Does anyone think we might hear about the mythical HD editions at PSX this December?
Seems like the right time and event to announce/release them given Shenmue 3 was original given a Dec '17 release date so why not sweeten the delay with an actual Shenmue release
In any case if/when they eventually come out i hope Sega do them justice and go back into the old code and actually take the time to take advantage of the Ps4 rather than just release an emulation layer with no upgrade or additions besides running in HD,in fact in that case i'd rather they not release them at all at might as well stick with the pc emulators!
Sega have retrofitted two ps2 games recently (Yakuza 1&2) so they have the knowledge and expertise of how to effectively port very old games to the ps4,now i'm not expecting Sega to upgrade Shenmue to the new 'Dragon Engine' ala Yakuza Kiwami 2 (even though that would be AMAZING) the original Shenmue's would look so out of place without being touched up it would be borderline comical to present them 'as-is' straight ports...so Sega please if you read this forum at all DO NOT DO THAT!
Firstly ALL textures need to be redone and audio samples need to be greatly improved on or if possible even redone as well.
As mentioned before all forms of LOD must be removed,framerate should be at least be locked at a stable 30fps and i see no reason why the game could not hit 60fps (unless the original engine timings were so ingrained in 30fps and anything higher would thus break the code or simply be too much effort to rework the engine to run that fast)
It should also run at native 4k on the pro with '4k' textures given how relatively small the Shenmue areas are this should not be a problem,i don't actually own a pro but would in a heartbeat if Shenmue 1&2 run native 4k.
Proper HDR would be the biggest addition i think Sega could bring graphically and would transform the night scenes in both games dramatically,not sure if i'd want bloom or depth of field (depending on how it's done i suppose) but HDR most definitely!
Moving on from graphical upgrades load times need to be near instant if not removed entirely,i presume it would be near impossible to edit the original engine to load the entire map and for Sega to 'stitch' the broken areas into one so the best case scenario is probably still having to fade into the area/time screen for a second then maybe leaving the area name ect transparent for a second or so more so the player is made aware of where he/she is and what time it is.
The movement control could obviously use abit of tweaking but i don't see how they could mess around with that too much without ruining the collision detection through the whole game so probably nothing is going to happen there but one addition that MUST happen above all else (especially for Shenmue I) is the ability to speed up time and/or warp back to your home at any time and point in the game which requires the player to wait,this is THE fundamental problem with SI and perhaps not nearly as bad in SII it would make the games much more palatable to play for a modern audience.
To sum up from worst to best case scenario:
1: An emulation slop of a port with nothing done and simple 'runs' on modern hardware (Don't bother Sega)
2: An Enhanced souped up edition with meaningful upgrades and fixes to make the games stand up more favorably to modern players
3: A full remake ported to a modern engine that transforms the original games much in the vain of the Yakuza Kiwami series