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SEGA currently investigating how to make Shenmue 1/2 HD a reality

Meesh

Meesh

Member
...so what's the status on Shenmue 3? What platforms is it hitting??

Would be great if there was somehow an anniversary edition containing all 3 games...
 
J

jhmtehgamr20xx

Banned
soheil said:
Also the Shenmue's graphic is too old for new generation even in fullHD.
Click to expand...

This is false. The games still look remarkably well to this day, especially in the texture department.

If you subscribe to this thinking, then none of the PS2 remasters should have happened either. Some of them had even worst IQ and texture work than Shenmue, comparatively speaking.
 
D

daveo42

Banned
Hopefully this does happen. Seems to be a win-win here with Shenmue 3 being kickstarted last year. Hell, just get BluePoint to do it. They do some pretty stellar work on the HD Re-releases.
 
S

Samimista

Member
As someone who's been wanting to get into the series . . . JUST DO IT!!!

I would love to play Shenmue 1 and 2 before 3 releases.
 
M

mattp

Member
jhmtehgamr20xx said:
This is false. The games still look remarkably well to this day, especially in the texture department.

If you subscribe to this thinking, then none of the PS2 remasters should have happened either. Some of them had even worst IQ and texture work than Shenmue, comparatively speaking.
Click to expand...

yeah
shenmue is a bit uneven. but some of the texture work in it is incredible

look at lan di
 
A

afternoon delight

Member
Give it to the people who made that incredible Jet Set Radio HD port- in fact, give them all your remaster work because they know what they're doing.

But Sega is so incredibly incompetent at everything I doubt it will ever happen. I am legitimately surprised they're still making new games at the rate they've squandered anything decent or good.
 
S

Spaghetti

Member
mattp said:
if the issue preventing shenmue re-releases is the stupid timex and sapporo licenses
well

...just swap out the textures, sega, jesus christ.
Click to expand...
They seem like they want to preserve the Dreamcast originals as much as possible. If the licencing doesn't work out, I've got no doubt they'll just reskin where needed.
 
B

breakYODAy

Member
I was hoping for the Shenmue remaster announcement at this year's E3, but given Sega's current posturing, I'd say it now looks more likely to be a later date. I think this PSX in November would be a good time, as it could go hand in hand with a Shenmue 3 trailer likely to be ready to show after more than 1 year of developement time for the game.
 
S

SOR5

Member
mattp said:
if the issue preventing shenmue re-releases is the stupid timex and sapporo licenses
well

...just swap out the textures, sega, jesus christ.
Click to expand...

They should do that, but I would irk a little bit everytime he brings up his Limex watch
 
C

calc84maniac

Member
afternoon delight said:
Give it to the people who made that incredible Jet Set Radio HD port- in fact, give them all your remaster work because they know what they're doing.

But Sega is so incredibly incompetent at everything I doubt it will ever happen. I am legitimately surprised they're still making new games at the rate they've squandered anything decent or good.
Click to expand...

It would be amazing if they pulled a JSR HD and made a Vita port too, but I'm sure that's too much to hope for at this point.
All I want is forklifts in my pocket...
 
S

Shadoken

Member
Freeman76 said:
You cant say you're a fan of a game and call it a lose if they localise it, whichever way you try to spin it
Click to expand...

*sigh*

Lets look at this scenario.

SEGA localizes PSO2 5 years after Japanese release. The western fans love it , everything is good.

At the same time its been 5 years since PSO2 hit Japan. There could very well be a new installment or an Expansion that will hit Japan. What happens now? fans from PSO2 West jump on to that. Or keep ranting about how PSO2 west gets content late or never ( See PSU , We all know how long Sega takes to "investigate" ).

This has already been happening because a huge number of PSO2 fans in the west are playing on Japanese servers ( With English translation ) and have invested a lot of time and money there. Why would they come back to the western server after 5 years?


Unless Sega releases PSO2 here with up to date content from Japan and allow Character transfers. Its not going to do well , because the fanbase will be split up.
 
R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
JayBabay said:
Okay, to be honest, how much can I enjoy this game today, over a decade later, after the nostalgia fades? If i'm looking back critically I think that it may have been slower paced, and the game play a bit stale by today's standards. Revolutionary for its time, with so much stuff to do. But, would it hold up?
Click to expand...

