Hello everyone. Continuing with my monthly Shenmue News series, this video covers the fangamer survey, Shenmue's appearance at the PC Gaming Show, a rumor about Gamescom 2018, SEGA's recent tease about news on July 3rd, and an update on the Slacker Backer Campaign!

http://bit.ly/ShenmueNewsEp3

Something interesting that Spaghetti picked up on is the background in this new screenshot of Shenmue HD:
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/758330/ss_95d0538133318057ca300ce59c23a57f60ec8129.1920x1080.jpg

It looks higher quality than usual. I went to check it against Mr357's Shenmue Movie remaster (which was recorded and uploaded in native 1080p) and sure enough, the texture is higher quality:
https://puu.sh/APSH6/224e60f40a.png

Have a zoom in on the images and see for yourself. Even H.264 + YouTube compression wouldn't blur the background that much.
Looks like we may be seeing some improved textures after all!

This is a fantastic and explanatory video. Gotta love Adam. Although I will very slightly (and respectfully lol) split hairs and disagree dialectically and semantically with him in saying it's "not even really a remaster." In my nomenclature, coming from the audio world, a remaster means taking original premaster source material, without changing them at all, and taking them through higher resolution audio converters, digitizing them if you're working with older media (which is a bit like porting I suppose lol,) maybe alter the mix slightly (change the arrangement via pan, maybe duplicate some tracks if need be, basically just making things clearer and sweeter, bring things up in the mix or down etc. etc.) possibly use new compression if you can get away with it without destroying dynamic range, etc. You might add new effects, like new reverb since effects technology tends to improve (which to me is akin to them adding new post processing effects to the game,) and all of this is done sparingly and carefully so as not to change the original audio at all, but just make things as good as they can be using newer technology.

Imo, this is precisely what they've done with Shenmue here. So, for ME, that's a remaster. Anything beyond would be a remake, and anything less would just be a straight port. I know not everyone agrees with that nomenclature, and I totally respect that. But for me, these are absolutely remasters. And not only that, but true remasters, rather than the quasi-remakes which keep getting called remasters (looks at Spyro lol.) Ironically though, it's the audio in this release which hasn't been remastered lol.

But ALL of that having been said, great video from Adam I will share around online to try and inform people with questions about these things!

Today, I walked into my local Gamestop and preordered and fully paid two copies of S1 & 2 HD, one for PS4, one for Xbox One. Yes, I actually went into a shop and bought a Shenmue game. The guy in the shop didn't seem to know Shenmue but it took him like one second to find it in his system. He looked at the screen and said: "1 & 2 are coming in one package and they also got Shenmue 3 coming up. Do you want to preorder that one too?". I smiled at him and said "Just 1 & 2 today, I'll come back to buy Shenmue 3 some other time.".

It was so surreal. It felt amazing.

Oddly enough, he had November 18 in his system as a release date for S1 & 2, but I guess that's just a placeholder.

Got my preorders for the US PS4 and Xbox versions and the Asian PS4 version locked down at Play Asia. However, they don't have the Japanese version on preorder yet, which I find odd. Anyway, I'll get that later.

I'm still gonna buy an extra copy of both the Xbox and the PS4 versions for myself (one to play, one to stay for each version) and also some copies for my friends who have been waiting to play Shenmue for the first time. But I'm not gonna preorder those copies. I'll just buy them spontaneously when the game is out. Can you immagine how marvellous the feeling must be?

You walk into your local video game store/electronics shop, take a Shenmue (yes, Shenmue!!!) game out of the shelf, pay it and walk out. Just like that. Must be such a sweet, triumphant moment. Can't wait for it.

[-o< \:D/ =D>

As I am in a bit of a conundrum on where I'll be when the game is shipped, I sent an e-mail direct to the survey support team to ask if there will be a way to update my shipping address beyond the Sept 30th mark. I also pledged on both the Kickstarter ($100 mark) and the Paypal Slacker Backer ($13 digital soundtrack is all I wanted), and asked if I should expect two different survey's.

I'll keep you guys posted with their reply.


They finally replied guys and given their answer... it looks like if you're on the fence about where you'll be, you'll be able to update your shipping address past the end of September.

