Merry 'Castmas! - The Festive Games of the Sega Dreamcast

This time last year, I had almost no time to enjoy the holiday festivities. I was unable to put up a tree or lights, let alone restore holiday cheer to Twin Seeds City. Rather, we were swamped with uprooting our lives, dog, and 15 years’ worth of belongings as we prepared to move across the Atlantic. It made for a hellishly stressful shitmas.

This year is the opposite, mercifully. So far I’ve enjoyed relaxing and rekindling the holiday spirit. I’ve indulged in some longstanding traditions, while adopting several new ones from this side of the pond. The Christmas markets, Sunday roasts, and excessive pints at my locals have helped make this season all the merrier. Of course, I’ve also been playing a bunch of Dreamcast games to help celebrate the season.

Sega’s final console imparted us with a multitude of titles that could be considered festive in one sense or another. Of course, these games will resonate with different folks in different ways. Some are dusted in snowscapes, some are lit with Christmas decor, and some just have festive vibes. Whichever the case, the following games have helped restore my holiday spirit in their own odd and unique ways…

Blue Stinger 

I’ve spilled plenty of ink championing Blue Stinger as a highlight of the Dreamcast’s festive offerings, and its library in general. We’ve also rambled about the game in several of our podcast episodes by this point. In fact, you can listen to our latest DreamPod dedicated solely to Shinya Nishigaki and Climax Graphics’ holiday classic.

Ditching any semblance of survival horror, Blue Stinger teeters a balance of action/beat ‘em up, B-movie camp, and festive vibrancy. Yet that understates how hard it goes on all counts.

Whether you crave gory fisticuffs or holiday cheer, Blue Stinger indulges in both and spares us from all nuance. If you want to obliterate Dinosaur Island’s mutant folk, its vending machines offer a buffet of shotguns, stun rods, rocket launchers, and lightsabers for your destructive delight. And if you want Christmas cheer, it will bury you in an avalanche of neon snowman, chipper earworms, and festive/bizarre Pen Pen cameos. 

Blue Stinger embodies holiday excess and it will charm the shit out of you if you let it.

Christmas moral: We can capture the magic of Christmas with just a little brute force...and tequila.

Beverage pairing: Mistletoe Margaritas

Dessert pairing: Hassy pudding

Song pairing: My friend Angela’s metal karaoke rendition of “Feliz Navidad” followed by this song on loop for 10 hours

Cool Boarders Burrrn! (NTSC-J) / Snow Surfers (PAL) / Rippin’ Riders (NTSC-U)

As a game without a consistent title between regions (for legal reasons), I at least appreciate their alliteration.

Frankly, I’ve always wished I enjoyed UEP System’s Dreamcast snowboarding game more than I traditionally have. I still return to it every couple years thinking that maybe it will finally click. It never fully does but we’ll muddle through somehow.

Perhaps my expectations were overblown by my love for other turn-of-the-millennium snowboarding games. I always balked at Snow Surfers’ stifling rigidity. It offers limited potential for exploration and improvisation, which contrasts unfavorably with the likes of SSX, Amped, and even Steep Slope Sliders. But in its own charming way, that also makes Rippin’ Surfers a unique kind of grind. Countdown timers are unforgiving and tricks are limited to specific launch points (as with other Cool Boarders games). There are just a few viable approaches to each course, which I was compelled to practice ad nauseam to improve my best scores and inch towards more optimal runs.

Unmoored from the expectations of its contemporaries, I found a merry little game in Burrrn Riders. With a little persistence, carving the slopes feels surprisingly serene, and is further bolstered by the chill beats and nifty set pieces. It’s not an expansive game but its simplicity makes it feel oddly cozy.

Christmas moral: Sometimes it’s nice to enjoy games for what they are.

Beverage pairing: Jingle Juice with Mountain Dew

Dessert pairing: Christmas crumble or something with alliteration

Song pairing: “Merry Muthafuckin’ Christmas” by Eazy-E

Shenmue

AM2’s classic Santa stalking simulator needs no introduction here. I’ll just say that — with Shenmue’s dynamic weather system — I had to load through all my Xbox saves, all my PS5 saves, and a dozen VMUs before I finally found a save state where it was actually snowing in Dobuita. After that, I had a jolly time crunching through the snow and following Santa around town as he peddled local boozers to underage teenagers before imbibing at them himself. We couldn’t stay out too late, though. Ryo still had to show up for his forklift job on Christmas Day. 

On a side note, Mark's mandatory, pre-shift forklift races do not pay overtime and that’s fucking bullshit.

Christmas moral: Unionize.

