I personally don't see how the cursive Shenmue logo is hard to read, I barely understood English when I first played Shenmue, but even I could still clearly spell out the logo. As far as Cursive fonts go, the Shenmue logo is fairly clear.

Hello PlayStation fans! This is Yu Suzuki, director of Shenmue III.

It’s hard to believe so much time has passed since we debuted the game at Sony’s E3 2015 press conference. Since then, the team has been extremely busy developing the game in Tokyo, but now it’s time to come up for air.

To coincide with Gamescom 2017, we are happy to share the news that we have inked a publishing partnership with Deep Silver! From the early days on the project, the team at Deep Silver really impressed me with their deep passion for the series and their desire to work with us to deliver a proper sequel that all fans will love.

To celebrate the news, I would like to share with you a teaser video built from a small slice of an in-development build of the game . As you will see, the latest chapter in Ryo and Shenhua’s journey begins with a beautiful set piece in China. You’ll also see that we’re aiming to significantly upgrade the game’s visuals , and you may also notice a new character during that quick glimpse of our new battle gameplay…

I’m pleased to be able to offer a small peek into what we’ve been building thus far, and I am looking forward to the opportunity to show you more as we get closer to our 2018 release.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to all those who have supported me and the team. I will continue to work hard to deliver the best possible realization of Shenmue III.

Yu Suzuki


https://blog.us.playstation.com/2017/08/21/shenmue-iii-the-first-teaser/

http://i.imgur.com/g5yUqjb.jpg

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

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

http://i.imgur.com/6aBGfXn.jpg

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

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

http://i.imgur.com/YLvset1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/2HG6rvv.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/LMB9IsH.jpg

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

http://i.imgur.com/aB0cIOJ.jpg

Ryo & Shenhua Character Models (High Resolutions)

http://i.imgur.com/TAjc0zl.jpg

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

I've been playing Shenmue II for about fourteen years, and I just noticed the poem in the Thousand White Church. I took a photo with my phone, here's the poem:

A happy new year
Today is fine
Gone with window
A happy new year
Today is fine
Gone with window
Refining the vegetables
Refining the vegetables


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

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

"I think that probably after we finish this, the next one, Shenmue 4 – it will be coming. I have to do something – I have to start something – so the next one will come."

https://68.media.tumblr.com/f87fc61d9d77c58fed997f6f6bede76a/tumblr_inline_o8dt71LMuG1t7bxs0_500.gif

UE4 is constantly updated by Epic, it means nothing that it has been released before Dragon Engine.
Yakuza team always had some very skilled modelers and animator. They put a lot of effort modeling believable characters, but that has little to do with the quality of the engine itself... their models were marvellous also during PS3 era.
On the other hand, I think this led to something I always hated about Yakuza series: the extreme discrepancy between main characters and generic NPCs. I missed recent releases and I don’t know if they improved this, but low poly, statics, redundant and undubbed NPCs always bothered me a lot, expecially when they stand next to the super-detailed Kazuma.
I understand it’s impossible to achieve the same main character models quality for all NPCs, but I hope for Shenmue III that Yu will take in account this aspect as he did for the previous episodes... I would prefer lesser detailed main characters and equally detailed NPCs!

The game sucks so bad it's even putting its developers to sleep!

Never understood the deal with sega releasing games in English all across the EU. Especially in France where there are so little people fluent enough to be able to play through the games comfortably.

Never understood the deal with sega releasing games in English all across the EU. Especially in France where there are so little people fluent enough to be able to play through the games comfortably.

It saves them money.
Not sure about that. It saves them in production costs but reduces potential sales.

Yes.. lets all shit on a clearly excited fan who made the mistake of thinking he was showing us something new.

Technophilz wrote:it's really painful to say I didn't like it at all

Oh there's a fucking surprise. Also a WIP of one of 400 NPCs isn't as good as the main characters of a Naughty Dog game? No shit.

For anyone having trouble locating Ryo...


Kickstarter #77 Commentary

Hey guys, how are you all doing today?

It's been a long time since I have posted here. I honestly tried to register an account, only to realize my account from 2004 was still open, lol. I think it has been about 11 years since my last post.

Any way, so in the several years since I had left, I have all but given up or lost my retro gaming collection (yeah, I know that is kind of sad :( ), but with Shenmue III on the horizon (finally!), I've really wanted to go back and experience Shenmue and Shenmue II again, in the way they were meant to be played.