Their reply is below:


Sorry for the confusion on the survey's close; that will close add-ons and changes to your tiers and questions, but it will not remove your ability to change your address. Fangamer will send you an email before we ship (or otherwise would have to lock addresses for some reason).


Thus, it looks like you'll have one final chance to give them where you want your physical backer rewards sent. Great news for me and anyone else that could be moving soon.

I had news for those who wish to buy Shenmue III in a region other than that of their country of origin.

Me:
If I want to have a physical version presently of Shenmue III in Japanese version, must I enter a Japanese address? (I have friends in Japan who could receive him for me) I really hope this option will be available so that I can order several version different region of Shenmue III

Shenmue III NTSC-J (PS4 physical)
Shenmue III PAL-E (PS4 physical)

Shenmue III NTSC-J (PC physical)
Shenmue III PAL-E (PC physical)

Fangamer:
Hey there Kogami,

Fangamer has received guidance from Ys Net instructing us (Fangamer) to not request separate regions, and to only use the backer's country information. Ys Net is looking into possibly opening up region selection later. For more questions — or to send comments about this decision — please get in contact with Ys Net directly by either sending a message to them on Kickstarter or sending Ys Net an email to [email protected].

Please let us know if you have any other questions!

Ryan Alyea

Me to Ys Net:
Hello, I live in France, but I would like to have a physical version Playstation 4 of Shenmue III in Japanese version (box / manual, guide book etc ...) for my personal collection. I participated in the Kickstarter campaign and I made an offer of 500$ for this project to fund.

https://nsa39.casimages.com/img/2018/07/04/180704042035664049.png

For this pack I would have liked to have it in Japanese full edition version, unfortunately, it is not possible to choose a Japanese version currently on the Fangamer form.

I sent an email to Fangamer to ask if it was possible to have it in Japanese and he told me that he was not allowed to propose the choice of the Shenmue III region and that it comes from your personal choice.

Please let us choose the choice of our Shenmue III region, I wish to buy several version of Shenmue III.

Shenmue III "NTSC-J" (PS4 physical) 500$
Shenmue III "PAL-E" (PS4 physical) 80$

Shenmue III "NTSC-J" (PC physical) 60$
Shenmue III "PAL-E" (PC physical) 60$

I am not alone in wanting to make this choice because many collectors own Shenmue I & II in different version (NTSC-J, NTSC-U and PAL-E)

Thanking you in advance!!!!

Ys Net:
Hello kogami,

Thank you very much for the message. Initially your address country decides your region, however, you will receive an email from Fangamer at a later date asking you to confirm your region, so you can change your region if you wish at that time.

Best Regards,
Oscar & the Shenmue III Team

^ 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.
Yep. He's one of the best posters imo. Shame to see him go.

Let's try to deescalate this a little bit...

I think Anonymous81 was also posting in the Steam discussion forums for Shenmue I & II as well, and let me tell you, that place puts the KS comments for Shenmue III to shame in terms of sheer madness. If that was them posting (as I believe it was, considering they said "peace out" pretty much around the same time they did here), then there was a commendable effort to keep calm and argue back against some shitty posters over there.

I'm not sure it was their intention to snap and decide to leave the Dojo, but dealing with the basically unmoderated hellhole of a Steam discussion board and then seeing the same major topic being raked over here, might have made things get more heated then they should have.

So let's maybe put the DRM discussion to bed for a bit.

For complete clarity, let me accentuate that Technophillz (or anyone else for that matter) was never suspended for 'not being positive enough'. We do not ban people for rational criticism of Shenmue related projects. Just wanted to make that clear.

Good post!
I think this kind of stuff is acceptable in a fan hack, but in a commercially sold product I can see why they'd want to avoid it.

Here's a summary of the latest information released by Sega and Adam Koralik since the release date announcement.

https://i.imgur.com/h5jWRvm.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/dXQ60eG.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/9wCa31g.jpg

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

Sorry for cutting off the discussion, but I would like to say how happy I am with the rerelease of Shenmue I & II.

I'm Brazilian and here Shenmue was not very well known (despite the effort of Tectoy, the Sega representative here), so I met the series only in 2016, in a playthrough of an oldgamer youtuber, Velberan.

