Update [Mon 14th Apr, 2025 14:00 BST]: As of yesterday, Frogbull has released his Sega Saturn Shenmue project to the public.
The fan game, which is called Shenmue: Back in Yokosuka, isn't a 1:1 recreation of the classic Dreamcast title, as first anticipated, but is instead a reference-filled tribute created to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Sega Saturn console (which took place last year).
It puts players in control of a chibi-fied version of Ryo and sets them loose to explore an isometric recreation of Yokosuka City, where they will be able to enter the arcade to play classic Sega titles like Wonder Boy, Space Harrier, Shinobi, and After Burner, or travel down to the docks to race forklifts. There are also various cameos from Sega characters, which were associated with the Sega Saturn, like Segata Sanshiro (the Saturn's fictional Japanese mascot portrayed by the actor Hiroshi Fujioka), Sakura Wars' Sakura Shinguji, and many others.
If you want to download the fan game, you can grab it now from developer's Patreon for free.
Original Article [Mon 25th Nov, 2024 10:00 GMT]: The talented modder who gave Saturn Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII and Crash Bandicoot has pulled off the same trick with Shenmue to celebrate 30 years of Saturn.
Frogbull has put together a facsimile of the Dreamcast classic on Sega's 32-bit console, which is impressive in itself – but fans of the series will be aware that there's a historical connection to this, too.
Yu Suzuki and his team at AM2 initially prototyped the game on Saturn in 1996 before development was shifted to the more powerful Dreamcast in 1997. Initially entitled The Old Man and the Peach Tree, the tech demo would evolve into a Virtua Fighter RPG before it eventually became the epic quest for revenge we know and love today.
Sega would include footage of Shenmue running on Saturn as a bonus in Shenmue II, but Frogbull's mock-up goes way beyond even that. It's not a full game and only includes the arcade environment and a few emulated Sega coin-op classics, but it is running on real hardware.
Shenmue would launch on Dreamcast in 1999 and reportedly cost Sega between $40 and $70 million, although that figure includes the 2001 sequel, which was later ported to Xbox.
In 2019, we finally got Shenmue III, the rights to which have recently been picked up by ININ Games.