all.

Maybe some of the score have been lost leading up the the closure of the servers or maybe my score didn't get through after all. Who knows... It's definately a sad thing that most of the stuff is lost now. But at least some has been archived. Now I really wonder who this KAZEMARU is.

OMG they actually did it! While I had this funny feeling of things being different around this hype time it still is surprising that we do finally get it! I'm so happy, so excited for this now that I actually can not freak out for some reason. :lol:

The added features sound like just what we need so far but I'm curious if there's more like save anywhere in Shenmue and how widescreen and the resolutions are handled. Now we can start hoping for cleared file transfer to Shenmue III again!

This is the most important question to me right now. Will we see a return of all the features on the Passport Disc?

It was one of my dearest wishes to see the leaderboards and stuff go active again, there is loads of extra replay value if they bring this all back. The old urgent messages section could be used to bring in Shenmue III news, if the games releases are far enough apart.

It will definately take them quite a lot of extra effort to deliver this but man do I hope they do!

Well, these wishlists have been made a whole bunch of times before but now things are a bit different of course. 8)

Passport is definaltey the biggest point for me, see the topic I made for that. Thus far they have promised us some nice extra features that many had on their lists but what they still have to announce is save anywhere and time skip for Shenmue. I know it wasn't the intention of Yu to have those in the first game but since they finally got up and work on the games this has to be added for the newcomers.

I'd like to see some more modern, cleaner subtitles but only as an added option to the original style.

On a technical side I think they can easily get rid of the slowdowns and I hope they also remove the NPC fade in entirely. Loading times should be shortened to a minimum aswell. I think they can also ditch the question if you want to save where a disc change originally occured. The structure of the Xbox version was too much of a direct port with the disc folders on the DVD and they can easily get rid of it.

I made a list about 7 years ago that I posted in another topic around here.

http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=49470&p=1125798#p1125798


Darts Pro
Finish a Darts 7 game with a score of 500 or more

Neo Darts Pro
Finish a Neo Darts game with a score of 400 or more

Endless QTE
Reach 100.000 points at Excite QTE 2

Prize Fighter
Reach 250.000 points at QTE Title

Winning Run
Earn 7.500.000 points in Hang-On

Squilla Killa
Earn 7.500.000 points in Space Harrier

Cool Gambler
Collect 1000 tokens at the slot house

I won!
Win the 1st , 2nd or 3rd prize at the raffle

Sega Collector
Get one of the toy capsule consoles

Music Freak
Buy all cassette tapes

Master of all arts
Learn all the martial arts techniques

Training always pays off
Train a move to the maximum level

Clean getaway
Win a fight with full health

Photo album of 1986
Find and get all photos

Walkie Talkie
Talk to every shop owner in town

Around the clock
Reach a total playtime of 24 hours

Half a marathon
Run for a total of 21098 meters

Target locked
Lock on to a total of 100 objects

As strong as a hundred men
Defeat a total of 100 enemies

Blockhead
Collide with walls or objects a total of 200 times

Fast reflexes
Reach an average QTE reaction time of 0,99 seconds or less

Now that's an achaivement
Do something you thought would be impossible

Secret achievements

All good deeds shall be rewarded
Helped the old lady in Sakuragaoka

Welcome to the city
Reached Dobuita

Billards Pro
Sunk the ball in one shot at the MJQ Jazz Bar

A tattoo on his arm
Found Charlie

A kitten named...
Gave the little kitten a name

Mysterious letter
Received the letter to Iwao

Quencher
Gave Wang something to drink

104 Directory
Used the telephone directory to find out where area 61 is

Earth and Sea
Reached the harbor

An old friend
Made friends with the homeless man at the harbor

Heaven, Dragon, Earth, Comrad
Met Master Chen

The secret of the Hazuki Dojo
Found the hidden basement of the Hazuki Dojo

Got it!
Found the phoenix mirror

Destination Hong Kong
Bought a ticket to Hong Kong

Damn punks
Learned about the Mad Angels

Working man
Found a job at the harbor

Grand Prix
Won the forklift race

Hats off to the hard working man
Delivered all crates on a day at work

The Mad Angels are after you
Caught the attention of the Mad Angels

You're not getting away this time
Defeated Charlie at the harbor

Who's the boss?
Found out who's the leader of the Mad Angels

Can I use your motorcycle?
Reached the harbor in time

All your fault
Saved Nozomi from the Mad Angels

You and what gang?
Defeated Terry's entire gang

Heegh
Defeated Chai

Departure on a new trip
Completed the game

May I remind you of this?

