Suka Pass RELEASE v1.9: Free Market!

James Brown (from the Shenmue Dojo) and myself have just released a new update for Suka Pass, the fan-made app that recreates the Shenmue Passport for your mobile device, so we wanted to let you know what it's all about.

Version 1.9 introduces the Free Market, which was a section of the Passport that let you exchange capsule toys for various animal toy prizes. The screen below shows the original screen in the Passport for the Dreamcast.

Oishi-san has set up a stand at Suzume Park, and the board behind him explains which type of capsule toy is needed to swap for a toy on the table (the cloth color on which the animals sit indicate the type of toy).

The original Free Market section of the Shenmue Passport

The Free Market in Suka Pass has been recreated with the same concept, together with some added twists.

17 capsule toys have been hidden inside the app to find, and they can be unlocked by performing certain actions. Once a capsule toy has been found, visit the Free Market to trade and start your animal toy collection.

An additional bonus item is awarded if you can successfully find them all!

James has put together a fantastic video showcasing this new feature, as well as giving an overview of the the app's other sections.

Suka Pass is available for iOS and Android devices.

Head over to the official Suka Pass site for download links!

We'd love to hear how people get on with locating the capsule toys. James has made a thread about the new release over on the Shenmue Dojo forums for any feedback or comments.

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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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Free Guy: Interview with Yu Suzuki, Keiichiro Toyama & Kazunobu Sato by IGN Japan (2021) | Video

In 2021, IGN Japan invited three legendary Japanese game creators (Yu Suzuki, creator of Shenmue and numerous hit arcade games; Keiichiro Toyama, creator of the Silent Hill, Siren and Gravity Rush franchises and Kazunobu Sato, producer of The Last Guardian) to a private viewing of the newly-released film Free Guy.

While the interview is based around the movie, several themes that relate to game creation are explored and discussed.

Free City Interview Video

We have added translated subtitles in English to the interview video below. A written transcript also follows the video.

Interview Transcription

IGN Japan: Hi everyone, this is Daniel from IGN Japan. Today we'll be asking three game creators for their first impressions and thoughts on watching the movie Free Guy, which was released on 13th August (2021). This video is a promotional tie-up with the movie.

Let's start by introducing our guests. Firstly: Yu Suzuki. Thank you for being here.

Suzuki: Thank you.

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Poll Result: Patrons' Choice Topic for May 2023

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:

"Sacred Spot Guide Map - Shenmue The Animation version"

Ever since the first version was released by Yokosuka City (with Sega's cooperation) in December 2017, the Shenmue Sacred Spot Guide Map has been a must-get item on the list of Shenmue fans visiting the Dobuita St area. The map provides a guide to various real-life locations that are said to have been the inspiration behind places in the first game, the shrine and Kurita's military surplus store on Dobuita St.

• Shenmue Sacred Spot Guide Map: Japanese version
• Shenmue Sacred Spot Guide Map: English version

The map was refreshed the following year, being released at the Tokyo Game Show in 2018 with a new cover and other smaller changes commemorating the release of Shenmue I & II.

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

This brings us to June 2022, when a two-month event was held on location in Dobuita to celebrate the launch of Shenmue the Animation. As part of the celebrations, a third new version of the Sacred Spot Guide Map was launched.

This updated version of the Guide Map features art from Shenmue the Animation prominently on the cover.

In this post, we will examine the changes and differences between this version and the previous versions. 

Coming soon to the blog!

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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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Mirror Lore & Celestial Connections in Shenmue | Part Two

In this post we complete our investigation into the secrets of the Dragon and Phoenix mirrors and related lore surrounding them as revealed throughout the Shenmue games.

In Part One, we looked at the following topics:

• Ancient Beliefs: the Guardians of the North Star
• The Xing Xiu and People's Fates
• Five Stars Corp.
• Sword of Seven Stars
• I Smell Treasure
• The Chi You
• The Mirrors & the Qing Dynasty

This time, we will go deeper into the mysteries with the following topics:

• The Prophecy
• Shenmue's Bad Ending
• The Origin of the Mirrors
• Photo of the Imperial Envoy
• The Last Emperor: Pu Yi
• The Purpose of the Verdant Bridge
• The Envoy's Mission
• The Scroll
• The Cliff Temple

Spoiler Warning: This post covers story-related aspects from the first three games.

The Prophecy

A reference to the Dragon and Phoenix together also occurs outside of gameplay, in the prologue of each of the games in the series, in which Shenhua is heard reciting the prophecy (see also our comparison of the various versions of the prophecy to date).

This wording is from the Shenmue II version:

Shenhua: A Dragon shall emerge from the earth, and dark clouds shall obscure the heavens. A Phoenix shall descend from above, its wings will create a purple wind. In the midst of the pitch-black night, a morning star shall glisten, alone...

These words paint imagery of a conflict or dramatic event involving a Dragon and Phoenix in some form.

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Former Developer Anecdote: Shenmue II's Duck Racing Was Created In Secret

A former Shenmue developer has shared a brief but amusing anecdote in response to a tweet from Shenmue Forever that praised Shenmue II's intricate duck racing Easter Egg.

In his tweet, the developer that revealed that the entire duck race event was in fact created secretly by the Game Director* and staff without Yu Suzuki's knowledge!

An image of the original tweet is shown below.

Source tweet

About Satoru Tsuji

Satoru Tsuji (Twitter account mame_XPERIA) was one of the member of SEGA's 7-person Event Planning team on the Shenmue II project. He mentions that he was in charge of the fortune tellers in the game.

* Note: Tsuji's tweet about the duck race partially censors the Game Director's name as "Oka***". At first I assumed this might be (Keiji) Okayasu, however the Shenmue II end credits confirm this refers to Yoshihiro Okabayashi, who both headed the Event Planning team and was one of Shenmue II's two Game Directors.

Shenmue II End Credits: Event Planning team

 

Guide to Duck Racing in Shenmue II

Video: Shenmue Fans channel

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Shenmue Chapter Concept Art Released in High Resolution! (Tiles 1-7)

At the 2014 Game Developers Conference (GDC 2014), Yu Suzuki gave a special talk of approximately an hour in which he talked about the development of Shenmue. It covered the early days from its conception as Virtua Fighter RPG, when the protagonist was to have been Akira Yuki.

During the talk, Suzuki revealed a slide entitled "Chapter Concept Art" which showed 11 full-color illustrations that represented the plans for each chapter of Virtua Fighter RPG. These were drawn following Suzuki's trip to China in 1994.

Although various changes and rearrangements are known to have taken place since then, many of the elements observed in these chapter tiles are instantly recognizable including several of the characters appearing in the Shenmue games released to date, and for this reason obtaining high-resolution images of these tiles to study further has been something Shenmue fans have been desiring ever since they were revealed.

The 11 tiles of the Chapter Concept Art revealed at the GDC 2014 conference

The chapter tile illustrations were glimpsed again in footage for Adam Sipione's Shenmue Documentary ("A Gamer's Journey: The Definitive History of Shenmue") - which, incidentally is shipping imminently on BluRay - as the filming crew had privileged access to concept art shared by Suzuki during their time with him.

And now, thanks to Adam, the first seven of the tiles are available in high resolution for all fans to enjoy! There were released recently on a Shenmue Dojo forum post containing updates about the Shenmue Documentary.

Each tile is packed with details, and release of these high-resolution versions has already sparked renewed discussion and exchange of theories among fans on the forums and elsewhere.

The superb chapter tiles are displayed below!

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