This topic was selected by Phantom River Stone members in our monthly poll and was available for early access. More info on our Patreon page.
Many of the places in the Shenmue series are modeled or based on actual places, and this is especially true for the first game which features locations that are very similar to ones that actually existed at the time the game was made. In recent years, SEGA has even worked with Yokosuka City to produce an official Shenmue Sacred Spot Guide Map that highlights several of these.
Alas, some of these that were around in the early 2000's are no longer here today, such as the large gantry crane at the harbor, dismantled in 2013, or the Jupiter jacket shop in Dobuita that no doubt inspired the in-game Jupitor's Jackets shop, which closed in 2015.
One of the most memorable shopfronts in the game is the Knocking Motorcycle Shop, with its large sign above proudly proclaiming "YOKOSUKA JAPAN", the show window crammed full of parts and several motorbikes scattered about outside in various states of repair.
In fact, the Knocking Motorcycle Shop was also based on a real-life bike shop called Knock Motor, which used to be located just off Dobuita Street. As you can see from this photo in a March 2000 edition of the Weekly AM2 online magazine, they are remarkably similar, right down to the design and lettering on the shop sign.
The real Knock motorcycle shop in Dobuita (March 2000).
The arcadey action of the racing section of the new Shenmue III Battle Rally DLC contains some nice touches that hark back to Yu Suzuki's classic arcade games.
As mentioned in our Battle Rally DLC recap post, there are several graphical tributes to Yu Suzuki's 1986 arcade game Out Run. One of these is the Goal banner:
And another nod to a SEGA arcade game has been spotted. The game in question is Bass Fishing (also known as Get Bass), which had an arcade release in 1997/1998 and came with a built-in fishing rod controller.
SEGA's Bass Fishing arcade
The game was later ported to consoles including the Dreamcast.
Comparing the Bass Fishing logo side-by-side with the title on the Battle Rally main selection screen shows the strong similarity, from the color graduation effect to the slant and font design. (Credit to Nikolai Antonov for the discovery).
There may well be more such nods to SEGA's classic arcade games. Leave a comment if you have noticed any others!
The first playable DLC for Shenmue III, called "Battle Rally" has become available from today, and offers not one but two games set in Shenmue III's world.
One is Battle Rally, the an entertaining series of time-trial courses (mixed with fighting!) which gives the DLC its name. And the second is a separate treasure-hunt style game that will look somewhat familiar to Shenmue III players, called Bailu Chan Hunt!
Both of these activities are set in Bailu village, and the game will check that you have progressed past this location in your main game, before making it accessible. Also be sure your main game is up-to-date (at the time of this post, the latest version is currently v1.04.01).
Battle Rally
Battle Rally has a fun, arcade-like feel to it that will immediately remind players strongly of Yu Suzuki's past arcade titles. You can choose to play as one of three characters: Ryo Hazuki, Ren Wuying or Wei Zhen (the martial artist who can often been found practicing opposite the Sunflower grove in the main game).
A new video has been released on the Shenmue Unofficial YouTube channel that investigates and identifies a real-life location backed up by evidence that it may feature in an upcoming part of the Shenmue story.
⚠Spoilers!⚠
The video includes a brief recap and discussion about the ending of Shenmue III, along with speculation regarding future chapters (although the information on which it is based was revealed by Yu Suzuki several years ago). If you have yet to complete Shenmue III then you may wish to do so first and come back to watch the video afterwards.
As always with the Shenmue Unofficial videos, the analysis is thorough and after watching it I'm certainly convinced that the location has indeed been identified!
New content has been announced for Shenmue 3! It comes in the form of DLC entitled Battle Rally, and it will be available on January 21 for PS4 and PC.
This represents the first DLC for the game since its launch at the end of last year, and will be available for purchase online on the Sony Store and Epic Games Store. If you have already purchased the Complete DLC Collection season pass (which also comes with the Digital Deluxe Edition of the game), then the new content will automatically become available to you on the launch day.
