Shenmue 3 & E3 2017 - UPDATE - Confirmed will NOT be at E3

[FlagshipFighter]

Yeah, I'll take what I can get. A remake situation would obviously be ideal, especially if they could do something about the English voice acting (it WILL be off putting to new fans), but I'll still be happy if we get Shenmue 1/2 HD. I honestly have not played either game in years, so it'll be nice to have a somewhat updated version to play on a new console.

People doubt the games will sell, but I'm just not seeing how they won't sell. The hype surrounding Shenmue 3 was astronomical and I think Shenmue's name recognition is the highest it's been in years. Even if the games haven't aged terribly well or won't appeal to everyone, they'll sell.

[FlagshipFighter]

A remake would be near impossible to keep under wraps for this long, as it would have had to be in development for a while I'd think.

Quality remasters is what I think it will be. If it has transfer save capability that's huge.

[FlagshipFighter]

I don't see a Shenmue Remake of the first two games as ever happening. While it would be incredible, right now Remasters are the best bet and we should be thankful for that given Shenmue's history. With Shenmue 3 finally happening I think once Shenmue 3 goes gold and is released, we should hope YsNet makes enough return on the new chapter to warrant a 4th and hopefully final installment still on PS4 and PC.

Imagine the entire Shenmue story line on a single system. Glorious.

[FlagshipFighter]

No, remake is a horrible idea. Remaster is good, but even remaster is really hard to do proper way. The good example is Nathan Drake collection: its a really good remaster and really well recieved by players. But actually its not quite the same Uncharted from PS3, overall feeling is not like 100% the same. Mainly because of lighting and colors are different.

And if one take the game like Shenmue where details are super important, and also its the game really based on vision of Yu Suzuki, it can be a disaster.

[Himuro]

Yeah, I'll take what I can get. A remake situation would obviously be ideal, especially if they could do something about the English voice acting (it WILL be off putting to new fans), but I'll still be happy if we get Shenmue 1/2 HD. I honestly have not played either game in years, so it'll be nice to have a somewhat updated version to play on a new console.

People doubt the games will sell, but I'm just not seeing how they won't sell. The hype surrounding Shenmue 3 was astronomical and I think Shenmue's name recognition is the highest it's been in years. Even if the games haven't aged terribly well or won't appeal to everyone, they'll sell.

I would argue Shenmue's brand recognition is at its highest point. It's clearly more famous now than when it released.

I really hope whoever does Shenmue HD has the common sense to not release the games in a lazy port with no changes to controls. I remember what happened when Jet Set Radio HD came out and the reaction wasn't good. But Shenmue isn't a platformer like JSR and has no obligation to keep the same control scheme as the original. If the controls aren't at least on par with II's analog controls they've fucked up.

[Centrale]

I really hope whoever does Shenmue HD has the common sense to not release the games in a lazy port with no changes to controls. I remember what happened when Jet Set Radio HD came out and the reaction wasn't good. But Shenmue isn't a platformer like JSR and has no obligation to keep the same control scheme as the original. If the controls aren't at least on par with II's analog controls they've fucked up.

What do you mean? JSR did have updated controls with the camera mapped to the right thumbstick. I think it was generally regarded as a very high quality port.

[Gen]

I don't have problems with 30 fps cap on old ports since that's how the games were designed to run.

Yeah, Shenmue was also designed for 640 x 480 resolution 4:3 aspect ratio, but it would be nice to have widescreen, better resolution and some updated textures.

Widescreen, better textures, better models are things the community has already done. Those are pretty easy to do.

60fps is less likely though, for the same reason as ports of other games from that era such as Final Fantasy X. If the motion capture data for the cutscenes only exists at 30fps, that presents a problem because they won't have the "positions" for movement of characters on those extra frames. There are ways you can try to deal with it, such as taking the average between the next and previous frame to account for the one in between, but that won't be correct if something is accelerating for example. Looking at additional frames could be used to try and pick up those trends, but that isn't always going to work either since movement isn't always supposed to be fluid. We don't know what they have, but 30fps motion capture was common back then, so if they want 60fps there's a lot of work to do there. Square Enix recently did that for their Kingdom Hearts PS4 remasters, and the Digital Foundry video on those talked about it a bit. Apparently some of the cutscenes in the Japanese version had movement issues as a result of them doing interpolation, which had to be manually cleaned up before the US release.

