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Shenmue I & II HD |OT| Like a polished mirror

TheLastoftheDreamers

Banned
Apr 20, 2018
96
Maligna said:
So Sega/IGN Japan/Yokosuka tourism board are putting on a Shenmue event for Japanese fans on December 24th from 13:00 to 15:00 in a venue called "Younger Than Yesterday" in Dobuita.

Up to 80 fans can join for 500 yen each. The Japanese voice of Ryo will be there as well as some others connected to the game. It will be live streamed and then subtitled later for international viewers, but if you happen to be in town, go connect with your fellow fans!

A few prominent fans in the west have been invited to record videos that will be shown to the Japanese crowd so they can see why we love the series. A sort of Shenmue cultural exchange I suppose. My cohost Andrew and I will be recording a video, but in the meantime feel free to listen to our interview with IGN Japan's Esra Krabbe:


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IGN Japan's Esra Krabbe was dubbed the "#Shenmue Respect Champion" for his passionate and knowledgeable Shenmue panel discussion at #tgs2018.

IGN Japan announcement

Announcement Video


Yokosuka city's announcement
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Would gladly swap all of that for one decent patch...

I can finally see SOME light at the end of the tunnel, though. Today's hotfix for Shenmue II on PS4 did actually fix the hard crash at Beverly Hills Wharf. They are at least fixing the bugs in the patches, lol.
 
Linkura

Linkura

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,943
TheLastoftheDreamers said:
Would gladly swap all of that for one decent patch...

I can finally see SOME light at the end of the tunnel, though. Today's hotfix for Shenmue II on PS4 did actually fix the hard crash at Beverly Hills Wharf. They are at least fixing the bugs in the patches, lol.
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Cheap fanservice costs less than actual programming.

I'm glad they fixed that hard crash. That happened after I beat the game, but I was worried if I ever tried to replay it, lol.
 

TheLastoftheDreamers

Banned
Apr 20, 2018
96
Patch 7 is out for PC and it... fixes 2 issues. Literally.

Looks like they are pulling out the plug on this. All the bugs and inaccurate audio will stay, it seems. If they didn't even acknowledge the broken hitboxes in Shenmue I, what are the chances of us getting a fix for them? They probably think the current versions are "good enough".

Seriously fuck them if true because this release is garbage and they did very little to make it better. They just fixed some critical bugs and that's it. No quality improvements. Everything stills sounds and plays like a beta. For example, I still keep getting invisible capsule toys. They didn't bother to fix this since launch...
 
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Suzuki Yu

Suzuki Yu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
336
Jeddah
IT IS "good enough" now.
The only real issue left is hitbox for S1.
there is nothing else broken or bad that is worth talking about unless you want to be picky about every little thing.

Hitbox fix for S1 is the only thing left to truly make this ver the definitive way to play the games today
 
Maligna

Maligna

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,802
Canada
Suzuki Yu said:
IT IS "good enough" now.
The only real issue left is hitbox for S1.
there is nothing else broken or bad that is worth talking about unless you want to be picky about every little thing.

Hitbox fix for S1 is the only thing left to truly make this ver the definitive way to play the games today
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Are there footsteps for Ryo when he walks on pavement in the PS4 version? Can't play until those are in.
 

TheLastoftheDreamers

Banned
Apr 20, 2018
96
Suzuki Yu said:
IT IS "good enough" now.
The only real issue left is hitbox for S1.
there is nothing else broken or bad that is worth talking about unless you want to be picky about every little thing.

Hitbox fix for S1 is the only thing left to truly make this ver the definitive way to play the games today
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What a load of crap, dude.

Both ports are severely bugged, play inaccurate music and suffer from audio corruption akin to bad emulation. There's a lot to fix, the hitboxes in Shenmue I being just one of the problems that wasn't even touched upon since launch.
 

Deleted member 8106

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
2,451
Suzuki Yu said:
IT IS "good enough" now.
The only real issue left is hitbox for S1.
there is nothing else broken or bad that is worth talking about unless you want to be picky about every little thing.

Hitbox fix for S1 is the only thing left to truly make this ver the definitive way to play the games today
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Well, they are not good enough, just read the Steam community hub for several bugs, some of them rather important like missing/wrong hitboxes not being fixed yet.
 

TheLastoftheDreamers

Banned
Apr 20, 2018
96
PunishedSnake said:
Well, they are not good enough, just read the Steam community hub for several bugs, some of them rather important like missing/wrong hitboxes not being fixed yet.
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Plus, the audio is still a mess. Yes, they improved it a lot since launch, but it's still not there. Many MIDI tracks still sound off and there's a ton of audio corruption in both games. Even the mixer is messed up.
 