Beverage pairing: Milk

Dessert pairing: Nothing. Ryo doesn’t eat food in Shenmue 1 because he is a ryobot

Song pairing: “Sometimes You Have to Work on Christmas (Sometimes)” by Harvey Danger

6 Games that Scratch the Shenmue Itch

There really isn't anything quite like Shenmue. As most Dreamcast fans know by now, the gameplay of Yu Suzuki's magnum opus, which juxtaposed snail's pace sleuthing around Japanese suburbia with frantic Virtua Fighter ass kicking, was polarising back when it surfaced in 1999. I am one of those many crazy people who absolutely loved everything Shenmue had to offer, especially the game's focus on the minutiae of everyday life. While some might prefer to escape to lands of medieval fantasy or vast universes of the future, I was completely entranced by the real world in which Shenmue was set, and the ordinary people that inhabited it. It felt like I'd finally found the game I'd always wanted to play.

In the 18 year absence of the series' third entry, I still needed something to scratch the Shenmue itch, and with many now wondering when a fourth instalment is going to happen, I find myself searching once again (seriously though, #LetsGetShenmue4). That's why I thought I'd present to you, dear reader, a selection of games that I believe capture the essence of Shenmue, some in more ways than others. Of course, I'm not implying that any of these games trump Shenmue in stature or quality. I'm simply suggesting that you may find some of the same enjoyment in them that you found that first time you assumed the role of Ryo Hazuki, as he set off on his quest to irritate his fellow townspeople with excessive deadpan and waste all his money on plastic Sega-shaped tat (a man after my own heart, really).

The Yakuza Series

For those of you who aren't aware of the Yakuza series (if you even exist at this point), it is a modern Sega franchise that often draws comparisons to Shenmue for obvious reasons. While Yakuza didn't necessarily copy Shenmue's homework, we'd be lying to ourselves if we didn't admit that the later games in the series definitely take some inspiration from Shenmue, at least when we compare the two at face value. A man walks angrily around a Japanese neighbourhood, beats up a load of thugs, chugs a drink, then heads to the arcade to play Space Harrier… I could be accurately describing Shenmue or Yakuza with that sentence, and the internet’s gaming population at large have picked up on these somewhat shallow similarities also. There’s not a single day that goes by without someone shouting "why don't you just play Yakuza?!" at some poor unsuspecting Shenmue fan on social media.

Image credit: New Game Network

When you start to play any of the Yakuza games, however, you soon learn that the series very much has its own identity and its gameplay differs in many ways to the adventures of Ryo Hazuki. Sure, later Yakuza games started to incorporate a lot of the same time-waster stuff that is a beloved staple of the Shenmue series, like arcades and gambling, but Yakuza is overall much faster paced, and its beat-em-up style of brawling is even more dynamic and ridiculous than Shenmue's. Think Dynamite Cop on steroids. Let's just say you're not really taking time to appreciate the scenery in Yakuza, unless that scenery is a bicycle you can pick up to smash a dude's head with. Which style of game you prefer is all down to individual taste, of course.

Image credit: New Game Network

What the two series do have in common though is a commitment to escapism. Just like Shenmue, the Yakuza games contain excellent stories, all featuring likeable characters and gameplay loops that will keep you immersed for hours on end as you bond with characters through missions and become fully encapsulated in Japanese nightlife. For those still longing for that fourth Shenmue, Yakuza is a pretty fitting game to fill the void, and with a whopping number of instalments to play that span multiple console generations, you've got plenty to work with. Go forth and be the best organised crime bloke you can be.

The Persona Series

In the past, Shenmue has been branded a "life simulator" by fans and critics alike. Well, if there was ever a series that took that concept and ran with it, it's the Persona games. Created as a spin-off of Atlus' dark-as-heck Shin Megami Tensei RPG series, Persona has grown from a quiet cult hit to a monolith franchise in the last decade. Combining turn-based RPG gameplay and creature fusing with (from the third game onwards) time management and relationship building, Persona will steal your heart and not give it back. Play it for a few hours and you'll soon find yourself thinking in the same mindset as the Japanese high school student turned defender of humanity you play as, asking yourself such questions as: "should I slay demons tonight or go sing some karaoke?"

Image credit: New Game Network

While turn-based RPG battling and creature training has more in common with Pokémon than Shenmue, Persona's commitment to exploring the finer details of real life and asking you, the player, to make decisions on how to spend the main character's precious free time definitely shares some similarities with what Yu Suzuki was going for back in '99. While Persona is a lot less interactive than Shenmue (it's a JRPG, so be prepared for text galore), it goes a bit further in some ways. In Persona, you form more than just one-sided Ryo Hazuki relationships, and most activities you do in your free time have purpose (such as karaoke), boosting stats of some kind, rather than being there to simply kill time.

