The remastered versions of Sega’s Shenmue games were largely unchanged ports of the original titles. Players who wished that more had been done to improve and update the titles would be interested in knowing that Sega had actually embarked on doing just that but then abandoned it in favor of simply porting the titles unchanged.
According to a report, the team tasked with the remaster had originally been working on remakes of the titles which features significantly improved graphics. The characters and locations would have remained the same but everything else would have been upgraded with higher-resolution textures and improved geometry. More advanced lighting effects, shadows, and reflections were on the agenda as well.
This work had apparently continued for quite some time before the developers decided to abandon it late last year. Both Shenmue I and II were intended to receive the upgrades but that didn’t happen. The decision was made to just come up with basic remasters instead.
It’s not immediately clear why Sega and d3t decided to do this. They may have done this due to time considerations as the more complex remakes would have required work and thus more time. The simpler remasters could be done quickly and that may very well be the reason why these Shenmue games are largely the same as the originals.
Filed in .. Source: eurogamer.net