There's another one right across the Mahjong Parlor so Dobuita's count is indeed 5.

Since 12 was already taken as a correct answer and 13 should be the real number let's not waste more time here and continue with the next question.

How many capsule toy machines are there in Shenmue?

Ah I forgot the canned tuna. Make that 6 items.

That is correct!

That is correct!

I got a chance to try it out myself now and it's really the biggest convenience one can think of to just be able to access the game relevant features. I will definately check the weather, cat and statistics every now and then on my next proper playthrough, something I can't even remember if I ever did right.

It's already mentioned in the blog post but some of the features that need an online connection to access data really don't work here. It's not like much is missing here, basically just text boxes saying something like "the data cannot be retrieved" but it's still odd that the Online Manual doesn't even allow you to move the cursor and some screens require a soft reset.

Don't know if this could be improved by refining the hack but it's not too big of a deal as the text behind it is lost forever anyway. At least until a rerelease arrived and they do include the Passport.

and that detailed stats is amazing!
I know, right? Games love to do that nowadays but back then this was just mind blowing. The amount of values stored in there is still virtually unmatched to this day. No wonder the save files take so much space on the VMU.

By the way, never noticed this typo before. :lol:

http://i.imgur.com/NG4xenK.jpg

Man, the one day where I have no time to check things out. I literaly only got time to look at the Kickstarter Update mail and that was it. But it wasn't it. New model pictures and man how much has already gone on in this thread...

So I'm a little late to say the same things that have been said before. Much improved, Ryo is almost spot on, Shenhua takes some time getting used to. Strange they didn't use the Shenmue font for it. And so on...

Seeing Yu Suzuki tweet a picture of an ICE is just so surreal to me. Still can't believe it's finally happening.

Now if only they could tell us when the game will be shown. Will it be tuesday, the main press day? Or on one of the meet and greet days? There's hardly any time left to plan things and I can only like pick one day to go there so it's killing me.

I still love my jacket, the first one that they made but I think I'm going to pass on this, unless it's really cheap.
It sure looks like it is and while I critizised the older jacket for being to dark to look like the original this one is the opposite and just looks way to flashy. Really don't dig the look.

Maybe taking in some scenery inspirations for Shenmue IV.

If you're interested in what's possible when playing "unfair".

With the Debug Beta you can jump right to the final arrival at the harbor and finish the game on December 3rd.
So you could reach Shenmue II on Christmas Eve! I never tried to carry the save over, really have to do that some day. One thing to note is that the save needs to me modified as the Beta handles them as Japanese.

And if you want to go even further you can glitch back out of the Yellow Head Building and reset the date back to December 0 in 1900! I have no idea if the calendar still works if you keep playing but reaching the stone pit from this point will be 5 days later. So you could in theory finish Shenmue II almost exactly 86 years before Ryo started his journey.

It's hard to come up with words right now. Trying to post news, upload video, make screenshots and whatnot.

First discovery! Look who's back at Shenhua's house (in the lower left corner).

Sony have just released the first real Shenmue III teaser on their YouTube channel, giving a glimpse at some breathtaking enviroments, new character models and fighting animations.

Links: Slacker Backer Campaign - Forum Discussion

The way that Ryo just knocks Mr. Muscles down after protecting Shenhua and how he then fights him in that sunset scene makes me believe that it's some thug at first but he turns into a friend. You know, kinda like Goro, except that this guy actually has skills.

I have to say it now, I absolute love that training scene with the old man on the boats. Pure Shenmue and Kung-Fu movie essence and it's pretty damn well coreographed and animated.

https://media.giphy.com/media/3owvKgeLlPXWv67W7u/giphy.gif

On the other hand, while the Guilin forest long-walk may have been a fantastic, relaxing paced gift for players who had already spent ~10 hours playing through all of Shenmue 2, we shall have to see how Yu has integrated such a potentially polarizing segment smack dab into the start of a brand new game with brand new players.
I think it's actually worse for those that played the game. You know all this, you love all this, you wanna admire the beautiful new graphics while floating in nostalgia heaven... but you want to reach that damn stone pit asap to finally get to the point where the story continues!!! :lol:

http://i.imgur.com/ufpkE9s.jpg

This is my favorite of the bunch. I'd just love to walk through that "tunnel" in the bamboo myself. If you look closely there you can see this path leads up to a temple or at least some gate. These enviroment shots look so good even in still images, I can hardly imagine how impressive they will feel while freely walking around there in the game!