Image credit: New Game Network

As far as recommending a game in this series to start you off, I'd say start with Persona 5 Royal or the upcoming Persona 3 Reload (both of which can be found on modern gen systems and PC), simply for their sheer size, depth of mechanics, and level of graphical detail. The best storyline, however, is definitely that of Persona 4 Golden, which was previously stuck on the PS Vita, but eventually got ported to PC and Nintendo Switch, along with eighth/ninth generation PlayStation and Xbox systems. Small town countryside vibes, combined with the best plot and characters of the whole series, definitely makes Persona 4 Golden a candidate for everyone's first Persona game. Reach out to the truth!

The Best Dreamcast Merchandise: a Post-Christmas Breakdown

As a group of proudly obsessed Dreamcast fans here at the Junkyard, we don't simply leave our admiration for Sega's 128-bit box of wonders at talking endlessly about the games, hardware or accessories that most people associate with the console. For us, the Dreamcast is life, and we need little encouragement to escalate our borderline obsessive behaviour by purchasing as much plastic tat merchandise associated with the console as our little wallets can handle. Genuinely, we would buy a bin full of sick if Sega printed a swirl on the side and called it the “DreamBin” (Lewis, copyright that shit right now).

But of course, we don't actually need to stock up on vomit-filled metal containers, because Sega, and the various publishers of Dreamcast games, have seen fit to release or provide their license to a whole assortment of items related to the console and the games that made it great. Some of these are awesome… so awesome in fact that this article will mark the start of what will become a long-running series of “Mike's Random Dreamcast Top Tens”, with this first one looking at some of my favourite pieces of merchandise that you too can buy and put on a shelf, and admire from a distance with a tear in your eye as you realise you'll never have enough time to play all those games you've bought, but purchasing mass-produced nonsense for display like your 80 year old grandmother’s collection of porcelain dolls is now your life. 

Enough waffle. Let’s get on to today's random list, and too late for you to be able to get these in your stocking for Christmas! A pre-emptive warning - I may have my tongue firmly in my cheek for much of this article.

Dreamcast Socks

I write this as the full charade of Christmas is upon us. There are the sounds of happy little children outside, seasonal songs fill the airwaves and I can catch a glimpse of a tinsel and fairy light bedecked tree from my games room. I hate it. The children are little arseholes, the songs are shit and that tree is a fire hazard. No one remembers the true meaning of Christmas anymore - no, not Jesus (hail Satan), but family members you see for one day a year giving you shitty socks because they are bereft of ideas and refuse to indulge you in your childish love of gaming. 

But here's an idea - get those family members to buy these snappy little numbers and everyone's a winner! When Sega remember they have licenses they haven't used for decades they release some cool stuff, and this selection of two different Dreamcast sock designs fulfils both our collective need to keep buying Dreamcast stuff while also allowing us to be all grown up and shit at the same time. 

You can get these in traditional festive sock grey with a swirl on them or in a slightly wrong coloured approximation of the controller. They obviously missed a trick by not putting some kind of hilarious message in the VMU window, such as “I wanted a new Skies of Arcadia game but all I got were these socks”, but who cares when you can proudly display your love of the 128-bit wonder to your significant other every night with these?

The fetching grey of the socks on the right doesn't quite embody the blue-sky aesthetics.

A pile of socks! Christ - what a time to be alive.

Dreamcastic Christmas 2023: Heart-warming Tales from DreamPod Listeners

Ahead of recording episode 125 of the DreamPod, which first aired as part of RadioSEGA’s illustrious Winterfest and is now available in all the regular places, we appealed to our listener base to send us their festive Dreamcast-related ideas, memories and musings. And thankfully, in generous Christmas spirit, our mailbag promptly filled-up with a hefty slab of responses ranging from the witty, to the heart-warming, to the downright impressive. Quite a few were discussed on the pod, but many are undoubtedly worth sharing on the blog too, and so here we are. 

Thanks to all the wonderful Junkard-ers (yardies?) who made submissions, tuned into the podcast or are currently reading these hungover scribblings of mine. The Junkyard wouldn't be what it is without you and we are blessed to have such a wonderful community gathered around the site eighteen years on from its founding. 

So, if you'd like to amplify your festive cheer, pour yourself a glass of Creamcast ale, and read on.

 Our guest on DreamPod 125, Pat from Sega Saturn, SHIRO!, lovingly embracing the Dreamcast that Santa brought him as a child.

Christmas Cracker Extravaganza

In typical parochial British fashion, I had assumed that Christmas Crackers were a widespread phenomenon, when in fact, it turns out they are pretty much contained to the shores of the UK. Nevertheless, we had some fantastic responses from all over the world to our call for Dreamcast-themed Christmas cracker ideas, several sent in by folks who had no prior familiarity with the concept (but evidently got with the programme quite rapidly).