Deleted member 8106

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
2,451
TheLastoftheDreamers said:
Plus, the audio is still a mess. Yes, they improved it a lot since launch, but it's still not there. Many MIDI tracks still sound off and there's a ton of audio corruption in both games. Even the mixer is messed up.
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What I don't understand about the audio is the fact fixing it is rather easy. There's already a mod for it on Steam, basically D3T compressed the already compressed audio from Dreamcast, the mod fixes that but the last time I read about it, the dude was waiting to see if D3T would fix it before modding Shenmue 2, considering it was a rather easy thing to nail.
 

TheLastoftheDreamers

Banned
Apr 20, 2018
96
PunishedSnake said:
What I don't understand about the audio is the fact fixing it is rather easy. There's already a mod for it on Steam, basically D3T compressed the already compressed audio from Dreamcast, the mod fixes that but the last time I read about it, the dude was waiting to see if D3T would fix it before modding Shenmue 2, considering it was a rather easy thing to nail.
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You mean the voice files. I mean the audio as a whole. MIDI music is still inaccurate. Very inaccurate in some tracks, actually. There's also a lot of audio corruption, like those pops and clicks in voice files, but also weird distortions or looping problems with music and SFX. The sounder mixer is also very bad - stuff is either too quiet or too loud and the manual changes don't allow for a truly balanced mix.
 
Suzuki Yu

Suzuki Yu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
336
Jeddah
TheLastoftheDreamers said:
What a load of crap, dude.

Both ports are severely bugged, play inaccurate music and suffer from audio corruption akin to bad emulation. There's a lot to fix, the hitboxes in Shenmue I being just one of the problems that wasn't even touched upon since launch.
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dude,

I wouldn't call super minor issues as "severely bugged"!
You are waaay overreacting here.

I know the music/sounds are not 100% identical but they are close enough to call them "good enough"
They imprroved a lot into the good territory you konw. It was bad at launch not anymore.

PunishedSnake said:
Well, they are not good enough, just read the Steam community hub for several bugs, some of them rather important like missing/wrong hitboxes not being fixed yet.
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I mentioned the hitboxes stuff as the only real problem.
Any other problem is as I said above barely noticeable that most of people wouldn't even recognize.
 
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Linkura

Linkura

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,943
Suzuki Yu said:
dude,

I wouldn't call super minor issues as "severely bugged"!
You are waaaaaay overreacting here.

I know the music/sounds are not 100% identical but they are close enough to call them "good enough"
They imprroved a alot into the good territory you konw. It was bad at launch not anymore.


I mentioned the hitboxes stuff as the only real problem.
Any other problem is as I said above barely noticeable that most of people wouldn't even recognize.
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TheLastoftheDreamers

Banned
Apr 20, 2018
96
I realized the music wasn't fixed consistently in all three versions. For example, the music in Old Warehouse No. 8 is fixed on PC, but it's still broken on PS4.
 
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ParsnipForest

ParsnipForest

Member
Oct 27, 2017
571
Australia
I'm very happy that newcomers to the series can now play these great games without any hindering bugs. That's the most important thing to the future of the series.

I finally started my Shenmue I PS4 playthrough and, apart from the audio crackling during one early conversation, the experience was excellent during the three or so hours I played. It looks so good in 16:9, HD, with texture filtering and anti-aliasing that it will be hard going back to the originals.

*Also, it's nice that the game no longer pauses temporarily to read from disc, like during your first conversation with Fuku-san, and some tracks even loop better like the Hazuki residence music. On DC there's a split-second delay before the track loops and it always annoyed me and here it's perfect.
 
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Maligna

Maligna

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,802
Canada
ParsnipForest said:
I'm very happy that newcomers to the series can now play these great games without any hindering bugs. That's the most important thing to the future of the series.

I finally started my Shenmue I PS4 playthrough and, apart from the audio crackling during one early conversation, the experience was excellent during the three or so hours I played. It looks so good in 16:9, HD, with texture filtering and anti-aliasing that it will be hard going back to the originals.

*Also, it's nice that the game no longer pauses temporarily to read from disc, like during your first conversation with Fuku-san, and some tracks even loop better like the Hazuki residence music. On DC there's a split-second delay before the track loops and it always annoyed me and here it's perfect.
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Ryo running silently through Dobuita like he's an intangible ghost who doesn't weigh anything didn't bother you?
 

Deleted member 25712

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
1,803
Honestly folks, between the non existent loading times, wide screen support, ease of use, etc...this is the best way to play Shenmue. I get it isn't a AAA quality port, but it's much better than any emulator options and busting out the Dreamcast and praying it will boot the disc and dealing with the load times just isn't nearly as convenient.

