Enter the real world of Shenmue…
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, News. Tagged with Dreamcast, Fan Stuff.
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Love it or hate it, you have to admire the attention to detail that went into creating the world of Shenmue. Walking around the various locations of Shenmue 1 and 2, you have no doubt thought to yourselves, “Is this a real life location?”.
Well think no more. We can now safely say that the main bulk of Shenmue 1 (at least) is most certainly a real life location, and the areas in Shenmue have been recreated to resemble them. And a pretty darn good job of it, I’d say, Yu Suzuki and his team have done.
A chap named ‘Tatsujin’, over at the Assemblergames forums, has recently posted up some pictures of his visit to the real life location of Yokosuka, more precisely Dobita, Ryo’s home town. Here are just a few, maybe you recognise them?
Note: I have made them all thumbnails- because they are pretty large, so just click on them to see a full size image.
 
So the crazy street lamps from the game are real!
 
  
Recognise those steps?
 
Hey! I’ve seen those stores somewhere before!
 
Anyone else getting the urge to drive a forklift truck?
For the full and complete array of images that Tatsujin has put up, visit Assemblergames.
[Source: Assemblergames.com via DCEmu.co.uk]
Comments on this article
There have been 6 responses to this article.
I can’t get over this. This is really cool, and some photos are really just mirror images of the game. I especially love the bike laying at the side of the fourth photo.
SuitCase
Posted May 8th, 2007 at 9:25 pm.
Yeah - I know what you mean.
Some of the photos the guy took look like any old random Japanese street. But a fair chunk of them are just like the areas in Shenmue.
The steps in particular - thats just like the side alley by the Arcade that leads back to another area of Dobuita - closer to Ryos house.
For some reason I actually thought Sega had made up the location for the game, but clearly not.
Now I know Kowloon in Shenmue 2 is a real place…. but I wonder how accurate that is too?
G
Posted May 9th, 2007 at 12:28 am.
Ive seen kowloon, Its much much bigger then it is Shenmue.. and dirty, very dirty looking, run down place. Not very nice.
Ryan
Posted May 9th, 2007 at 2:54 am.
It looked pretty dirty in Shenmue 2 also, lol
G
Posted May 9th, 2007 at 1:03 pm.
Kind of old hat for any decent Shenmue fan…
http://shenmue.planets.gamespy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1117
This topic is from 2003. Unfortunately most of the people there don’t know how to not image leech so many of the links are dead, but enough are there.
MrXmas
Posted May 10th, 2007 at 12:38 am.
Hell, the US Military Paper, The Stars & Stripes, wrote an article about it.
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=35745&archive=true
MrXmas
Posted May 10th, 2007 at 12:47 am.