Shenmue I & II Remaster (8/21/2018; PC/PS4/XB1 - $29.99)

stayingfate · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
People got so caught up in the 16:9/4:3 controversy that an even bigger issue goes unnoticed...

Due to not understanding or simply ignoring how overscan worked for CRT displays, d3t is making an error in their Shenmue HD project. The in-game graphics are stretched horizontally by about 10%. The error was made because the original games have black borders on the left and right. It's an integral part of their 4:3 presentation and was done to ensure that various overscan settings in CRT TVs wouldn't cut out important parts of the frame. Sadly, d3t erroneously stretched the in-game graphics to where the black bars used to be. The result is appalling - everything is stretched horizontally in an ugly way. I'm attaching .gif files which illustrate the error.

This is 100% true the original was made with 4:3 and the black bars in mind, d3t is unfortunately making changes that'll hinder the look of the game. The stretching makes textures look wonky and everything much noticeably fatter. This needs to be fixed in the final stages.

KainXVIII · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
remaster must be at solid 30 FPS anyway

Wait, remaster will not be in 60 fps? o_O

Akumasama · Apr 20, 2018

Antony said:
Probably yeah as it doesn't seem to be technically feasible which I can both understand and be disappointed about (shock! horror!)
At least they are being presented in their original ratio and aren't cropped and stretched (a la Shenmue The Movie) in an awkward attempt to match the gameplay footage.

How does that seem as "not technically feasible" in a real time 3D rendered game?
I could understand in a 2D game, that's tecnically not feasible unless you want to either zoom or have access to high quality original 2D assets that you can modify.

But a 3D engine? Stuff gets generated on screen real time, you'd just have to adjust the portion of screen visible.
I'm not saying it would be *easy* (well it should!) but it's certainly not "technically impossible"?

Edit:
Well at least on the PC version we can hope for player-made hacks to enable 16:9 maybe, even if the official port won't bother with that.

Hideocaina · Apr 20, 2018

This game doesnt need 60fps, and i a huge fan of 60fps, but for what?

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

stayingfate said:
This is 100% true the original was made with 4:3 and the black bars in mind, d3t is unfortunately making changes that'll hinder the look of the game. The stretching makes textures look wonky and everything much noticeably fatter. This needs to be fixed in the final stages.

If they won't listen to this, the game will be unplayable to me. You don't stretch somebody's graphics by 10% just because you feel like it, especially in a legendary game like Shenmue where they should be wary of every pixel. Why are people accepting this is beyond me. What's worse, the owner of Shenmue Dojo banned a discussion about this. I want this project to succeed more than any other, but that's exactly why I am not blindly praising d3t. I am here to praise them when they do it right and bash them when they botch it. Please, people, if you care for Shenmue's legacy, do not allow for this project to become one of those shameful gaming mistakes like Silent Hill HD Collection.

stayingfate · Apr 20, 2018

KainXVIII said:
Wait, remaster will not be in 60 fps? o_O

Shenmue doesn't need to be in 60 FPS, just at a stable 30 FPS is completely fine. The in-game clock is tied to FPS and they would have to make some major changes to attune that and make it work properly.

ianpm31 · Apr 20, 2018

KainXVIII said:
Wait, remaster will not be in 60 fps? o_O

I believe it would throw the engine out of wack if it did 60 fps

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

KainXVIII said:
Wait, remaster will not be in 60 fps? o_O

It can't be. Shenmue's engine and animations won't work at 60 FPS. You would need a remake for that. That would cost another ~70 million USD or so.

GhostTrick · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
It can't be. Shenmue's engine and animations won't work at 60 FPS. You would need a remake for that. That would cost another ~70 million USD or so.

Alright, you're trolling now. Since the begining I'd say.

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

GhostTrick said:
Alright, you're trolling now. Since the begining I'd say.

What are you talking about?

GhostTrick · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
What are you talking about?

70 millions usd to adjust the animations of Shenmue 1 and 2 for 60fps ? Really ? Even if you remade the game with the same assets, it'd never cost that much.

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

GhostTrick said:
70 millions usd to adjust the animations of Shenmue 1 and 2 for 60fps ? Really ? Even if you remade the game with the same assets, it'd never cost that much.

70 million USD (at least) for a remake of Shenmue. When you're using the same assets, it's a remaster, not a remake.

The engine of Shenmue can't work with 60 FPS. Everything would break. They would also have to redo all of the cinematics which were done with 25/30 FPS in mind.