What is it About?
The Battle Rally DLC offers "fresh gaming activities" and takes the form of a race in which the objective is to beat your competition to be first across the line, with some "truly awesome items" to the winner [see Yu Suzuki's comment at the end of this article for more information on these]. On the way, contestants will "engage in head-to-head battles" as they race through the course.
The new DLC will also allow players to play a choice of characters for the first time in Shenmue III: choose from Ryo, Ren or Wei Zhen (the young martial artist from Bailu village who often trains at Sunflower Grove).
The planned price for the single DLC is reported to be $7.99 / £6.49 / €7.99 through the Sony Store (PS4) or Epic Game Store (PC). Or, if you are intending to purchase further DLC content in the future, then the season pass will be more economic.
PC players can take advantage of the 30% off deal for Shenmue III that is currently running on the Epic Games Store, which also applies to the DLC season pass. The sale runs until January 28th.
Tap mage to visit the Shenmue III page on the Epic Games Store
Additional Shenmue III DLC
In an interview with IGN Japan (source, in Japanese) near the end of last year, Yu Suzuki talked a little about the DLC for Shenmue III that the team was working on:
"Following the game's release, DLC is scheduled to be distributed periodically. They are currently working on 3 or so: one is action-based, one is story-related and one is to do with a casino. Furthermore, as a reward for completing the DLC, some will allow you to obtain additional costumes, with plans for costumes for characters other than Ryo."
There is a good chance that one of the prizes will be an alternative costume for Shenhua, given the hint Yu dropped during our interview with him at last year's Tokyo Game Show:
PRS: We've heard that Ryo will be able to change his costume. How about Shenhua? YS: Yes she will, but not in the main game. I wonder if I can say more. It's DL... something! [laughs]
Regarding the two DLC other than Battle Royal, the names have already been leaked via the PlayStation trophies list, and although they do not in themselves give much away, I will enclose them here in spoiler tags:
A continuation of our series on Yu Suzuki's Research Trip to China. This topic was selected by the Phantom River Stone blog patrons via our monthly poll on Patreon and was available for early access. In the early 1990s, Yu Suzuki made a seminal trip to China. His objective was to research and gather material for his upcoming Virtua Fighter 2, and this research also influenced his concept for a "Virtua Fighter RPG" which eventually came to be known as Shenmue. Previous posts in this series of blog posts:
In Part One, we translated blog entries about the trip by Kazunari Uchida, the person who accompanied Yu Suzuki.
Part Two is a magazine article in which Yu Suzuki gives own comments about his trip, and how his findings would be useful for the development of the Virtua Fighter series.
In Part Three, Yu's traveling companion, Kazunari Uchida, talks about how he first met Yu Suzuki and his curiosity to learn about the genius behind the man during the upcoming trip.
In this post, Part Four, we present Kazunari Uchida's journal entry for the start of the trip itself: Day One - Beijing.
Yu Suzuki: China Research Trip Journal
Day One: Beijing
Our Air China jumbo jet departed Narita [the main international airport near Tokyo] at 3 pm and arrived at Beijing Airport slightly behind schedule at 7 pm local time (one hour behind Japan). One might perhaps call it the scent of the continent: on disembarking, we were wrapped in a distinctive odor, like the dry smell of a summer beach mixed with the faint smell of car oil burning.
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 clear winning topic for January is...
"Yu Suzuki's Research Trip to China 1994: Part Five"
In 1994 Yu Suzuki spent two weeks in China gathering material for his upcoming Virtua Fighter II game, and his findings also greatly influenced his creation of Shenmue.
In Part One, we translated blog posts about the trip by Kazunari Uchida, the person who accompanied Yu Suzuki.
In Part Two, we translated Yu Suzuki's own comments about his trip, and how his findings would be useful for the development of the Virtua Fighter series.
Part Three was the first of a number of diary-style articles documenting the China trip, again written by Kazunari Uchida, which were published in 1994 as a series in the Japanese Beep! MegaDrive Magazine.