Ryo also looks better yet again. Really the lighting makes all the difference in everything and the jacket seems to be improved aswell. Just one thing that still needs work is the straw hat of the old master guy.

Oh man, I'm still a bit exhausted from the trip and the whole event.

It was amazing to meet you guys! I was just too thrilled to have the chance to get together with other fans and to see Yu Suzuki in person, shake hands with him. I must've looked totally freaked out all the time. And then out of all the people they had to chose me, posing with Yu Suzuki, as the first picture in the article on that Japanese website... 8-[

I'll post some of my photographic impressions of the Gamescom compiled into a little video later today. Still trying to process all of this and catch up with everything here. I'm just so happy that everything worked out so nicely! =D>

Man are just so many pieces of new little information that it's really tough not to lose the overview of everything and go crazy about all the things the game's gonna have. Also many insights to how the teaser came to be that are yet again absolute reassuring they're going to get everything right by the game's release.

Aaah, got me again.

Spaghetti wrote: Haha, I was gonna say, a tape recorder sounds like our boy BlueMue, and so it was! How did Yu react?

Both he and Hideaki seemed to recognize it. They both showed great interest and laughed when they saw it.

Here's the promised video:

Yeah I don't think Chai will last more than a few seconds against Ryo anymore, seeing how much he learned during the events of Shenmue II. But then again he seems to never be truly defeated and who knows what he learned in all that time.

Great to finally see him holding the banner. Such a great idea, I'm really sorry that I totally missed this topic.
But good things I was able to sign it when I was there.

It's just too funny looking how that giant "god" Ryo watches over all the other little, or rather normal Ryos.

Sleeping Dogs fighting looks cool, especially the over the top enviromental attacks, but it's way to automated and routine. The slow motion is also too "oooh look" and breaks the flow a bit. In Shenmue there were always certain types of fighting styles the enemies would have but it was still much more diverse and natural feeling there.

The old fighting system isn't perfect either. There could definately be some improvement in the targeting and camera system. It's very reminiscent of a fighting game, wich is good in a challenging way, but it's sometimes a bit annoying to pull of some of the moves because you just need to find the right time to let an enemy let you do it.
So maybe just make things easier to pull of without making the enemies cannon fodder and give more control and feedback over who Ryo targets without "gamey" visual clues like arrows, glows or outlines.

With Yu Suzuki having to reshape the chapter structure constantly it's become so amorphous that there's simply no definite answer anymore.

I'd take the missing 20% of Chapter 2 as the boat ride, wich was once Chapter 2 itself.
Going by the current construction Shenmue III is going to continue with Chapter 6 as I doubt it ends in the cave, there still has to be more travel until the first new city is reached at least.

A lot of people seem to miss that you can just go there whenever you want. You can also go on the balcony through a door one floor higher. Not much to see there but still cool.

Another intesting fact about this area is that they censored the statue. In the Japanese version it's holding a baby, likely portraying Mary and Jesus.

I totally respect the heart and effort that Yu put in the new logo but the original cursive logo just can't be beat.
The new Japanese logo is perfect but that because it's hardly different to that region's original. And original is just the key word here. The logo is part of the brand and its recognizability and thus it should not be replaced.

I found some unused audio while looking through the scene file of the tape listening scene.

There are some unfinished / alternate takes on conversations as well as very curious other inclusions.
I really wonder what they were thinking with these. My guess is that they were just trying things out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZrU0OC19hY

I still think he needs to revamp the fighting system because he's simply not allowed to use the Virtua Fighter data, wich is sad but would make sense. I'm sure he does everything right and won't disappoint, his new ideas tend to set milestones in the gaming world after all. It's just that we're all used to the old system and don't want to much change...

I like the idea that Shenhua just takes her scarf off when they reach her house. After all it would make sense to put it aside then, being more comfortable and everything. The problem with the model right now is that the rest of the clothes don't match her Shenmue II attire though they do match the one in the Kickstarter promo.

It would be nice if we do get more changing in the clothing during the course of the game. In Shenmue Ryo at least took his jacket off and I hope they bring that back and make it a fully on screen animation. With Shenhua taking off her scarf at home it would also be nice to see her take off her hat along with it aswell.

I still have the feeling that he's not a really bad guy. I don't know but he just doesn't look evil enough to me.
Sure Dou Niu had some goofy elements aswell but was all around more sinister looking. And by looking I literaly mean the look on his face. There's just something different about this guy that gives him a... nicer appeal.

