-- note: this document contains Japanese characters and is best viewed in NJStar 4.0+ (download at www.njstar.com) or IE4+ with the Japanese language pack, although it is also perfectly readable in any normal word processor/browser, as all of the Japanese . Viewing the Japanese is just a small bonus... --
0. Table of Contents 1. Intro 2. Story 3. Controls 4. Walkthrough 5. Misc. - Items - Time - Weather - Games - Vending Machines - Options menu 6. Face Demos 7. Outro - History of Shen Mue - Revision history - Legal - Contact
1. Intro
What's Shen Mue is an interactive demo for the game (series) Shen Mue for the Sega Dreamcast. Developed by Yu Suzuki, one of the masterminds behind Sega's Arcade devision, and developer of games like Space Harrier, OutRun, and Virtual Fighter, Shen Mue is arguably the most realistic title ever created. Time, weather, interaction with practically everything, all-speech: this game has it all in terms of realism. One of the largest titles ever produced, the first chapter of the game will be released on 28 Oct. 1999, and will span 3 GD-ROMs (which is over 3 gigabytes of data, or about twice the size of Final Fantasy VII). Of course, this is only the first chapter - although only 2 chapters have been formally announced, Suzuki-san has said that the story could take up to 16 or more.
What's Shen Mue was released on 5 Aug 1999 in Japan as a free giveaway for people who bought a Sega Dreamcast system (as well as possibly software). As for obtaining the demo in the U.S., I really have no suggestions other than going to Japan and buying a system - even large importers like NCS (www.ncsx.com) have had trouble obtaining the disc. [No, I will not buy you a system, and no, I will not sell my copy.]
Warning: This FAQ is fairly incomplete as far as story goes - my Japanese level is fairly low, and most of the dialogue went over my head.
2. Story
The story of Shen Mue itself has been kept under wraps. The story of What's Shen Mue centers around the main character trying to find the president of Sega within seven hours of the demo's start. Why? I don't know - as I've said my Japanese is very poor. If anyone can help me, it would be appreciated (with the story, not learning Japanese... I'm working on the latter). That said, let's go on with the FAQ.
3. Controls
d-pad up: moves the character forward d-pad left: turns the character 90degrees to the left d-pad right: turns the character 90degrees to the right d-pad down: 180degree turn d-pad up+right: move forward and slightly to the right d-pad up+left:move forward and slightly to the left analog stick: character looks in the direction you're pressing A button: main action button: press to talk to someone,etc.; accept B button: 180degree turn; cancel; view subtitles (while speaking) X button: character kneels Y button: brings up player menu; accept L button: run forward R button: switch to first-person view: can only look around start button: pause; brings up control screen
A note on talking to someone: if you're talking to someone and they stop talking and the 'A' button icon appears next to your watch but the camera doesn't move back, they have more to say - just press the 'A' button again (unless you don't want to talk any more).
4. Walkthrough
(note: here is the key for the QTE event lists: L=d-pad left, R=d-pad right, A=A button, B=B button)
This demo is actually quite easy: your first objective is really to gather information and find out where the president of Sega is. However, there are many steps that you can skip. Here's the quick rundown on how to beat the demo:
- Go to the game center "Game You" (turn around 180degrees from where you start and walk for a bit - you'll see a sign on the right saying "GAME" in English in rather large letters with "You" underneath). Go inside Game You. - Talk to the manager (the person behind the counter). Recieve the meishi (business card) from him. - Wait until 4:00pm. - Go to the "Ajia" [アジア] building (written in katakana) - from Game You, turn around and go back the way that you came. Pass the hot-dog stand that you started by: continue straight. Keep going straight - don't turn off onto any of the side streets. Eventually you'll come to a point where there is a 90degree turn in the main road. There should be a hamburger stand called "Funky Bear Burger" in front of you. Turn onto the side street to your right (facing the burger stand). Immediately turn right again (if you go straight again you'll reach one of the demo's boundaries) and walk in the door that should be in front of you (the door for the "Ajia" store. If it is before 4:00pm, you can't go inside b/c the store isn't open yet. After 4:00pm, you'll bump into the president of Sega as you walk in (he's walking out). You'll enter a QTE. - The QTE (quick timer event) for the president of Sega is as follows: L, R, L, R, L, R, A, L, L, R, L, R, A - Enjoy the ending!
