Forklift vs Bus | Shenmue Hack

Ryo gets a bit bored with his crate-shifting job and wants a bigger challenge. He decides to sneak his forklift out onto the road, and take on the harbor bus!

It turns out the bus is no match for Ryo's forklifting skills. But I doubt he'll be getting a ride back to Dobuita after this...

In order to take the forklift outside the normal area, we used our Shenmue I cheat tool.

Give-Away: we have a Shenmue I & II Sacred Spot Guide Map to give away! Entry closes midnight 31 October, 2018. See this post: https://www.phantomriverstone.com/2018/10/shenmue-sacred-spot-guide-map-give-away.html

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The New Warehouse No. 8 Office Cut Scene | Mods & Hacks

In Shenmue I, Ryo goes to the harbor in Amihama in search of a "Warehouse No. 8", and ends up inside what he assumes is the right warehouse - only to find out this is not the case after he overhears a conversation held in one of the offices between two of the warehouse workers.

Ryo learns the bad news. 

The conversation Ryo overhears takes place as a cut scene, so we never get a good look inside the office apart from what can be seen through the internal window.

What would we see if we could view the room from another angle?

We applied our Shenmue I cheat tool to disable collision detection before the cut scene starts, and took Ryo outside for a better look.

Here's the view we got:

Very kind of you both to stand over there by the window.

The two workers are already in place, ready to start talking as soon as Ryo approaches. Before the cut scene starts they are silent, stationary and can't be interacted with in any way.

We can also get a much better look at the room's contents, including helmets on the lockers and a pile of metal containers in the corner.

A better look at the inside of the room.

After this, we took Ryo back to the corridor and the workers played out their cut scene, unaware of the unauthorized surveillance - just business as usual!

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Shenmue Sacred Spot Guide Map Give-Away

It's a prize give-away! All our patrons have an equal shot at winning a shiny new Shenmue Sacred Spot Guide Map, fresh from the 2018 Tokyo Game Show. There's no better time to become a Phantom River Stone supporter ($1 at the lowest tier). The entry period closes at the end of this month on October 31st.

Join us here: https://www.patreon.com/phantomriverstone

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A Prototype that Served Its Purpose: Thoughts on the Leaked Footage for a "Full HD Remaster" of Shenmue I & II

Yesterday, a video was released by Digital Foundry, showcasing leaked footage of a partially-completed remastered version of Shenmue I & II (which we'll refer to as a prototype) that was eventually shelved in favor of a version in which the enhancements were more manageable. This version was also worked on by d3t, the same development company who went on to develop the Shenmue I & II re-release that was released earlier this year.

The footage takes the form of a number of camera "fly-bys" around certain locations from the games (the Hazuki Residence, Yamanose and Dobuita from Shenmue I, and a few street areas in Hong Kong), highlighting comprehensively remodeled graphics.

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Ryo Lost in the Golden Qr | Mods & Hacks

"I'm looking for the Yan Tin apartments". Ryo climbs a nearby street light for a better view.

This picture was taken using a hack for the PC version of Shenmue II that lets Ryo walk through walls - and in the air.

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Sacred Spot Guide Map (Shenmue I & II Version): The Differences

The Shenmue "Sacred Spot" Guide Map is a multi-page tourist pamphlet highlighting locations of interest to Shenmue fans around Yokosuka and is a collaborative effort between Yokosuka City and SEGA. It was originally released at the end of 2017 in both English and Japanese versions (see our video about the map with links to their pdf downloads).

A new edition of the map has made an appearance at SEGA's booth at the 2018 recent Tokyo Game Show in September.

Shenhua shows off the new edition of the map at TGS 2018.

In this post we compare the new version directly with the original, page by page, to see what differences there are.

The language of the new version is Japanese (whereas the original map also had an English version). This is understandable, given its purpose as a promotional item for the release Shenmue I & II in Japan, as we shall see.

Note: an official pdf of the new map is not available, so photos have been used which may introduce some color variation.

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Walking Through Walls: Automated Cheat Tool for Shenmue One

While playing Shenmue it's not unusual to wonder what lies behind some of the inaccessible areas in the game. It would be fun to roam around the world of Shenmue outside of the usual boundaries - peeking behind shop counters, strolling over to areas blocked off by walls, or even running out onto the road to play chicken with the traffic.

Over the years, talented hackers and modders in the Shenmue community figured out the changes needed to achieve this in the Dreamcast version of the games. And with the re-releases it turns out that a similar approach can be taken for the re-release games, as described in our earlier post.

Today we present our automated cheat tool for Shenmue I, a program that allows Ryo to walk past the usual boundaries at the click of a button. This tool is for use with the PC (Steam) version of Shenmue I.

Read on for details on how to use it to go exploring for yourself. The download link can be found at the end of the post.

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Exploring the Road Outside New Yokosuka Harbor | Video

In recent posts we've seen a few interesting places Ryo can go once the in-game boundary restrictions are removed: such as over to the warship in the harbor, or even behind the mirror in the Russiya China shop in Dobuita.

This time Ryo is out exploring the road in front of New Yokosuka Harbor, for which access is normally limited to the area in front of the bus stop. Along the way he greets an abusive guy pushing a trolley, and witnesses some questionable driving.

Related post:

• See our post about our one-click tool for information on how to easily turn collision detection off in Shenmue I, allowing Ryo to literally walk behind the scenes. 

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