It was love at first sight. I had a Dreamcast for a short time, but I never got close to that amazing game. I had to play in emulators, so I found this forum.

As I played and followed the forum, I began to participate in attempts to persuade Sega to relaunch the first games before Shenmue 3 be released. These few 2 years of waiting have already been a torture. I can only imagine the waiting and hope of all here since 2000, until finally the rerelease has been confirmed.

I really want to get the physical here in Brazil, but Sega is not very present here, so I think I'll have to settle for the digital version of PS4 and Steam, because I'll buy both.

[Sorry for this poor english

Ok... I agree with Adam in his new video that the guys that took the time to go back into the source code to get us the game on modern systems and in full 1080p deserve massive credit. It sounds like a very frustrating undertaking and I would shake the hand of every single one of the coders that did that. As I can't do that, the least I can do is buy the game right?

As for all the negativity surrounding the Shenmue HD Collection, I don't understand why people would show any kind of negativity towards this that were real fans. Is it a remake like Resident Evil 2... no. Is it 4K and/or 60fps like many modern releases... no. It doesn't matter. We are getting both games in an HD collection on modern systems. That in and of itself is enough to be excited over.

I think some may be forgetting that Shenmue fans right now are in the midst of an incredibly rare moment. The experience that we all love was cut short due to various reasons. 17 years after the last game released we are getting a full source code remaster of one of our favorite games/stories. Not only that but we are expecting it to finally continue with the third game releasing next year. Remember people... 4 years ago, the series was essentially dead. There was no reason to ever believe that we would get a remaster collection let alone a continuation to the story. We are getting both and from the success we're seeing, we could very well see Shenmue continue to completion. I don't believe I've ever seen or heard of another fanbase getting this kind of reboot to a favorite series.

Don't let the negative people online get you down. As a Shenmue fan... it's time to celebrate :!:

I don't think anybody is trying to suggest that these are the perfect dream ports of Shenmue.

Even I'll admit that there's stuff I wish they could have implemented. It'd be great to see 16:9 cutscenes. 4k? I'd love to play it on my 4k monitor. Obviously these things would make it a definitively better port; you'd be hard-pressed to find somebody who doesn't think this.

But are these problems enough to write off the entire port? I wouldn't say so. In the grand scheme of things some of these criticisms are fairly small. It's not like d3t and SEGA aren't putting effort into these ports. We could have had a lazily done emulated port with zero enhancements, but that's not the case. Things I rarely see the people who are overly saddened by these ports mention is features such as saving anywhere, both dubs, short loading times, modern controls etc. I'm not saying that people should ignore the shortcomings because there's good things too. But when you feign ignorance to these things and focus exclusively on the negatives then obviously you're going to be disappointed.

Do we deserve better? It's a tough one to answer. Technically we don't really deserve anything. Only a couple of months back getting any sort of remaster seemed like an impossibility with SEGA barely uttering a single word about Shenmue. Some are so quick to forget about this. I know that there are posters here who have never uttered a single positive thing about Shenmue, but even still, apply some context and realise that we're actually getting something pretty decent (albeit with a couple of shortcomings) instead of acting so ungrateful and demanding we have it better.

To summarise, I just don't get how people can get this upset over these ports and make SEGA and d3t out to be lazy and awful when what we're actually getting is going to be a well crafted, decent port (after many years of asking for it) with a few drawbacks.

Just a matter of perspective. Maybe they could have done 4k, but would it matter much? Personally do I want to see how muddy some of the textures are and exacerbate how old this game really is graphically speaking in even finer detail? Not really as it's not a remake, just a HD enhancement as it is being advertised.

Is this a lazy port by d3t? I can't tell because I don't know the budget d3t was working with like AG mentioned. But I don't really think so, as they could just have used emulation and be done with it.

About the 4:3 cutscenes, those are Yu's cinematography at play. Others have pointed out before how old films originally 4:3 scanned to widescreen ended up showing stuff not meant to be seen like camera crews and out of place objects, in the end changing the original intended atmosphere of the scene. Well, the same can be said here as npcs shown in the 16:9 emulation, not meant to be seen in the original frame shot, are frozen in place as example. Even worse as the draw of extra geometry already shows distracting artifacts in the emulation, who is to say that in the engine d3t worked with it won't break the game? Either way, changing the original ratio of the constructed shot cutscenes is the same as changing Yu's original artistic vision imo.