Part Four is the journal entry for Day One: Beijing (coming soon).
In Part Five, we will translate the journal entry for Yu Suzuki's journey through China from Beijing down to Shaolin Temple in Henan province. (He takes particular interest in a carving of a Dragon and Phoenix that he discovers on the way...)
Yu Suzuki and the Shenmue III team have sent out some whimsical Shenmue-themed seasonal greeting illustrations over the past few weeks, celebrating the end of a year in which the historic release of Shenmue III took place, and welcoming in the year ahead.
Season's Greetings Illustration
The first illustration shows Shenhua, Ryo and Ren playing in the snow. Shenhua holds a gift-wrapped box marked "Shenmue III", out of which pops a jack-in-the-box puppet of Yu Suzuki - a Yu-in-the box. Ryo, like Shenhua, is dressed in a red-and-white Santa suit, and in place of his backpack he carries a white sack over his shoulder and winces as a well-aimed snowball from Ren catches him on the head (as to be expected, Ren hasn't changed costume for the festive season). Completing the featured cast are Chai at the left, who is up to no good as he prepares a huge snowball - but he has made the effort to dress up in a Santa hat and coat!
Lastly, at the far right is Chobu-chan as a snowman. I wonder if that was Ren's handiwork...
Season's Greetings from the Shenmue III team! (source Tweet)
Illustration detail: Chai rolling a snowball, a strike on Ryo, "Yu-in-the-box", and a Chobu-chan snowman.
New Year's Greeting
The second illustration is a greeting for the New Year, and was sent out on Twitter with the following message: Become a Patron!
Recently James from the YouTube channel That Video Games Show interviewed Japan-based voice actor Eric Kelso, who has a wealth of voice-over and voice acting experience in a variety of fields, and of course played the English voices of Fuku-san, Guizhang and Ren in the first two Shenmue games.
The questions cover Eric's activities in Japan as well as several Shenmue-related topics, including:
Which of the 3 Shenmue characters you voiced did you have the most fun with?
What is your favorite dish to cook?
Were you contacted about returning to play as Ren in Shenmue III?
Would you be open to re-recording your own original voices for the Shenmue III characters?
What made you decide to move to Japan?
Can you play any musical instruments?
What is your favorite "Ericism"?
Have you ever played Shenmue I and II?
Eric has always positive supported Shenmue and the fan community, and it is a pleasure to hear from him again in this interview.
Japanese website Famitsu.com has published their traditional annual survey of members of the games industry, this time interviewing a total of 110 game creators. They were asked to choose a word that sums up their direction for the coming year, as well as their New Year's Resolution and goal for the coming year.
Here are the answers Yu Suzuki provided for the coming year:
Q: What is your keyword for 2020? YS: "A new project start".
Q: What is your New Year's Resolution? YS: To leverage my know-how from Shenmue III and focus on planning a world with even more freedom. Q: What will you be keeping an eye on in 2020? YS: Of course that would be the Olympics. Please try out Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Something else that captures my interest is Mulan.
In the last response, Suzuki (who still has a consulting role with Sega) gives a shout-out to Sega's Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, which was recently released for the Nintendo Switch and for which there are plans to release as an arcade cabinet this year. Mulan is an upcoming historical period drama set in China which is a live-action adaptation of Disney's 1998 animated film of the same name.
Of most interest to Shenmue fans is Yu Suzuki's revelation that he is commencing a new project, and in his second answer he mentions planning out a "world with even more freedom" than Shenmue III.
Could this new project be Shenmue IV? Continuing on to make the next Shenmue game in the series is something Suzuki has previously indicated he would like to do (for example in this Museo Dreamcast interview), and furthermore it would make sense do so while the current development team is in place. At the same time, Suzuki no doubt also has ideas and concepts for other projects, so no doubt the eyes of all fans will be watching closely for further information.
Related Links
These are Yu Suzuki's end-of-year interviews from the past three years:
