To help fully appreciate the wealth of tunes contained in the Shenmue games, long-time contributor and administrator of the Shenmue Dojo Ziming has been working on a long-term project over a number of years (with input from other members of the community): to create several high-quality compilation videos for the in-game and cut-scene music.
This latest offering, which he has just released, represents the last entry in a project covering Shenmue II music and is a compilation of all the cut-scene music from the Kowloon area. In this single area alone, there are a staggering 65 cut-scene tunes representing almost three hours of music.
Character-Themed Compilations
Ziming was inspired to start putting together Shenmue II music compilations in 2012 after noticing that different sections of each game were strongly associated with a particular main character, acting as a theme and providing a natural way to divide them up.
Hence in this new compilation for Kowloon, the theme character is Ren; the other compilations each have their own associated character such as Joy for the Aberdeen in-game music compilation, and Shenhua for the Guilin compilation.
Still-Image Sequences
Enhancing the experience further, each piece of music has been given a descriptive title, and is accompanied by a series of still-image screenshots from the relevant scene in the game, which I found really adds to the atmosphere.
Although it would have been easier to show a single unchanging image, for example, Ziming wanted to spend the extra effort to integrate a sequence of images in this way because it better reflects how the music is experienced when playing. His aim was "to mimic that feeling for the player as they listen to the music."
Kowloon Cut-scene Music: 65 Tracks
The full music video "Shenmue II Music: Kowloon Cut-scenes (Compilation)" is embedded below.
Beneath the video are image links to each of the individual tracks, opening in a new tab.
01. Kowloon Introduction
02. Ren's Hideout
03. Joy's Bike
04. Great View Herbs
05. Yang
06. Splitting Up
07. Dou Niu's Trap
08. Breaking Out
09. Ryo & Ren's Escape
10. Hiding from the Yellow Head
11. Forcing Through
12. Place for the Night
13. Rooftop Camping
14. Morning Escape
15. Elevator Ambush
16. Set Free
17. Joy in Kowloon
18. Payback
19. Searching Tapes
20. Playing Tapes
21. Kai's Musical Cut-scene
22. Kai's Performance
23. Following Yuan
24. Head or Tails
25. Hiding from Dou Niu
26. Finding Zhu's Location
27. Crossing Planks
28. Zhu's Hidden Room
29. Yuanda Zhu
30. Followed by Yuan & Dou Niu
31. Hong Kong Battle
32. Thousand White Convent
33. Outside Convent
34. Yuanda Zhu's Whereabouts
35. Predictive Explosion
36. Iwao's Old Friend
37. The Scout
38. Rod Stunt
39. Greg More
40. Chunyan Xu
41. What Awaits
42. Waiting for the Scout
43. Wong's Help
44. Black Suit Encounters
45. Yellow Head Battle
46. Waiting to Run
47. Sneaking
48. Caught
49. Running from the Yellow Head
50. QTE Fight
51. Yuan's Chainsaw
52. Yuan Fight
53. Yuan Prefight & Aftermath
54. Six Minutes
55. Master Baihu
56. Baihu Fight
57. Baihu's Defeat | Elevator Scene
58. Black Suits - 40th Floor
59. Black Suits Defeated
60. Up The Roof
61. Rooftop Confrontation
62. Dou Niu Rooftop Fight
63. Lan Di's Departure
64. Yuanda Zhu's Insight
65. Departing Kowloon
Links
The news and discussion thread for this video can be found here on the Shenmue Dojo forums (together with a link for direct audio download). Stop by and leave a "like" or note of appreciation for this latest superbly-presented compilation!
Which of the Kowloon cut-scene tracks is your favorite?
I have never heard of this game before. I do wish more people like you highlight the tracks played in games, because like some game songs I wasn't able to find the name of.Do you work at https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/to-pay-or-not-to-pay-someone-to-write-my-essay-for-me_b_14793970 as a senior lecturer? I got to see some articles there with your name. By the way, thanks for your post.
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