Horror host extraordinaire Uncle Clutch knocked it out of the park, delivering a set of eight sublime watercolour paintings. Feast your eyes on their magnificence below, and, if you ever happen to meet the dude in person, be sure to buy him a drink (or three) on us.

Copyright Uncle Clutch, 2023. Not to be reproduced without permission of the creator.

Copyright Uncle Clutch, 2023. Not to be reproduced without permission of the creator.

Drum and Bass superstar Pizza Hotline delivered a detailed pitch for some garish Hello Kitty crackers: “A mixture of pink and blue semi-transparent non-recyclable plastic Hello Kitty crackers, like the consoles. There’s confetti inside that consists of mini plastic hello kitty faces and Dreamcast swirls which gets everywhere, sticks to your carpet and clothing, and no matter how much you brush or hoover it, it won’t come off. The prizes in the crackers are any of the capsule toys from Shenmue 1 or 2. You might get a poorly formed Sonic or Virtua Fighter character, or, better yet some dice or a mini forklift. It’s a Christmas miracle! When you pull each cracker, they don’t go BANG. Instead, they make the annoying VMU beeeep sound, and, instead of jokes you get awful one-liners from Shenmue. However, if you’re lucky you might get the odd inappropriate line from Blue Stinger’s Dogs Bower too. ‘Years ago I was Chinese’, ‘Try asking Chinese people about Chinese’, ‘Ugly like the worst sin’, or perhaps ‘Our jackets are too cool for that scum. I want guys like you to wear them’”. 

Of course, we assume that the emphasis on plastic-heavy construction is in fact a tongue-in-cheek throwback to the excesses of the late '90s and not something for David Attenborough to be worried about. 

The Hello Kitty Dreamcast has certainly become a bit of a style icon in recent years.

Bobby (purveyor of the magnificent Wandering Through Shenmue YouTube channel) provided an equally detailed pitch for some crackers that we would love to see on our tables – and gets top marks for including a bad joke: “I believe the cracker itself should be in the shape of a VMU. They could even come in different colours seeing as we had so many to pick from when the Dreamcast was originally released. To open it, you put your fingers where the finger grip traditionally is and pull the protective dust cap right off. In addition, the VMU screen will have traditional Sega images that are slightly altered. Sonic wearing a Christmas hat. Amy with mistletoe above her head. Nozomi wearing a scarf.

All of the hats will bear the traditional Dreamcast swirl logo. I suppose if the cracker is released in Great Britain the swirl will be blue, whereas if it's released in Japan or North America, it will be the traditional orange. But what's inside? How about some rubber erasers in the shape of different character heads from Sega franchises. One of them could have Skies of Arcadia characters. Another one would have Sonic characters of course. Maybe the other would have Virtua Fighter characters.”

And how about that bad cracker joke? Make sure you are seated for this one folks.

“Q: What do you tell your friend when the laser on your Dreamcast is having a hard time reading a disc because it's dirty?

A: It's thinking”

Shenmue-Inspired "Forklift Racer" Coming to Steam

 And it is exactly what you think it is.

Source: Forklift Racer's Steam page

Directly inspired by that game with the monotone stalker kid and the kung fu QTEs, indie dev Team Wulinshu has recently unveiled Forklift Racer, a beat-for-beat homage to Ryo’s extracurricular jobsite pastime. After rolling out updates for the game over the last couple of months, the game's Steam store page is now live.

Forklift Racer (if you can see it)

In a recently-revealed trailer, racers roll through industrial courses lifted directly from familiar depictions of Yokosuka Harbor and Hong Kong. Forklift Racer promises a relatively fleshed-out racing experience featuring single player and 8-player online multiplayer modes, modernized physics, post-race replays, forklift customization, capsule toy turbo boosting, extremely dark warehouse interiors, and a work-in-progress HUD. So, if you ever wanted to know how Shenmue’s racing minigame would play out with friends and more forgiving collisions, Forklift Racer promises to do precisely that.

Now this is Forklift Rac(er)ing!

Forklift Racer is set to release on Windows and Linux/SteamOS but there are no specific launch date or pricing details just yet. You can wishlist the game on its Steam page and follow that and Team Wulinshu’s Twitter profile for future updates.

The Fork and the Furious

DCJY welcomes Shenmue Dojo

In this episode of the DreamPod, we welcome James Brown (aka SkillJim) and Matt Oliver to the show to talk all things Shenmue! For those few people who haven't heard of Shenmue Dojo (there can't be many of you out there, surely?!), it is the longest running Shenmue fan site / community on the internet, recently celebrating 20 years in operation. 

