Shenmue 1 & 2 HD officially announced for PS4, Xbox One and PC

[replicashooter]

Yup, I personally would've been happy had they kept the artstyle and models from the old games and just spruced up the lighting and whatnot because a) they still look great b) people who will buy the game won't care and c) establishes continuity and d) the new murder Ryo looks terrible.

[Dogg Thang]

I don’t mind the new look at all but, yeah, can’t disagree with that.

[dataDave]

With the old look they could have simply thrown all resources into making it an epic story. Maybe even gone the full thirteen chapters or whatever it was, just as originally intended. The performance would have been guaranteed to be on-point, as well.

[replicashooter]

Thats what I was thinking. Money is limited so best spend it where it needs to go (ie the detail, immersion and story) and save it where you can recycle old stuff but seen how Sega have treat this franchise like a red haired stepchild I'm not surprised it played out like this.

The sad thing is is that the third installment will probably kill this franchise in its tracks based on what we've seen thus far as it looks laughably poor with each update they've released and this remaster of the original shows the assets and whatnot were perfectly serviceable.

I'll never get why they didn't just dump the old assets into the new Yakuza engine and use that as their base for the rest of the story instead of the way they chose.

[wakka]

I finished a playthrough of the two original games about a month ago. Beforehand I agreed with the above. Now, I don't. I have a lot of affection for the art style and graphics of both games, with the first in particular looking terrific. They both have a wonderful realistic, weighty solidity about them and are genuinely distinctive.

But with the second game, the cracks started to show. Kowloon and Guilin just couldn't be done full justice with the original engine - Kowloon is a samey series of tower blocks due to the lack of nuance the relatively basic environments afforded, while Guilin reminded me of just how much better forests can now be rendered. It's essentially a series of green corridors with obvious textured 'walls' at the sides and big textures lumps to represent bushes. The shortcomings weren't nearly so pronounced in Dobuita, and I think it's one example of how the second game was just a little bit over-ambitious.

It was at that point that I really began to look forward to Shenmue III's new visuals, shonky as they look in many respects. Particularly as the game seems set primarily (exclusively?) in rural China, I think it'll benefit immensely.

One other thing; faces are now a major issue for the original engine. It never bothered me at that time, but the faces are almost completely static in Shenmue. They have maybe 2 or 3 different expressions at most. It's one of those things that only stands out because of how well executed so much of the experience is, but it really stands out now. It felt hard to take some of the cutscenes seriously with all these automatons staring at each other expressionlessly.

Itll be interesting to see how others feel when they replay these two. Honestly, the new engine is very much needed in my opinion.

[replicashooter]

No doubt it will be interesting to see as its been ages since I played these two and that was back on a CRT. I also agree that 2 didn't have the same level of polish that the first one had in terms of settings and whatnot but its characters were a zillion times better and more fleshed out and the game just felt more betterer than the first as it expanded in so many ways but was also spread slightly thinner for it.

As for my idea of reusing the old assets I didn't say they couldn't (or shouldn't) spruce them up, just use them as the basis and take it from there. Heck I'd have been happy with an anime that finished off the story and will check out the third on release day just off the strength of the first two and thus hope they do it justice as there has never quite been a game anything like this and I'm glad that I got to play it in real time as it was such an experience.

[wakka]

Honestly, I don't think the characters are better developed in the second game. There are more of them, that's for sure, but I don't think characterisation is something either game is particularly effective at.

The narrative and script are also simple, though with a couple of neat ideas. But what the games do excel at is atmosphere. What's amazing about Shenmue 1 is that nearly 20 years on, few games rival its sense of place. If they can preserve that for the third, whatever to odd looking character models, excessive QTEs and overlong cutscenes, because they'll be onto a winner in my book.

[replicashooter]

I really am going to have to play this again because of the years of gloss and sheen I've applied to my memories over the past 20 years.

20 years.

Jeebus.

*cue Wu Tang Clan*

[JazzFunk]

Man, I first heard that song in 1994, walking the dog at night with the Walkman on.

Jeez. 24 years...OH MY CAR!

They gonna be adding plenty of nifty treats and extras or is it just the vanilla duo?

[Team Andromeda]

Thats what I was thinking. Money is limited so best spend it where it needs to go (ie the detail, immersion and story) and save it where you can recycle old stuff but seen how Sega have treat this franchise like a red haired stepchild I'm not surprised it played out like this. .

You can't recycle what hasn't been made and next to none of Shenmue 3 was ever developed back in the day; the new characters, locations, voice acting music, motion capture Ect.. That's to overlook it's probably cheaper and easier to make brand new models of the old characters, rather than bring up the DC models to modern day standards. I gather each new Yakuza game costs SEGA over $20 million and that reuses loads of assets from previous games, with each new game much like the last, even down the same endless use of locations.

Shenmue III is going to flop, the series never had much a story (its a typical Kung Fu movie style out for revenge of the death of the parents, or Parent) , but it didn't matter it was the wonder of walking around its incredibly detailed world, talk to any character, pick up almost any item and be able to examine it in 3D. That will all be lost as Shenmue III is done on the cheap and it will feel cheap.

SONY or SEGA should be funding the project In-House.

[wakka]

It's essentially a lavish piece of fan service. I agree it will flop in that I don't think it will achieve breakout success, but I think it stands a good chance of satisfying fans - who want it for nostalgia reasons and to see Ryo's story continued, rather than as a technical tour de force.

[QualityChimp]

I tried to play Shenmue when I got a Dreamcast a few years back, but I found the lack of a second stick to control the camera infuriating.

Decades of dual analogue pads has spoiled me!

It'll be nice memories for those who have a sentimental attachment to it, but the likes of GTA, Sleeping Dogs, RDR, Arkham City, Saints Row and so on have eclipsed early sandbox games like Shenmue (IMHO).

[Nu-Eclipse]

It's essentially a lavish piece of fan service. I agree it will flop in that I don't think it will achieve breakout success, but I think it stands a good chance of satisfying fans - who want it for nostalgia reasons and to see Ryo's story continued, rather than as a technical tour de force.

I agree, and I for one can get with that as long as it finally resolves the core story of Ryo defeating Lan Di and avenging his dad.

I'm pretty sure that Suzuki-san stated a while back that his "original plan" was to have Shenmue be a long-running franchise. I'm really not into that idea as god knows we'll suffer constant money-grabbing crowd-funding exercises up the arse for it.

[Team Andromeda]

I agree, and I for one can get with that as long as it finally resolves the core story of Ryo defeating Lan Di and avenging his dad.

I'm pretty sure that Suzuki-san stated a while back that his "original plan" was to have Shenmue be a long-running franchise..

4 games and some 16 chapters. Not even Shenmue III will finish the story

[Dogg Thang]

I agree it will flop in that I don't think it will achieve breakout success

Yeah I don't think it will be some massive breakout hit but it's the highest funded game in kickstarter history so it's already very wrong to call it a flop.

As for the amount of chapters, plans can be changed and this story could be wrapped up in a 5-minute epilogue if they wanted to. If it's not finished, and I don't expect it will be, it will simply be a choice. The wrong choice but a choice nonetheless. There isn't any reason this couldn't be wrapped up in a single small game.