Peter wrote:1. "Save the best til last". It really is the most talked about game of the Dreamcasts tenure. Wether you loved it or hated, it it still got people talking. Someone severely hating Shenmue and thinking its boring is as valuable to me in terms of its legacy because its as much an emotion given towards it, so its re-release will be the most talked about game from the Dreamcasts list of games. Also, its easily the biggest game, in terms of size, following, and legacy so its a good game to possibly be the last Dreamcast title to be released, at least for a sustained period of time.
I don't see it as the same thing. I know 'any publicity is good publicity', but in the gaming world this generally only equates to controversy. Something like GTA or Manhunt kicking up a stick, thereby generating interest, thereby boosting sales. If Shenmue is known as a shit game, that will not encourage sales.
Peter wrote:2. The bigger and more logical reason of the two for me, is that it surely will take a long time to upscale this entire game, both visually and audibly. All of the items, locations, characters...... i mean if you forget how huge Shenmue is, just spend your first day in the Hazuki household and try to lift every possible item, explore every possible room and also open every cupboard. I did it last night, and i didnt get to visit Fukuhara in the dojo until 9.45pm. This game is huge. Fact. Having to sit and go through its entirety will be no easy feat, and also not one that can be achieved overnight.
I don't think the graphical 'upscale' is really much of an issue. If you look at the existing Dreamcast HD re-releases, the only actual
work done to the graphics is in the fonts/menus and so forth. All that is done to the game itself is that the framebuffer is told to spit out rasters at 1920 × 1080 or 1280×720, rather than 640 x 480, which was the SD 4:3 that the Dreamcast version would have been coded for.
I'm sure it's not
quite that simple, but it's not a big issue. Sure, they'll have had to tinker with the graphics engine in some instances so that geometry is rendered all the way out to the edges of the 16:9 aspect, but that's about it. I guess in Crazy Taxi HD they had to do new textures for stores and stuff, because the licence to include KFC and GAP etc had expired. But Shenmue doesn't have any real-world IPs or anything that'd need to be changed.
Redo the fonts and menus in HD, make sure the graphics engine can deal with the widescreen aspect, rasterise the graphics at HD rather than SD. Done.
Peter wrote:The audio of Shenmue (not VA work) is what doesnt age as well as the rest of the game. I have been playing Shenmue again with a VGA box and LCD TV and it looks as close to HD as you could get, but you can tell the quality of the audio isnt up there, especially with gaming headphones on. Again,this is something that will take some time. Add to that, if they are also going to include both native VA with subtitles, as so many fans have requested. Again more time.
I agree with you, here. The soundtrack is beautiful, and the music needn't change. A lot of the sound effects are quite low-fi, though. I actually would include the VO in this assessment. So a decision would need to be made; leave as it is, or redo this stuff. In my opinion, this would mean redoing all the voice work as well. I'd be fine just leaving the sound how it is, personally.
Peter wrote:Then there is also additional features that Sega would surely want to incorporate into the game. First thing that comes to mind is the difference of todays controllers compared to the Dreamcast controller, namely a second analogue stick. Obviously for Shenmue, this would be used as a camera stick, and some sort of freedom camera development would have to be organised. If this is to be a double planned release, then not only would i say it would take double the time to do so, but id say it would take more than double the time for it all to be finished.
Well, the 'free camera on right stick' thing was already implemented into Shenmue II Xbox. So not exactly a new feature, or a headache. It's already been done in Shenmue.
Peter wrote:I do believe that Shenmue has been in development for DLC. I also feel that Ben Harborne was more or less announcing this with his interviews earlier in the year. I have watched the two interviews a load of times, and in the first, he practically couldnt wait to say Shenmue. In the second interview, he made a slight joke about it with his facial features. I still maintain its coming. Just gotta be patient.
I'm in two minds about this, personally. While it could be seen as clandestine confirmation, it could also just be the Sega are eminently aware of Shenmue's fierce little fanbase. We love our game, and over the years we've clung to to any pathetic glimmer of hope as if it
were confirmation. After all these years, I still can't go on Kotaku without feeling betrayed.
I would personally just see it as a nod to the Shenmue fans, that they haven't forgotten it or us. It's clear that a lot of people within Sega love Shenmue, but it's a financial-minefield. Pretty much nobody cares about Shenmue except it's creators and relatively small base of fans. It's like the The Grim Fandango in that respect. Awesome game, fiercely loyal little fanbase. Not much else.
It's for that reason that I'm loathe to see Harborne's comments as anything near to confirmation. He confirmed nothing. At most, I would personally say that his comments confirm that certain people within the company are looking for any way they can release Shenmue HD without losing money. In my opinion, that would mean fairly basic ports in the style of Jet Set Radio HD with nothing done to them except HD fonts and menus. If we're lucky - online leaderboards for the arcade machines.
I believe nobody would buy it except the fans, and for that reason, if we do get it, it's not going to be all remade up to top-notch standards. It's going to be as basic a port as they can get away with.
I'm fine with that, too. I just want Shenmue again. I've gone through enough Dreamcasts now to not ever want to bother with them again. I've got my two favourite games gathering dust. It's been years now since I've played Shenmue. To play it again in HD, widescreen on my reliable console which works all the time without giving me any bullshit would be wonderful, and I think that's probably the market for any Shenmue HD.