For the record, there were polls in the past that tried to "prove" something, like this...

http://s19.postimg.org/urc6xrq2r/lolol.png

Keep supporting Shenmue's popularization, but at the same time do not take any (not really significant, not in a big site) poll in heart. For example, if that happened with the results of Sony PlayStation's #BuildingTheList campaign, it could be worrisome. But, in the current case, it's nothing to feel really frustrated about.

I've found (like, a year ago...) an unused scene in Shenmue I, that I've never seen before!

Unfortunately, it seems to belong to a really old beta map, and the textures of the buildings get in the way, so I've to remove them in order to see the characters clearly.

I've to set the levels of expectations, though: it's short and a lot of the voices/lip syncing and lines are missing. But still interesting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTYXq5PfcVA

There are three recordings of the scene: 1) with some textures removed to not get in the way (because the camera's movements are not consistent with the current map), 2) with nothing removed/ripped, 3) with using the beta/old map of Sakuragaoka.

Back then I was trying to change the map with another (like, with Dobuita's) but after some tries didn't make it and then 'forgot' about it. Give it a try, too, if you want and see if something changes or look better. Probably, that scene takes place in another area, or in one that is not even in the data.

Sonoshee wrote: Thank you Giorgio! This was great to see! I wonder what else there is still undiscovered? =D>

Thanks! I wonder myself, too; Shenmue is like a bottomless pit of discoveries! A fountain of details.

Peeping into a bathroom will reveal the true Full Reactive EYES Entertainment power of the Shenmue series. Curious who Ryo's going to peep into; Shenhua most probably. Also those voice recordings didn't go into waste after all; their use was planned from the beginning.

The previous paragraph was rated P ...for Peeping (you Pervert).

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtjqti3AQ6s

---

If the previous mo-cap technology suits S3's dev team, then I think it would be useful for the end product to use the following technology ( Faceware ) for facial expressions capture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmrXK4fNOEo The girl also wears (what it looks like) the Xsnes mo-cap uniform.

---

It's interesting to see that they have the collage up there (top-left) in the S3 dev studio. It's like Yu Suzuki said: "You see this pic? You're making S3 for this people. Keep this in mind everyday." And the pic is there for a constant reminder.
http://s19.postimg.org/3mo6e3003/frendship_collage_shenmu3.png

At first, I had my doubts about this update, but then I saw it was signed by "Awesome Japan" and got convinced.

You can use this, too: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=49657&p=1129485#p1129279

I went to Lapis and she told me we won't see Shenmue 1 & 2 HD at E3 '16, but there's a possibility will see it at PSX '16 or E3 '17 or PSX '17 (some mystic clouds where blocking her view and couldn't see well which one it is).

If Yu Suzuki enter Sony's E3 stage driving a forklift that is lifting a cargo full of Shenmue 1 & 2 HD's jewel Blu-ray cases, then it'll be the perfect marketing for the whole series. Mr Adam Boyes, if you're reading this, just wink thrice on stage and it'll be enough to know I got the credit for this idea.

The good things is that finally they don't show a sign of doubt about Shenmue 1 & 2 HD's selling potential.

The interesting thing is about licensing in the first two games. If it's for products like TIMEX, Coca-Cola (JP vers. only), Sapporo, Hitachi etc, then it's a simple matter of re-texturing (even a fan modder can do this). Therefore, I infer it is something more complicated. There is high possibility it is related to the rumours about the game engine being licensed.

Assuming SEGA's efforts is in full force, it's a matter of time and two factors are responsible for the delay: i) resolving the licensing issues, ii) porting the game (as well as QA).

Related links:
⋅  BlitWorks tells fans to continue asking SEGA for Shenmue and Jet Set Radio Future HD ports (July 14, 2015)
⋅  "It was mentioned in our office many times." - @BlitWorks (11 Mar 2016)

Peter wrote: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sega-i ... 0-6439731/

Gamespot running with the news.

Gamespot wrote:"The Japanese version of Shenmue featured Coco-Cola vending machines"

Coco-Cola confirmed for the new brand of coco vending machines. "Ah... good"

333 days ago, Shenmue 3 was announced on Sony PlayStation's stage at E3 2015 (the E3 of dreams).