And now for a more in-depth walkthrough:
At the title screen, press start when it says to. Then, at the selection screen, choose the second option, which has the president of Sega's face next to it (an actual photograph, not rendered graphics). When you first get into the demo, you'll see a screen with some Japanese on it as well as some of the buttons. If this is the first time that you've played since you put the disc in and powered up the DC, you'll be at the memo book. To get right into the game from there, press 'Start' again, and then exit using 'B'. The 'A' button icon should be at the bottom of the screen. Press 'A' to start the demo. If this isn't the first time that you've played this session, the demo will start automatically after a while.
After talking to a drealocked Japanese guy dancing to the music, you'll need to collect information on the whereabouts of the president of Sega. You walk around and talk to people - most don't know anything, and a few will actually say that they don't have time to talk. The person that actually directs you to the game shop is the woman at the flower shop. To get to the flower shop, go straight from where you start until you see the Funky Bear Burger (written in English) stand in front of you (there is a 90degree turn in the road here as well). If you turn around at the burger stand, the Aida [アイダ] (written in katakana) flower shop will be the second store on your right. There is a red sign with green type hanging out from the store. Talk to the person working, the woman with the white sweater and red skirt. She will direct you to the game center (you'll hear the Japanese version of the English word 'game' in the conversation). Turn around and go back the way you came, heading back towards the hot dog stand where you started.
You'll find the game center 'Game You' fairly easily - it has a large yellow sign saying "GAME" in large English letters, with the word "you" underneath. Just go straight from the flower shop, and don't turn off onto any side roads. The sign on the building itself will say Game You, with game center [ガームセンター] written in katakana underneath・ It's pretty hard to miss. Go inside (it will always be open in the demo, so don't worry), play the slots or the dart game if you want (each is 100 yen). After you've played to your hearts content (and no, in the demo none of the arcade games work - I've tried...), talk to the manager. After you talk to him a while, he'll give you the president of Sega's meishi, or business card. After you're done talking, press 'Y', select the meishi [名刺] (it's the last one on the right, and mainly white). Examine it, and flip it over by holding up or down - you'll find some writing on the back, including the number 4 (referring to the hour) and the katakana for "Ajia" [アジア]. Thus, be at the Ajia store, which happens to be a travel company, at 4pm, or 16:00 on the 24-hour clock.
Your next objective is to find the "Ajia" Travel Company. Many of the people working at the stores along the street will point you in the right direction - basically, you walk back the way you came. The person that shows you where the store is the best is the woman at the flower shop. Go back and talk to her, and she'll point out the store that you want.
If you leave the store and head straight for the flower shop, there's a chance that you'll hit your first QTE (quick timer event). The best way to get it is to leave the game center at about 2:35 and just go straight there - if you're too early or too late you'll miss the QTE (although I've also gotten it around 3.15 pm, as well as 4pm or so). You literally bump into two 'Russian sailor' looking guys (although one is definately Asian, they just remind me of Russian sailors that you'd see in movies) and they pick a fight. Here are the commands for this short QTE: L, A, B. If you miss one of the commands, the next command may be different (what's above is for a totally sucessful QTE) - and be careful: if you miss two of them, you'll have to start over (and it the entire time the clock is running, so watch out!).
After finding the building, and possibly fighting the sailors, you have to wait until after 4pm to continue. If it's not yet 4pm, you can always pass the time by getting a soda from a Coca-Cola vending machine - there are many scattered throughout the demo, but the closest one is diagonally right from the flower shop (with your back to the flower shop). It's 100 yen per can (actually a pretty good price by today's standards) and you can choose from Coca-Cola, Sprite, Orange Fanta, and Grape Fanta (and note that although the game takes place in the 80's, the cans are all 90's versions... hmmm... marketing, perhaps? And speaking of which, where are the Pepsi machines?). If you still need to kill more time, explore a bit, and talk to people - even if you can't understand what they're saying, it's still impressive. There's even a park that you can visit. The game does have it's boundaries, though - if you hit one of them (they're while lines going across the street with a person posted next to them), the person standing there will tell you that you can't go any further, since it's a demo.