So, I played the games on DEmul, which used to run kind of like a stuttery mess (version 221215)

Recently, DEmul has released new versions, with the newest version (at the time of this posting) being 0.7 121017
http://demul.emulation64.com/ is their website, and it has fixed almost ALL of the stuttering problems in the game, leading to a very nice gaming experience!

To celebrate the new version, and to do some testing, I have been doing a full playthrough and streaming it to my Youtube page to try to show how good emulation has gotten on DEmul, and I have been showing it off to the Facebook group Shenmue 500k that I sometimes post to, but I figured this would be a great audience to show the quality of emulation too, as well as I can assist people with getting the emulator to run if they are having issues.

Here's a link to my almost full playthrough of Shenmue II on the newest version of DEmul: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjOsC6a40bWi-ujse2Xf7lDOqG5KWy5sB , and I'm going to be livestreaming the final disc probably this weekend at some point if people are interested.

Any way, it's great to be back, and I hope that you guys appreciate my video, and I'd be happy to assist anybody with the emulator, discuss the game, or anything else!

Bulshit all, you will never resist to try juste for move Ryo Hazuki. Everyone on the forum will play demo i'm sure.

I've always wanted an HD version of the "Shenmue II Special Trailer" that Sega released at some point in the middle of 2001. I remember back then IGN usually had 640x480 versions of most of the trailers, but those have been lost to time. The only remaining copy that I can find is the low res-version on Disc 4 when you place it in a PC. This project was to remaster the trailer in HD.

Version 1 completed trailer:
https://youtu.be/oRhlxgtr1ps

My primary video source has been Mr357's Shenmue 2 movie, but there are several clips that are either from the wrong time of day, different in the final game (the lighthouse scene in Beverly Hills Wharf for example), or just aren't part of the 9 hours that Mr357 recorded. (7pm night transitions, Fengmei scene in the diner, etc.) Also, the font used in the trailer doesn't appear to be publicly available. A font search engine found me one that's close, but as you can see some letters are slightly different.

There are also some interesting differences to be noted in the scenes that do match. For example, the scene with Yuan and Duck Race Man in the basement of the warehouse, one of the random henchmen is different in the trailer. In some cases characters blink at different times.

This project has given me new appreciation for the time and effort required to produce a trailer, and it make sense now how time consuming it would've been for YSnet to produce a Shenmue 3 trailer for MAGIC this year. Putting together what you've seen so far took over 8 hours, and it's less than 2 minutes long. There are several scenes where things are chopped together not only in small bits, but out of order that they appear in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if the original version of this trailer took someone a few weeks to make.

I'm hoping to have a finished "draft" of the base trailer using the clips I have already have finished in a few weeks, then I can go back and replace some of the stuff that's inaccurate. I might also consider using something like SVP to interpolate the source footage to 60fps, but my current video editor actually only does 30. (There's a newer version that does 60, I just haven't had a reason to buy it yet.) I wanted to post the WIP here in case anyone's interested in helping to improve the accuracy at all. I can replace the font for example, if someone either finds the original or wants to recreate the existing text as vectors. Or if someone is interested in recording more 1080p source footage, it would save me time. Either way, I plan to finish this since it's over half way done.

What do you think?

Hello everyone,

I'm doing a remake of Ryo's room, everything is done from scratch, I don't reuse models and textures of original game, I used models only to respect the proportions

Do not hesitate to tell me what you think or if you have suggestions to improve my work.

Work in Progress ! ;-)

Render 04/17/2018:

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

https://i.imgur.com/RtdNlG7.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Pu7jk78.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/x6hM2uL.jpg

Achievement Unlocked: Eat a carrot

However, it's possible that they'll be able to resolve the issues with it and present the entire game in 16:9 by the time it goes gold. I'm not expecting it, though, and I don't care either way. I'm just happy to be able to play the games properly again.
There's no guarantee things will change since the published information from Famitsu says event scenes will be forced to 4x3 (with Shenmue 2 being the exception based on the trailer, since those were letterboxed originally), but if they did decide to change and didn't want to zoom the few scenes that need it, I'd be okay with just the few scenes that need it having bars on the side. Just so we at least get most in 16x9 as an option. Sonic Adventure 2's HD release a few years back did that for the same reason (some effects were done as 4x3 animated overlays so no 16x9 was possible) and I was fine with it too because I knew why they had to omit it for those scenes.

Not having any Shenmue 1 event scenes in 16x9 isn't a deal breaker, but I'd prefer to see it whenever possible.