Let's make a list of brands in Shenmue 1 & 2:
⋅  Case Logic (I don't remember / am not sure right know where this is used, but it's in my notes. Maybe the brand of Ryo's bag?)
⋅  Coca-Cola (vending machines)
⋅  Hitachi (cassette player in Ren's Hideout, only in Shenmue II)
⋅  Mitsui Sumitomo Bank (bank passbook [related video ], only in Shenmue I)
⋅  Sapporo (vending machines, only in Shenmue II)
⋅  Timex (watches, both in Ryo's hand and in his room, at least)
⋅  Zippo (lighters, only in Shenmue II)

What else?

I've heard that (especially in Japan) you need permission to advertise/feature a brand in your works. From SEGA's words, that Shenmue is totally immersive and need to retain that real world lifelike feeling (by featuring these real world brands), it's an issue to get the permission to do so.

However (if that's the case), how much of an issue it is? Which are the complexities? How much time it is needed? Personally, I don't believe it's a Gordian knot!

Let's make a list of brands in Shenmue 1 & 2:
⋅  Case Logic (I don't remember / am not sure right know where this is used, but it's in my notes. Maybe the brand of Ryo's bag?)
⋅  Coca-Cola (vending machines)
⋅  Hitachi (cassette player in Ren's Hideout, only in Shenmue II)
⋅  Mitsui Sumitomo Bank (bank passbook [related video ], only in Shenmue I)
⋅  Sapporo (vending machines, only in Shenmue II)
⋅  Timex (watches, both in Ryo's hand and in his room, at least)
⋅  Zippo (lighters, only in Shenmue II)

What else?

I've heard that (especially in Japan) you need permission to advertise/feature a brand in your works. From SEGA's words, that Shenmue is totally immersive and need to retain that real world lifelike feeling (by featuring these real world brands), it's an issue to get the permission to do so.

However (if that's the case), how much of an issue it is? Which are the complexities? How much time it is needed? Personally, I don't believe it's a Gordian knot!

Yes, his bag has the Case Logic branding on it, although I'm not sure where.
Just spotted this, too:
http://i.imgur.com/IFUERCv.jpg https://twitter.com/DCCOMP/status/732168035407028225

I want to add some thoughts, too, that the Shenmue series is all about the microscopic details, that communicate a believable world, which brims of human attributes in the deepest/spiritual (not in the occult sense, but at least in the metaphysical) form. Plus, it is uplifting and full of hope; the latter being the main drive of life. I feel like its world embraces and charms me with its atmosphere (a neighborhood, an exotic or a rural place etc). Talking with characters and observing their interactions is empathetic. Every detail communicates a message (being part of the story; historical, based on the real world etc). It's an inspiring/thought-provoking experience.

Nice Hello Kitty Pink Dreamcast in the background.

Let's Get Sweaty wrote: There's always one.

He must be a gaming industry veteran, for sure. Knowing the ins and outs of the game development process, this boy.

There is a 50% possibility to be and a 50% possibility not to be. Pick a side and I'll flip this coin. :rotflmao:

Just finished watching it all. Really good. Way better than the official one! Hoping for a possible Shenmue II: The Movie (Fanmade), too, in the future.

It glorifies Shenmue I's cinematic, aesthetic and structured-space quality. Also liked that it highlighted some tidbits/details from its world (like, playing some arcade games and telephoning Nozomi).

Overall, exceptional work!!!

Really good video. Waiting eagerly for the second video about Shenmue II. Glad it'll reach more people on its way of popularization.

Now that Shenmue III has been announced (after 14 years), the only game I await to be announced at E3 is a true sequel to Alex Kidd in Miracle World.

If you don't want to give to the disgusting Polygon the clicks / ad revenue, click this http://archive.is/Fv95h instead.

Let's Get Sweaty wrote: I'm stunned they didn't go with the headline:

Yu Suzuki on Shenmue 3: "To be honest, don’t expect too much"

I'm sure that if the focal point of the article was Shenmue 3 (and they didn't interview other developers), that would be the headline (or something more dramatic).