They changed the S in such an elegant way for I&II that it took me until now to realize it was even changed...
The Shenmue III logo can surely follow this route, I quite like it.

The aspect ratio for I & II seems wrong because the one in the Dreamcast footage is wrong.

It is definately too lean, the image is not as wide as properly adjusted 4:3 looks. Compare the amount of black borders to any of my videos from the DC that I uploaded in the past 2 years.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why it is a good thing that "Shenmue I & II" is called that and just that.

Going back on topic... I think with the large userbase, low price point, general interest in the series ever since the Kickstarter and many here buying multiple copies it can reach close to a million in its first year.

It's sad that you tell me and the developers of I & II off as doing everything wrong but what's sadder is that people here rather believe this than calm down and take things correctly.

Haven't been using this topic for updates in a looong time but didn't want to throw this in any of the "HD" topics.

Shenmue I & II - Initial Thoughts

It's basically a collection of all the thoughts I had in the last 2 days surrounding the announcement said game.
Those of you who might have been reading through the vast amount of posts since then around here will recognize a lot of it repeats...

Shenmue I & II just filled me with an incredible amount of writing energy.

There is no problem with the sky's design in Shenmue but the textures are just way too low res and appear blocky.
With the increased resolution it becomes all the more apparent and it catches your eyes quickly.

Judging by the trailer they already put some work into it. Even if they just put some bilinear filter over it, it will help without ruining the look. Creating a sky dome like in Shenmue II is definately asking too much and yeah the sky's look is definately part of Shenmue.

“We’ve tried to stay as close to the original feature sets in each game as possible, so Shenmue 1 will not have the time skip feature,”
This is actually very admirable. That they don't want to change things too much in order to honor the legacy.
Makes it sound like we won't be getting a save anywhere option either, though nothing definitive yet of course.

It think that feature is definaltey more important for newcomers. The system where the resume file deletes itself is really confusing in this day and age. If you can read it's not a big deal of course but I know of people that tried the game on emulators and didn't bother to read and they were baffled why the files were gone.

Hope they change at least this up a bit. The fact that they are redoing the controls shows that they know about the new player problems.

That list is pretty generic and simple. Most of it is just story or minor detours. Nothing creative or challenging really.

Seems that both games are counted as one entity. Makes sense as a lot of collections do this. Was thinking it would've been better to have them with seperate lists. Not that this is needed to have a big list or get 2000 points for it, no problem with that these days. Only 48 achievemets is really not enough for two games this large and filled with stuff to do.

I like to mention the facts about how the Beta of Shenmue technically has both a time skip option and save anywhere with the aid of its debug options. Not everyone knows about them so it might be interstings.

The save option brings up the regular menu where you select a file and save, just as one would expect. It just isn't 100% on the spot though as Ryo will be standing at an entrance point of the area he's in. NPCs also have to respawn wich can mess up their routines a bit.

The clock can be turned forward and back at 3 different speeds each at any point. This definatly messes up the NPC routines as they just can't keep up with their schedules and thus the streets will be very crowded and stores open with no one inside to attend it. These results are amusing in their own way but not something that should be seen normaly. Of course messing with the time whenever you like goes much further than skipping time in Shenmue II.

These examples shows where the problems are and why these features were ultimately easier to pull of Shenmue if not the only way to pull them of at all at the time. That is not to say that it's impossible to make this work properly with todays technology. The save files can be much much larger and include all the necessary locations and routine points of the NPCs as well as Ryo's of course.

The time skip wouldn't really mess up the NPCs the way they work in Shenmue II because you don't really see things moving about and the time will skip to the point where Ryo has to go to bed. Of course that means only points where Ryo has to wait for the next day are sure to work without issues but adding these would be enough.
Another approach to save some time would be to allow Ryo to advance time quickly in his bedroom until he can go to sleep. Or just make it possible to go to sleep whenever you want... though that approach really goes against the foundations of Shenmue.