Once 4pm hits, head towards the "Ajia" [アジア] Travel Company. If you haven't found it yet, here are directions from where you start, at the hot-dog stand: Go straight from the stand - don't turn off onto any of the side streets. Eventually you'll come to a point where there is a 90degree turn in the main road. There should be a hamburger stand called "Funky Bear Burger" in front of you. Turn onto the side street to your right (facing the burger stand). Immediately turn right again (if you go straight again you'll reach one of the demo's boundaries) and walk in the door that should be in front of you (it will say "Ajia" in katakana on the left-hand door, with the numbers 16:00 - 21:00 underneath some kanji. Press 'A' to go inside. You'll pass the president of Sega, as he's walking out. You'll enter a QTE with him. To pass this QTE, input the following commands when propted: L, R, L, R, L, R, A, L, L, R, L, R, A (I think that all of this is correct - I have yet to actually do it all correctly in one try...). You have quite a bit of lee-way, though - you can miss about 5 or 6 times before you have to start over. After the last 'A', the president of Sega will run into run into the game center. You'll follow, and be treated to the ending.
For those of you that don't have the demo, here's the ending (spoiler, obviously): Once you walk into the game center, the president will be accosted by some big bully... You'll throw him out, and talk to the president. I think you're basically asking what Shen Mue is. After a bit of talking, the president wakes up - he's at his desk (Asian Dreamcast boxes are piled behind him, oddly enough). He's been dreaming about Shen Mue the entire time. He looks at the poster on the wall (the one of the main femail character in the flames) and says "Shen Mue." After that, you get a 'thanks for playing' screen. The end.
5. Misc.
- Items
There are only a five items that you can possess in the demo, and you start with four of them. Here's a list:
Memo Book [メモ ] - I don't believe that you can enter info in this, but there's already a few pages written. Probably just that - reminders of things to do and whatnot...
Wrist Watch [腕時計] - Obviously lets you know what time it is. Although it's always in the bottom corner of the screen, you can look at it on your wrist by selecting it in the item menu. It's a Timex Indiglo, by the way. You can even light it up if you're looking at it by pressing 'A'.
Photograph [写真] - A photograph of your friends and family, perhaps? Not used in the demo, as far as I know.
Money [円] - Obviously, what you need to purchase things. Not needed to complete the demo, but there are things in the demo that require money. You start the demo with 2000 yen (2000円)
Business Card (Meishi) [名刺] - Recieved from the game center clerk. Says Yukawa (Yoshikazu, Eiichi, or Hidekazu - I don't know which reading it is...) [湯川英一], which is the president's name, on the front, along with the Sega logo, the ShenMue homepage (http://www.shenmue.com/), and some other info in Kanji. On the back there is the Dreamcast logo along with some writing: "4時すぎアジア旅行社", which tells you that at 4pm he will be at the Ajia Travel Company.
- Time
Time is very important in this game, as you only have seven hours of game time to find the president. In the world of Shen Mue, one hour is exactly 3 minutes of real time. Thus, you have 21 minutes to complete the demo. Once time starts to pass, it will get dark. In the demo, it turns to dusk (the sky turns orange) at 4:30pm (16:30 on the 24 hour clock), and it gets dark, complete with stars, at 6:00pm (18:00). Businesses open and close at set hours, usually posted. For example, the Ajia shop opens at 16:00 (4:00pm) and closes at 21:00 (9:00pm, or after the demo has ended). The Game You game center stays open for the duration of the demo, opening at 10:00 (am) and closing at 24:00 (midnight).
- Weather
Shen Mue being a reality based game, expect some snow or rain occasionally. Most of the time it is sunny in the demo, but I have gotten rain twice in my ten or so times having it run through (sometimes just letting it sit there for the entire 21 minutes to see what would happen), and I remember getting rain once, but this might be me remembering a different game... In the demo, the weather does not effect you at all.
- Games
In the game center you can play two of the games - the darts machine, and the slot machine. Each costs 100 yen per play. On the darts machine you get 5 darts for 100 yen, and the slots you get 20 credits. I'm not going to go into detail on these right now... the darts are pretty easy to understand, and I haven't quite figured out what to do with the credits that I've won in the slots (which is quite easy to do if you play all five ways that you can)... Maybe in a later revision, if there is one... As for non-playable games in the arcade, you'll find a few Yu Suzuki (Shen Mue's director) classics: Hang-On is to your left as you walk in, and AfterBurner and Space Harrier are in front of you along the back wall. You'll also find a few 'non-real' titles next to the Space Harrier: QTETitle and Excite QTE 2. As far as I can tell, if they were actually playable, these five machines would be 100 yen per play as well (it's clearly readable on the Excite QTE 2 if you crouch). Look for them to be playable in the final version. As a side note, all three of the Yu Suzuki machines are in replicas of their original arcade cabinets. There are also three generic table arcade games in the center as well, but these are definately just decoration. On the walls, you can find posters for Hang-On, Space Harrier, Flicky, Water Match, and Future Spy (although I've never heard of the last two) and a few that are too small to read.
