Saturn Shen-Mue & other unreleased Saturn talk

[Lyris]

Now, if this was taken from a videotape then from experience there should be some degree of bleedthrough from the surrounding black areas, but in this case there doesn't seem to be. Does anybody know if you can record directly onto cassettes at this resolution, or was the source digital and therefore less prone to such problems?

Analogue video doesn't really have a resolution that we express in terms of pixels. Because the Saturn, as you say, didn't fill the entire video frame but left black borders (most of which would get overscanned by a TV), these would be on the tape, but whoever captured and formatted the video for the Dreamcast video file will have deinterlaced, cropped and scaled it.

Any blurring of the black borders into the frame would be lost one way or another.

Another point was brought up regarding sound. The very fact that the video on the Dreamcast disc has music pasted over it suggests that there was none to start with to me (but correct me if anyone else knows any better).

Oh also, does anyone know what "konaikonai" means? It appears as text in the video in the bottom right corner, I always assumed it was a placeholder for an unimplemented voiceover or sound effect.

I would very much like to see the entire tape (or tapes) of this footage, rather than the edit we get with Shenmue 2.

[Anthaemia.]

Even with the best sound compression technology available at the time, there was absolutely no way AM2 could have realised Shenmue on the Saturn and had every single character boast full speech (unless maybe it came on eight discs, as I've heard mentioned before). Also, it's known that by the point development switched to the Dreamcast placehold text was still being used. I've no idea whether or not Yu Suzuki's team planned to implement voice samples for every last person, though I'm certain Shenmue wouldn't have been entirely silent - presumably a few noises during fights might have been expected, at least?

Regardless of the sound issue, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi revealed in a past interview that he was consulting on the project nearly three years before the Project Berkeley announcement, so clearly music from the Saturn period of Shenmue's lengthy creation existed. In addition to this, it's been rumoured one of the chip-generated end themes of Fighters Megamix served as a teaser of things to come, much like the featured elements from Virtua Fighter 3 were previews of that game's then-upcoming conversion. We can't ever be sure of this, yet there's definitely a shared musical style that may just have been purely coincidental... we might never know!

On the subject of placeholder material in the Shenmue prototype video, I'm equally as interested in finding out whether the "konaikonai" message refers to a command or possibly dialogue. I know that voice recording didn't occur until much later in the development process, but who's to say the original soundtrack of this video didn't contain early recordings, perhaps even made by AM2 staff (purely speculative, I know - before anyone accuses me of guesswork)?

Finally, has anybody else noticed "B" is displayed when Akira/Ryo and Fukuhara open the trapdoor, which (I must again presume) was probably an early means of accessing the basement pivotal to the final game (no spoilers here, mind)? Surely this means that B was configured as the action button, and therefore Shenmue was playable at some point? I'm taking a guess here, but the shift buttons were probably quite similar to how they are assigned in the Dreamcast version, while A, B and C were more than likely used the same way as they are in the Virtua Fighter series - after all, the codename for this one was VF RPG!

Anyway, I'm confident there's plenty more of this game languishing in the vaults, though it's highly unlikely we'll see anything else unless the powers that be make that decision for us. Of course, it would be nice to see anything... and I'm sure the uncut source of that footage could provide some real insights, especially if there really was more than just the first two Dreamcast installments complete back on the 32-bit platform!

[sayin999]

I did notice that the game doesn't actually show footage of ryo talking to anybody in any of the locations. In facr every time he talks to someone in the video, they are a character part of the story. Perhaps in the saturn version people weren't really walking around like the dreamcast one.

[Yakumo]

Even with the best sound compression technology available at the time, there was absolutely no way AM2 could have realised Shenmue on the Saturn

The Saturn would have used ADX just like the Dreamcast version. ADX was well in use by that time so no problem at all. Also the GDROMs of the DC version aren't even full. I'd say in total there's only 3.5GB spread across the 4 discs so the Saturn could have done the game on 6 or so CDs I'd guess.

Yakumo

[Druid II]

They could've just used low quality streaming adx for voice, and synth for the background music. Panzer Dragoon Saga had a ton of high quality voices but filled most of the 4 discs with tons of FMV scenes.

Using ADX cuts down audio size to 1/4, using voice-quality low key adx (aka AHX) cuts down size to 1/16 or so, and thats enough to record some 8 hours of voices provided they only use half of the disc for it.

And yes, you can do beautiful tunes with the saturn synth, check Columns 97 which was also composed by Yuzo Koshiro.

While this is only speculation on my part, it seems the editor consciously decided to trim off any borders, lowering the resolution back to 320x224 - which just so happens to be the Saturn's default display mode and what this game was rumoured to run in.