In this episode of the DreamPod, regular hosts Tom and Lewis grill James and Matt on the origins of the Dojo, their earliest memories of Shenmue, the Dojo's continued success as an online destination for pretty much anything related to Yu Suzuki's magnum opus, the reception of Shenmue III, the cancellation of Shenmue: The Animation...oh, and there's a quiz too! 

You can visit the Shenmue Dojo here, see sicknote footballer Darren Anderton in Shenmue here (this will make sense when you listen to the episode!) and follow the Dojo on Twitter here. If you love/hate what you've heard, please do consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts (or whichever service you get your pods from) as it really helps us spread the word. Cheers (and enjoy!).

Staff Picks: Top 21 Dreamcast Games

With our 2022 Top 200 Dreamcast Games poll coming to a close at the end of March, coinciding with the 21st anniversary of our beloved console’s discontinuation (I would say RIP but she is very much still alive and kicking, if you've been paying attention to anything we've been reporting on in the last few years!), I thought it was time for a peek into the minds of the staff here at The Dreamcast Junkyard. What did WE vote as our top ten Dreamcast games, and how does that look when compiled into a list? Well, let's find out shall we?

Along with myself, I asked Tom, Mike, Brian, Lewis, Kev, James H, James J, Mark and Rich to list their ten favourite Dreamcast titles in order. I took these and did what I seemingly love to do now as I approach my forties - I made a spreadsheet! Everyone's top picks received a score of 10, 2nd place got 9, and so on. I then employed some magic formulas to tally up the totals to give us a definitive top 21 games, using the number of times a game was voted for as a tie-breaker where necessary.

The end result is very interesting! We think there's something here for everyone, and if these were the only games in your collection most people would be pretty happy! There are some surprises, and a few things that, if you've ever listened to the DreamPod, you will not at all be surprised about. 

I'll link you to the spreadsheet itself at the end of this article so you can see the full list of games and how everyone voted, for your agreement or ridicule, but first let us count down these games from last to first. Our first entry is the only joint entry, seeing three games share 19th place...

19. Blue Stinger, San Francisco Rush 2049 & Spirit of Speed 1937 (Joint)

A trio of titles start us off, a couple of which often split the opinion of fans. One thing they all have in common? A commitment to a particular time. Blue Stinger takes place in the year 2000, so each represents a very different era, though released within a short space of each other in reality. Let's hear what some of the team had to say about these games.

Upon its release, Blue Stinger was widely misunderstood and critically dismissed under the umbrella of its survival horror contemporaries. In the decades since, it has emerged a cult classic in its own right. Blue Stinger is Shinya Nishigaki and Climax Graphics' endearing homage/parody of Hollywood action and sci-fi cinema, and it plays wonderfully as a B-movie beat-em-up today. - Brian on Blue Stinger

Rush 2049 embodies everything an arcade racer on Dreamcast should be. It looks great, the tracks are full of inventive shortcuts and hidden nooks and crannies, and the actual racing is tight and exciting. A true Midway game that doesn't take itself too seriously, Rush 2049 is easily one of the best racers on the platform. - Tom on Rush 2049

Spirit Of Speed 1937 is the Dark Souls of racing games. The sad truth is that 99% of people won't play it long enough to experience where its strengths really are. It's a true to the era racer which rewards forward thinking and careful driving - something sim racers will appreciate. - James H on Spirit of Speed 1937

18. Rez

Art? Hacking? No this isn't the latest goings-on over at OpenSea, but instead best encapsulates Rez (besides, this is actually nice to look at). Tetsuya Mizuguchi's rail-shooter may have been minimalist on visuals, but it was heavy on trance beats and addictive gameplay. A gem in the Dreamcast's library and its influence is still felt to this day. - Rich

17. Jet Set Radio

Ahead of it's time in so many ways, Jet Set Radio is held up as one of the shining beacons of unfettered creativity that the Dreamcast is so well known for. From its art style to its music, its gameplay to its reverence for hip-hop and Japanese street culture, JSR is a masterclass in what a video game can be. This is Sega at their most zany, but in the best possible way. Strap on your in-line skates and grab that spray paint can, it's time to get funky! - Andrew

This upcoming Shenmue anime looks pretty good

The first teaser trailer for Crunchyroll and Adult Swim's Shenmue: The Animation has dropped...and it looks pretty damn good. First announced back in 2020, the animated version of Ryo's revenge saga will be 13 episodes long and is being produced by Telecom Animation Film. Have a look for yourself:

What's not to like? Gravel voiced narration; Ryo kicking ass; Lan Di looking like every bit the evil barsteward that he is...even though I'm hardly the most fervent Shenmue fan, I can appreciate how cool this looks. Still, a part of me wishes they'd have simply recreated Steamed Hams with Ryo and Lan Di, but you can't have it all.