Spaghetti said:
It's certainly possible to come to the game now and enjoy it.

During the Shenmue III Kickstarter, lots of people came into the thread after picking up the game for the first time, and largely they seemed to enjoy it. You can definitely enjoy and appreciate Shenmue in 2016. The world building, varied gameplay, sense of place, and overall uniqueness of Shenmue seems to resonate a lot more now than it did in 1999.

I think a lot of gamers will enjoy Shenmue despite its age. The voice acting and walking controls were clunky even at the time, but the things the game does well (fighting, world design, collectibles, music, immersion, sub-quests) haven't really aged at all, and in some cases have yet to be beaten by modern game standards. The best way I've seen it described is that you have to "give yourself to Shenmue" in order to enjoy it fully.

Yu Suzuki has described games as the only medium where you're allowed to sink into it at your own pace, like a warm bath. Shenmue is a great example of that kind of game. Even the voice acting can be tolerated if you just kind of accept it like you would accept an accent. "That's just how people talk in Shenmue so get over it", that kind of thing.

Shenmue was a huge experiment in what game design can be like in an era where the satisfaction had to be immediate (and remember, Suzuki comes from a background of arcade games where you had to understand them almost instantly), and I think that'll be appreciated in a landscape of games like Life is Strange, or even something more bombastic like The Last of Us.

What's exciting is that more people will get their hands on Shenmue II. It largely fixes a lot of the pacing problems people had with the original, has a stronger plot and characters, does a better job of linking its sub-quests into the main game, improves the fighting mechanics even further, and overall has much tighter and natural game design. It's also several times larger and looks better than the original. Nuts, right?
Click to expand...

I think it mostly depends on what you're looking for.

The comparisons constantly made between Shenmu, GTA, and Yakuza are in my opinion wrong, or superficial at best. Really thinking about it, Shenmue's systems and pace probably have more in common with Elder Scrolls, Persona 4, and Harvest Moon than other modern open-world games. Some of the games described in this thread probably have more in common with Shenmue. It's not really an action game, not often anyway. It's mostly an adventure game mixed with life simulation elements that happened to get a massive budget for the time.

And I feel like one of the most divisive elements of Shenmue, looking back, is that it forces players to live completely on its daily schedule. In Skyrim and Fallout characters have daily schedules, but without mods the player is completely unchained to them. The time of day or the date itself in those games usually has almost no bearing on the player. In Shenmue Ryo has to sleep and get up at certain times, characters and events only appear not only at certain times of the day, but on specific dates too. Lastly and most importantly, Shenmue has no time skip. It's not like Persona where things remain in static "morning" or "mid-day" states or like a Bethesda game where you can wait and sleep anywhere you want. You have to find things to do to fill in all the time.
 
D

DavidDesu

Member
daveo42 said:
Hopefully this does happen. Seems to be a win-win here with Shenmue 3 being kickstarted last year. Hell, just get BluePoint to do it. They do some pretty stellar work on the HD Re-releases.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Bluepoint or no point.

I don't trust Sega. They'll mess this up somehow..
 
T

Tricky I Shadow

Banned
OMG HURRY UP AND JUST DO IT SEGA!

To be honest I'm just glad that they actually acknowledged the games for once! We are making some progress people!
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
Just use FIG @_@
Had I known any better, Shenmue 1 and 2 HD are lock for a re-release, and SEGA is just teasing us and causing ripples to garner interest for it.
 
ajim

ajim

Member
Tricky I Shadow said:
OMG HURRY UP AND JUST DO IT SEGA!

To be honest I'm just glad that they actually acknowledged the games for once! We are making some progress people!
Click to expand...
Ywah it's been great seeing positive news posted by big news sites for once too around this possible re-release.
 
V

Valkyr1983

Banned
jhmtehgamr20xx said:
This is false. The games still look remarkably well to this day, especially in the texture department.

If you subscribe to this thinking, then none of the PS2 remasters should have happened either. Some of them had even worst IQ and texture work than Shenmue, comparatively speaking.
Click to expand...

What PS2 games have been remastered on PS4?