Another thing I see it being complained about in other forums is the 30 fps. Well, besides being hard coded I believe it's tied to the time system in the game and it would mess with its mechanics and probably break the physics in the game. I'd imagine Shenmue HD 60 fps looking like this in execution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agl6eoJ84jk

Anyway, I'm stocked for the release of Shenmue 1 & 2 HD not because of me playing it, but it is finally the chance the franchise ever had to draw in new fans towards Shenmue 3 and beyond. And I'm confident the newcomers won't nitpick these games that are nearly as old as they probably are.

Im more concerned about the animation thats going to be applied to these graphics. From what they've shown, they've proven they don't understand animation basics.

Oh, really? What do you think is more likely... that the professionals working on Shenmue III somehow have landed this job without understanding animation basics? Or that a consumer who has been shown work-in-progress footage doesn't understand what they're seeing in regards to the overall game development schedule?

But if it can be done by us at home, why wouldn't a professional developer be able to do it?

Just because people have made it work in specific places doesn't mean those changes just 'work' across every other possible moment and eventuality in the game. Its entirely possible they have tried all the same tweaks we have as a community and found it was too hit and miss and time consuming in reality. For example, just saying it's easy to just move the camera back to get a 16:9 ratio is daft.. Sure.. and that might work most of the time, but there could be a future cutscene where doing that even slightly pushes the camera inside another object... Can't move forwards, can't move backwards... What about the many characters that freeze when they leave the confines of the 4:3 border, add new animations too??

We are all talking like we are professional devs with full access to the code and shitting all over thier efforts as if they were lazy or incompetent. Don't be so arrogant and so sure of yourselves.. have some humility.. (people in general, not specifically you mrandyk)

Unbelievable. I can't believe Sega were in chat. My jaw is still on the floor. Fair play to them, they really are reaching out. Sega in the Shenmue Dojo stream. That's insane to me. Inspires me more to get this new site out ASAP!!

Just can't help but feel what a missed oppertunity this was. I mean how much would it have taken to actually spend some time on the game and update the graphics? It looks old, probably will play old too and because of that, there is probably a bunch of potential fans that won't bother with the game.

You are entitled to your opinion but consider this..

Many cases rereleasing games as HD reboots have failed.

The first special edition monkey island had a lot of criticism for voice acting and graphical decisions that took away from the original monkey island feel.

Silent Hill rereleases were also controversial to the originals.

Gabriel Knight rerelease, many fans including new players prefer the originals

I can go on, realize the situation here..

1) Shenmue 1 was exclusive to Dreamcast and out of print for some time now, the GDroms will eventually fail. for new players, at some point Dreamcast hardware will dry up.

2) Shenmue II was never released in the US for Dreamcast outside of PAL versions imported, Shenmue IIx was released for xbox but also out of print now, the xbox 360 emulator doesnt load everything properly which also hinders and makes it difficult to obtain the game.

3) Realize that we had literally no news about Shenmue continuing let alone a re release spanning from 2002 to 2015 for shenmue III and a remastered rerelease in 2018. If you date back shenmue 1s release date in 99 thats almost 20 years that have lapsed from the first game. Understand that fans had been pushing for continuations and releases for roughly over a decade.

4)We are getting both games at a cheap price with both Japanese and English dubs and 1080p support. As much as I would love a remaster, I highly doubt SEGA would take the risk on a full retextured game. If sales are good for the game, then perhaps that will send a message that there is demand for a remake of the games similar to what occurred with Yakuza.

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Sorry about the late reply. I don't know why it has a German sticker on it, but it's only available to order by the seller Amazon.co.jp. If it were the German version I think it would be more expensive.

There are other imported versions on Amazon Japan that we can order and they are listed as 輸入版:北米 (Import version: North America) for triple the price. So I think the 4,157 JPY version should be the Japanese version.

P.S. it says that Koch Media GmbH is the publisher, so maybe the German company is also publishing the Japanese version?

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