Amazing, Switch! Thank you very much for this translation! It was one of the most pluralistic interviews of Yu-san I've ever read. (It seems the length of YS' interviews is based on how much he is inspired by the questions and/or respect the interviewer.)

Some quotes that are my highlights from this one:
YS: It's that sort of everyday little thing that I'd like to portray . That's what gives the Shenmue feeling [...]

YS: No-one would listen to the suggestion that [...]. I'm sure everyone justified it to themselves with the reasoning " because it's a game ". So the Shenmue series took shape from my building up layers of what were, for me, natural things.

If Japanese game developers had embraced Shenmue's concepts, we might have been in quite a different situation today. Games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy didn't follow its path either.

YS: Those are products that were created after a thorough analysis of the Japanese market to identify suitable elements for customization to Japanese gamers, with all necessary elements being incorporated into their manufacture.
Interesting description of how these products are formed.

YS: Looking back on it now, if I had taken the Shenmue I game engine at that time and made it available as a tool for developers, it might have become the equivalent of something like today's Unreal Engine or Unity.

I think more now than ever, with the Japan game industry up against tough times, your words and Shenmue's concepts really stand out. Last year, when the father of Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima, went independent, he said "If we're only focused on the profits immediately in front of us, the times will leave the Japanese games industry behind. It becomes impossible to catch up again." This reflects what has happened after Shenmue.

YS: When Shenmue I was released, reviews were mixed. I can talk about it now as the "statue of limitations" has expired, but originally the Shenmue series was a single story made up of 11 chapters, that I was planning to release in two parts. Then it became necessary to release just the first chapter as a single game: putting together its own opening and ending and adjusting it story-wise to provide an Introduction, Development, Turn and Conclusion. So, if I had to say whether Shenmue I turned out as I had first envisaged, then that's not necessarily the case. My belief is that you must always be taking on new challenges , in order for new methods of expression and game production techniques to see the light. If you only rely on the old and familiar, the day will come when you're no longer able to stand up against the rest of the world.

YS: It is said that almost anything that can be imagined is realizable ; for example in the past we used to think it would be amazing if trains could travel inside buildings, but now it's something that exists and is taken for granted.

YS: If we can bring out something with an appeal that isn't influenced by differences in budget or production style, then a product can be created that will be well received by the rest of the world. I want Shenmue III to be a video game that can be globally competitive as a creative work .
That's the key to Shenmue III's success.

Highlights:
"[...] feel as if they have experienced a different life from their present one."

"Yu Suzuki took the concepts everybody had taken for granted and made them his point of departure."

"a space that feels real"

"exotic and out-of-the-ordinary"

"This result of this ludicrous amount of effort is that the world in which the player moves feels realistic, giving the illusion of being in the real world."

I wrote an app to scrap Shenmue 3's website and calculate the differences on money amount, backers number and days passed after each update. It was meant to be scheduled to do a check for a new update and tweet about it, like this: https://twitter.com/ShenmueLegacy/status/766758786350612480
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CqQTDUjWYAAB6Qg.png
Unfortunatelly, the site this app is hosted, asks for a credit card, in order to set a scheduler to do that automatically at different time intervals. I don't have a card right now, therefore, I have to do it by hand (that is, run a command like "ruby main.rb" via the terminal) at this moment...

The project is accompanied by a web page https://shenmue3stats.herokuapp.com/, which shows the money amount progression as a graph (fetching the data from a database). It ain't pretty (yet?).

Also, here's a "dataclip" https://dataclips.heroku.com/pghwemypmnrbcivggzciywtposon-Shenmue-3-Funding, which shows results from the database based on a query.

If anyone has the previous stats (posted in this thread) in an excel file etc, I can insert its data to the database, in order to be complete.

[...] The original pales in comparison to the sequel in terms of clarity of story and mechanics, but good god, you'd think the game was a crazed fever dream the way things are playing out in there.