I'm saying they can do it, but it's more difficult than other things they could do. I'm okay with 30fps, since they're probably targeting 30 for Shenmue 3 and it'll be consistent.

Yeah, I realize it requires more work, but I hope they do it. It's the feature that would get me the most excited about a port, since as you point out, several other visual improvements are already available with demul, even though emulation isn't perfect. The PS4 version of S3 is probably targeting 30 fps yes, but the PC version will likely have unlocked framerate, and many will run it in 60.

There was actually a modder who demonstrated that 60 fps could be achieved on the pc port of Final Fantasy X and started working on it but I think it was too much work for him alone so not sure if that mod is still being worked on.

[Himuro]

I really hope whoever does Shenmue HD has the common sense to not release the games in a lazy port with no changes to controls. I remember what happened when Jet Set Radio HD came out and the reaction wasn't good. But Shenmue isn't a platformer like JSR and has no obligation to keep the same control scheme as the original. If the controls aren't at least on par with II's analog controls they've fucked up.

What do you mean? JSR did have updated controls with the camera mapped to the right thumbstick. I think it was generally regarded as a very high quality port.

I'm obviously talking movement and not camera. It's a great port. The problem is that people don't like the game itself. If they port Shenmue they must include analog support in 1.

[Valascaziel]

I personally feel, with the influx of tweets, subtle photos and substantiated rumors, the HD Remasters will be much more than shovelware ports ala the Resident Evil series.

It is a real chance to give Shenmue the exposure to the masses, on a system that is the most prevalent in installed base. Ironic, considering PS2 was a big reason Dreamcast had less life than it should have. Yes, there were other factors, but I remember in my waning high school days the hype surrounding the PS2 wasnt seen again until arguably PS4. Maybe Wii.

[Telekill]

Ironic, considering PS2 was a big reason Dreamcast had less life than it should have. Yes, there were other factors,

I feel that the biggest factor for Dreamcast failing and ultimately, Sega dropping out of the console race, was Microsoft entering the console race. I firmly believe that the market can only sustain three console platforms and in comparison to Microsoft, Sega didn't have the finances for a continued effort. I believe had we never seen Xbox that Sega would perhaps still be in the console race and never taken the nose dive from quality that they did.

Why do I believe this? Take a look at the 90's with all the various failed systems. 3DO, CD-I, Jaguar, Neo Geo, etc. I believe Atari dropped out of the console race shortly before or after Sony entered with Playstation. So it was Nintendo, Sega and Atari until Sony showed up and then it became Sony, Nintendo and Sega. When Microsoft entered, it became Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.

[south carmain]

Ironic, considering PS2 was a big reason Dreamcast had less life than it should have. Yes, there were other factors,

I firmly believe that the market can only sustain three console platforms

And even then that isn't true for every generation. It's become more common for two rather than three at this point.

It's funny how the bigger the market gets the less room there is for competition.

[Peter]

Random factoid for the day:

By this date in the E3 & Shenmue 3 2016 thread, we had 8 pages worth of comments.

This year - 32.

The attention is real.

[Valascaziel]

I'm very hopeful for the remasters to be a done deal. I have explained to my wife how inspirational this series was.

Things she was familiar with such as QTEs, open worlds, shops having set hours and day/night cycles...much of that began, arguably, with this series and she's very excited to play them.

I haven't brought the original console out as I'm afraid my rambunctious toddlers will get ahold of my Shenmue discs or system and mess it up. I keep it locked in a glass china cabinet

[Telekill]

Random factoid for the day:

By this date in the E3 & Shenmue 3 2016 thread, we had 8 pages worth of comments.

This year - 32.

The attention is real.

I just went back and read much of the E3 2016 and the 2015 threads. Lots of great memories in the 2015 thread. Some great and hilarious gifs as well. Two of my favorites being, oddly, both from Giorgio.

I can't control the hype!

BEST. REACTION. EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SHENMUE 3 CONFIRMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3

I anticipate that this year's E3 will also be one to remember. Even if nothing Shenmue related is shown this year, going back to the 2015 E3 thread brings a smile to my face.

[Jibby]

Man, that E3 2015 thread. In the run up to the Sony conference, there was just such a good atmosphere. I don't know what it was, but something felt different that year compared to previous years. Good times.