- Vending Machines
There are a few Coca-Cola vending machines scattered throughout the city in usual Japanese style... Unfortunately, there is only soda in them, but fortunately for the main character, he happens to like soda. Each can is 100 yen, and you can choose from Coca-Cola, Orange Fanta, Grape Fanta, and Sprite. As a side note, all of the cans are the current 1999 style, whereas the game takes place in the 80s. Also, you can't take the soda with you - you have to drink it right by the machine. Of course, the main character is also environmentally conscious - he throws the can away properly when he's done.
- Options menu
Here's a quick run-down on what's what in the options menu, before you start the game (the final option):
Sound [ソウンド]: Monaural [モナウラル] or Stereo [ステリオ]
Subtitles: Player Choose or Always On (I think, roughly... these second and third options are pretty rough estimates... I've been working on this FAQ for a couple of hours straight and don't feel like figuring this stuff out... you'll get kana later as well, possibly...)
Subtitles: I haven't quite sat down with this yet, but I think that it's different variations of voice on/off or subtitles on/off. Default is voice on, subtitles off. Of course, all of the subtitles are in Japanese...
6. Face Demos
Also included on the What's Shen Mue disk are some of the famous 'Face Demos' that have been shown at the Tokyo Game Show and the E3. There are four demos to choose from, each telling you a bit about the game. The one that non-Japanese should be most intested in is Mike, the one on the left - his speech is all in English. More on this section (maybe) later.
7. Outro
- History of Shen Mue
A quick run-down of the history of Shen Mue: The game was first known as Virtua Fighter RPG, and was shrouded in secrecy. Later, it was announced that it was code-named Project Berkley, although it was still very much under wraps. When the Dreamcast came out, Virtua Fighter 3tb was the biggest of the launch titles, and also a Yu Suzuki game, and with it came the Project Berkley disc. Containing only a viewable movie, the disc was mainly interview with the makers of Berkley (I'm not sure who all is on it, but Yu Suzuki is almost a definite), with a bit of concept art. I don't believe that any in-game play was shown. Later on, Sega held a press conference announcing that Project Berkley's name was Shen Mue (although many variations on the spelling, including Shien Mu and Shen Muu were seen, Shen Mue is what is currently used, and I'm assuming that it is the official Romanized (English) title). Very slowly, info and shots were released to the public, although much about the game is still shrouded in secrecy. Although the game was originally supposed to be a single release, and was to be released on in late July or early August 1999 (my memory is failing me at the moment...), it was later split into at least two releases, and pushed back to October 28, 1999 (Chapter 1), and January 2000 (Chapter 2), with the possibilities of more chapters at a later date. Currently the game is still on track for a Oct.28 release on 3 GD-ROMs in a special collectors package for the first 150,000 copies.
A few side notes: -Shen Mue employs the largest creative team ever for a video game. -Shen Mue is the most expensive video game title ever created, with current cost rumoured to be about $60 million US. -Shen Mue is the first direct to home title that Yu Suzuki has ever done. -Shen Mue is the most important release for the Dreamcast to date - after all, it has $60 million riding on it's back...
- Revision history
ver.0.87: First release. Written in one sitting. Almost all of the storyline and dialogue is missing due to my lack of knowledge about the Japanese language. Some of the option screen has yet to be translated, and things like character names and some facts about the history of Shen Mue are missing. These might be added at a later date, but on the other hand, this is a demo that not many English speaking people own, so this might be the only release.
- Legal
This document is copyright J.T.Kauffman 1999 and cannot be reproduced for profit in any form. It can be freely distributed over the internet as long as it is unaltered and is only distributed on free (i.e. non-subscription) sites. If you do choose to post this document on your site, please email me to let me know.
Dreamcast, Shen Mue and What's Shen Mue are copyright Sega 1999. Coca-Cola, Fanta, and Sprite are copyright Coca-Cola Co. 1999. All other copyrighted materials are property of their current owners.
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