Shenmue I especially, requires patient attention (and it isn't about intelligence). Shenmue II has a more streamlined version of the F.R.E.E. formula, for sure. However, personally, the first time I played SII I got disappointed, because it felt like you are on rails; you're taken from event to event hastily. The change of pace from SI to SII makes you feel dizzy and lost. I wish I hadn't bought the maps the first time, because that altered negatively the sense of exploration. I appreciate, though, that this is a change in how you feel in a strange and threatening place (like how Ryo would feel).

For all that, this is what makes me to consider SI as a favourite compared to SII. Because, in the first, you are one with the world. The pace, atmosphere, all the audiovisual sensory, the small scale, the NPCs who are much more believable and lively etc, contribute way better to stay in the "zone", to be fully immersed in the surroundings. Let's not forget the level of deep detail, especially in the Hazuki residence (which has so much but not so fully utilized potential).

Gamers have all the rights to consider Shenmue as a bad/terrible game and the freedom to mock it, if that makes them feel better. They don't understand, then, why this series is so beloved. The easiest solution for them: consider fans as lunatics or assholes... But why they do that?

Let's put aside controls and voice acting, though. I never had a problem with either one of those. Controls need you, again, to apply effortful attention, especially in space orientation terms on a structured space; some gamers expect to move the joystick and just have the avatar slide through. Voice acting never bothered me, because 1) I am not a native English speaker, so the accent does not sound strange to my ears, 2) it really makes you laugh (euphoria feelings) and adds to the charm (such a cliche phrase, but true...) and it creates memorable lines.

They try to find fixed and trusted game elements in Shenmue. Pure gaming elements. But Shenmue, by definition, tried to overcome the taboos and the traditional, to transcend them. It seems to me that, their gaming backgrounds favour fast paced and GTA-like games ( eg ) and/or ones that favour action first (frequent fighting events). Also, they need the game to tell them what to do.

In Shenmue there's a linear storyline to follow, and then the freedom to proceed when you want. It favours culture representation and interaction with the world, with a quality that makes it feel real; earthly, grounded, rudimentary and with the everyday-realities (interactive lifelike audiovisual experience) . It's also pro-social; converse with anyone and be kind. And, at specific occasions, to act altruistically.

Yu Suzuki himself said (in the Project Berkley video) that he wanted to create a mind-calm, soothing gaming experience with Shenmue. To portray the romance and mystique of the cultures featured. A think-based approach, with expectations for your heart to be touched emotionally; feelings of warmth. How to explain it... a visceral/gut feeling that you are organically one with what is being shown on the screen.

We shouldn't expect to see the day when the vast majority of people will show respect for this series. It has a lot of idiosyncrasies that only certain people (but certainly not few, as it was believed some time ago) will relate to and be enchanted/entranced by.

The worst feeling, at the end of the day, when writing about Shenmue (and its acceptance or not by players), is that you haven't covered everything about all these...

In case someone thought about the following: What...? Pseudo-intellectual? Haha! Just writing out thoughts. I am not trying to deceive you; just trying to explain what I think.

Shenmue is not just entertaining (that is, as a new kind of interactive digital/virtual entertainment) ,
it's also soul-fulfilling ( sapienti sat ) .

And some thoughts as an answer to closed-minded gaming-journalists and the vast majority of a certain type of gamers:
Some journalists criticize Shenmue by saying that it doesn't have a lot to
offer in gaming terms, and that they could perform the same activities in real
life. But that's exactly the point. To live (almost) a second life, different to
your own, while being immersed in a lifelike/believable world. To experience
it viscerally, with a gut feeling that you are organically one with what is being
shown on the screen. Yu Suzuki and AM2 created it based on standards of
the real world, and not as a video game. Players who prefer and are used to
'proven', traditional ways of gaming entertainment, of course, will disdain it.
Most of them come with a closed mind on what a video game should and
could be. Like there is a certain recipe that needs to be followed in order to
provide an accepted interactive entertaining experience. Their standards are
like a round hole and Shenmue is like a square peg. The easiest solution: to
mock it and its appreciators (as fanboys, lunatics, etc). The Shenmue series
is a new kind of entertainment. Almost two decades later, the vast majority
of players can't get why it is beloved, or, they do, but they can't stomach this
fact. They can't get that a game... is not like a game, and that, despite that,
people are still enchanted/entranced by it. At the end of the day, what makes
it seem empty for a lot of gamers is what makes it a unique, rich, natural,
and personally soul-fulfilling experience for others (even non-gamers).

http://i.imgur.com/ygk3Vvx.png

Shenmue is not just entertaining (that is, as a new kind of interactive digital/virtual entertainment) ,
it's also soul-fulfilling ( sapienti sat ) .

