Exploring Kowloon's "Magic Rooms" Part 1 | Guest Post

The depiction of Kowloon in Shenmue II is memorable for its sheer scale and size, with a number of high rise buildings soaring up to the sky. Even more remarkably, especially for the time the game was made, is that a great portion of the rabbit-warren of rooms inside the buildings are actually accessible to the player, even if visiting them is not required to advance the game's story.

With Yu Suzuki's typical attention to detail, these extra "filler" rooms were not simply left empty, but were filled with all kinds of dilapidated furniture and various small items that evoke a lived-in feeling.

Long-time Phantom River Stone patron Jcgamer has undertaken a room exploration marathon to screenshot and catalog the wide variety of objects to be found in these Kowloon rooms, and in today's post we present Part One of his findings, which will continue across a number of posts.

Browsing these is sure to give an appreciation for the effort the development team put into crafting realistic-looking rooms that many players may pass by perhaps without even realizing the possibility of glancing inside.

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Submarine at New Yokosuka Harbor | Shenmue One Cut Content

The presence of sailors in the first Shenmue game is an accurate reflection of the influence of the US Navy Base that is located at the harbor in real-life Yokosuka. The warship docked at the far side of the harbor was also modeled on an actual ship that served in Yokosuka, and makes for a memorable sight as Ryo goes about his forklift job.

• Related post: The Warship at New Yokosuka Harbor

There was in fact originally going to be another large navy vessel in the game that might have increased this impact, namely: a submarine, which was to have been stationed along the warship.

Its inclusion would have been true to life, as submarines can often be seen around the real Yokosuka harbor.

A submarine at Yokosuka harbor.

The decision to remove it was likely made quite close to the game's final release, as it appeared in promotional footage as late as the release year.

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Poll Result: Patrons' Choice Topic for March 2020

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 for March is...

"Ryo Hazuki's jacket: do the patches have any meaning?"

For any player of Shenmue, the patches on Ryo's leather jacket are a familiar sight, especially the Tiger design that constantly faces the player during normal gameplay. In this post we'll look at each of them more closely and investigate whether the designs and symbols are merely for decorative purposes, or whether they may have a deeper meaning.

Coming soon in a future blog post.

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