I will buy 3 copies for me (PS4/XB1/PC) and if they release the game on Switch I will buy it too. I dont even have a XB1 or a Switch but I want to have one for each system as a means to show support and for my collection.

I also plan to buy some PC keys, Im planning to buy around 10 keys to giveaway so I can help the game reach new players who might be curious but are unsure to buy one themselves.

If I can make at least one new person fall in love with the game then I will be satisfied.

There is something very familiar looking on that screen in the background in the photo of Haruka at the mic.
Anyone else spotted and recognized that bit from the cave?

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

Anyway, an unexpected update indeed. It's a bit sad another major character can't be voiced by the original actor or actress. I'm sure Haruka will deliver a compelling performance but one wonders if Masaya will be the only one returning for the original cast.

Hmm, an interesting update. However, I have to say, they've got Masaya Matsukaze's face all wrong. It's simply not what I envision when I think of Masaya Matsukaze working in a recording studio. I've taken the liberty of making big improvements upon the work of whoever designed him. I think everyone will agree - particularly everyone who hangs out in the depths of Youtube comments sections, the 'GAF crowd, and other prestigious comments fields across the internet - that what I'm presenting is the definitive headshot of Masaya Matsukaze.

http://www.zoonbats.com/s3/improvements.jpg

Muchas gracias Esppiral!

Came across this earlier today and bought a few copies. Cheapest price currently on the market.

https://www.voidu.com/en/shenmue-i-ii

Use codes SCHOOLSOUT or SUMMER18 at checkout for this price.

VoidU are an approved digital partner of SEGA.
http://www.sega.com/sega-approved-partner-list

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgSQgSWWsAA6rNV.jpg:large

I don't understand the sense in not zooming in and cropping the black bars off Shenmue 2's cutscenes. It's going to be incredibly jarring.

Here are some high resolution promotional game screenshots from the Xbox version taken many years ago.



Gallery link

https://imgur.com/a/2mxR58A

I agree all the negativity is excessive and there was no way they were going to get it to run higher than 30fps due to the way its all coded ; not to mention its entirely reasonable the cut scenes remain 4:3 because on-screen objects etc don't behave correctly in many situations (freeze or disappear) when they exit the 4:3 "border" because they were not meant to be visible anymore; but this isn't the reason they give in this video. The reason they give is "creative choice".. this random assumption makes them sound like they are so desperate to dispel negativity they'll just make stuff up. If they could have maintained the aspect ratio without visual issues it sounds more reasonable to assume they would have.

But their reasoning on why it can't run at 4K is utter garbage...in fact they don't really address it. if they can get the game to render native at 1080p when it used to render much lower then there is no reason it shouldn't render at 1440p, 4k.... etc. These are all the same aspect ratio. There isn't really any good reason not to offer multiple resolution options for PC. All that said, this port is "good enough" and doesn't deserve hate. but lets not make stuff up...

Yeah, it really doesn't look that much different to me, I barely notice it, but seeing the screen croppped is so jarring especially Shenmue 2's 4:3 Letterbox combo. I saw Adam did anotehr video recently explaining his thoery into why Shenmue 1 is in 4:3 While I don't 100% agree with it there is cetainly no excuse for Shemue 2 as the cutscenes are in widescene presentation boxed by borders anyway - Even the damn trailer they edited this! I'm grateful for many of the tweaks, faster loading and the subtitles look much better but not puttign effort into the cutscenes on a ground breakingly cinematic game simply does not do Shenmue justice.

Be careful calling it HD!

I just can't justufy 99% of the choices they've made with this re-lelease, let's call it that way instead of "HD"

If its true that they are working with source code I don't see a single reason why they are taking so many wrong decisions.

Specially the one related to resolution, But I see lots of people defending the direction d3t has taken with this port, I just can't believe it.... as much as I love Shenmue, I'm incredibly sad with this re-release.

People defending the lack of resolutions higher than 1080p arguing that it is not necessary saddens me, specially when we have seen tons of screenshots of emulated S1 and S2 at crazy resolutions and they look awesome, specially on 4k panels..

Xbox version emulated at 4k
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/293096509019258880/419947200651722753/Cxbx_2018-03-04_18-53-57-927.png

The bad audio quality, the lack of passport... I just can't...