All this talk of Dreamcast-related cartoons makes wonder when that Spirit of Speed 1937 anime is coming out...? Sigh.

Let's take a look at Shenmue World from Shenmue Dojo

You may recall we featured the upcoming Shenmue World magazine Kickstarter here at the Junkyard in the recent past. Well, the day has arrived. What day is that? The day of Shenmue World's arrival, of course! Yes, Shenmue Dojo's crowd funded ode to all things Shenmue has started to drop through letterboxes around the world, and we thought we would give you a bit if a sneak peak at what comes in the package.

Please note that if you'd rather wait to see all this stuff for yourself, probably don't watch the video below as it contains major spoilers. Well, major spoilers if you backed the project without reading what you might get in return for your cash. Also, sorry about the little noise in the video. It's just something my ancient Sony camcorder does. I'll invest in a new one at some point. Suggestions for a decent, cheap camera that doesn't make a whirring noise appreciated!

The magazine weighs in at 162 pages and is packed with interviews, character profiles, Shenmue history, facts and figures and a history of the Shenmue Dojo itself. There's a lot stuffed into this inaugural issue, and anyone who backed it is unlikely to feel short changed. Furthermore, the additional items that come with the magazine are really rather cool and comprise a music CD, postcards, signed photos, stickers and a poster. It's a great package for the price (it was £20 including shipping, if I recall), and James and the rest of the team should be congratulated for creating a top quality magazine.

• Related: Shenmusings of Ryobots, Niaowu, and Shenmue III's Uncertain Legacy

Check out the Shenmue Dojo website and Twitter, and the Shenmue World Twitter if you'd like to find out more. Let us know in the comments if you backed Shenmue World and what your thoughts are.

Shenmusings of Ryobots, Niaowu, and Shenmue III's Uncertain Legacy

Ryo Hazuki is an android, right? I’ve suspected it for a while but after finishing Shenmue III recently, I'm going all in on the Ryobot theory. It explains too much not to be canon.

Ryo has always been a bizarrely stilted and stoic character, of course. That much isn’t news. Yet after accompanying him for every waking minute across three games – games which depict the painstaking minutiae of everything from longshore crate logistics to the mid-‘80s weather record of the Kanagawa Prefecture – Ryo still has not pooped.

Ryo can look, but he can't flush. pic.twitter.com/G33eXA15dF

— Brian Wonderworld (@VirtuaSchlub) January 27, 2021

In fairness, few protagonists in fiction are forthcoming about their physiological functions. But, unlike Ryo, they at least behave in ways that can be reasonably interpreted as human-like. Meanwhile, Ryo acts less like a person and more like an emotionally unavailable animatronic, programmed in the languages of kung fu and non sequiturs.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to knock him. The technology behind Ryobot was very impressive for 1987.

Oh, and did I mention the shared consciousness between Ryo and his friend, Shenhua? She is also an android, probably, in addition to being the unwitting mascot of a junk food brand for some reason.

OK. The point of this write up is not to espouse the incontrovertible theory that Ryo is a semi-sentient robot, even if it is also that. Back when it came out in November 2019, I had put about a dozen or so hours into Shenmue III before dropping off of it. After leaving him in stasis at Hotel Niaowu for a full calendar year, I recently (and finally!) caught up on Ryo’s journey to date. I also realized we hadn’t yet discussed the game in-depth on the Junkyard since its release. With all that, I’m really here to work out my thoughts on Shenmue III in hopes of making some sense of its place in the series’ legacy. But first let’s take a step back, and into the shoes it hoped to fill…

As for many fans, the first two Shenmue games were formative for my interest in gaming. For a medium where kinetic action and instant gratification shaped the bedrock of most gaming experiences, it was oddly refreshing – if jarring – to play something with such love for mundanity and contempt for players’ impatience. Ironically, it was my own impatience that led me to buy the Japanese version of the original Shenmue, several months before its western release. I couldn't say why; I didn't even speak Japanese. Hell, I was barely pulling a passing grade in English class.

Yet, even then, my 14-year-old mind was blown by Shenmue’s unabashed indulgence in the ordinary. I was taken aback by its audacity to let me knock on neighbors’ doors, chug orange Fanta*, and stalk an entire community of busy folks for no other reason than because I could. When the events of Shenmue II set Ryo loose to explore Hong Kong, seeing it all scale to a bustling, urban setting was revelatory all on its own. Shenmue I and II’s detailed and lively locales immersed me in their astonishing sense of place and community. They felt like genuinely bustling locations that could believably exist without me. They also challenged any assumptions that video games always had to be, well, game-like. Through its novel approach to worldbuilding and interactivity, Shenmue invited me to inhabit its worlds – not only as a player – but as a resident and visitor.

