Shenmue will get a much-needed bump later this year, when the enhanced version of its threequel launches on PS5, alongside an awesome Collector’s Edition. (Which this author’s already pre-ordered, of course!)
But while we wait to replay Ryo’s third adventure, the ever-industrious Shenmue Dojo has managed to get its hands on a bunch of never-before-seen artwork, dating back to the franchise’s Virtua Fighter RPG days.
(Long time fans will know legend Yu Suzuki was originally developing this game for the SEGA Saturn, as a story-based spin-off for his hit 3D fighting franchise.)
The artwork includes various characters who’d feature in the final Dreamcast releases of Shenmue and Shenmue 2, as well as some who may have been scrapped or cut from the final games.
There’s a mixture of black-and-white line-based drawings, as well as some colour ones. Shenmue Dojo has even translated the Japanese notes – it’s really awesome stuff!
The artwork cost ¥301,000 (~$1,480) from a Japanese auction site, but the fansite has kindly uploaded high quality scans of all the images for us to pore over. We’ve reproduced a few of them, with permission, in this article.
But if you’re a fan of Shenmue, we’d really recommend taking a look. And even if you’re not, the artwork is really cool; it’s well worth browsing through these long-lost sketches.
Shenmue Dojo believes there may be more out there in the wilderness, so hopefully we’ll be able to update this article with more scans in the future!
