Thoughts on Shenmue and the HD re-releases

Joined
Aug 1, 2020
Hello, this is the first time I’m writing in this forum. I have been following the forums since 2001 in anticipation of Shenmue 2. I’m lucky enough to live in Europe so I experienced Shenmue 2 on the Dreamcast. ( It was the last game I bought for the dying console.)

I first bought a Dreamcast just to play Shenmue, a friend talked about it at school and I got it just on a whim without actually seeing the game in action, Dreamcast’s were going on sale for less than 100 dollar retail so I decided to get one, I was not disappointed, to me it delivered in every sense and was worth getting the Dreamcast for, Shenmue gave a special feeling and a rush of emotion that I have not felt for another game since then.

I was there back in 2001, just as bewildered confused and staggered both at the Japanese language and the size of Hong Kong, Shenmue 2 delivered quite the contrast from Shenmue 1.

I have today compared at the leisure of my own home, the HD re-releases on PS4 to the originals on Dreamcast, and I have this to say. The loading times, loading of assets, resolution and the pop in color are better on the PS4, but somehow the sound seem to be a bit harsher, like they have cranked the loudness on the files, the audio sounded smoother on the Dreamcast. Strange things like the shadow on the cat (Mimi) in shenmue 1 seemed horribly distorted on PS4, while on Dreamcast the shadow was more natural.

In cutscenes the loudness of the audio wasn't as consistent on the PS4 as on the Dreamcast, It seemed to fluctuate and dip at times in the HD re-release. I have also experienced other bugs and minor things on the hd rereleases.

The re release of Shenmue should have been handled with more taste, they shouldn't have changed the menus, just remade them HD, in the same style, the watch up in the corner seems more bland, in the originals the outer ring faded in cutscenes

In the end I’m happy that we got the re-releases, first time in at least 15 years I properly experienced the games, but Shenmue deserves the silk gloves and archival treatment fans had hoped for.



Share your own thoughts on the matter, Im happy to share my point of view and hear others opinion.
 
First welcome to the forums.

I look at the rereleases as a double edged sword. First I was incredibly thankful to be able to replay the games on modern hardware. Given Sega initially intended on a full HD remaster in a way I am thankful we got the games preserved how they were intended.

On the other hand it clearly wasn’t the perfect re-release with technical issues and other omissions which suggest a tight release schedule and studio not quite up to the challenge. While a remaster was intriguing, I honestly wouldn’t trust anyone but Bluepoint to give Shenmue treatment it deserves and that’s where the missed opportunity lies. I do wonder given delays with Shenmue 3 eventually coming out late 2019 if Sega would have forged ahead or simply d3t weren’t able to ever complete remakes in time.

As usual it’s the Shenmue fans that have been the games saving grace via PC mods eradicating all the issues you mentioned plus giving us full 16x9 presentation for all the cinematic, audio restoration and even HD assets which totally feels like a remake for first game. I encourage you to check out this thread and this awesome tutorial video done by @Peter-


If you are like me and don’t have a powerful PC I recommend you check out Shadow service this is how I played games on my TV and honestly it was amazing.
 
Thanks for the response, I will check out the community improvements with time, just strange to see that an official company brings us half measures and not the best work state of the art.
 
Thanks for the response, I will check out the community improvements with time, just strange to see that an official company brings us half measures and not the best work state of the art.
Yeah. I mean I am grateful that we got it. It has many goods to it. HD and everything.
Unfortunately it has too many bugs. I have the PS4 version.

What made me stop playing the game was in the scene where you visit Master Chen for the first time.
I am a musician and I can tell that the music was extremely out of tune. Nothing like the orignial.
It ruined one of my favorite scene in the game because in the DC-version that music fits the scene perfectly.
We didn't get any more patches and it will probably never happen.
I think Shenmue I & II were too complicated to make a perfectly functional HD-remaster.

Thank god I got my DC-versions left.
 
They ported the Xbox version of Shenmue 2 for the English dub so there are some differences.

For instance, the music in zhangyu’s barbershop when he is sharpening his blade differs between the Dreamcast and Xbox version. There are a number of other differences. One in particular that bothered me is that for the port of Shenmue 2 in Japanese, they did not use the dialogue and subtitles from the Dreamcast version which would have been better(with the exception of Yuan being voiced by a female VA). So there is dialogue that has been edited out of the Xbox version, and also the subtitles do not always correspond to what’s being said.

I’m glad I still have Shenmue 1 and 2 on the Dreamcast.
 
Yeah. I mean I am grateful that we got it. It has many goods to it. HD and everything.
Unfortunately it has too many bugs. I have the PS4 version.

What made me stop playing the game was in the scene where you visit Master Chen for the first time.
I am a musician and I can tell that the music was extremely out of tune. Nothing like the orignial.
It ruined one of my favorite scene in the game because in the DC-version that music fits the scene perfectly.
We didn't get any more patches and it will probably never happen.
I think Shenmue I & II were too complicated to make a perfectly functional HD-remaster.

Thank god I got my DC-versions left.
Yeah, even on PC with all the mods, I can't seem to play the HD releases. The sound is horribly off on many of the sound effects. It would be one thing if they had more of a dull sound, but they're usually much sharper, and it's extremely distracting for me. I also don't enjoy the changes to the UI, and all around just prefer the original Dreamcast releases, load times and all.

I applaud the effort, but I'm happy to stick with the tried and true.
 
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