* Vending machines in the Japanese version of Shenmue were stocked with licensed Coca-Cola products rather than our beloved “Jet Cola” and “Frunda” off-brands (also, was Bell Wood a person, or...?)

Yu Suzuki and AM2’s magnum opuses offered a remarkably ambitious and unorthodox vision for what video games could be and how players could engage with their spaces. In bankrolling their vision, Sega rebuked all conventional wisdom that big budget games ought to be marketable and fiscally viable. Shenmue I and II were neither – or at least not either enough – and Sega paid a steep price. Beyond failing to recoup its massive development and marketing costs; beyond its eventual retreat from the hardware market; Sega presented a perennial Exhibit A for the downsides of risks to an increasingly risk-adverse games industry.

After that, it seemed unfathomable that we would ever return to Shenmue’s amazingly ambitious, immersive, and bustling world. Nearly two decades later, we still haven’t.

Shenmue World magazine from Shenmue Dojo smashes Kickstarter goal in less than 24 hours!

I initially planned to publish this article a day ago as a way to help spread the news that Shenmue Dojo had launched a Kickstarter for a fan magazine called Shenmue World. Looks like I needn't have bothered though, as the community has come together in less than 24 hours to fund the project! 

Full disclosure here - several members of the Junkyard team have also backed Shenmue World - so allow us the benefit of the doubt when we describe this project as 'thoroughly deserving.'

Let's step back in time first, though. You may be wondering what all this is about. Basically, Shenmue Dojo is one of - if not the - best known Shenmue fan sites / forums when it comes to...well, Shenmue. Obviously. The clue is in the name. How many people come here for PlayStation 2 news? I digress. 

Personally I have been visiting Shenmue Dojo for well over a decade, and the site actually started in 2000 - five whole years before the Junkyard was but a twinkle in my eye. Quite simply, these guys know their Wude from their Master Chen...if you catch my drift.

Anyway, Shenmue World is a new fan magazine created by Shenmue Dojo and headed up by Jim Brown (aka SkillJim), one of the head honchos over at Shenmue Dojo. A year in the making, Shenmue World is a completely independent fan-created ode to all that is good in the world of Shenmue.

According to the video over on the Shenmue Dojo YouTube channel, the magazine has already been finalised in principle, and the Kickstarter was simply put in place to allow Jim and his team to start a mass print run. The magazine (or at least the initial prototype) looks like a Shenmue fan's dream - lots of original content, features and articles focussing on literally every aspect of Shenmue.

The good news - as intimated in the headline of this article - is that Shenmue World has been fully funded to the tune of £6500 in less than 24 hours, and so the magazine will be produced and everyone who has backed it to the correct tier will receive a physical copy at some point in the not-too-distant future.

We here at the Junkyard realise that not everyone uses Twitter, so allow us to use our own platform - this blog - to point you in the direction of the Shenmue World Kickstarter if you wish to get your mitts on a copy of the magazine.

As ever, be sure to let us know what you think in the comments, and please do visit Shenmue Dojo's website and follow them on Twitter.

Shenmue Undub: Definitive Edition available now for Dreamcast

Source: Shenmue Forever/Phantom River Stone

One of the most memorable aspects of the original Shenmue - for me at least - was the voice acting. When I say 'original,' naturally I mean the PAL version, y'know living in the UK and all. That disconnect between 1980s Japan and Ryo speaking with a slightly disjointed American accent; and the ensemble cast of weird, over-acted, oddball voices that assaulted the ears whenever you dared interrupt some NPC while they wandered aimlessly through Dobuita before vanishing into thin air outside Tom's hot dog van. That's peak nostalgia right there, kids.

It's apparent that not everyone shares my fondness for this audio aesthetic though, as a number of fan projects over the years have attempted to 'undub' the Western version of Shenmue, replacing Corey Marshall's dulcet tones with the original audio from the NTSC-J release of Shenmue. The latest attempt at this, according to the fine folks over at Shenmue mega-site Phantom River Stone is the definitive edition of these undub efforts, and have now presented to the world the fittingly monikered Shenmue Undub: Definitive Edition.