Metalgus · Apr 20, 2018

If the stretching thing is indeed true, then I feel this is the real issue to fix. Much more important than 4:3 cutscenes or the 'worse' SII port. I can deal with those two, but stretching has always bothered me.

ParsnipForest · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
Much better water effects? Add them to the DC version. That's what remasters are for. Otherwise, it's an HD up-render which shouldn't cost more than $5.

You heard it here first - porting 20 year old code to modern platforms is a piece of cake. So quick and easy that it isn't worth more than $5.

///PATRIOT · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
People got so caught up in the 16:9/4:3 controversy that an even bigger issue goes unnoticed...

Due to not understanding or simply ignoring how overscan worked for CRT displays, d3t is making an error in their Shenmue HD project. The in-game graphics are stretched horizontally by about 10%. The error was made because the original games have black borders on the left and right. It's an integral part of their 4:3 presentation and was done to ensure that various overscan settings in CRT TVs wouldn't cut out important parts of the frame. Sadly, d3t erroneously stretched the in-game graphics to where the black bars used to be. The result is appalling - everything is stretched horizontally in an ugly way. I'm attaching .gif files which illustrate the error.

Good catch. I hear d3t is really listening to shenmue fans on their forum and twitter. You should reach them out.

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

Metalgus said:
If the stretching thing is indeed true, then I feel this is the real issue to fix. Much more important than 4:3 cutscenes or the 'worse' SII port. I can deal with those two, but stretching has always bothered me.

It's true. The source for those comparisons are the official screen-shots released by SEGA. d3t simply stretched the game by about 10% to fill the black bars which are in the originals to ensure that overscan in CRT TVs would not interfere with the game's presentation. That was done because every CRT TV had to be adjusted manually in the factory and overscan settings varied. There was no standard for that.

GhostTrick · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
70 million USD (at least) for a remake of Shenmue. When you're using the same assets, it's a remaster, not a remake.

The engine of Shenmue can't work with 60 FPS. Everything would break. They would also have to redo all of the cinematics which were done with 25/30 FPS in mind.

Not necessarily. You can have cutscenes at 30fps and gameplay at 60.

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

///PATRIOT said:
Good catch. I hear d3t is really listening to shenmue fans on their forum and twitter. You should reach them out.

I did. For a week. They ignored every single tweet I directed at them (I used "Please" in each one, BTW). Then I contacted a SEGA Europe community manager about this issue - ignored. Then I emailed d3t directly - ignored.

GhostTrick said:
Not necessarily. You can have cutscenes at 30fps and gameplay at 60.

It's the gameplaty which brakes with 60 FPS. If you want more info about it, go to Shenmue Dojo. The dedicated fans checked this a long time ago. Shenmue's engine simply won't work with 60 FPS because everything is timed for 30 FPS. Rewriting it all and readjusting animations for 60 FPS is not possible for this project. It would be better to just remake everything, but that would be too costly. Just think about the money needed for voice acting alone in this day and age.

SheepheadCG · Apr 20, 2018

Jingo said:
Im gonna be a new player experiencing the games, after reading all of these im caring about things that wasnt even a problem before, lol

Lol honestly just ignore these "issues". Most of the things here are pretty miniscule and won't even be noticed by most players, and especially not new.

I've played both games to completion every year at Christmas since release and I probably won't even notice most of them lol. Even then Sega and D3T have clearly stated that it is all Work in Progress footage and not official statements have been made, so we don't know what is going to happen yet.

I'm extremely happy that new players will now be able play these masterpieces and I would do anything to be able to play them again for the first time. It is a unique experience that hasn't really been captured since so take your time and enjoy!!

CesareNorrez · Apr 20, 2018

I full remake of both Shenmue games would not cost anywhere near $70 million. Maybe a few million as there would be a lot of work to be done. They wouldn't be designing a new game so they'd have a very narrow path to follow and thus know a clear development schedule with little experimentation needed.

As as far as horizontal stretching issue. The game also supported the VGA cable. Wouldn't that "stretch" the image compared to the way the CRT TV displayed? And I imagine the original team was well aware of that issue.

Maybe this video is wrong, but it's worth noting that the pupils and irises look more properly round in the VGA side

KainXVIII · Apr 20, 2018

stayingfate said:
Shenmue doesn't need to be in 60 FPS

This is bullshit, every game is better with higher framerates, especially games that packed with action =)

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
is not possible for this project.

Everything is possible (look at RE4 or Dragon's Dogma port)

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

CesareNorrez said:
As as far as horizontal stretching issue. The game also supported the VGA cable. Wouldn't that "stretch" the image compared to the way the CRT TV displayed? And I imagine the original team was well aware of that issue.