And some thoughts as an answer to closed-minded gaming-journalists and the vast majority of a certain type of gamers:
Some journalists criticize Shenmue by saying that it doesn't have a lot to
offer in gaming terms, and that they could perform the same activities in real
life. But that's exactly the point. To live (almost) a second life, different to
your own, while being immersed in a lifelike/believable world. To experience
it viscerally, with a gut feeling that you are organically one with what is being
shown on the screen. Yu Suzuki and AM2 created it based on standards of
the real world, and not as a video game. Players who prefer and are used to
'proven', traditional ways of gaming entertainment, of course, will disdain it.
Most of them come with a closed mind on what a video game should and
could be. Like there is a certain recipe that needs to be followed in order to
provide an accepted interactive entertaining experience. Their standards are
like a round hole and Shenmue is like a square peg. The easiest solution: to
mock it and its appreciators (as fanboys, lunatics, etc). The Shenmue series
is a new kind of entertainment. Almost two decades later, the vast majority
of players can't get why it is beloved, or, they do, but they can't stomach this
fact. They can't get that a game... is not like a game, and that, despite that,
people are still enchanted/entranced by it. At the end of the day, what makes
it seem empty for a lot of gamers is what makes it a unique, rich, natural,
and personally soul-fulfilling experience for others (even non-gamers).

http://i.imgur.com/ygk3Vvx.png
I do worry about how Shenmue III will be received critically. [...] Gaming journalism in this day and age is a complete and utter shit-show; not to mention the fact that some journalists are probably itching to give Shenmue III a bashing simply because of what it is. If the game turns out to be shit, it deserves fair criticism to the fullest extent, but that's the kicker: just because a critic might curse the game 'til they're blue in the face, does that mean it's an objectively bad game or do they simply not 'get' it? Shenmue is up there with the likes of Deadly Premonition as a game that people either love or hate - there's hardly any middle ground whatsoever - not because either are bad games, but because they transcend the very notion of objectivity.

Ride to Hell: Retribution is objectively bad, whereas Super Meat Boy , for example, is objectively good. Games like Shenmue and Deadly Premonition , however, simply can't be categorised in this way because they are entirely subjective - though not without obvious flaws - and handing the reigns over to a critic when something is 100% subjective is a very dangerous thing to do because it encourages bias and unnecessary personal opinion to float to the surface; instead of "This is [...]," it becomes "I think [...]."

Regardless, as long as we, the fans, enjoy it, and it makes a profit, thus allowing the series to continue on, critics can say whatever the fuck they want. It doesn't matter either way :)

There is confusion, everywhere where gaming is concerned, between objectivity and subjectivity. A gaming journalist's/critic's objective job is to objectively present to whom a game is addressed and then to objectively analyze if/why it achieves its ambition. For example, Shenmue as a new kind of entertainment, is addressed to players who enjoy an immersive, natural/lifelike/believable/living/breathing/based-on-real-standards, pro-social and story-dependent world, and it achieves its ambition for such and such a reason.

However, their objective job is not to share their opinion, and, thus, their subjective view and personal aesthetic judgement, on why they loved/liked or hated/disliked a game. Of course, some journalists/critics publicize their articles under the label "opinion" (but, sometimes, some of them abuse this, to present, at the end, an ode or a condemnation, to influence the public opinion through a website which gets a lot of traffic, or as a clickbait to get a lot of traffic).

Personally, I believe, Shenmue III will have the same fate as its predecessors. The vast majority of critics will try to find in Shenmue III something that isn't there and was never meant to be in there. They will criticize it based on the traditional standards (as I mentioned in my previous post) , and not based on the new/different standards of its unique/individual genre. [And the same applies to other games, too, which have a bizarre, capricious and/or idiosyncratic style (compared to the ones which follow the orthodox styles).]

