Shenmue for saturn? [Archive] - Retrogaming Roundtable

President Shinron

02-24-2005, 05:29 AM

Wouldnt it be cool if shenmue came out for saturn i mean as soon as i saw the special video in shenmue 2 i saw that they pushed the saturn to the limit

WiseSalesman

02-24-2005, 05:59 AM

what the hell? :hmm:

anagrama

02-24-2005, 06:09 AM

what the hell? :hmm:

Shenmue was originally planned as a Saturn game (started life as Virtua Fighter RPG). Howver since it was nowhere near done by the time the Saturn died, it was shifted to the DC.
Shenmue II contains work-in-progress footage of the Saturn version. The same videos can be found online if you do a bit of digging.

Gemini-Phoenix

02-24-2005, 06:44 AM

Yeah, i've seen the video. To be honest, the DreamCast version is a lot better looking (Obviously!)

The early pictures of Shenmue for the saturn look like the first Resident Evil game! Lol. Very choppy at best!

And I doubt the game would have been what it was if it had been out on the Saturn - It obviously pushed it so far to the limit that they had to create a whole new console to play it on!!! Lol!

GobopopRevisited

02-24-2005, 06:56 AM

They had the videos up online at Dave Z's SEGA Saturn page, don't know if they are still there... Site never gets updated anymore.

http://www.sega-saturn.com

Gemini-Phoenix

02-24-2005, 07:01 AM

Hmmm, I am searching for the Shenmue one...

Here's an idea - Why not use that time machine (Wayback) to go back in time and see the site in an earlier time in order to find the Shenmue video...

Gemini-Phoenix

02-24-2005, 07:03 AM

Ok, found it, but it doesn't seem to want to work when I click it...

http://www.sega-saturn.com/news/112102.htm

GobopopRevisited

02-24-2005, 07:08 AM

http://www.sega-saturn.com/videos/Shenmue_Saturn.mpeg

Gemini-Phoenix

02-24-2005, 07:12 AM

http://www.sega-saturn.com/videos/Shenmue_Saturn.mpeg

Was going to post that URL instead, but I couldn't get it to work when clicked... Do I have to wait a while or something? I was expecting a grey download box to appear...

GobopopRevisited

02-24-2005, 07:14 AM

It opened in WMP for me.

Try posting it in WMP Open URL and siving it from there or opening it in FireFox.

Gemini-Phoenix

02-24-2005, 07:15 AM

Weird, works in MSN Explorer... Why not IE? Strange

GobopopRevisited

02-24-2005, 07:26 AM

WOW, this is the first time I've seen this... Easilly the best looking 3D 32bit game. Those character models are insane! How can you compare this to Resident Evil?!?

fishsandwich

02-24-2005, 07:38 AM

The Saturn has a VERY high-end Yamaha sound chip.

From what I've read, the developers of Shenmue for the Saturn were actually using the SOUND CHIP to help out with graphics! @_@

The Saturn's architecture is super-complicated and convoluted, but it has A LOT of unused potential and untapped power.

Cheers

:D

Liquid_death

02-24-2005, 07:52 AM

i own shenmue 2 for my xbox. i think shenmue 2 for dc was only released in europe.

dreamcaster

02-24-2005, 08:05 AM

i think shenmue 2 for dc was only released in europe.

And Japan.

Graham Mitchell

02-24-2005, 08:06 AM

The one thing that impressed me when Dreamcast came around was the details they were starting to put in faces and facial expressions in the new generation of games. Note the really detailed facial expressions this game exhibits, and compare that to other 32-bit games. Everybody's face in Metal Gear Solid is totally flat!! This is really impressive stuff. But, I'm glad it showed up on the Dreamcast instead. It allowed the game to have the presentation it deserved.

sabre2922

02-24-2005, 08:24 AM

I saw this video a few years ago when I picked up Shenmue2 for Xbox and was very impressed by what Yu Suzuki and his team had accomplished on the 3-D challenged Saturn.
I think the same vids are on my original Shenmue for Dreamcast :hmm:
One more thing: it looks waaaay better than RE did on Saturn and I agree that the facial expressions are far beyond anything that we had seen on a home console at the time even on PSone.

fishsandwich

02-24-2005, 10:02 AM

http://www.sega-saturn.com/videos/Shenmue_Saturn.mpeg

WOW. Just WOW!