I'm only aware of PS3 remasters
 
D

Dark_3nergy

Member
Shortly after the Kickstarter for Shenmue 3 spun down, there was a lot of twitter buzz from big time fans asking Sega to make HD ports of 1 and 2. I am happy they are considering it and trying to find a way to make it real.
 
R

_Ryo_

Member
I thought legal disputes with licensed game engines were the cause of setback for HD releases. Cool if im wrong though.
 
P

Pinky

Banned
Never played a Shenmue game, but this excites me. I would love the opportunity to play the first two games so I know what's going on before giving 3 a shot.
 
V

Valkyr1983

Banned
Never made it further than the forktruck stuff in the first game but I still consider it one of my favorite and most memorable games I've ever played

Would be pumped for a remake
 
Kent

Kent

Member
IronicSonic said:
their in-house porting job is solid.

Jet Set Radio, NiGHTS, Model 2 Fighters are great
Click to expand...

For the most part, but it's worth remembering that they somehow shipped a NiGHTS re-release with digital controls, despite that the original game being specifically designed around analog.
 
A

Astarte

Member
Just recently beat Shenmue 1 and 2 with my roommates and I'd be glad to play through them again because I missed so much stuff.
 
L

LelouchViBritannia

Member
Atomski said:
I can't wait for people to play these and watch the hype for 3 drop like a rock.

They haven't aged well at all.
Click to expand...

What an optimistic fella you are.

Isnt the entire point of the thread towards Sega trying to maintain the same quality in the hd ports as the original games.

Im guessing that means update the "aging" aspects of the game to something more modern.
 
artsi

artsi

Member
_Ryo_ said:
I thought legal disputes with licensed game engines were the cause of setback for HD releases. Cool if im wrong though.
Click to expand...

Maybe they just could port it to another engine, like SE did with FFIX.

The Yakuza engine, for example.
 
celsowmbr

celsowmbr

Banned
zNWiADW.png


https://twitter.com/BlitWorks/status/731058982878580736

About BlitWorks:

MucOm9T.png
 
G

Garlador

Member
I never owned a Dreamcast, but I played Shenmue II and watched the pack-in movie on Xbox.

I would be all in for a remaster. DO IT, Sega.
 
M

megashock5

Member
Please do it, Sega.

Release them on PS4 and I'll buy day one. All three on one system would be awesome.

Oh, physical release, please.
 
S

Slermy

Member
CertifiedFP said:
Azure Revolution isn't being developed by the studio that did Skies or VC1, or any internal Sega studio for that matter. Media Vision (Alternatively referred to on GAF as "Those guys who ruined Shining") is a 3rd party studio in a publishing deal with Sega that basically took over development of the Valkyria IP after Sega dissolved the Skies/VC1 team in a restructuring.

The full VC1 team hasn't worked on a game together as a whole since VC1. VC2 had a ton of outsourcing (IIRC even Platinum has a short section in the credits), and ever since the WOW Entertainment team has been scattered into various generic-named R&D Bureaus. Media Vision ended up picking up the pieces of the Valkyria IP afterwards. Who knows if they're even interested in Skies.
Click to expand...

That's a lot of information I wasn't aware of.

I'm not sure if I should feel better or worse.
 
C

CertifiedFP

Member
Slermy said:
That's a lot of information I wasn't aware of.

I'm not sure if I should feel better or worse.
Click to expand...

Well, Valkyria Chronicles 3 was a good game (9/10's all around from western media outlets that fully expected the game to get localized), and as far as I can tell most Media Vision games are if that makes you feel any better. They've got time to fix Azure Revolution's issues.
 
celsowmbr

celsowmbr

Banned
Shin Ishikawa (Shenmue II Xbox team leader) [2003] :

Code: 
[B]Q: Did you have any trouble converting Shenmue II to the Xbox? [/B]
A: Apart from the aforementioned difficulty with transparencies, no, not really. The Xbox was easy to work with.

[B]Q: How long did it take to convert the game?[/B]
A: The entire project took [U]eight [/U]months, which is quite short for a game this big.


http://www.the-nextlevel.com/features/interviews/am2/


And about the so-called proprietary "library":

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/am2-to-license-shenmue-development-tools/1100-2698497/


source: http://shenmueangel.free.fr/news2.php?id=398
 
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