My most favourite quote from this interview:
Build up as many experiences as you can of successes and failures – either is fine. Immerse yourself and experience things other people don’t. These will eventually form your own standards. Don’t think about succeeding or failing. I want people to go all-out for what they want to do. That’s the first step, I believe.

Found a rare official Shenmue II trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xa81FMDlvA

The musics sound slightly different than the original ones. Could they be the uncompressed versions we'll heard in the hypothetical remaster?
I haven't seen this trailer (with hard rock music) either:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gz1O54jZvQ

Two interesting details:

I've never seen before the homeless man laying down at this place:
...probably he's laying there only during Ryo's forklifting?

Idea for Shenmue III: Make the QTE sounds, for the directional button prompts, 3D. Also, make a different vibrational pattern on the joypad for each other button ( × ○ △ □ etc). So someone can close their eyes and still be able to push the buttons (for a blindly immersive experience). Like, the Braille equivalent of QTEs.

I went through the struggles of that during the making of this mod . Obviously, It requires tedious hex-editing. And, if I remember well, it went like this (some steps may not be necessarily justified):

- Open the PKF/PKS file with a hex editor and see if it's compressed.
- If it is, then extract it (I used GZIP, both for decompressing and compressing).
- Use a PVR extractor and converter from PVR to PNG. That was helpful to see the order in which the textures appear in the file.
- Edit the PNG image or make a new one.
- Convert the PNG image to PVR. This step needs special attention. It needs to see the attributes of the relevant original PVR. Attributes like its size, the pixel format, its data type etc. [ PVR Graphic Format ]
- Open the extracted file of the PKF/PKS with a hex editor. Replace the block of bytes of the relevant original PVR data with the new one created.
- (Re)compress the extracted file of the PKF/PKS to a PKF/PKS file. (However. If I remember well, this is not necessary. And, thus, the extracted file could just be renamed to the prefix of the PKF/PKS it got extracted from. I think Dreamcast decompresses GZIP decompressed files on the fly. Decompressing these files reduces the size of data, but it increases the time of loading.)

Once I took one (because someone at SEGA Forum proposed the same idea), as found here: http://www.16personalities.com/

I do not know how accurate is the test or how accurately/objectively I answered, but I got these results:
Personality: INTJ , Variant: Assertive, Role: Analyst [Results in picture form: http://i.imgur.com/OVoyouv.png] .

Shenmue Mods has a new home and it is now on Github: https://github.com/Shenmue-Mods

This new platform provides great versatility and accessibility to (contribute, that is) add new and edit existing resources of knowledge (compared to an obscure and rigid Google Site). The content looks prettier and more "professional", too.

The first post of this thread has been edited to reflect the new changes.

Just read some explanations (both here and in other sites) on why a Time Skip ("Wait" option) feature can not be implemented in Shenmue I, from a technical standpoint. I don't claim to be an expert nor I want to debate, but here's what I believe:

About the concerns that it will break the game (in technical terms, not aesthetic):
We have experience from the BETA 0.400. If you use the Debug Menu and in/de-crease time, things will indeed start to break.
However.
If we think how Shenmue II handles time skip we'll probably understand that it's not a big deal to make this to happen in Shenmue I, too.
The point is, every time ...time is increased/skipped, the game screen fades away and a cutscene/event starts. Basically, things are being reset .
Even in Shenmue I, when you do a Quick Save, and then you start/load the game again, things start from that specific time. So things has been reset, and start from the point of a specific time.

Therefore, Time Skip will work in Shenmue I, provided there's also a (hidden, that is only the devs can do it) Reset function, which takes account what time currently is.
And, if we think about it, there is already a Reset function, which indeed is being called (for example) after the end of a cutscene. So, the code for that already exists in Shenmue I.

tl;dr: Time Skip ("Wait" option) feature is feasible to be included in Shenmue I, because the code for both the 'time skip' and the 'reset function' (that is, put things to work again relative to a specific time) already exists.