Hey guys, long time no see.
Recently our pals at Dreamcast.es created a small web magazine, Dreamcast.es Official Magazine , with a layout almost lifted (I haven't seen the real deal so I don't know how much) from Spain's Dreamcast Official Magazine. The fun part is that the front page and two articles are about our What's Shenmue translation (Although it's heavily focused on the Spanish translation).
Talking with Switch, we've decided to translate the WS-related articles. I did the first draft, Switch did most of the proofread/polishing.
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What’s Shenmue
~Translated to Spanish~
But... What is “What’s Shenmue”? (pardon the pun)
"It's a short half-hour demo, and it doesn't hold any secrets needed to play the two Shenmues, but, as I said, I wanted to go full circle with the franchise".
IlDucci
Shenmue wasn't released in Japan on the scheduled release date (July 1999), so SEGA decided to give a free heads-up from the game to everyone who had preordered it to make up for the delay on the release date.
This preview gift was named "What's Shenmue?" and was a sort of demo for what the buyers would encounter once they put Shenmue in their consoles. In this case, we're provided with an exclusive mission not included in the final game.
"What's Shenmue", or by its full name, "What's Shenmue? Find Director Yukawa" is a demo disc entirely in Japanese. Although it could be played intuitively until now, those who didn't know Japanese were not able to enjoy it completely. This changed recently because a non-official translation (fan-translation) of the disc dialogues was made for free by the following:
GLOBAL CREDITS
Programming/Rom-hacking: YZB, PacoChan, Indiket, IlDucci
Graphics Editing: BlueMue, IlDucci, Gin
ShenTrad group tools: Ayla, Manic, SiZious, ShenDream
SPANISH TRANSLATION
(Based on the English translation)
Translators: IlDucci, TheFireRed
Testers: Releon, Indiket
Contains material from Shenmue I's Spanish fan-translation made by Ryo Suzuki, IlDucci, el_capo, xulikotony & PacoChan.
SPECIAL THANKS
To FamilyGuy and HyKan for the CDDA track information. To kRYPT, fackue, James Reiner, Master Kyodai, xhizors92 and Gin for their knowledge and to Fenix, Ryo Suzuki & Rock_Lee-Vk for their support.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Translator: Brett “Switch” Chandler, Rakim
Proofreader: Merlin Fontana
GERMAN TRANSLATION
(Based on the English translation)
By BlueMue
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How to apply the patch
In order to change the demo into Spanish you'll have to download the patch that can be found at http://www.dreamcast.es and apply it to a GDI image of the original What's Shenmue disc. This will generate a MDS/MDF file that can be used in emulators, or you can burn it onto a CD in order to play it in a console.
To get the What's Shenmue GDI, you can either rip the original disc with a BBA or a SD card adapter, or download a GDI image from the Internet.
To date, the patch has only been tested with discs that contain the following codes in the inner ring of the non-printed GD-ROM side:
- 610-7179-0133A 11M1 or 11MB1 (TOSEC version)
- 610-7179-0133A H1723E
There might be more versions of the What's Shenmue disc, but IlDucci says that the patch should be compatible with every one of those.
Remember that in order to see the subtitles, we must go to Options and set Game Mode in Voices&Text (changing it from Auto to Yes) and leave Kids Mode in “Adults”.
By Blai
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Previews
What's Shenmue
We take the opportunity with the recent release of the Spanish translation of this Japanese demo to tell you its ins and outs.
Never before had rivers of ink been written about a Dreamcast demo, but What's Shenmue (WS from now on) was able to achieve this. Now... what exactly is What's Shenmue?
WS is a small promotional demo that SEGA gifted to those who pre-ordered Shenmue in 1999 due to the delays with its release, as a compensation for the wait. The question is, if Shenmue had been released on the expected date, would we be able to enjoy this little demo and its small exclusives? We'll never know the answer, but, you know what? I'm happy the game got delayed. That helped us enjoy an exclusive mission. Every cloud has a silver lining :)
IT WAS ONLY POSSIBLE to play What's Shenmue in Japanese because this disc was only released in Japan. That was until... now, thanks to the work of the great translator, IlDucci (and company) we've mentioned a few pages before. From now on we can fully understand each and every one of the disc's dialogues and fully enjoy this adventure.
OUR GOAL in WS is to find Sega’s president (Mr. Yukawa) within Dobuita. In order to do so, we must explore the area. We must question the inhabitants, enter shops, etc. It's a nice way to get used to Shenmue's environment.
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Although it is only one region (if we try to leave it, we'll get kicked back the way we came) it gives a good idea of the open world concept that Shenmue introduced.
Inside Dobuita we can carry out various actions.
WE CAN PLAY at the arcade: shooting darts, playing the slot machine...
We can also buy a Coca-Cola can on a vending machine (remember that the European version of Shenmue removed this brand from the packaging of the cans).
WE CAN BATTLE against some thugs in a QTE event... and that's as far as I can go :)
Everything gives an interesting idea of the variety of events Shenmue can offer to the player, and everything is determined by the day and hour (depending on the current hour, certain events will happen. An example is the closing hour of the shops). Remember that this is one of the strong points of Shenmue, the changes on the in-game events depending on the hour.
THE DEMO LASTS about half an hour and ends with locating Yukawa and a final QTE (don't worry, I won't spoil the ending, heh, heh). It's a bit short, but better short than nothing.
For those who are more detail-oriented, we'll say that there's stuff happening in the demo but not on the final game. We're talking about exclusive events that make this demo attractive for every die-hard Shenmue fan. The most remarkable of these events is that Ryo has the ability to crouch(!)
Ah, I'll mention that it is possible to lose in this demo, due to not finding Yukawa, losing the ending QTE or losing the battle against the local thugs. It's just another curiosity.
WS also contains four of the movies that, later on, would be in Shenmue's Passport disc, explaining game concepts. Those movies are a technical marvel, showcasing the characters in textures that are really high resolution for the time they were made.
I can't end this review without praising again the great job made by IlDucci with the translation. Thanks to him, we can play with the dialogues fully translated into English or Spanish, whichever you want. What's more, he has also created some custom covers that you can print!!
Now there's no excuse not to try this wonderful demo. It's a real delicacy for the most demanding palates. Enjoy!! :)
By Indiket
Famitsu Edition
There exists an alternative version of What's Shenmue named 'Famitsu Edition' that came free with the Famitsu magazine, with the only difference being an orange-colored cover. Of course, get some heavy cash ready if you want it in your collection.