Shenmue Development Timeline (May 1998 - Dec 1999)

Most Shenmue fans already know the broad story of the game’s development: the early demos, the ever-extending release date, and the rumors in games magazines suggesting that SEGA was aiming for something far bigger than anything it had attempted before.

Below is a timeline translated from the Shenmue Complete Guide book, which was published in Japan not long after the first game’s release. It reflects how Shenmue’s development was being presented and discussed at the time, before years of retrospectives and post-mortems filled in the gaps. Much of this information will be familiar to longtime fans, but it still serves as a handy snapshot of those busy Dreamcast years and how key milestones slotted into place.

I’ve also inserted relevant videos at a few points along the way where they help capture what players were seeing at the time as Shenmue gradually took shape.

21 May '98

DC Demo: "Tower of Babel"

At SEGA’s Dreamcast unveiling event, one of the demo videos shown was Tower of Babel, created by Yu Suzuki in just 10 days. In retrospect, this can be seen as a precursor to Shenmue.

• Tower of Babel Demo Video:

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Yu Suzuki & Kenji Eno on Shenmue, D2 and Game Development | October 1999 (Famitsu)

In the October 1999 edition of Famitsu DC magazine, an extensive discussion was published between two great figures in the games development industry: Yu Suzuki (SEGA) and Kenji Eno (Warp Inc.), about their much-awaited upcoming titles that would see release in Japan a few months later in December of that same year.

Yu Suzuki and Kenji Eno, 1999

The article starts with the following introduction, suggesting a mix of reactions from gamers at the time: anticipation for the upcoming releases, and frustration at delays:

Shenmue and D2: two titles that have been part of the Dreamcast's lineup since the console's announcement. However, these two games have been continually delayed, much to the disappointment of many. While some devoted fans have waited patiently, the number of frustrated fans has also grown.

These two epic titles have finally begun to reveal their full scope. The timeline for their release has almost firmed up. The more you see and learn about these games, the more you realize that they're not the kind of projects that could be developed in just a year or so. Both of these games employ realistic, cinematic CG that is animated in real-time. Picture ten years from now, for example: it will be clear that these creators are writing a new chapter in the history of games as interactive entertainment, and that these two titles have irreversibly raised the bar for both quality and quantity.

Standing at the brink of history in the making, this is something we should humbly appreciate.

This extensive discussion totals 6 pages - thanks to SkillJim for providing the page scans.

Let's get started!

Yu Suzuki - Profile

Director of Sega Enterprises' Second Software Research and Development Department. A game creator with a large fan base, who made "AM2" (his old department name) common terminology in the industry. He has worked on 3D fighting games like the Virtua Fighter series and has created arcade hits such as Hang-On and Space Harrier. In his private life, he is a guitar enthusiast, with a deep love for his Peavey Eddie Van Halen* model and a collection of large Marshall amplifiers.

* Note from Switch: the Peavey Eddie Van Halen Wolfgang guitar series is a collaboration between guitarist Eddie Van Halen and Hartley Peavey's company, Peavey Electronics manufactured between 1996 and 2004.

Kenji Eno - Profile

CEO of video games development company Warp, with his first hit game being D. Afterwards, he worked on titles like Enemy Zero and Real Sound: Kaze no Regret. Three years ago, he started on D2. Its originally-planned platform, M2*, was canceled, so the project had to be entirely reworked for the Dreamcast. In addition to his duties as CEO, he also took on production, direction, composition, and performance. For D2, he was responsible for all of the music.

* Note from Switch: the Panasonic M2 was a planned video game console platform developed by 3DO and then sold to Panasonic. However plans to release as a console were canceled in 1997 and instead Panasonic released M2 as an Interactive Media player in 1998. 

Kenji Eno passed away at the age of just 42 on February 20, 2013, due to heart failure brought on by hypertension (Wikipedia).

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Who is Yoshio Goto? | What's Shenmue

The What's Shenmue demo was released in June 1999 in Japan as a preview of some of the characters and gameplay gamers could expect prior to the main game's release. You may recall that it has the simple premise of Ryo having to locate Sega executive Mr. Yukawa somewhere in Dobuita, and to protect him.

Ryo's notebook starts filled with an entry indicating that "Yoshio Goto" (後藤喜男) has entrusted him with this mission, which Ryo also mentions in his short conversation with his friend Tom at the hot-dog truck.

What's Shenmue: the first page of Ryo's notebook (2014 fan-translated version)

Ryo explains his mission to Tom.

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Unused Assets: Mr. Yukawa Business Card Variants | What's Shenmue

What's Shenmue is the name of a playable demo that was released in Japan in August 1999, shortly before the full release of Shenmue. It took place in Dobuita Street and involved a short quest in which Ryo has to to locate Mr. Yukawa (a real-life former senior executive at Sega) before a deadline at the end of the day.

