Your petitions, they will do nothing. As far as Sega is concerned, cult adventure series Shenmue is dead in the water. But as far as fans are concerned, well, that’s another story.
Korean fan NoconKid has got to work remastering the original Shenmue in HD, and he is doing a damn fine job. Leather jackets, coke machines, run-down florists, as you can see from these screens and videos, it’s all looking very, very nice.
Before you get too excited, remember, he’s only done certain aspects of a single area of the game. It’s not like you can just download this right now and play the entire thing in HD.
By his own admission, doing the rest will take a “long, long time”, and if past fan attempts at this sort of thing are anything to go by, it probably won’t ever be done at all.
But hey, why get down about Shenmue. That’s all anyone ever does. Why not just enjoy the stuff he’s already done, squint a little, use your imagination and pretend you can download this for $US6.99 on Steam.
[나에게 최고의 명작 쉔무를 한편의 영화로 그리고 HD버젼으로…][thanks Kev!]
Comments
18 responses to “Shenmue HD Is Being Made By A Fan, Because Sega”
Don’t worry everybody. I’m sure once word gets around and this Shenmue fan made HD version becomes more popular, SEGA will swoop in with a cease and desist.
No! That’s the exact opposite of something that would make me not worry!
Hey, it’s worked before. Remember those two Chrono Trigger remakes that Square shutdown?
The problem with IP law is if you don’t defend against something made as a loving tribute that doesn’t hurt your brand or IP. Than you can’t stop people outright stealing it in the future to do stuff that will hurt your brand and IP.
That’s true for trademarks. There is no such requirement for copyrights.
So if the game was claiming to be “Shenmue”, that could be a problem for future trademark cases. If it reuses art assets and level designs, while still an infringement it doesn’t diminish their rights in other court cases.
That’s why IP law really, really, really needs to change. Creative people – like the individual that is the focus of this article – will continually be stomped on until something changes that allows for this culture of remixing something or paying tribute to it.
Too many double negatives, my brain hurts.
We don’t need no education.
Not necessarily. Christian “The Taxman” Whitehead put together what I guess qualifies as a remake of Sonic CD using his own proprietary engine for iOS a few years back. He then revealed his plans to launch it to SEGA as a kind of pitch, and SEGA picked him up, turned it into a full fledged re-release, and released it on pretty much everything in 2011. He went on to work on remakes of Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, using his own engine again, for iOS and Android that released in 2013.
But then again, for every Sonic CD, there’s a Streets of Rage Remake project that SEGA buries.
Yeah like they did with Bomber Games Streets of Rage Fan-Remake in 2011. Good thing about that is, Streets of Rage remake is It’s all over the web, thanks to loyal SOR Fans putting up on torrent sites. Suck it Sega.
DMCA Powers ACTIVATE!
*sigh*
Those nostalgic feels.
Why do sega hate the west so much. Shenmue and Yakuza are 2 properties that they could utilize so much better
At this point I’d prefer a fan made Shenmue 3, seeing as though it’s not likely to come out of Sega. I know it’d effectively be fan fiction but the series has gone too long without an ending.
I don’t know why these people don’t wait until they’re done to publicly advertise that they’ve done a mod, if they waited until it was done and they released it surely people would at least get a chance at having a go of it.
I bet doing just this section has taken a long time, that’s nothing compared to remastering the entire game! If you’re putting in so much effort you want to be able to show it off to those who’re interested, and waiting until they’ve finished doing the whole game (an unlikely endeavor to complete in the first place) would mean them holding back on showing off anything for a huge amount of time. Years probably. I know if I’m putting in effort to something I want to at least show off SOME of the work.
Also, if there ever is a chance of them finishing a remastered version of the game it’s probably only going to happen with the support of others. Your own desire to make something can be great, but with something so big you’re going to want to know it was for more than just your own chance to replay through something.
I guess I’m just soured on the english transaltions and such that never pan out.
HAAAII RYOOO!
*dances endlessly*
It’s a sad state of affairs when us gamers have to make our own games. Just so, you know, we can play’em.
Good to see, though 🙂