Shenmue II

Play Shenmue on Dreamcast in widescreen

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ShenmueWidescreenHackWe know that Codebreaker codes change aspects of games, from infinite lives to instant unlockables. But did you know that you can use a code on games to get them to display in ‘anamorphic widescreen’? Assembler Games forum user S4pph4rad decided to release his anamorphic widescreen codes for Shenmue I & II and this lead to quite a few users contributing back.The idea is to have codes for most of the games, if possible.

“Similar to the codes for other platforms, this is anamorphic widescreen so you’re not getting higher resolution. Some additional changes could probably be made like shrinking the HUD too, but this is the simplest solution. Consider these version 1. There’s still some pop-in occasionally near the edges of the screen, but it’s not as bad as when you use an emulator to extend the visible area. That could probably be fixed with deeper analysis into how it decides when something goes out of range.” – S4pph4rad from Assembler Games

You can read all about the process of Anamorphic widescreen over here and if you want to check out more progress on codes for other games check out Assembler Games’ forum thread. This is all a work in progress, of course and the community is submitting codes to other Dreamcast classics.

Hit the jump for the Shenmue I & II widescreen codes!

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Round Table: Can Shenmue 3 live up to the hype?

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Shenmue3Hype
Its literally been 14 years since Shenmue 2 made its debut and left many unanswered questions. Over the years the Shenmue fanbase has grown since more and more people have gotten a chance to try the franchise, it has reached some level of mysticism. Having this rabid fanbase, all with individual reasons as to why they like the Shenmue franchise waiting for the next evolutionary step can be daunting to a development team.

Can Ys NET and Yu Suzuki make a game that will live up to the hype? That’s this topic on this week’s Round Table.

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Round Table: How much did you pledge to Shenmue 3?

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shenmue3rt

It is hard to grasp that it has been over 14 years since Shenmue 2 came out and left us all with that cliffhanger in the end of the game. There has been a strong fan reaction for a third installment and Yu Suzuki stood at Playstation’s E3 stage to finally give fans what they have been asking for. Ys NET launched their Kickstarter campaign which broke funding records, cementing that fans are willing to give their hard earn cash in order to see a third installment of their favorite franchise. In this week’s Round Table we talk about how much we funded and why. You can let us know how much you funded in the comments below.

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Shenmue Gaiden: A fan made visual novel gets announced

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Shenmue Gaiden 1

Two Shenmue fanatics (Shensun and Esppiral from Shenmue Dojo) have been working together for a greater part of a year on the fan creation of Shenmue Gaiden, a non-canon Shenmue visual novel. This is the sequel to a fan project that was released a year ago called ‘Shenmue X chapter 1‘, but the creator suggest this project will be better and by the looks of the promotional artwork he might be on to something.

It is expected for the visual novel to have a demo this year with a release sometime in 2016, the game will have two plot stories that deal with Ryo and Shenhua reaching their destination after their long walk in the forest and a young girl who asks them for help. To read more about the plot and see other in-game screenshots, hit the jump or click here.

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Shenmue 3 Kickstarter Ends At $6,333,295, 69,320 Backers

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shenmue 3

The Shenmue 3 Kickstarter campaign has officially ended, earning a total amount of $6,333,295 with 69,320 backers.

Fourteen years after Shenmue II was released, and following two failed attempts at reviving the franchise (Shenmue Online and Shenmue Gai), Yu Suzuki was welcomed to Sony’s E3 2015 stage to officially announce the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign for Shenmue 3. Breaking the Guinness World Record for the fastest video game to reach $1 million through crowdfunding in one hour and 42 minutes (as well as initially crashing Kickstarter’s site), Shenmue 3 continued to break records by being the second fastest Kickstarter campaign in all categories to raise over $1 million. Less than nine hours later, Shenmue 3 continued to drop jaws around the world when it reached $2 million, its 100% funding goal. Since the announcement, the money has continued to flow in, raising almost $1 million more on its last campaign day.

The game has also become the most funded video game in Kickstarter History, a record previously held by Bloodstained, the third most funded Kickstarter campaign in the “Games” category, and, most impressively, the sixth most funded Kickstarter project of all time.

The Kickstarter campaign should be considered a massive success, and now we can all rest (if only for a little bit), and await a steady flow of Shenmue 3 news until December of 2017!