No, VGA outputs it the same way. VGA was still for CRTs. The game was simply designed like that. The game runs in 640x480, but with black bars. d35 removed the black bars and stretched the game by 10% to fill the blank area on the left and right.

KainXVIII said:
This is bullshit, every game is better with higher framerates, especially games that packed with action =)

Everything is possible (look at RE4 or Dragon's Dogma port)

It's not because SEGA didn't allocate that much money for this project and they wouldn't have the time to rewrite the whole engine, which also would never happen since then you might as well remake the whole game, and that would cost a ton. Remake means doing everything from scratch. Like I said before, just think about the voice acting cost these days.

We will only get an HD up-render and that will be OK if d3t fixes the technical errors.

GhostTrick · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
I did. For a week. They ignored every single tweet I directed at them (I used "Please" in each one, BTW). Then I contacted a SEGA Europe community manager about this issue - ignored. Then I emailed d3t directly - ignored.

It's the gameplaty which brakes with 60 FPS. If you want more info about it, go to Shenmue Dojo. The dedicated fans checked this a long time ago. Shenmue's engine simply won't work with 60 FPS because everything is timed for 30 FPS. Rewriting it all and readjusting animations for 60 FPS is not possible for this project. It would be better to just remake everything, but that would be too costly. Just think about the money needed for voice acting alone in this day and age.

How is voice acting related to this ?
Nothing prevents them to take the assets and use them in a different engine. It would be costly to remake everything with AAA standard visuals and such. And even then, Shenmue 1 and 2 remains rather small in size.

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

GhostTrick said:
How is voice acting related to this ?
Nothing prevents them to take the assets and use them in a different engine. It would be costly to remake everything with AAA standard visuals and such. And even then, Shenmue 1 and 2 remains rather small in size.

No. You're talking about a remaster. A remake means making the game from scratch. They would to have re-record all voices with todays's standards in mind, obviously.

Small in size? Shemue II is much bigger than the Yakuza games.

Blunoise · Apr 20, 2018

I swear gamers these days are so entitled, like the gaming industry owes us there life. I just want to preorder the damn game because I wished and prayed for these to come back out again, and here they are my wish granted.

GhostTrick · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
No. You're talking about a remaster. A remake means making the game from scratch. They would to have re-record all voices with todays's standards in mind, obviously.

Small in size? Shemue II is much bigger than the Yakuza games.

You're the one claiming that if they were to make it 60fps, it'd necessary have to be a remake. Engine change ? Sure. But nothing would prevent them to use the same assets. Even from scratch, unless you aim for today AAA standards...

///PATRIOT · Apr 20, 2018

Could shenmue fighting gameplay benefit from 60 fps? I believe so just like any other fighting game. But I understand in this case it would cost too much time and money to implement it.

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

Blunoise said:
I swear gamers these days are so entitled, like the gaming industry owes us there life. I just want to preorder the damn game because I wished and prayed for these to come back out again, and here they are my wish granted.

This is supposed to save these legendary games for posterity. Being so disrespectful to its idiosyncrasies, like the way it was designed for overscan, is a sure way to botch this collection.

GhostTrick said:
You're the one claiming that if they were to make it 60fps, it'd necessary have to be a remake. Engine change ? Sure. But nothing would prevent them to use the same assets. Even from scratch, unless you aim for today AAA standards...

Nobody would re-write this engine just to use the same assets for the sake of 60 FPS. If they were to make it a modern 60 FPS experience, they would have to remake it.

SheepheadCG · Apr 20, 2018

Blunoise said:
I swear gamers these days are so entitled, like the gaming industry owes us there life. I just want to preorder the damn game because I wished and prayed for these to come back out again, and here they are my wish granted.

Couldn't agree more. Sometimes people really need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

GhostTrick · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
This is supposed to save these legendary games for posterity. Being so disrespectful to its idiosyncrasies, like the way it was designed for overscan, is a sure way to botch this collection.

Nobody would re-write this engine just to use the same assets for the sake of 60 FPS. If they were to make it a modern 60 FPS experience, they would have to remake it.

Or use already available engines.
All you've been doing for now is complaining about nitpicking details.

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

SheepheadCG said:
Couldn't agree more. Sometimes people really need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

I remember this attitude back from the days of the Silent Hill HD Collection. In short, you're wrong. People who fight for proper presentation of this collection are trying to save it because they actually care for the Shenmue series. A shoddy porting job with a new UI slapped on top would be haunting us for the years to come. It would simply be a laughing stock.