I'm under the impression that he's sorta bullying Ryo at first but then changes. Not necessarily a friend but sort of like a rival that constantly wants to match with Ryo.

"Refusing the vegetables" would be a good slogan for Ryo, with his carrot problems and everything.

Man, they sure try to please us and the masses who moaned over the teaser.
I don't know if they're actually working on the model or if it's just the pose and lighting but I swear that Ryo looks better with each new release. The first picture of him is just sooo close to perfection, I'd take this any day! =D>

I really love the atmospheric style of the FREE music but I like the approach of each area having it's own music more.
Changing the music based on where you are in the story is a very clever idea but there are problems. For example, I really like FREE 1 but you can only hear it early in the game, then never again. On the other side we have FREE 7, wich is the only thing you'll hear for days later in the story. Being stuck with something and having no chance to hear certain tunes ever again is actually a pretty flawed system if you think about it.

Having music based on the area you're in ensures you don't have to listen to something for days everywhere and you can easily go back to your favorite music by just going to its area. It's also just a regconition thing. I'm sure everyone that played Shenmue II a couple of times will instantly have vivid images of the area when for example the South Carmain Music plays. Having different music at night also greatly enhances the mood. Shenmue very rarely changes the music after the nighttime sequence and pausing the current FREE music just to go back to it again afterwards is just wasted potential of the soundtrack.

I'm clearly for the Shenmue II style here, the reasons I stated above make it obvious why. But they could expand it by having story based music playing in every area at key points in the story to heighten the tension. Shenmue II actually kinda does that too already, when you're looking for Ren at Pigeon Park.

Thanks! I didn't keep track of any specific values. Just boosted contrast and brightness and then picked the red channel and decreased the saturation, increased the lightness and shifted the hue very slightly to right. Basic stuff.

By the way, I also updated the old one. :lol:

http://i.imgur.com/GpjELXI.png

That picture of Ryo is really that good enough for me that I finally made the move to try out a new signature image.
I've always wanted to make something new after I ditched the old one with the rise of the Kickstarter. Was just waiting for some Shenmue III material that looked good enough.

The colors and Ryo's look are fine tuned eeeever so slightly to improve it just a bit more.
Anxious to see how long it will last...

Well, I figured I can't make videos on my YouTube channel for every little thing that I wan't to say about Shenmue so I took the great example that is Switch's Phantom River Stone and made my own little Shenmue blog!

Yeah I know, name and design are "very" creative but it's just purpouseful. Not much to see on there yet but I'm sure there'll be many thing to post about and lots of content in the near future.

BlueMue's Shenmue Blog

Wow they really hid them well. Great effort to spot them there!
I wonder if Yu and the team were thinking "when will they find it" in all the days of the buzz around it.

I've been waiting for a current gen rerelease of this game for some time now. I absolutely enjoyed this game and even though I played the whole thing twice (360 and PC) and single cases a whole bunch of times, I'll gladly go through the whole thing again. Some people really have a great dislike for this game but I really liked just about everything about it. It's potentially a top 10 game for me. Really happy they finally bring it back!

https://www.polygon.com/2017/9/7/16264400/la-noire-ps4-xbox-one-nintendo-switch-vr-htc-vive-rockstar-games

Thanks for passing on this info! I didn't get the mail so I would've totally missed this.

I snatched the jacket. I still don't like how it looks but with that price I couldn't resist to add this to the collection (and most likely never wear it). Unfortunately I already have all the shirts on sale. Would've been nice if the Tiger one was on there, as I don't have that yet and eeven the regular version of the forklift design could've been worth it. For that price I would gladly buy it again so I have a new one after wearing mine at Gamescom.

New post: The Handguard And The Sword

No point in going into any battle against Switch. There is no way I could compete with the constant stream of interesting content delivered on Phantom River Stone. But I'm trying to find unique info and other things about the games to bring forward in this form of presentation.

New post: Lost Man Mo Store

I haven't thought about this system for quite some time. It's good you brought this up so people remember it.

It's going to be interesting to see how much it will affect the game. It definately gives a good chance to make each playthrough more unique. The whole conversation thing with Fangmei could be seen as a basis, just make it deeper and more meaningful. In a simple thought I just picture the Action Selector popping up a lot more.
I don't absolutely need this feature and I hope it doesn't have too much influence on the main story but I still think it's a welcome feature.

And how could anyone not be nice to Shenhua?