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Swingin’ Report Show #75: Interview with Lisle Wilkerson – Shenmue II, Virtua Fighter and Crazy Taxi voice actress

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We celebrate 75 episodes in style on this week’s Swingin’ Report Show podcast! Joining us for an interview is Lisle Wilkerson, best known to SEGA fans for her voice work on Shenmue II, Virtua Fighter and Crazy Taxi. Learn what it’s like growing up in Japan and recording for some of SEGA’s greatest Dreamcast and arcade titles. Lisle also tells us about her correspondence work and her acting work on Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation with Bill Murray.

Then, George and Barry discuss the recent news of SEGA of America’s restructuring, dissecting SEGA Sammy’s official document to figure out what exactly we can expect in the future from SEGA. So what are you doing still reading this? We have a special guest and big SEGA news! Click play and enjoy our 75th show!

Don’t forget to follow Lisle Wilkerson on Twitter and Facebook!

[Download] [RSS] [iTunes] [Archive]

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Developer Retrospective: We celebrate the legacy of SEGA AM2

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yotsd_AM2

SEGA AM2 is just one of those developers that always puts a smile on my face whenever I talk about their games. Not only do they have one of the most vast libraries, but they also revolutionized gaming in general multiple times over the past decades. Let’s look at the developer that popularized sprite-scaling in the 80s, gave us modern 3D with their Virtua series and created one of the most expensive games ever as we walk through their legacy.

Don’t forget to join us all month long while we talk more about SEGA AM2 and all their legendary franchises.

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Yu Suzuki shares details of Shenmue III and beyond in new Shenmue Dojo interview

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In a new interview from the Shenmue Dojo, the series creator and SEGA legend spoke at length about the development process of Shenmue and Shenmue II, and revealed a bit more about the long awaited third game in the series. A bulk of the interview delves into information shared at GDC 2014’s Shenmue postmortum, clarifying and expanding on development details shared at the event. Suzuki also answered some Shenmue III questions, sharing some very interesting pieces of information. Suzuki revealed that how the third game begins is undecided, but he thinks it will start from Shenhua’s home. Suzuki also defended SEGA, stating “About Shenmue, Sega is not a problem at all. For Shenmue III, we need to define a specific budget and if I can gather enough for it, Sega will allow me to do it.” Regarding the question of if Shenmue III would end the series, Suzuki answered “Yes indeed, the story is far away from being completed and to be honest, I do not think that it’s possible to end it during Shenmue III. If I had to do it my way, players would experience the ending during Shenmue V. But that seems to be a lot so I’m going to try to finish it within the next 2 games.”

For the full interview head on over to Shenmue Dojo, and in the comments below share your thoughts on what Suzuki revealed. Should the series continue past a third title? Or should Suzuki focus on one more game to complete the story?

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A TSA officer told Peter Moore: “I don’t need to see your passport. You’re the asshole that gave away Shenmue to Xbox”

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Petermoore
This is a funny post today on ‘Today I learned’ subreddit, the section is for people to post facts that they just learned today. This one being SEGA related, I thought it would be fun to share. The source is this wikipedia entry.

‘Moore disclosed to GamingSteve.com that at a security checkpoint at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, a TSA security agent said “I don’t need to see your passport. You’re the asshole that gave away Shenmue to Xbox.”‘

If there is anything I agree with here is that Shenmue does have one of the most vocal fanbases ever. Do I think it was bad to move Shenmue 2 to Xbox? Not necessarily, I thought it was bad not releasing the Dreamcast version along with the Xbox version.

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Kowloon Walled City, as seen in Shenmue II, is recreated as an arcade in Japan

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ka18
 
What if you could walk around Kowloon, just as Ryo did in Shenmue II, playing SEGA arcade games and collecting capsule toys? SEGA fans will remember Kowloon best as the location of Shenmue II’s second act. Seeing the city in video game form is no match to seeing it in person, but unfortunately the city no longer exists. What is a Shenmue fan to do? Is it still possible to recreate Ryo’s Kowloon adventures? Thanks to Kawasaki, you can! Located in Kawasaki City, an amusement center south of Tokyo, is “Digital Kowloon City”.