During the quest, Ryo visits the You Arcade where he obtains Mr. Yukawa's business card...

The business card Ryo receives of Hidekazu Yukawa

Details on the front of the card include the SEGA logo, Mr. Yukawa's full name and title (Hidekazu Yukawa, Former Senior Managing Director), his company (Sega Enterprises) and a link to the Shenmue.com website.

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Unused Asset: A Second Letter From Iwao to Ryo | Shenmue

In the first Shenmue game, players discover a note addressed to Ryo from his father Iwao, who seemingly had some inkling that his life was in danger. Reading through this letter is a memorable moment for players of the game.

In fact, it turns out that this is not the only that letter Iwao wrote. There is a second, unused version of Iwao's letter to Ryo that can be found within the game files which we will examine in today's post, and see how it compares to the one used in the game.

Iwao's Letter #1 (Release Version)

In Iwao's letter that Ryo finds in the game, his father gives him advice on being true to one's convictions:

"Dear Ryo... those who follow the path of a warrior, must be prepared to die in order to stand by their convictions. Live for one's convictions, die for one convictions. That is how I lived my life. Ryo, it is up to you to discover your path and follow it through."

Letter from Iwao #1 (release version)

Ryo reading Iwao's letter (release version)

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Poll Result: Patrons' Choice Topic for May 2022

Every month Phantom River Stone holds a poll among our patrons to choose a topic for the blog in the coming month. After tallying the votes (including accumulated votes from previous months), the winning topic that has been voted this time is:

"What's Shenmue Unused Assets: Mr. Yukawa business card variants"

What's Shenmue is the name of a playable demo that was released in Japan shortly before the full release of Shenmue. It took place in Dobuita Street and involved a short quest in which Ryo has to to locate Mr. Yukawa (a former senior executive at Sega) before a deadline.

During the quest, Ryo visits the You Arcade where he obtains Mr. Yukawa's business card.

Details on the front of the card include the SEGA logo, Mr. Yukawa's full name and title (Hidekazu Yukawa, Former Senior Managing Director), his company (Sega Enterprises) and a link to the Shenmue.com website.

 

The back contains a handwritten clue over the Dreamcast swirl that points him to the next location of interest ("After 4pm, Asia Travel Co.").

While this is the card that is used when playing the demo, in fact among the game files are a couple of other minor variations of the Mr. Yukawa business card that would have been produced during its development but not used, but were left behind. We'll be looking at these in an upcoming post.

Watch for it soon on the blog!

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Suka Pass v1.7 Released: New Video Content!

A new update to Suka Pass, the fan-made Shenmue Passport app, has been released! It's ready for you to download on Android & iOS!

This time we've added some new video playlists on the Theater page. As well as the existing videos that were available through the original Passport, you'll notice that some new tabs have now been added.

• Anime tab: heaps of promo and sneak peak clips for Shenmue The Animation. The opening and ending themes are also here, complete with karaoke-style lyrics, so you can practice singing along with the theme music when the next show airs!

• Beta tab: Shenmue footage from before the game's release, including the contents of a promotional VHS that shows cut content including Ryo Hazuki riding a bicycle around Dobuita. The legendary Sega Saturn footage is also to be found here!

Even better, the video tabs will be kept regularly updated with new content.

It has been a pleasure as always working with SkillJim of the Shenmue Dojo to put together this latest update and we hope you enjoy it. We'd love to hear your feedback!

Download the new Suka Pass release.

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Ryo Hazuki's White Timex Watch | Unused Asset

Ryo's trusty Timex watch is a familiar sight to players of the the original Dreamcast and Xbox versions of the first two Shenmue games (although in the Shenmue I & II re-releases, the Timex branding on the dial was replaced with the Sega logo for licensing reasons).

The design was closely based on an actual Timex Expedition T43371, which was released in 1999 just before Shenmue's publication. Hence it did not actually exist at the time of the game's setting of 1986 - something that is not unheard of in Shenmue, with the Sega Saturn at the Hazuki household being one example!

The Timex Expedition (left) served as a model for Ryo's watch in the game (center, right).

The real-life watch is an unusual combination of analogue and digital: the alarm is set by rotating the bezel and triggered by physical contact of wires as the hands move, which triggers an electronic alarm sound.

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The Mystery of the Hazuki Handguard and the Sword | Unused Game Assets

The Mystery of the Hazuki Handguard and the Sword

The sword (katana) and handguard, that latter being a Hazuki family heirloom, play an important role in progressing through the story of the first game. The relationship between these two objects is an enigma, as during the game we learn that, despite their apparent connection, the handguard is not able to be fitted onto the sword blade.

