[The Hazuki Legacy]

Quote from Facebook:

(Concept art screenshot.)
I'm very seriously toying with the idea of making what you see in this picture. A Shenmue themed Street Fighter II style game, with a massive cast of Shenmue characters (some unlockable), and iconic locations from both games.
This is very achievable using Mugen fighter maker (the project would be called Shenmugen), simply by ripping screenshots from the games in order to create sprite sheets for each character. The moves could then be programmed to emulate real controls from Shenmue (-> -> punch for elbow assault, etc).
It's all fairly easy, but it requires a ton of sprite ripping. So if you feel like lending a hand with this, let me know (you'd need nullDC or another emulator working on your PC). For the rest of you, please tell me what / who you'd like to see in this game!

Project updates:

• Work has only just started, but we're still very open to the idea of more people helping.

• We've created a cdi disc image for Shenmue which lets you train on a plain pink background. This makes ripping sprites so much faster. If you're interested in helping gather sprites, I can upload this cdi for people to download and use on emulators.

• We're currently in talks about which engine / style would be best; Mugen (Virtua Fighter) or OpenBoR (Streets of Rage). Please see the second post for details. Feel free to chime in.

[The Hazuki Legacy]

Okay guys, so we need to decide between Mugen and OpenBoR. Here are the pros and cons of each:


Mugen

• More in keeping with Virtua Fighter, which was of course Shenmue's inspiration and predecessor.
• Tons of existing tutorials, tools and resources for it.
• Both myself and James have some experience with it.
• Would allow us to play many more characters (including "bad" characters).
• Unlockable characters would be cool
• Very popular system, which means potentially more people playing it.
• Potentially much less programming involved.

OpenBoR

• Streets of Rage style games feel perhaps more SEGA than 1 VS 1 fighting games?
• Would only require a few moves per enemy, which means less work.
• Allows for a certain amount of custom coding, so we could add things like move scrolls, perhaps.
• Has an option that lets you play it on the Dreamcast.
• Allows us to add a linear story mode, which takes us through the stories of Shenmue 1 and 2.
• Would allow 2 player co-op mode as well as VS mode.
• The graphical capabilities of BoR seem slightly better.

I'm torn right now, so I could use some thoughts on the matter.

[James Reiner]

I would be down for a mugen game.

Ive played Beats of Rage to hell and just dont want to deal with it anymore lol.

However a Shenmue BoR would be cool.

I just think making a Shenmugen would be better.

[Giorgio]

Personally, I would give the highest priority to the Mugen one, for the reasons: there is more knownledge recourses, more experience with it, more characters will be available to play with, more moves, and more people will get to play it.

In the second place I would put OpenBoR and liked to play a version on it, for the reasons: the most prominent is that it will may have a linear story mode, you can battle more than one character at a time (resembles the fights in Shenmue with multiple opponents), I believe the settings will be more intriguing (exempli gratia, fighting in the Streets of Dobuita, the Harbor, inside buildings in Kowloon with many roofs etc, and the view will scroll instead of being steady), because some Dreamcast fans will be able to play it in that console.

I mentioned more reasons for the second one... I think, it just that the first is a more solid initial step (because of the resources/experience) and more people would be able to play it.

[The Hazuki Legacy]

Okay I think I'm down with that too, so we're in agreement then. If I start playing with the first couple of moves, then I can post the specs that I've been working with, so we all know what style to use (anti-aliasing, frames per second, character sizes, lighting and so on).

[jameswalker85]

I'd like to see both. But surely, if the MUGEN fighter was finished, it should be fairly easy to reuse the sprites to make an OpenBOR beat 'em up, no?

[The Hazuki Legacy]

Yep. Making these sprites opens up all sorts of possibilities. I'm very tempted to use them to make The Hazuki Legacy into something a lot bigger and prettier.

[jameswalker85]

Oh man, that would rock. Just the thought of beating up sailors in parking lots is getting me psyched.

[The Hazuki Legacy]

First move for Ryo is done. 10 frames, just over half a second. Now I'll put it in Mugen and see how it looks.

[Giorgio]

It's looking great. It would be awesome, too, if sounds/voices from the various Shenmue characters were also featured in Shenmugen. As well as iconic phrases/lines from them, that will say before a fight, at the end of a fight (related to whether they won or not), or while fighting (for example, just like how Ryo and Guizhang were talking witch each other, while fighting the horde of Mad Angels).

[The Hazuki Legacy]

Yeah, definately man! And the sound effects, too. We should be able to get it so that every sound and voice clip and stage and music track is directly from Shenmue, so it feels like you're really playing a true Shenmue 1 vs 1 fighter.

I'm not too sure exactly what's possible with Mugen, but I'd love to make it so that completing the game with a character unlocks a move scroll for that character, which teaches them an extra special move. That would give people an incentive to play it again and again (as well as unlocking secret characters and stages of course).

[The Hazuki Legacy]

Oh also, please give me your opinions about which of Ryo's moves should be included. I don't think we can include every single move for every character, so I think aiming for 20-25 moves to start with is a good idea. So out of those, which special moves should he have, other than Elbow Assault?

[James]

Elbow assault should probably be unlockable (if that proves possible) since it plays such an iconic role in Shenmue II. It would be an effective carrot to dangle in front of the player.

[jameswalker85]

There are a couple of moves I'd like to see more than others; The Tornado Kick that Tom teaches, and the Double Blow you learn from Yamagishi-san. As for others, I can't really decide which to keep and which to lose.

[The Hazuki Legacy]

James, I think that's counter elbow assault, right? He uses regular elbow assault to defeat Chai in Shenmue 1. It's my favourite move.

I'm currently having a bit of trouble with Mugen. The characters are so low-res, that Ryo is coming out really pixelated when I try to create his moves, as I have to make the images smaller (25% of normal). I'm trying to figure out if there's a higher res version of Mugen or not.