I don't think it's a conscious decision to keep the original aspect ratio just to keep it well... original.

Since games aren't like film you can just make more stuff visible on the sides to fill widescreen instead of cropping and losing someting from the top and bottom. And that's the key here, nothing is lost, so nothing envisioned is ruined. On top of that I don't recall any instance of a cutscene in Shenmue that doesn't work with the more cinematic widescreen, they are all improved. And after all they introduced that look with black bars in Shenmue II.

Anyway I defend the point that nothing is to be taken as a fact from the screenshots we've seen to far. And because we've seen both cutscenes and gameplay in original format and full widescreen to me matches with the fact that there will be an option to chose this. Beyond that they are also definately still testing things out at this stage.

Some of the music also took a bit of a hit. Namely the opening of Shenmue and the rooftop cutscene after Dou Niu's defeat in Shenmue II.

Unlike the majority of the music, with is sample based and generated on the fly these are prerecorded.
But there is no big problem with them, just a bit scratchy and only noticeable when you compare it to a "clean" version.
The credits themes are also streaming audio but those are at full quality. Not sure why they decided to dial the settings back a bit for these cutscenes but they are of course overlapped by sound effects and voices so either that was limiting or they decided to take the saveable space because it isn't just the music alone.

In any way these are pretty much the easiest things to fix. Shenmue's opening is on the Orchestra Soundtrack and the rooftop music already has high quality in the Xbox version.

Pretty much any music track that is in the Shenmue games exists in some form of prerecorded demo.
They did this to easily establish how the music sounds and then converted it over to the Dreamcast's sound system. And by the way I doubt it would ever get close to run out of space for instruments, it has 64 channels.
A lot of these demos have been found on the Shenmue Online website, many give a good idea what to expect.

Personally I don't like the idea of replacing the orignals that much. They just sound too different at times, even if they are superior from a technical standpoint. The piano parts would be worthwhile to replace as the samples used in some of them sound a bit weak and I absolutely love how rich "Departure for hope" sound on the OST. You know, the one that plays when you show around the Phoenix Mirror. But it is, like pretty much all the others, in a lower key and that just ruins it for me deep inside.

Listening to the music in the trailer above I noticed something very interesting. The music that plays when it switches to Barry playing darts is the one used in Beverly Hills Wharf. The one on the DC has two alternating string notes while this one has only one repeating. And guess what... that's how it sounds on the Xbox.
I always thought this was a porting mistake but apparently the original was always meant to sound like that!
Still prefer the one of the DC, sound a lot less annoying the way it is. That means some improvements have been made when the demos have been converted but then the Xbox version...

Yet again a sign that points to the possibility of the Xbox version being built on an older versions of assets than the ones ultimately used for the DC...?

Allan, what are you doing checking out forums, wasting time that could be put into the developement? :lol:
No seriously, it is awesome that you check out this place and get in touch with the community!

I hope some of the feedback can still be applied to make Shenmue I & II a better experience overall for everyone.
In any case it is cool enough that you can give us some first hand insights. You really have a very important and iconic project on your hands and you can be proud of it!

These screenshots are resized in ways we don't know so they aren't anything to be judged very well.

And also to make this clear once and for all: The Dreamcast outputs a resolution of 720x480 with a 640 pixel display area. Many digital devices take this as 640 overall and make the image too narrow. Old TVs and the monitors on the Naomi arcade handled it correctly and a full width 4:3 image is how Dreamcast games are intended to look like.
Shenmue I & II does this right for sure so please stop trying to talk d3t into they made any mistakes there.

People didn't believe me earlier when I said that round objects like the watch are meant to be round and are only round when the image fills the 4:3 format. Thanks for pointing this out in images, I think that makes the message a lot more clear.

Checking out all the new menus and stuff, then the new control scheme and then messing around to see if the good old glitches still work. Don't know why I am so anxious to get to those but I looked forward to the point when I can try them out again, ever since I knew about them and the mere thought of a rerelease crossed my mind.