In this post, we will consider the question of whether the handguard was ever meant to have fitted onto the blade, and dig through a number of clues and evidence that were left behind in the game files that indicate that in fact this had been the case - at least during an earlier part of the game's development.

Story spoiler warning: this post discusses how the sword and handguard are used in the game.

Special thanks to SkillJim for his helpful discussions & to LemonHaze for examining the game code for model usage.

The Hazuki handguard (left) and sword blade (right)

Hazuki Family Crest

First, let's look at some of the clues that are already present during the game.

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Unused Inventory Icons Discovered in What's Shenmue

All Shenmue players will be familiar with the inventory screen and its depiction of small icons that represent the things Ryo is carrying at the moment.

An example of Ryo's inventory (Dreamcast)

These inventory icon graphics are of course stored in files on the game disc; but now an earlier version of these icon graphics has been discovered by LemonHaze, project leader of the Dragon & Phoenix project. These are to be found among the game files of the What's Shenmue demo. This was a playable game demo distributed in Japan while Shenmue was still finishing up development, allowing a fascinating glimpse back to an earlier point in the game's development.

Where things get especially interesting are where icons differ from the ones in the final version of the game, with the identity of a few of them being up for debate.

Many thanks to LemonHaze for providing the graphics files and discussion on the icons for presenting in this post.

Below we will walk through each of them to evaluate whether they appear in the released game, and for those that aren't, try to identify what each represents.

The Inventory Item Set from What's Shenmue 

The set of icons are stored in two image files on disc, and appear as shown below. 

Next we'll step through and comment on each item in turn, starting with the most readily identifiable ones.

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Introductory Letter from Master Chen | Unused Textures in Shenmue

Today's topic was selected by the Phantom River Stone blog patrons via our monthly poll. If you'd like to have a say in what subjects we cover next, consider supporting us on Patreon!


In this post we will examine some textures relating to envelopes and letters that were not used in the final release version of the game, but which were discovered hiding in the game files.

In particular we will focus on one particular letter that plays a key part of the story: the introduction letter from Master Chen that Ryo receives at the end of the first game, containing the name and address of a master in Hong Kong who will be able to assist him.

At the start of Shenmue II, Ryo starts holding the "letter" (really just a note):

Ryo checks Master Chen's note upon arrival in Hong Kong, at the start of Shenmue II.

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Fan Photos of Shenmue at Network Jungle II Event in 1999

Shenmue was featured at "Network Jungle II: Digitaliland," an expo for games making use of networking and digital communications held in Tokyo in 1999, to promote the game in Japan ahead of its release.

One of the stage events had members of the public competing to "dub over" lines from Shenmue. One participant spoke as Ren using a regional Kansai dialect, which must have caused some hilarity among the audience.

The voice/mo-cap actors for Ren (Takumi Hagiwara), Shenhua (Hazuki Ishigaki) and Ryo (Masaya Matsukaze) in the Japanese versions introducing the dubbing competition

Later Yu Suzuki also took the stage together with Hiroaki Takeuchi, and Sega Managing Director Hidekazu Yukawa (of "What's Shenmue" demo fame).

From left: Hiroaki Takeuchi, Sega Managing Director Hidekazu Yukawa and Yu Suzuki.

Most images that can be found online of this event are rather low-resolution (understandably, due to bandwidth considerations at the time), so it's fascinating to get another glimpse from someone who was actually there.

Photo credit: @kohji_nakazawa via Twitter

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Shenmue Dojo Broadcast Special - 3 December, 2016

The Shenmue Dojo has announced the upcoming relaunch of the Dojo's Twitch channel, with an exciting line-up planned for the first special broadcast being hosted on December 3rd, in less than two weeks' time.

[Nov 28 update] The advertised GMT start time has been corrected to 5pm.

Shenmue Dojo Twitch Channel: Relaunching December 3rd

Here's a run-down of what lies in store in the December 3rd special broadcast:

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Ryo performing Victory Pose from Virtua Fighter

It's well-known among Shenmue fans that Ryo's character derives from the character of Akira in Virtua Fighter. But digging among Ryo's move animations in What's Shenmue reveals just how close that relationship really is.

Virtua Fighter 2 characters, ready for action

Ryo's Animations

Ryo's general animations for walking, turning, crouching and so on are stored in their own motion files in the Shenmue games. While most of these are used, there are also animations that are never used in the main game. With some small change to values in memory while the game is running (in an emulator), these hidden animations can be revealed.

One motion contained in What's Shenmue is named "AKI_WIN_312" and proved worthy of investigation.

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