You can't use the video for any kind of speculation on what resolution the game was running at, due to the amount of capturing and transcoding involved. At best you could riddle out what kind of vhs it was captured from.

[Druid II]

Yep, you're right. It was called DIVX (no, not that DivX).

DIVX was supposed to be an account-based rental system that locked out discs after 2 days. What he was talking about is DVD-D. There were also other tried-and-failed formats that just used unstable dyes that ate themselves when they came in contact with air. DVD-D may have used that, or it just reacted to the dvd drive laser.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-D

Quite idiotic when you think about it, since even that limited time is enough to copy the dvd.

[Anthaemia.]

In the brief instance when you do see Ryo walking around (what appears to be a less-detailed version of just outside the Abe store in Sakuragaoka, in my eyes), there doesn't seem to be enough room to have other people there, and I doubt there would have been many non playable characters roaming Dobuita. I'd love to know what AM2 had planned for the scene when you first enter the harbour, as there are a lot of warehouses being drawn on the Dreamcast. Of course, this might have been designed from the ground up to showcase Shenmue's new platform and its extra capabilities, but once again this is more speculation. Then again, considering its links with the Tower Of Babel tech demo, it's likely cinematic camera routines were there from day one, as it's also been suggested this was something Team Andromeda contributed to - hadn't this group already disappeared by the time Shenmue became a 128-bit project? Further evidence to suggest the sweeping camera system was an early idea can be seen throughout the prototype footage, but I'm sure the end product was vastly upscaled to take better advantage of its more powerful host console. On the subject of audio for a moment, it's possible the main characters had full recorded speech with text used in place for your average person in the street, providing there were any at all, that is! Then again, having learned more about the approximate compression ratio of ADX and its sub-formats, what's to stop the Saturn version of Shenmue from having voices for everyone Ryo encounters? If there is any connection with the end theme of Fighters Megamix that I'd mentioned previously, the whole soundtrack could quite easily have been chip generated and still sounded impressive, though I didn't need telling about the Saturn's capabilities in this department - surely the likes of Panzer Dragoon Saga and NiGHTS are proof enough? As for the point made about it being impossible to determine the native resolution of a game from edited VHS-sourced clips, it's fair to say 320x224 was the display mode being used since this is the Saturn's default setting. With so many polygons being thrown around, plus all the shading and lighting there appears to be, I seriously doubt this was one running at 704x480. Besides, the debug font looks to be 8x8 pixels, which I've seen in many other games. Unless the video was dropping frames left, right and centre (to use a perfect phrase), at least we can safely conclude that Shenmue didn't exactly have a silky-smooth refresh rate. Then again, for a game that detailed I'm still impressed to see it moving at all, especially when I stop and think it's being done without the aid of any hardware upgrade! Sega, why didn't we get more quality titles like this later on in the Saturn's life instead of crap like Atlantis, Courier Crisis and half-finished works such as the House Of The Dead conversion or Burning Rangers?

[Druid II]

Unless the video was dropping frames left, right and centre (to use a perfect phrase), at least we can safely conclude that Shenmue didn't exactly have a silky-smooth refresh rate. Then again, for a game that detailed I'm still impressed to see it moving at all, especially when I stop and think it's being done without the aid of any hardware upgrade! Sega, why didn't we get more quality titles like this later on in the Saturn's life instead of crap like Atlantis, Courier Crisis and half-finished works such as the House Of The Dead conversion or Burning Rangers?

There is a framecounter in the video, and you can see that its running at a very low framerate (it cant be the recordings fault since the counter skips exactly the same numbers throughout the video). More quality titles didnt happen because Sega had an idiotic management at the time, and both House of the Dead and Burning Rangers were crap (BR had lightning effects and sprite transparencies - something that many other games did - in return of crap camera, crap controls, crap voice acting, and crap gameplay, HotD just looked way beyond horrible).

[Anthaemia.]

The House Of The Dead's biggest problem was the fact it came out incomplete - 60%, to be precise! If you're not aware of the story behind this one, developers Tantalus were ahead of schedule and kept management at Sega aware of progress with almost weekly builds. Unlike many companies, they were converting stages in sequence, so naturally the first level to be done was the opening section, which is why this was released as a playable demo in Japan (as part of a package containing both Virtua Cop titles and a light gun). From the early screenshots printed, you could still see the occasional wireframe model, some very rough texturing and even placeholder data for items, not to mention regular instances of mid-stage disc accessing. On top of all this, the frame rate wasn't exactly brilliant, though nobody was surprised considering how early the code was. Besides, Tantalus had months left and promised to clean up any graphical shortcomings - the game was already playing close to arcade-perfectly, so why shouldn't anyone have trusted them?

