Image of Shopping Street in Shenmue 3 | Amazon

A pre-order page for Shenmue III has appeared on Amazon's site in France and Germany and it contains a couple of images that have not been shown before.

Shenmue III Box Art on Amazon

The first is this mock-up game cover image showing models of Ryo and Shenhua against a background of the carved Phoenix and Dragon mirrors in the cave from Gamescom 2017. While not identical, it is similar in appearance to the Shenmue III banner on Steam that was updated around October of last year.

Shenmue III cover image on Amazon France

Image of Shopping Street in Choubu 

The sample images on the Amazon page are mainly a mix of those we have seen at previous games events, however there is one image that has not been revealed before, which shows Ryo on the main shopping street in Choubu.

Update: the original lower-quality images on this page have been run through image enhancer software, giving improved resolution. Thank you to our blog reader below who left the suggestion in the comments!

While this image is unlikely to represent the very latest state of the game - the upcoming MAGIC Monaco event on March 9th should give a better idea - it is still worth taking a few moments to appreciate some of the details in the image. (Apologies for the blurriness due to the low resolution of the source image).

First, unlike many of the images and trailers seen to date, there is a good sprinkling of NPCs in the one location in a variety of poses: striding up the incline; standing with arms folded, or walking along the shopping street.

The image resolution is not really sufficient to make out some of the smaller signs, but the more readable ones are a shop sign ("Chobu Shoes Center") and the name of the shopping street (名店街) on the archway, which we have seen before in one of the MAGIC 2018 images and could be loosely translated as "Main Shopping Quarter"

There are also some nice little details that add to the atmosphere of the location: a small balcony and an air-conditioning external unit attached to the side of one of a building above a shop...

A bicycle parked next to some bags or garbage, with clay pots standing nearby...

And in the distance, what looks like it could be the reception area for some kind of hostel or accommodation (is this where Ryo may stay?), with a bored clerk waiting at a desk with folded arms, a board of room boxes on the wall behind him.

Outside, red diamond-shaped decorations can be seen, which are probably good luck decorations which have the word 福 (good fortune) on them and are traditionally hung upside down. These decorations were also in the Shenmue III New Year's greeting illustration from earlier in the year.

Remaining Images

The other images on the Amazon pages are ones that have appeared previously, such as:

• An image of the carved Phoenix and Dragon mirrors in the cave (Gamescom, Aug 2017)
• Ryo walking with Shenhua (MAGIC press conference, Jan 2018)
• Ryo at a QTE Title machine (Shenmue III page on Steam, Oct 2018)

It would seem probable that the pages will be revamped to include more recent images closer to the August 27th release date.

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