“Digital Kowloon City” is an indoor recreation of the Kowloon Walled City, a city which in the late 1980’s was home to 33,000 people in a 6.5 acre space. Quirky Japanese blog RocketNews24 paid a visit to “Digital Kowloon City”, and the photos they took are incredibly cool. The place really does look like Kowloon at night, and there are arcade games, capsule machines, and UFO Catchers all over the place. Head on over to their blog for a virtual walkthrough of the virtual city. By the end of their article, you’ll want to visit the place yourself and will probably boot up Shenmue II instead, since you can’t afford a trip to Japan.

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SEGA Tunes SEGAbits Staff Spotlight: Ben, aka “nSega54”

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segabits shenmue tuesday tunes

And so, on a quiet night, the streetlamps frosty amidst the falling snow, the locals warm and cozy inside their apartments up above the city streets, the town of Dobuita continues to sleep….

Shenmue has been lying dormant for an unspeakably long time, with not even a hint of a resolution in sight. Money, enough to have gone a long way towards funding a 3rd installment, was instead carelessly tossed off to to a Texas-based developer named Gearbox Software rather than into the hands of Yu Suzuki. After all these years, is it finally time to accept that SEGA will never allow their fanbase to continue the series that holds so much of their nostalgic gaming memories?

I’d given up hope long ago that Shenmue III would be released. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still appreciate all the great memories it offered, memories which, even over a decade later, still linger. This week’s Tuesday Tunes will highlight a couple of my favorite songs from the Shenmue games’ legendary soundtracks, so sit back and take a listen.

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Rumor: Shenmue and Shenmue II HD have been completed for quite some time

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Rumors continue to heat up after a not-so-cryptic hint from SEGA’s Ben Harbone earlier this week regarding current-gen digital ports of Shenmue and Skies of Arcadia. Now a site called Gamerzines is reporting with a strong degree of certainty that not only are Shenmue and Shenmue II on the way, but they’re completed and have been for over a year.

Citing an industry source with close ties to SEGA, the rumor goes on to say that SEGA chose to wait on the release of these two digital titles “until it had a clearer picture of the future for the Shenmue franchise, namely, whether or not Shenmue III would ever see the light of day.”

That little tidbit adds a whole other level of intrigue to all of this, but of course it’s important to keep in mind that this is very much a rumor and we’ve had rumors like this before regarding the continuation of the Shenmue saga. Gamerzines does look like a legit website, however, and apparently IGN thought so too, since they’ve also reported this rumor. Thought I’d share it with all of you.

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The guy behind the “shrill” NPC voice in Shenmue II explains how it came to be

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The Shenmue series may be known as a pioneer in a lot of ways…none of those ways includes the quality of its English dub. Shenmue Dojo yesterday posted a story from a voice actor who did some NPC voices from Shenmue II. Not a whole lot about the process we hadn’t heard from Jeremy Blaustein’s revealing interview a while back, but I still got a few chuckles out of this.

The actor, who asked to be anonymous (though Shenmue Dojo attests to his legitimacy), explained to his agent that he was not capable of altering his voice convincingly, but he was then asked to do just that when he showed up for the Shenmue II recording session.

For the next role, I was asked to do the voice of an old man.
My agent, who was in the control room, did not say anything at all. In fact, I saw the agent ducking out of my line of sight. Nothing from the agent about the fact that I had accepted the job on the condition that I not have to alter my voice. Because my voice characterizations are not good and game players will notice the poor quality. And no clearheaded game producer wants to put bad voices on their project. Right?

Once again, I was on the spot. Well, it’s their game, I figured. One standard elderly-man voice coming up.

My favorite part of this story would have to be when this actor reveals that he was also the one responsible for that quirky NPC with the high-pitched voice, and I actually have a feeling that I know which voice it was.

One of the characters was described to me as an especially weird fellow and they needed an appropriately weird voice. They played some scenes on the monitor. They gave me a moment to think of a voice style.

They didn’t like my first attempt and neither did I.

The next attempt was a shrill, scratchy concoction that actually hurt to do. “No way will they want this voice,” I thought.

They loved it.

I had a created a voice that sounds like a cross between Clint Eastwood and Richard Simmons.

As I was recording, I remember thinking to myself “This character voice is terrible. If I were playing this game and heard this voice, I’d turn off the sound.”

He also discusses how he and a couple other actors improvised the background chatter of the Heavens gang, the small studio in which the recording was done, and his declaration that he will never accept video game voicework again. Pretty entertaining.

[Source: Shenmuedojo]

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