@_@ @_@ @_@ @_@ @_@ @_@ @_@

I'd never seen THAT particular video before... that's frickimg amazing! I don't believe that PSX or the N64 could have done that!

It's obvious that the Saturn is not "3-D challenged"... it's just VERY challenging to get the machine to do good 3-D, but it can certainly be done. Those facial expressions are using the GAME ENGINE folks... it's not CGI! It's not as smooth in true real-time when your character is running or interacting, but the DC game isn't as smooth in those parts, either. You can up the detail on the graphics when you don't have full control, like in the game engine-rendered plot sequences.

Wow. Just wow.

Cheers

CreamSoda

02-24-2005, 12:06 PM

Sega Saturn always has, and always will be an amazing system.

It's so sad so many developers and the general public ignored it. :(

When seeing stuff like this, I know the Saturn could handle games like FFVII,FFVIII,Twisted Metal, ecr.

Muscelli

02-24-2005, 12:41 PM

just a heads up, im offering 5000 dollars for a beta of this

GobopopRevisited

02-24-2005, 12:47 PM

just a heads up, im offering 5000 dollars for a beta of this

...one can dream.

Gapporin

02-24-2005, 01:44 PM

(started life as Virtua Fighter RPG).

And then that came out as Virtua Quest on the GC.

Lemmy Kilmister

02-24-2005, 01:54 PM

(started life as Virtua Fighter RPG).

And then that came out as Virtua Quest on the GC.

And PS2.

GrayFox

02-24-2005, 02:05 PM

lol, I'd love to know how that looks like Resident Evil at all.

Granted, whoever said that based it on screenshots, not a movie.

Nevertheless, RE never had facial expressions like those in the Saturn Shenmue, or animations like that, or graphics like that.

Captain Wrong

02-24-2005, 02:15 PM

Man...that video is just...wow.

Yeah, I wasn't that impressed until, as someone pointed out, I realized that what I was watching was produced with the game engine, not CGI. That's impressive.

Sega Saturn, 3D challenging, not challenged. LOL

SoulBlazer

02-24-2005, 05:24 PM

You people are just NOW seeing this? :hmm:

I saw this a year ago when I first bought and played Shenume II for the XBox. :P

Liquid_death

02-24-2005, 07:41 PM

wow i never knew the saturn could do that. just wow

TheRedEye

02-24-2005, 07:44 PM

I get the feeling this isn't running on an actual Saturn, at least not at full speed.

ClassicGameTrader

02-24-2005, 10:05 PM

I get the feeling this isn't running on an actual Saturn, at least not at full speed.

I wonder if it was a video running directly from the dev saturn, which had twice the ram. At any rate, this MUST have been planned as a 4 meg cart game, shit, maybe an 8 meg. But at any rate, better then anything ive seen on ps1

Endiga

02-24-2005, 10:57 PM

My my, those are some impressive details.

It's interesting to see how far they got with the title - into Disc 2 of the game, at the very least. How far along did they get before shifting their focus onto the Dreamcast? Did they have the actual game completely layed out on the Saturn?

I wonder... if it had been released, would it have made a difference at all?

-hellvin-

02-25-2005, 01:29 AM

That was pretty amazing

fishsandwich

02-25-2005, 09:48 AM

I get the feeling this isn't running on an actual Saturn, at least not at full speed.

Shenmue was the only game ever developed that utilized the Saturn's very high-end Yamaha sound processor to produce GRAPHICS... from what I've heard (but can't confirm) these video fo Saturn Shenmue demonstrate how it would have looked running on a stock Saturn. Don't know about the extra memory... those textures are a bit rough, so maybe it wouldn't.

Cheers

:D