I get the annoying bugs here and there but I played through both games on Steam patch 2 or something and I rarely ran anything overly noticeable
 
Spaghetti

Spaghetti

Member
Dec 2, 2017
2,740
"User Banned (Permanent)"

Based mods.

I had very few problems playing this collection with the 1.0 and 1.1 versions on PC. I won't deny that issues existed and I would rather it not have launched the way it did - but knowing the difficult circumstances D3T were placed in, and that post-launch support reduced the remaining issues to mostly a handful of minor cosmetic problems; it's not the end of the world.

Others have taken their disappointment beyond what I'd call a sensible level. It borders on fanaticism, and tips over into developer harassment in some cases from what I've seen on Twitter. Just looking at some of the posts on the last few pages of this thread, it was clear nothing would make it better for these people and they provided nothing but frothing bile.

It has turned the discussion away from the incredible Shenmue series being available to a new audience for the first time in nearly 20 years, and towards an exaggerated picture of the problems with this collection. It's an issue that admittedly SEGA placed on us, but these people have taken the ball and ran with it; largely ignorant to the damage it may inflict on the series long-term.

So in the spirit of turning this thread around and actually talking about the games:

I promised myself I would wait until Shenmue III is imminent before jumping back into the series (I've played II alone twice this year already), but dark nights and cold weather are drawing me further into playing the current duology over Christmas and New Year; just like I experienced them originally. Even though we're in a period of silence on III, my hype is absolutely unreal for that game as 2019 creeps closer.

I can't wait to immerse myself back into that distinctive, colourful world all over again with the game I've been waiting for since I was 9.
 
ParsnipForest

ParsnipForest

Member
Oct 27, 2017
571
Australia
Yeah I thought so too.

Well put, Spaghetti. Speaking of getting back to the actual games, I think this is the first time I've ever missed beating up the two highschool thugs QTE in Dobuita. I thought this happened relatively early on but I'm now searching for Charlie and haven't encountered it.

I think it's because I'm blistering through the game at a fast pace. I finished looking for sailors by the first day, which I'm sure is the furthest you can go day 1 without breaking the game etc.
 
Komarkaze

Komarkaze

Member
Oct 27, 2017
576
I recently finished Shenmue 1 on Xbox and I could hear Ryo's footsteps just fine. Is this a PS4 version issue?
 
Sappharad

Sappharad

Member
Oct 25, 2017
290
In my opinion the state that the games are in right now is such that anyone playing the games for the first time probably won't notice anything being wrong as a result of the ports, and that's probably a larger audience than most of us still posting in this thread.

The problems I keep seeing complained about here and elsewhere (hit boxes, sound problems - aside from the crackling) are things that people playing for the first time or who haven't played in a long time are not going to notice. I played the originals a lot and never noticed the hit box problems - although I never relied on throw moves in the first game because they always sucked. They were much better in Shenmue 2, and I didn't notice any fighting problems there. I was using the DPAD though, I found that I still prefer that for fighting. And movement in general, because they broke the analog control that came with Shenmue 2 and replaced it with a crappier version. (I should look into that on PC...)

At launch things were not good, but right now it sounds like they're okay. My next play through will probably start late this month or early next month when my copy of the Japanese Limited edition arrives so I'll definitely get a feel for the current state then and give new impressions. I had waited until the first post-launch patch to play Shenmue II and was satisfied with it then aside from broken Afterburner II, so I suspect I'll be pleased next time around as well.
 
Maligna

Maligna

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,802
Canada
Romain said:
I went to Japan earlier this month and I just had to go to Yokosuka/Dobuita. I took a bunch of pictures and put them side by side Shenmue screenshots I took. Here is the result for those who would like to see it: http://www.gameblog.fr/dossier_1177_shenmue-quand-le-reel-inspire-le-virtuel-a-la-decouverte-du-
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I've seen a lot of pictures of Dobuita, but these are the best. And that slider feature to switch between the game and real life is great. I see you made good use of the Shenmue map from last year too. :)
 
Romain

Romain

Senior Editor, Gameblog
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
323
Yes, I picked it up at the Yokosuka tourist information office right next to the Yokosuka Station. I just wish I had more time to roam around.
 
ParsnipForest

ParsnipForest

Member
Oct 27, 2017
571
Australia
Romain said:
I went to Japan earlier this month and I just had to go to Yokosuka/Dobuita. I took a bunch of pictures and put them side by side Shenmue screenshots I took. Here is the result for those who would like to see it: http://www.gameblog.fr/dossier_1177_shenmue-quand-le-reel-inspire-le-virtuel-a-la-decouverte-du-
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They're the best comparison pics I've seen of real life Dobuita vs in-game Dobuita -- awesome job! It's crazy that some of the stores haven't changed at all in 20 years (or longer).

