by ShenmueTree » Fri Mar 02, 2018 6:34 am
It is nigh impossible. First to substainally mod the first two games into a new one you'd need the tools the game was originally developed with, as well as a Dreamcast Dev kit. The problem is these tools are licensed by many different companies are have been out of commission for years, meaning they are either lost forever or extremely difficult to find, or insanely expensive AND very hard to find. Furthermore, you would need the original untouched source code of both games to even get anywhere in the first place.
You're not changing the game scripting with a simple fan mod, is, the schedule of NPCs and story events. Then there's the fact you would need to somehow import brand new geometry and character models, which is a much harder thing to achieve than just character swaps and texture mods. And don't even get me started on the changes you would need to do to the engine to add more systems, which you also need the source code for. Oh, did I mention the many, many, MANY questions of legality that would arise for attempting to do it in the first place?
So that rules out modding Shenmue 1-2 into Shenmue 3.
As for creating it completely from scratch, you need everything I just mentioned except the source code, but you would need to create a tool to import all of shenmues' assets into a new engine, as well create literally thousands of new assets yourself, and work on a brand new game engine because there are no free ones that can handle the scope of 3D that Shenmue has, or... find a developer that already owns the software/hardware and has learned how to code for the Dreamcast as well as be willing to work on your fan game. Tough luck.
It is already hard enough just to kinda haphazardly hack the game up enough to kinda sorta add things that were originally supposed to be there in the first place like the forever elusive Shenmue bike mod.
In conclusion, fuck no you can not mod the game into Shenmue 3 on the dreamcast and fuck no you are not gonna find anyone willing to spend so much time and money on completely creating it from the ground up.
The closest thing that is realistic is a fan recreating Shenmue on a modern engine, and the fans modding that game into Shenmue 3. There have already been countless attempts to do thing and they all end in failure. The most advanced it ever got was Kid Nocons' Shenmue HD remake on unreal engine, and that project has stopped since he has now been hired to work on Shenmue 3. So the next most realistic route is to wait for Shenmue 3 to release and then mod it into your own version if the games assets, if it even has mod support.