Unused Shenmue Map #2: Island Town

In this second part of our maps feature, we will be looking at another map from the 36-page art book that was available at the Shenmue Premiere events around Japan in late 1998 / early 1999. 

Cover of the Shenmue Premiere Art Booklet

In Part One, we looked at a map that could be identified as Suzhou.

This time, we turn our attention to a second unknown map that appears further down on the same page of the Shenmue art booklet. This one is displayed in black ink and depicts a town situated on - or, more accurately, around - an island.

Inspecting Unused Map #2: Island Town

This map is distinctive and appears to show an island location surrounded by a tightly-packed city of buildings built out upon water. Tall mountain peaks rise up from the island:

Page detail: island town map

As with the first map, certain buildings and features have been labelled with Japanese text and there are small black star indicators dotted around the water's edge.

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Unused Shenmue Map #1: Suzhou City

During the 1998/1999 Shenmue Premiere showings in various cities across Japan, ahead of the game's original release on the Dreamcast, a 36-page art book was available as merchandise. It featured concept art, photographs, design diagrams, and other materials related to the game's development.

Cover of the Shenmue Premiere Art Booklet

In past posts on this blog we have analyzed some of the fascinating snippets of early design documents that can be glimpsed in this booklet, such as:

• Ryo's Arrival in Hong Kong: Shenmue II Design Document Translation
• Earning Money to Meet Ren: Shenmue 2 Flowchart #2 Translation
• Shenmue 1 Start of Game Flowchart: Early Design Document Translation

This booklet makes creative use of charts and drawings as decorative images to accompany the pages describing the making of the game.

Unseen Maps in the Art Booklet

On one page of the booklet, two maps can be found that don't match any of the places Ryo has visited so far in his journey. One map sits at the top left in blue ink, and the other, which lies to the right further down the page, is in black. (The maps are partially obscured by an image of an early map of Aberdeen/Wan Chai, and a photo of a computer monitor displaying a map of Dobuita).

The page containing the mysterious maps

In this post, the first in a two-part series, we will start to examine the maps and labels in detail to uncover hints about Ryo's initially-planned or potential future travels.

Image credits: thanks to James Brown for providing the booklet page images

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Two Pre-Release Screenshots of Langhuishan Village in Shenmue 2 | Analysis

Today we will examine two early-development screenshots of Ryo's arrival in Guilin from a Japanese magazine from the time of Shenmue II's development, showcasing the charming riverside village of Langhuishan.

Accompany an article about Shenmue in Japan's Famitsu DC magazine in February 2001, these images offer a fascinating glimpse into how its design changed during the game's development.

Langhuishan (Feb 2001 image 1)

Langhuishan (Feb 2001 image 2)

Analysis of Langhuishan Image 1

The first image depicts Langhuishan's village square, overlooking the tranquil river. A comparison with the final release version of the game reveals some intriguing differences:

Langhuishan view towards river showing a stall in the early screenshot (top) that was relocated in the release version (bottom)

The background mountains and dock are almost unchanged in the release, but the pre-release image features an additional element: a vegetable stand beside the dock, facing away from the river.

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Phoenix & Dragon Mirrors: Lore at a Glance | Mind Map

In our recent lore-related posts, we carried out a detailed examination of the lore surrounding the Mirrors, and all the various events, beliefs, clues and motivations surrounding them that we as players have learned (along with Ryo) during the first three Shenmue games. These were also covered in depth by SkillJim in his stream for the Shenmue Dojo channel (which are linked at the end of each post).

• Mirror Lore & Celestial Connections in Shenmue | Part One
• Mirror Lore & Celestial Connections in Shenmue | Part Two

Mind Map:

As a summary of what was covered in these posts, and to make it easier to visualize how the various pieces of the puzzle fit together, here is the complete "mind map" diagram illustrating how these concepts relate to each other.

The diagram can be seen as a preview below.

There is also this direct link to the image for easier viewing and zooming. It has been saved as a high resolution image to retain the text detail, and will require zooming in close!

Mirror Lore Mind Map

A few elements have been highlighted in yellow on the diagram as they represent some of the core recurring themes seen in Shenmue: the Prophecy that Shenhua recites, the symbolism of the Dragon and the Phoenix together with the Mirrors, and the mysterious "Treasure" they may point to whose nature is unknown.

Hopefully it will not be long before we can see how the mystery of the Dragon and Phoenix mirrors and the lore surrounding them plays out in the rest of the Shenmue story.

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Mystery Location in Photo at Shenhua's House Identified? | Shenmue II

Last year, we posted an article about an unidentified photo that can be glimpsed at Shenhua's house in Shenmue II.

The photo can be partially seen on the desk in Shenhua's father's room, in the pile where Ryo finds the plans for the Phoenix and Dragon mirrors. But there is no way for the player to move the other papers aside to examine it, and Ryo makes no comment about it.

It is, however, possible to view the full photo by accessing the game files directly, which looks as below. It appears to be some kind of outdoor scene with arches, trees, and some kind of structure in the center:

The mystery photo uncovered

In our post about this photo, we posed the question of why this photo would have been present among the design documents (albeit largely obscured), whether it had any significance and - most of all - whether such a location exists or existed in real life.

Well now, a possible candidate for this mystery location has been identified!

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