Source: Phantom River Stone

Before I continue, you really should check out Phantom River Stone in general if you're a Shenmue fan, as along with resources like Shenmue Dojo and Adam Koralik's YouTube channel, it really is a marvellous repository of Shenmue trivia and random musings. But back to Shenmue Undub: Definitive Edition. Created in collaboration with Shenmue Master, Shenmue Undub: Definitive Edition is reckoned to be the ultimate restoration of the Dreamcast title, with original Japanese voice overs, English subtitles and even minor bug fixes and restored original textures. Here's a rundown from Phantom River Stone:

• Based on the Kogami Undub: this version builds upon the most complete fan-made Undub version, which was created by Kogami and runs on the Dreamcast.
• Full English subtitles: the official translated lines are used where available. A small number of the Japanese spoken lines (around 3%) which did not have English equivalent translations available have been translated by hand. A few small corrections were also made to fix specific lines that had incorrect grammar or meaning.
• Full Japanese audio with no down-sampling.
• PAL-compatible save files: saves can be carried over to the PAL version of Shenmue II.
• CDDA audio tracks included: recorded audio tracks play as expected during the game (e.g. the music that plays when Ryo rides home from the harbor with Nozomi on the back of his motorcycle).
• Coca Cola branding: the branding for the vending machines and soda cans in the game shows the Coca Cola branding, as seen in the Japanese version of Shenmue..
• Fixes for small glitches identified in the previous Undub version (e.g. conversations when Ryo knocked on house doors did not play out properly).
• Fits on standard CD-R discs: the images have been stream-lined to allow them to be played on a Dreamcast console using standard CD-R discs, with no missing or cut content.

It's worth it for the authentic Coca-Cola cans alone, in my opinion. Of course, this isn't the first time enthusiastic fans have augmented a Dreamcast title - cast your mind back several years and you'll no doubt recall Dead or Alive 2 Final or the Frame Gride English language edition.

Source: Phantom River Stone

For Shenmue fans who want the authentic experience though, Shenmue Undub: Definitive Edition looks to be the real deal. You can grab the download for Dreamcast over at Phantom River Stone, and while you're there stick around and read some of author Switch's other intriguing posts.

Will you be checking out Shenmue Undub: Definitive Edition? Let us know in the comments!

Source: Phantom River Stone / Shenmue Forever

Shenmusings of Dobuita, Community, and the Friends We Stalked Along the Way

In better times, my neighborhood reminds me of Dobuita, the vibrant business district setting of Sega and AM2’s pedestrian stalking simulator, Shenmue. It bustles with life as people pack the restaurants, bars, shops, parks, arcades, and the streets in between. I can take a quick jaunt down the road and be surrounded by patrons, workers, shop owners, cooks, bartenders, barbers, and even sailors (well, commercial fishermen, actually). These folks are more than cursory non-player characters. They are my neighbors. They are my friends. They are the very fabric of my community.

But for now, they are gone.

These days, walking through my neighborhood feels like I’m in a typical late '90s video game town. Clusters of buildings line the street but the developers were unable to render more than a handful of NPCs to populate it.

Taking a step back: My heart goes out to everyone struggling through this uncertain and challenging time. If there’s a silver lining, it might be that we’re fortunate to have a hobby like video games to help bide our time as our non-virtual world lies in stasis.

It also helps that gaming is a uniquely personal medium. Through our interaction and immersion, games invite us to co-author a broad range of experiences which we can enjoy on a multitude of levels. Games can bring welcome moments of reprieve and distraction. We can find comfort in their escapism and nostalgia. Whether from across the couch or the internet, we can share experiences with old friends and make new friends of strangers. Beyond that, games can challenge us – and not only in terms of precision, reflexes, or strategy. They can push us to expand our understanding, grow our perspectives, and stretch our imaginations through memorable experiences that we carry with us long after we’ve put down the controller.

In its own way, this situation is a unique opportunity to slow down and consider what is most important to us, whether that's friends, family, community, altruism…and video games, of course. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on my time with gaming, what I appreciate most about the hobby, and what I really want out of it going forward. I’ve also thought about the games that significantly shaped how I engage with the medium. In that sense, I can’t help but keep coming back to the Dreamcast’s library.

Nostalgic attachment aside, Sega’s swansong console simultaneously defined and challenged my perceptions of video games. Although the Dreamcast initially drew me in on its promise of more-than-faithful arcade conversions and the triumphant return of a blue childhood icon, it ultimately forged its legacy by striving to redefine gaming’s future more than rehash its past. It showed me how games can be more unique, interesting, and meaningful experiences well beyond their fun factor and replay value. Through its culture of unbounded creativity, the Dreamcast was refreshingly unorthodox and innovative in ways the industry rarely allows.

In some ways, the Dreamcast was as much an art collective as it was a consumer product. Nowhere was this clearer than in the unchecked (and frankly, fiscally reckless) authority Sega gave its development studios and publishing partners to create whatever the hell they wanted for its wacky white box. In that spirit, this essay could've been about any one of the Dreamcast’s unabashedly inventive works: Rez, or Jet Set Radio, or L.O.L.: Lack of Love, or the VMU, or Illbleed, or Maken X, or Chu Chu Rocket, or D2, or Roommania #203, or Seaman, or Samba de Amigo’s maracas, or…you get the idea.

But this is about Shenmue, because of course it is.