They definately won't remove the loading screens. They are an essential part.
They definately will be shorter, however. The real meat of the load times came from the GD drive.
My comparisons showed that the GDEMU easily cuts the load times in half and a bit less. That is still on the Dreamcast with all its limitations.

On the hardware that they target everything can load from HDDs or even SSDs with a much higher bandwith, not to mention processing power. And for games the size of Shenmue and Shenmue II it would even be possible to dump the entire game into RAM to make it even quicker, though that really won't be necessary.

Well in the Shenmue games there is hardly any situation that really needs the red stuff. The canon story at least, some failure would let some out and after all there is the infamous fade to red that was even too "violent" for anyone but the Japanese.

Only place where I think some blood could be used to good effect is during the opening. I imagine a bit of blood running out of Iwao's mouth would make clear how he is wounded and that it is very serious. Could make the scene more impactful. But that's just some thought I had just now. Don't need it, the game doesn't need it.

If MS managed to disable motion blur with the Xbox 360 emulator running the game off a disc in real-time: D3T should be able to do that and more with the source code at hand.
Sorry to disappoint but it was not the work of MS that disabled the effect, it was the lack thereof.
The sole reason why the blur, the bloom and the shadows are gone is that the emulation was quick and dirty.

We have to wait and see what d3t are shooting for. Putting stuff from the Xbox version into Shenmue II can be positive. High quality Ryo for sure and I do like the improved shadows. They make some of the areas a bit dark at times but the whole thing looks more dynamic and it fixes one of the silly looking moments in the DC version, where Ryo's shadow is carrying ghost books. I don't need the bloom like it was on the Xbox and really don't want to see the motion blur ever again.

One thing that concerns me deep inside, but only personaly, is when they market Shenmue II to be representing the Dreamcast when it doesn't really do that in all honesty.

As I mentioned earlier even the whole game could be loaded. If it's reconstructed properly there are a ton of extra files that exist double or even tripple that could be removed, shrinking it a lot. But again, the former would be overkill.

I hope that they can tweak the behavior in places. In Shenmue II there are some instances where you enter an area and immediately get a cutscene. When you for example enter Big Ox B5F it will play the music of the area during the load screen very briefly and then the score for the cutscene. This is one of the very minor hits to the overall presentation that could be improved.

I always saw 7 million as the ultimate goal of the whole slacker backer thing so I hope it will reach that figure, regardless of it giving any more features to the game.

https://i.imgur.com/KdRM2Jo.jpg

Deep Silver has brought forth the news in the 81st Kickstarter Update, that Shenmue III's release window has been pushed back to 2019.

No word about when during the year the release is going to happen but they assure that the decision was made in order to give Shenmue III even more time for the polish and quality that it deserves.

Links: Kickstarter Update #81 | Deep Silver Announcement | Forum Discussion

It's pretty save to assume that there are some internal talks between the two teams so they can both find a strategicaly smart release plan. And this raises at least my hopes that they decide to include a save file connection after all.

I've been expecting this for a long time now and it is the best thing that can happen to Shenmue III.
All the extra time and effort is going to be so worth it. If you haven't done so yet (been advising this for long too) mark a very late release in the year to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original.

It's a bit of a disappointment that they don't include any kind of material to hold people over and apologize in a way.
I personally don't need it but going in with nothing is just a way to feed the trolls. Well, then again... if there was some screenshot they would rip it apart anyway.

If you don't follow anyone or go near Lucky Plaza then Ryo will go there automatically once the time hits 3 or 4 am.
It's been long since I tried this so I don't remember the exact specifics. Might be worth capturing another attempt.

I always imagined Shenmue games to go as far with realstic looks as the hardware allows.
Shenmue definately had the most polygon- and texture-power for the face demos of anything back in the day so it's easy to assume that was always the ultimate goal.

If the series kept going we might've ended up now with scanning technology to create super realistic characters.
But you really have to think if that was really what the characters we're made to be like. To some extent they were in fact stylized, at least the main cast, and that was of course to get a distinct look. Some of the NPCs looked more lifelike in a way, especially as some actually had photos of real faces for their texture.

I'd like to see a hint more realism in the Shenmue III models but what we got so far is definately in line with a Shenmue look. I'm happy with it and so should we all be really.