GhostTrick said:
Or use already available engines.
All you've been doing for now is complaining about nitpicking details.

The available engine doesn't work with 60 FPS. You're going in circles by now. You're also the one trying to nitpick something here. I'm pointing out to errors. They need to be fixed.

Akumasama · Apr 20, 2018

.Hack porting to PC runs at 60fps with little problems. Yet the original games (which came out not that long after Shenmue, pretty much same generation) ran at unstable 30fps.
The 30>60 porting is not easy, but it's totally doable. Lol at people claiming it would take 70million $ just for that. It would surely be a complex thing but a lot of people here are greatly overestimating it.

With that said and with me being a great 60fps fan, I don't really see the necessity for Shenmue to run at 60fps as long as they give us stable and fluid 30fps.
I'm more concerned for the lack of 16:9. Having 4:3 just in cut-scenes it's ok I guess, but for the whole game it would be ridiculous.

ParsnipForest · Apr 20, 2018

Blunoise said:
I swear gamers these days are so entitled, like the gaming industry owes us there life. I just want to preorder the damn game because I wished and prayed for these to come back out again, and here they are my wish granted.

It's the exact same thing that's been happening since the launch of the Shenmue III KS -- fans that are so invested that they can't see the forest for the trees.

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

Akumasama said:
Lol at people claiming it would take 70million $ just for that. It would surely be a complex thing but a lot of people here are greatly overestimating it.

Lol at people misquoting things. A remake (making the game from scratch, otherwise it's a remaster or a straight port, but those don't happen between SD and HD machines) would cost at least 70 million USD these days. That's something which won't happen, obviously. It took SEGA years to green-light a basic remaster to a small UK-based studio.

Akumasama said:
I'm more concerned for the lack of 16:9. Having 4:3 just in cut-scenes it's ok I guess, but for the whole game it would be ridiculous.

You don't have to worry about that. Shenmue HD is in 16:9. The problem? The game's graphics are stretched horizontally by roughly 10%, making everything look wonky/fat. The error was made because Shenmue used black bars to counter overscan problems of CRT TVs, so while the original games run in 4:3, they have black bars on the left and right and they shouldn't be stretched to compensate for them in HD.

GhostTrick · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
I remember this attitude back from the days of the Silent Hill HD Collection. In short, you're wrong. People who fight for proper presentation of this collection are trying to save it because they actually care for the Shenmue series. A shoddy porting job with a new UI slapped on top would be haunting us for the years to come. It would simply be a laughing stock.

The available engine doesn't work with 60 FPS. You're going in circles by now. You're also the one trying to nitpick something here. I'm pointing out to errors. They need to be fixed.

engineS*
Unity, Unreal Engine or whatsoever. You're not getting the Shenmue remaster of your dreams, because SEGA Japan is a shitty company. You realize this is a port done by a small team with a small budget from SEGA Europe ?

Antony · Apr 20, 2018

Blunoise said:
I swear gamers these days are so entitled, like the gaming industry owes us there life. I just want to preorder the damn game because I wished and prayed for these to come back out again, and here they are my wish granted.

LMAO I swear I had a post typed that said 'we're about 3 steps away from 'SEGA doesn't owe you anything' and 'gamers are so entitled'...' but I didn't post it because ehh it didn't contribute anything.
Wish I had now lol

bell wood's jet cola · Apr 20, 2018

Wasn't the Silent Hill HD Collection based on beta code, which caused all the issues? That doesn't seem to be the case here. I knew this was going to happen, and I think Sega did too—which is why they were reluctant to port the games.

Lynd · Apr 20, 2018

That stretching isn't good, ppl should start tweeting relevant accounts to highlight the issue.

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

Can the people who are more concerned about d3t's public image than about Shenmue HD's proper presentation take a deep breath and understand this simple fact: it's a technical error which needs to be fixed. Nothing lees, nothing more.

The team at d3t is probably young (they are well-known for internships, BTW). Somebody there wasn't around when CRTs were in their hayday or simply doesn't care about it. Thus, an error was made. Let's fix it before it's too late.

Deleted member 7756 · Apr 20, 2018

English and Japanese audio has completely different lip sync timing.

The XBOX version of 2 doesn't have the Japanese timing, so they will have to take this from the Dreamcast version and implement it.

I have a feeling this will not be easy to do.

GhostTrick · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
Can the people who are more concerned about d3t's public image than about Shenmue HD's proper presentation take a deep breath and understand this simple fact: it's a technical error which needs to be fixed. Nothing lees, nothing more.

