Ah, Shenmue. I’ll never forget firing it up on the Dreamcast and being in a state of semi-shock over the graphics and gameplay, not to mention a sense of delight that I was playing a game set in various parts of Japan and Hong Kong (the Japanophile in me was already beginning to set in.)
Suffice to say I would love to play the game again, not to mention its sequel. If rumors are to be believed, I just may get to do that in a new way: a poster on a GameFAQs forum remarked that a Swedish magazine called Gamereactor had news that Shenmue 1 & 2 would be ported to the Wii with extra minigames added and use of the Wiimote enabled. The exact quote as it reads from the magazine:
“Shenmue is back!”
“Sega has rereleased classics like Nights,Bass Fishing and House of the Dead lately. Now it’s said that Shenmue is next. But don’t think that it’s about a new game, instead, they’re bringing back the two original Shenmue games with extra Wiimote-minigames which will be released for the Wii.”
I don’t personally see this happening, but it would be most welcome if it did. The majority of the fanbase for the Shenmue games is definitely rabid for a remake or a sequel, but we don’t have anything truly concrete here. This rumor has already been added to the Shenmue Wikipedia entry, so here’s to hoping we might see some truth out of it in the near future.
[Via Button Bandits — Thanks, Adam]