I find it funny the way they've had to change certain things to work inside the game, such as the streets being a lot wider so you're not constantly bumping into NPCs, and how the roads are angled to hide any geometry pop-in.
 
bell wood's jet cola

bell wood's jet cola

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,147
Sappharad said:
In my opinion the state that the games are in right now is such that anyone playing the games for the first time probably won't notice anything being wrong as a result of the ports, and that's probably a larger audience than most of us still posting in this thread.

The problems I keep seeing complained about here and elsewhere (hit boxes, sound problems - aside from the crackling) are things that people playing for the first time or who haven't played in a long time are not going to notice. I played the originals a lot and never noticed the hit box problems - although I never relied on throw moves in the first game because they always sucked. They were much better in Shenmue 2, and I didn't notice any fighting problems there. I was using the DPAD though, I found that I still prefer that for fighting. And movement in general, because they broke the analog control that came with Shenmue 2 and replaced it with a crappier version. (I should look into that on PC...)

At launch things were not good, but right now it sounds like they're okay. My next play through will probably start late this month or early next month when my copy of the Japanese Limited edition arrives so I'll definitely get a feel for the current state then and give new impressions. I had waited until the first post-launch patch to play Shenmue II and was satisfied with it then aside from broken Afterburner II, so I suspect I'll be pleased next time around as well.
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This is where I am. They're not perfect, but the games are quirky and glitchy enough in the first place that some of the new bugs are barely noticeable! Silent Hill HD this ain't.
 
Jibby

Jibby

Member
Oct 27, 2017
167
Romain said:
I went to Japan earlier this month and I just had to go to Yokosuka/Dobuita. I took a bunch of pictures and put them side by side Shenmue screenshots I took. Here is the result for those who would like to see it: http://www.gameblog.fr/dossier_1177_shenmue-quand-le-reel-inspire-le-virtuel-a-la-decouverte-du-
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Great photos!

That Military Surplus comparison is astounding! They're almost identical, even down to the writing.
That must surely be the shop Suzuki based the ingame version on; the banner looks weathered enough to suggest it's been around long enough for that.
 
Linkura

Linkura

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,943
Damn, that's nuts that some stores haven't changed in almost 20 years.

Great pics, thanks for posting.
 
Suede

Suede

Gotham's Finest
Member
Oct 28, 2017
12,480
Scotland
Romain

Romain

Senior Editor, Gameblog
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
323
Thanks everybody! I just wish I had more time there to take more pictures. Dobuita Street is unlike any other place I've seen during my 10 days in Japan (and you don't have to look very hard to find some sailors there).
 
thepenguin55

thepenguin55

Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,793
So it sounds like this thing is finally in a good place. With it being $20 on the Xbox store sounds like it's time for me to jump back in.
 
Sappharad

Sappharad

Member
Oct 25, 2017
290
Sectorseven said:
Has anyone gotten the Japanese release yet?
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breakYODAy said:
Mine showed up 2 hours ago.
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Same. (Well, that it showed up today.)

For those who are curious about the Shenmue II portion of the soundtrack, since it's the first time one has been officially released - Yes, all of the songs are the high quality "before being compressed for wavetable synthesis on the console" versions of the songs. I created this preview video with all 18 songs from Disc 2 that are new to this release:

(The last two tracks on the disc are the same as one of the previously released soundtracks for the first game)

I posted some details on Shenmue Dojo's thread about the JP release. Their on-disc version is numbered starting at 1.0, and they have a 1.0.1 day one patch. That patch is equivalent to the current US/EU patch. I'm not sure what patch their on-disc build is equivalent to, because I have internet access and I let it update automatically when I put the disc in. Confirmed that you cannot set text or voices to English in the Japanese release. Not much more to say at the moment. I'm satisfied with the soundtrack though, it's great with one exception. Track 1 on Disc 2 is the Opening from Shenmue 2. But for some reason, they looped it and omitted the ending, so you get to hear it twice followed by a fade out. I wish they would have used the 2 minutes wasted on adding another track to the disc, but I guess they must have wanted to keep each disc at an even 20 tracks.

The poster included with the Japanese version is slightly larger than the US / EU one, I'd estimate 15% larger, because it has an additional fold.

So, is it worth buying the Japanese limited edition? If you want the soundtrack, legally, then probably. Or if you just want it for collectors reasons. But if you can't understand Japanese and want to play the game, then don't do it. It might be possible to use Cyber Save editor to flip the language to Japanese in your save file (not tested) but that software costs twice as much as buying an English copy of the game.[/QUOTE]
 
RedSwirl

RedSwirl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,048
Well shit I just bought one of the codes on sale at Newegg, mostly because I've still never played Shenmue II. How bad is it still?
 
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