Here’s a mind-blower. You know Shenmue the 16-chapter epic role playing game from Yu Suzuki on the Sega Dreamcast? Well since the DC is going the way of the Dodo, Shenmue III is of course going to come out on something like XBox, PS2 or GameCube. While some people believe that it’s blasphemy for Shenmue to continue/finish its run on another console, others realize it’s better than no conclusion at all (Shenmue was the first two chapters, Shenmue II will be the next four, leaving 10 to go and likely a fourth and fifth title before it’s all done).
However, it turns out the Dreamcast-centricness is unwarranted – Shenmue began development for the Sega Saturn! Here’s a video clip that proves it – it’s apparently on one of the Japanese Shenmue II discs and it’s unlocked when you finish the game.
What blows me away about it is how far along this title was in development for the Saturn before it was shifted to the DC. Also, it makes me do a double-take on that machine. I had always heard the Saturn thought in “quad”s (i.e., 2-D) and the PlayStation thought in “tri”s (i.e., 3-D) and that it was mainly luck that 3-D took off. I had also heard that it was akin to jumping through flaming hoops trying to get the Saturn to do 3-D environments – clearly AM2 is a very talented developer.
This really wants me to go home and finish the first game (never got past the “wandering around aimlessly” part – which is most of the game).