The team at d3t is probably young (they are well-known for internships, BTW). Somebody there wasn't around when CRTs were in their hayday or simply doesn't care about it. Thus, an error was made. Let's fix it before it's too late.

Also, does this mistake carry on the 16:9 screenshots ? Because from what I see, the game will have both 4:3 and 16:9 ratio:

HDMF76 · Apr 20, 2018

KainXVIII said:
This is bullshit, every game is better with higher framerates, especially games that packed with action =)

Everything is possible (look at RE4 or Dragon's Dogma port)

Too many armchair devs in this thread who havent got a clue what they are typing though. Best to wait and see...

bell wood's jet cola · Apr 20, 2018

TheLastoftheDreamers said:
Can the people who are more concerned about d3t's public image than about Shenmue HD's proper presentation take a deep breath and understand this simple fact: it's a technical error which needs to be fixed. Nothing lees, nothing more.

The team at d3t is probably young (they are well-known for internships, BTW). Somebody there wasn't around when CRTs were in their hayday or simply doesn't care about it. Thus, an error was made. Let's fix it before it's too late.

Weren't you just complaining they haven't been responding to your tweets? Seems like they're professional enough to not make decisions based on someone's breathless Tweets.

KainXVIII · Apr 20, 2018

HDMF76 said:
Too many armchair devs in this thread who havent got a clue what they are typing though. Best to wait and see...

Regale us with your deep knowledge.

TheLastoftheDreamers · Apr 20, 2018

Here's another .gif showing the erroneous stretching from the remaster. It's easy to see on Ryo's head (which looks like a brick when stretched), Ryo's forearm (which looks like his thigh when stretched) and finally, Sonic's belly. It was always supposed to be oval, as it's clear in the iconic logo I'm attaching.

Deleted member 8106 · Apr 20, 2018

Do we know if Passport is included? I think it would be very easy to include it in 2018, since Internet is a real thing now.

Kodama · Apr 20, 2018

Spaghetti said:
Your posts read very overly dramatic in a lot of the last few pages here. Even this one does too. Maybe that's just how you write, but please apply a little bit of self awareness and bump things down a notch. At least for the sake of discourse.

Hopefully you're aware that even the widescreen hacks available for these games have problems that likely can't be resolved without reanimating or redoing certain scenes. Don't confuse practicality for laziness. Now there's a developer chiming in on the issue over on the Dojo, it would be smart to sit down and listen, instead of sniping from a position of, and this isn't meant personally, ignorance.

Don't stick the fanboy strawman up because I'm trying to advocate an iota of understanding for developer's situation. It is beneath the otherwise positive tone this thread has had.

Your posts read very overly condescending fanboy who can't take criticism of his favorite franchise. Maybe that's just how you write, but please stop putting stupid words in my mouth and arguing with the person you think you're talking to... just listen to what I'm actually saying okay?

I am perfectly aware of the situation. There is nothing "practical" about having your aspect ratio change while playing. Either put the effort in to fix issue, or just make the whole game 4:3. It's pretty jarring going back and fourth. Assuming that I don't know what I'm talking about just because I'm making a valid critical observation certainly isn't good for discourse. Nor is saying I'm being "dramatic" just because you are more accepting of a lesser product than I am. We all have different values an none are inherently better than others...

bell wood's jet cola · Apr 20, 2018

I think it'd be more jarring to not play a game in widescreen in 2018. I do wish there were more going into this port, but I think comparing this to Silent Hill HD is pretty disingenuous.

Maligna · Apr 20, 2018

Kodama said:
Your posts read very overly condescending fanboy who can't take criticism of his favorite franchise. Maybe that's just how you write, but please stop putting stupid words in my mouth and arguing with the person you think you're talking to... just listen to what I'm actually saying okay?

I am perfectly aware of the situation. There is nothing "practical" about having your aspect ratio change while playing. Either put the effort in to fix issue, or just make the whole game 4:3. It's pretty jarring going back and fourth. Assuming that I don't know what I'm talking about just because I'm making a valid critical observation certainly isn't good for discourse. Nor is saying I'm being "dramatic" just because you are more accepting of a lesser product than I am. We all have different values an none are inherently better than others...

Agreed. There's nothing wrong with wanting the best for this game.

Deleted member 15428 · Apr 20, 2018

PunishedSnake said:
Do we know if Passport is included? I think it would be very easy to include it in 2018, since Internet is a real thing now.

Game development is not easy

Shenmue I & II Remaster (8/21/2018; PC/PS4/XB1 - $29.99)

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