Shenmue Dojo

Hey all, I've put together a little photo tour of Ryo's hometown Yokosuka. I spend a little too much time browsing google earth daily, and they have a really interesting feature which shows photos of an area displayed over the map. None of the pics here were taken by me, I've collected them from Panaramio, the website used in this feature, and arranged them in a similar way as presented in the game. The captions I use are my own interpretation of what it looks like and not necessarily what it actually is. Put on some music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Am9xYC7nk for the walk, & let's take it from the top.


Hazuki Residence



Dojo





coy pond


enterance




Yamanose

leaving the residence


heading down the hill










yamanose shrine

statuette with red scarf


megumi is just off camera

leaving yamanose




Sakuragaoka


phonebooth on the left


the dead end near sumiya san's house



abe store & vending machines


sakuragaoka park / yamagishi's favorite bench

let's get sweaty


heading back

is that naoyuki's motorcycle?

leaving sakuragaoka




Dobuita

entering dobuita

upper dobuita

down the steps


game you!

jupitor's jackets

tom's / bonus red sports bike


wang on his bike / cherry blossom branches which can be seen in game during spring

shops / mountain backdrop


tomato convenience store / coke machine / flower shop


bar district


bar linda

mjq


waiting for the bus





New Yokosuka Harbor




getting off the bus


hokuhoku lunches

harbor lounge


port


the iconic cranes



the two islands which can also be seen in game



fucking forklifts!

let's race


left, right, right, RIGHT!! (sorry, wrong game)

map looks like it could almost fit in the game


warehouse district




hokuoku lunches, special delivery

#8






and so, the journey begins

Good stuff indeedly. Thank you!

The map is so similar to the game.

What's funny is that a friend of my wife lives near the area that you titled "Yamanose"... SUbway station as "abe store"? Well well...

LOL! I did not noticed that.

But looking fot that "Hazuki residence" I wont be suprised if it was really the inspiration to make Ryo's home in the game.

I love you, The You the way you do the things you do,
You must be a football coach the way you got me playing the field so gimme that toot toot gimme that beep beep, The You running his hands through my Fro'


Nice photos mate

Thank you, that was refreshing. While seeing the pictures (with the aid of the descriptions), Shenmue music started to playing in my mind related to the setting and what event could possibly happen there, while imagining how Shenmue could look nowadays with today's technology and graphics.
Seems like Shenmue got released in the "wrong" time... both for the gaming audience that currently prevailing the market and for the way the game could be represented, because today's graphics could do more justice to it and deliver the aesthetics more authentically.

Also, thinking how the designers transferred the picture of those places into the game, as an inspiration to the whole design, even to the minuet details. Furthermore, how the developers turned several things that happen in those places, into a gameplay experience, like the forklifts "let's turn them into a mini-game", the crates "let's turn them into a mini-game", the telephone booth "let's make that operational into the game", the cats "let's make pet simulator into the game", the shops "let's make some shops to play a role in the game" and so on.

That is, transferring the world of those places into a digital interactive experience, playing a role around an epic and complex story, with personalities and each of them contributing to the world feeling, emotions and story, all of that instilled into the vastness of Japanese (and Chinese) history and mythology.

Therefore, Shenmue is not really a game. Is an interactive experience, letting you live its world (instead of destroy it, like in other games) and interact with it via a real life feeling. I wish more games like Shenmue will be made, with the same vibe/spirit/philosophy, probably about other areas of the real world (for example, a story in the world of Africa, Antarctica, Ancient Greece et cetera).

Again, appreciate your intentions to share those images for the entertainment of our eyes, and thank you.

This thread is amazing!

Amazing tour! They sure took a lot of time to get inspiration of the actual locations when they made the game.
It has it's own unique style to it but a lot of similarities to the real thing. One day I want to walk in Ryo's footsteps myself.

1. Is that real life house actually based on Ryo's home?, because it looks almost exactly the same.

2. Who currently lives in that home, someone famous, or some normal guy, because I wonder what he thinks that his home is accurately modeled in a video game.

3. Did Yu Suzuki know the guy living in that house at the time to recreate it, or he just randomly chose a house to put in his game without permission? lol

These are incredible! I've seen photos of Dobuita before, which I found disappointing because it only bears a passing resemblance to the in-game version. But these shots of the Hazuki Residence (does anybody know what this is in real life?), Yamanose, Sakuragaoka and Yokosuka Harbour are so incredibly close to the Dreamcast representations that I couldn't help but grin at them

Which leads me to wonder how geographically accurate the in-game versions are... Are the streets laid out the same? I bet you'd get a really creepy deja vu if you went to the real-life Yamanose, or the Harbour, and somehow knew exactly how to get around this place you'd never been to before.

You are my hero, grat stuff!

envgen wrote: These are incredible! I've seen photos of Dobuita before, which I found disappointing because it only bears a passing resemblance to the in-game version. But these shots of the Hazuki Residence (does anybody know what this is in real life?), Yamanose, Sakuragaoka and Yokosuka Harbour are so incredibly close to the Dreamcast representations that I couldn't help but grin at them

Which leads me to wonder how geographically accurate the in-game versions are... Are the streets laid out the same? I bet you'd get a really creepy deja vu if you went to the real-life Yamanose, or the Harbour, and somehow knew exactly how to get around this place you'd never been to before.

Check out this web series called Tokyo Swan on YouTube. In one episode he visits the, what he called, 'real-life Shenmue'.