Hi pillarrocks - I think the character-switching mechanic is actually happening, if I heard correctly from Yu Suzuki's twitch stream last night. So it sounds like you're in luck! :-D

Personally, I think Sega would be crazy to pass up this opportunity.

At an absolute minimum, all they would need to do would be to port the games in their original form, with a choice between Japanese and English language. This really should not take long at all. Even better would be if they offered the option of high resolution textures.

It would probably be helpful if all Shenmue fans petition Sega to do this.

For me it was in 2000/2001 and a friend had just got a new PS2, so we went round to check it out because it was the new big thing. After a short while we got bored because the games he had weren't very interesting, so he suggested playing a game I'd never heard of on the Dreamcast instead. I wasn't very enthusiastic since the Dreamcast was regarded as yesterday's news by then.

The game which he switched on was Shenmue. I was literally blown away by it, initially by the graphics, but then by the realism and depth of the world. It looked like a genuine recreation of a Japanese village (in Yamanose and Sakuragaoka). You could speak to anybody, buy drinks and capsule toys from vending machines, wander round as you pleased, and the lighting and weather changed over time. I didn't even need to experience any of the story to know that I just had to play the game.

The next day I went into town and bought myself a Dreamcast along with a copy of Shenmue, and it was the start of the best gaming experience I ever had. It's probably hard for somebody seeing it for the first time today to understand how groundbreaking it was, but I'm confident that Yu Suzuki can make something equally special for today's generation with Shenmue III if he is given a chance...

@RSM-HQ: Cool - I'd literally never heard of it. Glad to see the side-scrolling beat-em-up isn't dead! ;-)

I've found my tastes in gaming have changed over time, but I'm not losing interest in gaming as such.

I'm in my mid 30s now, but when I was younger I preferred repetitive skill-based games (like Halo). Now that I no longer have long summer holidays or lots of free time, I prefer concentrated story-based games, i.e. things like The Walking Dead by Telltale or Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments, both of which were fantastic games.

But the recent announcement of Shenmue III truly made me feel excited like a little kid again. There aren't many gaming series which are truly immersive and story-driven, as well as having high production values and immense attention to detail, so games like Shenmue III are like gold dust to me :D Call me a philistine, but a really well-realised and mature game - in the true sense, I don't mean lots of swearing or violence ;-p - is at least as good as any movie.

@sonorous: Haha, good idea, then you'd need a Dreamcast at every airport terminal. Queues would grow while all the passport control guys were secretly playing Shenmue ;-)

Not sure I can fit info about everything that the passport disc does in one short post (see http://guidesarchive.ign.com/guides/14499/passport.html). But I think the online features would be the coolest bit, where you can get game-related messages, view game stats and info and trade items online etc.

@stupidinvaders: Haha, yes you're right, Ryo owes Nozomi big-time. He can at least send her a few postcards or something :-p

Great ideas btw :D

I honestly think it will be awesome either way. It's difficult to describe quite how much depth there is in the first two games. I replayed Shenmue I recently and there is a section where you have to race a motorbike to a specific location in order to rescue someone important to you. The race lasts exactly 1 minute and 30 seconds, but someone had to build a racing game mechanic literally just for that part! It's that level of attention to detail which is one of the things I love about it, but even if the budget doesn't quite allow that level of extravagance, I'm still sure that the story and the world will be spellbinding. Yu Suzuki knows what he's doing and has wanted to make Shenmue III for a long time, so I think he will be capable of prioritizing the most important things :D

Edit: But wouldn't it be fantastic if the Kickstarter did reach the amount required to make a truly open world? I can but dream... :D Every extra bit of funding will add more things to do and make the world that bit more immersive.

@Byshop: Awesome, thanks Byshop! I'll definitely check all of those out :D

@sonorous: Yes, I love games with a strong story too. Fortunately, I think that is the one thing that is pretty much guaranteed to be included in the game! :D According to Yu Suzuki, any Kickstarter funding over and above the absolute minimum will go towards fleshing out the world and giving the player more story choices and activities to take part in, with the aim being to create a truly open world if the budget allows.