[Part One] Shenhua's House: Shenmue 2 vs Shenmue 3 | Pictorial Comparison

Near the end of Shenmue II, Ryo and Shenhua take the path from the riverside port of Langhuishan and cross the mountains to eventually reach her father's house, located on a rocky plateau high above the Yingshuihe river.

This familiar location was recreated in Shenmue III, being the place Ryo returns to each evening during his investigations at Bailu village, with a number of minor differences in appearance. In this post we will take a complete tour of this outdoor area, to compare the landscape around the house as it is portrayed in Shenmue II vs Shenmue III (with the house's interior to be covered in a future post).

Tools used: our out-of-bounds cheat tool for Shenmue II and LemonHaze's miscellaneous mods tool for Shenmue III.

Aerial View

To start with, let's look down on Shenhua's house from above. The path from Langhuishan / Bailu village can be seen entering from the left side, and continuing past the house in the direction of the Stone Pit. The topography in Shenmue III matches the previous game closely, with one noticeable difference being that the plateau on which the house sits is now wider and less enclosed. The craggy rocks and cliffs are have a somewhat different appearance to the more sheer and flatter shapes seen in Shenmue II.

Bird's eye view of landscape around Shenhua's house (top: S2, below: S3)

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Ryo's Band-Aids Found at Tomato Mart: Shenmue Cut Content | Dragon & Phoenix Project Discoveries

Another new discovery by LemonHaze reveals that a special item of merchandise had once been planned for inclusion among the stock at the Tomato Convenience Store, one that is a key component of Ryo's visual identity: a packet of band-aids.

Ryo stops in at the Tomato Convenience Store to buy a quick item on his way home. (Mock-up)

Let's look at exactly where this extraordinary finding was made.

Tomato Convenience Store: Poo Magazine & More

The Tomato Convenience Store is packed with a range of useful everyday items, from snacks such as Shenmue-branded chocolate through to the gripping content of Poo magazine.

Poo magazine. (The origin of the magazine's title is unknown. It has been suggested that it might refer to the Japanese expression "Pooh-Taro", describing someone who lazes around all day long).

An importance difference between the type of merchandise that can be found is that some items can be picked up and purchased by Ryo, such as the snacks, while others like magazines are purely scenery and stay fixed in place at at all times.

It turns out that there is a special text file that the game uses to help define all the objects in the store that can move, and this is where the new discovery is contained.

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Poll Result: Patrons' Choice Topic for March 2021

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 2021 is...

"What Dobuita Was Really Like in 1986"

A few years back, an article that was published on the IGN Japan website about real-life Dobuita - both then, and now.

The introduction to the article reads: "Yokosuka is a place where America and Japan are woven together like a mosaic. Dobuita Street is a perfect example. Mixed in alongside tattoo stores and burger stores are soba noodle shops and long-established eel restaurants. It's usual to see an elderly Japanese couple slowly walking past a group of hefty American soldiers talking".

Various shopkeepers and residents talk about what Dobuita was like in the past around the time in which Shenmue is set, and changes the area has undergone since then.

Watch for it on the blog in the near future!

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Shenmue Doujinshi "Mankan Zenseki": Extra Sample Pages | English Scanlations by Daniel Mann

You may recall our interview last month with mappy, one of the team of artists who created the delightful Shenmue doujinshi "Mankan Zenseki." (Read the interview here if you haven't yet seen it).

If you enjoyed the manga samples in English that accompanied the post, these scanlations were the skillful handiwork of Daniel Mann who both produced the text translations and seamlessly transplanted them into the original comic pages.

In the previous interview post we hinted at a further set of scanlations by Daniel of Mankan Zenseki sample pages, and we're delighted to present them in today's post.

(The comic panels read from right to left.)

Shenmue I Themed Sample Scanlations

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Ryo & Ren Reunited! Eric Kelso and Corey Marshall Twitch Livestream Announced

Voice talent Eric Kelso (English voice of Fuku-san, Guizhang, Ren as well as additional minor characters in Shenmue I and II) will be joining Corey Marshall on his Twitch stream as he plays Shenmue II!

Eric and Corey worked together in Japan recording their lines for SEGA for the original Shenmue - and following that, again for Shenmue II - more than twenty years ago. (You can read about this in our earlier interview with Eric Kelso on the blog).

And now they will be back together to chat and interact with fans on this special stream. Get your questions ready!

In Corey's announcement tweet, he says: "Eric and I will reminisce about our (mis)adventures working together and will take questions from Shenmue fans.  Don't miss this very special livestream!"

• Time: Friday, March 5th at 8pm Los Angeles time [= Saturday 1pm JST]

• Stream link: https://www.twitch.tv/coreymarshallvoiceoverpro

At the Sega studio, during the recording of Shenmue II: Eric Kelso, Lisle Wilkerson [voice of Joy / Xiuying / Yuan] & Corey Marshall

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Cut Lucky Hit Boards Resurrected in Shenmue 2 After 20 Years | Dragon & Phoenix Project Discoveries

 

Shenmue 2 was the first game in the series to introduce the game of Lucky Hit. A number of stands can be found throughout Hong Kong where Ryo may play to increase his savings, or take on a part-time job and pit his skills against passers-by.

Lucky Hit boards are scattered throughout Aberdeen, Wan Chai and Kowloon, and they offer plenty of variation: each game has its own board size, backing illustration, nail lay-out, payout ratio, rules and rewards. Many of these are easy to miss on a first play-through, being placed in little-used alleyways or sprinkled through the dilapidated buildings of Kowloon.

All these years after the game's release, renowned Shenmue modder and lead of the Dragon and Phoenix project LemonHaze has discovered the existence of a "master settings file" that defines the set-up of all the Lucky Hit boards in Shenmue 2.

Inside this file are several never-before-seen dormant Lucky Hit boards that were disabled before the game's release. LemonHaze has successfully brought these disabled Lucky Hit boards back to life, and they can even be played!

Not only that, but the discovery opens the way to allowing customization of all the Lucky Hit boards in the game.

Let's jump right in to gaze upon a slice of history in the form of the newly-uncovered Lucky Hit boards that were cut before release. For some video footage of the amazing discoveries described here, see the end of the post.

Cut Content Unearthed: New Lucky Hit Boards at the Thunder House

Our location of interest is the "Thunder House" in the Dim Sum Quarter of Kowloon and is the shell of a derelict building that has partially collapsed and is now used as an entertainment area by the locals. It is accessed down a steep set of steps (near the circular arrangement of boards known as the "Lucky Hit Museum").

Entrance to the grandly-named "Thunder House" in Kowloon

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