Then the artistic vision about 16:9 cutscenes.... I mean it's more a technical constrain of the time than an artistic vision, and if that werent the case, and they are just trying to preserve the original vision...I don't Thinks Yu's vision was to see S2 cutscenes this way.


https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/758330/ss_940ecda42072e04923152dbaf489e254b99a8d9d.1920x1080.jpg?t=1531311621

It looks hideous

I don't care if I get hated by my opinion about what I think about this port, but they just couldn't do the simplest of the things like swapping Ryo's texture jacket in Shenmue 1 to use the higer resolution one from the xbox version ( wtch in return is the Passport texture for Ryo's Jacket), something that simple jet they didn't care.

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/758330/ss_fd6d03b1bf64bd77589ef70570fe745a5b83ee2a.1920x1080.jpg?t=1531311621

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/758330/ss_5c72fc3b023665b84ffbba49030aa7cfb7fcae8a.1920x1080.jpg?t=1531311621

Right now I am just as sad as mad about this, I should've relaxed before writing this post but the amount of posts defending such bad choices from d3t is driving me crazy.

Just to be clear, I am happy the games are getting re-released and we can play them on modern systems and can be enjoyed by modern audiencies but I've would preferred something....

https://media.giphy.com/media/o7ncE7UgxAUE0/giphy.gif

Thanks for sharing your controversial opinion, dude. It's discussions like this which make a forum worth participating in.

I can see your point but honestly, I personally don't care about the passport feature. Don't get me wrong, I used to play F 355 and especially PSO online a lot in the early 2000s but the Shenmue passport? Nah...

The character videos explaining game mechanics are beautiful and I love the character character profiles but I have always had the feeling that this was just online functions for their own sake. Kind of like Sega telling Yu to shoe-horn some online elements into S1. Never really understood why that thing even exists.

About the aspect ratio... Yeah, I also don't get what kept them from making the cutscenes 16:9, especially since S1 and 2 don't have any pre-rendered cutscenes if I remember correctly. I agree that this is kind of a bummer. That being said, I used to play a lot of Dreamcast and PS2 on modern televisions. 4:3 on a 16:9 TV never bothered me.

But the one thing that really pisses me off is the fact they are using the Xbox version of S2 as a source. A lot of textures wrong, Yen signs on the vending machines in Hong Kong, wrong music in the intro scene to Guilin and so on and so forth.

On the other hand, please don't look past all the hell of a lot of right decisions they've made on this release.

1. Save anywhere in S1.
2. Choose between old and new UI.
3. Dual Audio
4. Adding subtitles in more languages for people who don't speak English, such as French, German (European version) and Chinese (Asian version).
5. Choosing the right time to release those games. August, before Red Dead Redemption 2 will come and also long enough before S3's release.

Dozens of people have said this before but a semi-lazy port is all we could have ever hoped for. It was only after the S3 Kickstarter and slacker backer campaigns being as succesfull as they were, that Sega realized there may be money to be made with Shenmue so they didn't wanna take too many chances. I'm saying semi-lazy port because with a real lazy port we wouldn't have gotten any of the points I mentioned above.

I always respond to this question with this:

http://zoonbats.com/s3/shenmue_stylized.jpg (c/o Centrale et al)

So, personally, my answer is no. Shenmue has always been highly stylized imo, and I believe it's just the difference in fidelity and graphical tech between a 20 yo game and an UE4 game that is causing the perceived dissonance between the old games and 3. Just my personal opinion, though.

When other characters in Shenmue III look like this:

https://abload.de/img/4mlliieg0kt5.png

https://abload.de/img/l4qfq2uo6kzz.png

https://abload.de/img/ylwpa5h7tjt6.png

- singling out Mr Muscles as the definitive representation of Shenmue III's in-progress graphical design is a bit silly. These characters don't look like they're from Street Fighter 5, and I'd argue neither does Mr Muscles, really. He may be a big ugly bastard, but that's by design.

http://sm.ign.com/ign_mear/screenshot/default/screen-shot-2017-05-29-at-80305-am_aj23.png

Ren's gang in Shenmue II, by comparison:

https://i.neoseeker.com/ca/shenmue2_conceptart_VfMWk.jpg

Even if AM2 were pushing for the most realistic graphics the world had ever seen with the originals, the manga-inspired design still runs through the characters pretty heavily, and I'd say that's more recognisable now that realism in graphics has moved on so considerably.

Redream is a work-in-progress 64bit Dreamcast emulator for Windows, Mac and Linux that's getting a lot of attention lately, and for very good reasons.