Knowing all too well the Saturn was now threatening to overlap its planned Dreamcast launch date, Sega wanted to kill off the 32-bit system in order to allow it a few weeks purely for preparation, promotion and making sure the first generation software for its new console was absolutely the best it could be. With this, it was decided any remaining Saturn titles in development should either be finished in time for Easter '98 or cancelled, and as a direct result of this many games were massively compromised. As you've mentioned before, it's clear Sonic Team had invested a lot of time in the graphical side of Burning Rangers (as can be seen from the earliest prototype footage), but in terms of optimising the camera and gameplay there was still a lot of room for improvement. There were reports at the time of Sonic Team choosing to restart Burning Rangers from scratch barely months before it was due to come out, though in reality they only decided to give the basic game a serious overhaul, much like Capcom did with Biohazard 2 around the same time. Panzer Dragoon Saga had already been released in Japan, so it was now just a case of translating the text and speech... or, as things turned out, not bothering with the latter part to save time and presumably money.

Now, back to the idea of promises for a moment, Genki was assuring Sega that it could recreate Virtua Fighter 3tb on the Dreamcast pixel-for-pixel, repeating the notion Model 3 games were easily within the new console's abilities, as made by hardware designer Hideki Sato back when the system was first unveiled at the New Challenge conference. Nobody had any reason to doubt Genki's claims, so it was agreed in spite of all the hard work put into it that AM2's own Saturn conversion of VF3 would have to suffer, mostly because the average gamer wouldn't have much need for a visually-simplified treatment of what had been a great money-spinner in the arcades for Sega. Of course, in reality we'd have marvelled at what Yu Suzuki's team was doing with the humble Saturn, but I guess we'll never get the chance now. Further casualties of the switch from Saturn to Dreamcast include Sonic World and Virtua Fighter RPG, though fortunately the former was resurrected quickly enough as Sonic Adventure while the latter became Shenmue with great levels of hype attached. I'm not exactly sure of the exact dates both of these games made the jump to 128-bit technology, but since it's been hinted VF RPG was three years in the making as a Saturn project and considering the approximate period Sonic Team started properly working on Dreamcast, it's probably around mid-to-late 1997, making Saturn VF3 that console's swansong with a projected release window of September '98 - in other words, just after Deep Fear had appeared overseas as Sega's answer to Resident Evil 2.

Anyway, returning back to the subject of HOTD again, the so-called end product was actually meant to have been a 60% complete build with all four stages now intact, secrets present and extra modes firmly coded in. Despite having plenty of time left to fix any remaining issues, Tantalus were ordered to start finish off work on the game in preparation for its release, even though many textures were still just placeholders for the final versions being created later in development. Being so late in the Saturn's life, would Sega rather spend more putting a few cosmetic finishing touches on a game that's probably not going to sell anyway or focus on launching the Dreamcast? Sadly, the answer in a company already struggling with its finances was obvious, and HOTD shipped incomplete... much like other games I could mention of the same period! In the end, however, things weren't so much different on the Dreamcast. Sega Rally 2 had to be delayed when a 40% preview video failed to entertain crowds at the '98 Tokyo Game Show, while it was clear from the near-finished build of VF3tb playable at the second New Challenge event that it was never going to be arcade perfect by the time it launched along with the Dreamcast a few short weeks later.

Still, at least there was Sonic Adventure and Soul Calibur too look forward to. I'm not suggesting that Sega Rally 2 should have been kept on the Saturn (in fact, I'm not even sure this would have been possible - hardware upgrade or not), but if only Sega had left VF3 as the Saturn's last great killer app then followed that with a quality conversion of Scud Race, only then giving the world Sega Rally 2 in a far superior quality treatment later. After all, the Dreamcast version was being built around the PC edition that had been made simultaneously, when it really should have been the other way around - would anybody have cared if SR2 for the PC was delayed? The alternate scenario that played out was highly damaging for the Dreamcast's overall reputation as a system capable of reproducing Model 3 quality visuals, and that's probably why few conversions were attempted after. Then again, Sega had already made the move to NAOMI as its leading arcade board so maybe this isn't entirely true, though it would explain why Scud Race never got further than being a tech demo and could help to justify the cancellation of Emergency Call Ambulance, which had been earmarked for part of the proposed Real Life Career Series package. Also, why no console versions of The Lost World, Harley Davidson & L.A. Riders, Ski Champ, Le Mans 24, Star Wars Trilogy, Spike Out or Daytona USA 2? Finally, before anyone mentions it, yes I'm fully aware the Dreamcast version of VF3tb was actually the port of a full remake on the NAOMI board - I'd rather not bore you with details many probably already know, because this is turning into another one of my epic rants when I just wanted to post a quick response to the HOTD comments!