One of the best features of Redream, is simplicity. It's one of the most simple and straightforward emulators, as it runs directly without the need to have a Dreamcast bios or to go through a complicated configuration process. It also detects and auto-configures many popular controllers like Xbox 360, Xbox One and PS4 controllers.

https://i.imgur.com/wat9L5B.png

Another advantage Redream has over other Dreamcast emulators, is that it's being actively developed. The lead developer is actively working on improving and debugging the code, and he has expressed to me a special interest in improving compatibility with Shenmue games further.

Redream comes in two flavours: a free Lite option and a Premium which can be licenced for $5. Both flavours share basically the main features, except for high-res rendering which is enabled in the Premium version.

https://i.imgur.com/TkYwqpF.png

When enabled, high-res rendering makes a huge difference in terms of visual fidelity. I have been testing Shenmue running in 4K with widescreen and no-clipping fixes by Esppiral, and the main game looks and plays beautifully from start to finish. Redream has a clear edge in raw performance over every other Dreamcast emulator I've used to date, and the latest build performed exceptionally well in high-res on my mid-range PC.

In terms of compatibility with Shenmue games, What's Shenmue is playable however, I noticed some audio and frame pacing issues, the first Shenmue is almost fully playable without any issues, the only thing missing is Hang On arcade game which is not yet supported, but the developer is aware of those issue and they should eventually be fixed.

Shenmue Prologue in 4K widescreen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0MKofTK_iU

Shenmue iconic intro in 4K widescreen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzV0ss7d0OE

Shenmue disc 1 gameplay in 4K widescreen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8xucpFedUY

Shenmue disc 2 gameplay in 4K widescreen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9xz_YtTWww

Shenmue disc 3 forklift gameplay in 4K widescreen with extended draw distance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbi0KvaISfo

Shenmue disc 3 bike gameplay in 4K widescreen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zrjNIn2SLE

Another really neat feature I noticed in Redream is the ability to uncap the framerate on-the-fly to fast-forward emulation, which is conveniently mapped to the menu button of the Xbox One controller, this feature can be extremely useful in almost getting rid of loading screens and make loading times almost non-existent with a press of a button.

Sound emulation is decent enough but not perfect yet, I noticed some sound issues especially in some cut-scenes and Shenmue Passport sections, the developer is aware of those issues and told me that they are being worked on.

Shenmue Passport in 4K widescreen and offline patch by Switch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvIRQoTEDDQ

Official discs of Shenmue II currently boot fine with Redream, and the game is playable in its letterboxed format and in 4K, except for some of the arcade games which aren't supported yet. Widescreen-fixed discs of Shenmue II have currently loading issues with Redream, this has been already reported to the developer and I will provide an update once this has been fixed.

In conclusion, Redream is a great Dreamcast emulator highly recommended to anyone looking for an easy-to-use and powerful piece of software to replay Dreamcast games.

Redream official site : redream.io

Original Shenmue 2 Full English Xbox Speech mod for Sega Dreamcast (aka Smith releases) which can be found here has incorrect disc information data (aka meta-data), and this data is usually used by Dreamcast hardware as well as emulators and some debuggers to correctly detect the played disc. This can be useful in correctly identifying game title, region and disc number etc ...

With the original Smith release, discs cannot be correctly identified and that could cause some issues in some cases, so I made this simple fix for that.

After applying the fix, the correct meta-data is restored to each disc so emulators (like Redream) can correctly identify each disc, download the correct title cover and sort it in the correct order in the library.

I've basically made three patches for the 80min, 99m, and 1GB versions of Smith release. I've also made another three patches to correct discs meta-data and add Esppiral's widescreen fix as well.

To use the patch:

1- Make sure to download the correct patch for your Smith release from the download links below.

2- Extract the zip file and copy the four cdi image files from the correct Smith release into the extracted folder.

3- The patch uses the original disc names as they were originally included in Smith release, if your disc image files are named differently please rename them before applying the patch.

4- Run patch.bat file .. and follow on-screen instructions.

5- Fixed discs will be created in "fixed" folder.

Download links:

For Smith 80min version : Meta-Fix , Meta-Fix and Widescreen Fix
For Smith 99min version : Meta-Fix , Meta-Fix and Widescreen Fix
For Smith 1GB version : Meta-Fix , Meta-Fix and Widescreen Fix

^ I seem to recall him mentioning some sort of crippling medical/anxiety issues; it might provide some context here.

In any case, he’s a good poster, so it’s unfortunate (and frankly a bit silly) to just abruptly quit like this, especially over an informative discussion.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Come back dude, it’s a good time to be a Shenmue fan.