[saturn_worship]

vf3tb was gonna be made for naomi??? !!!!!!!

[Druid II]

HOTD just had shit graphics and too much loading. Biggest charm of the game was the very detailed graphics in the arcade version that I remember, Saturn version looked like ass, both the textures and the character models.

for Burning Rangers, it's bullshit to say that the controls/camera were bad because they lacked time for polish. Every one of Sonic teams games had a horrible camera, from Nights to that x360 sonic game (it just wasnt noticable in Nights since it had a fixed camera throughout the game, from BR and onwards they used a dynamic camera, which made their games unplayable). Thats a 10+ year span, in which they couldn't get a decent dynamic camera code done, not even once.

[Yakumo]

I think you guys are being unfair to the Saturn HOTD. Only the textures are ass in my opinion. It still plays really well and as for loading, it's nott hat bad at all.

Yakumo

[Anthaemia.]

To answer saturn_worship's all-too-brief question, VF3tb was powered by the Model 3 Step 1 board in its arcade form. However, for their home conversion Genki actually rebuilt the whole game using NAOMI software libraries and then ported this to the Dreamcast. Sorry for any confusion!

[madhatter256]

Even if the tech demo of Shenmue ran on the stock RAM, chances are that if they continued and created a '30%' beta-alpha build, it would require a RAM pack, and probably accessed the CD quite a lot for both audio and FMV. In fact, they probably had to put a lot of the plot movements on FMV.

But that's just my opinion based on the single video and what I've read up on.

I'd kill for the actual tech demo though. It would pay for my college :).

[Anthaemia.]

I'm not sure if any precise completion figures were ever revealed for the Saturn prototype of what later became Shenmue, but it was definitely more advanced than 30%. The main game world had been virtually finished, with only debugging and voices left to be implemented. There has never been mention of FMV being used, much like in the final Dreamcast version. Also, it's been confirmed by none other than Yu Suzuki himself that no hardware upgrade - including the RAM cartridge - was necessary, and considering the size of this game I have a feeling plenty was edited from that single released video to prevent many plot spoliers from leaking, should the series continue beyond the two installments we received. The biggest problem was that after three years of solid work, VF RPG/Akira's Quest/Project Berkeley was reaching the end of development, though naturally testing is a lengthy process and it was financially more sound to carry over the whole project then give it a major visual overhaul than to continue putting together something for a then-obsolete platform where it may not sell as much. I can still remember convincing my friends that nowhere in Shenmue do you see a single pre-rendered sequence (not including the Passport disc movies, of course!), and to this day it's hard to believe myself. AM2 really came up with an ambitious challenge when realising a whole interactive world that relies entirely on a console's real time capabilities, and I've no doubt they would have been able to do the same on the Saturn as well. Now all we need is further proof in the form of official media or maybe even playable code, because it's clear some people have yet to accept that even in this early stage of its creation, Shenmue didn't need anything but its host's raw power to look impressive for its time. How about more footage at least, Sega? As if they'd ever do that - we've been lucky enough to have just one clip, especially as few knew this game existed beforehand!

[stefan.iro]

...planned for use with SegaNet and Pad Nifty service :dance:

[saturn_worship]

stefan.iro... what's that??

[retro]

Also, there are some instances where the frame (or "flame" as it is sometimes written, Engrish spotters!)...

There's something else that the correct grammar spotters will be aware of - PARAGRAPHS! Good God, man!

[Lyris]

As for the point made about it being impossible to determine the native resolution of a game from edited VHS-sourced clips, it's fair to say 320x224 was the display mode being used since this is the Saturn's default setting.

Yes, the game shown in the video is definitely running at this resolution. If it was running in the high-res mode, there would be deinterlacing artefacts visible. There are none in the video, because both video fields in a frame were the same. The blockiness of the on-screen text is another likely giveaway, as you say.

There is a framecounter in the video, and you can see that its running at a very low framerate (it cant be the recordings fault since the counter skips exactly the same numbers throughout the video).

Even if it was the recording's fault (not possible since VHS recorded at a constant tape speed, and any fluctuations in this would show up on screen as analog sync errors, not dropped frames like a digital system), the frame counter from the Sega Saturn wouldn't change.

[dj898]

Wow~
Dragon's Dream.... ^ ^
I found a copy inside the saturn keyboard I got years ago...
thou never tested it though...