Hey, it's me again with more Shenmue II NPC nonsense! Let's start from the beginning...
A lot of you will know of the project I spent considerable time working on, the Shenmue II Character Database, with the aim of cataloguing all 700+ characters, using Japanese strategy guidebooks of the game as sources.
In the Shenmue II Perfect Guidebook, there are four NPC's who are listed under the 'Lucky Hit Customers' section - referring to customers Ryo encounters while working the part-time job at the Lucky Hit stands. This comes with a caveat - these particular NPC's don't actually play with Ryo, they just ask him for directions etc., or flat out state that they don't want to play against a 'part-timer'. The customers that do play against Ryo are actually seen elsewhere in the game and are mostly made up of bookies from other gambling stands, or pawnshop owners. Hence their profiles are included elsewhere in the guide.
The non-playing customers profiled in this section are (left to right)
Dong Yangming - scroll down a bit on this blog post on the great Phantom River Stone site for some background and info about this guy's originally intended role!
Zhang Xianghe
Han Xuan - this guy is quite distinctive for his shirt that says 'GET!' on it
And... Gao Ding... who we'll come to...
While Yangming only appears when working the Lucky Hit job in the final game, you may recognise Xianghe and Xuan as also being two of the generic 'pedestrian' NPC's you see wandering around (in both Hong Kong and Kowloon). In fact, in another official guidebook, the Shenmue II Complete Guide, lists these two under the 'Passerby' section of character profiles (it also includes Yangming, but I can't say I've ever personally seen him wandering around as a pedestrian in normal gameplay, as said only ever during the Lucky Hit job)
So what about this guy on the end here, Gao Ding?
At the time I was putting the character database together, I must admit it seems I simply assumed this guy appeared in the final game, so of course included him - assuming that he's seen while Ryo is working the Lucky Hit job, and presumably also as a generic pedestrian wandering around. But is that actually true?
The only reason I recently came to question this is while I was rifling through Shenmue II's character models to root out the ones that are unused (thanks to @Switch to sending me images and file name references of these!). There was one NPC I initially identified as unused as I certainly did not remember seeing such a distinctive T-shirt design on a character anywhere in the final game! He has the character ID of YM2 (the 'YM' presumably stands for 'Young Male' if the other characters with this prefix are anything to go by)
But wait - his head and shoulders are suddenly recognisable, right?
Once I realised this, I started investigating and to see if he actually does appear in the final version of Shenmue II. After working the part-time job at each Lucky Hit stand that it is possible to do so at a few times, he never seemed to appear for me. The other three previously mentioned did - but never Gao Ding. I just assumed he'd behave similarly to them and either ask Ryo for directions or just refuse to play him at Lucky Hit. But nope, never appeared for me, at any of the Lucky Hit stands you can work at. He seems to have eluded the folks at this Shenmue Wiki as well, as his page has no info!
Because the Complete Guidebook also lists him under the 'Passerby' section, I then did sweeps of Aberdeen, Wan Chai and Kowloon to see if he is indeed seen as a pedestrian wandering around in normal gameplay. But I had no joy there either - this was after looking everywhere, including inside shops. He simply doesn't seem to appear in either of these roles.
Now, it's not unheard of of the guidebooks to have slightly inaccurate information - I went into this in a post on my Shenmusings blog, where two NPC's I initially thought were unused turned out to be in the game after all (e.g. the Perfect Guidebook claims an NPC is found in Worker's Pier, when in reality he only appears very briefly in the background of a cutscene in a totally different location!)
shenmusings.wordpress.com
But this guy is completely eluding me. Leading me to the conclusion that he is indeed unused. For what it's worth, he doesn't seem to appear anywhere in the recently discovered Game Jam prototype either. So when the heck did this guy actually exist in the game?
So what I'm asking is - does anyone else recall seeing this guy anywhere in the game? If not as a Lucky Hit customer or a 'passerby', maybe he's randomly in the crowd in a cutscene or something? If anyone can prove he does and can provide screenshot/video evidence, it would be very much appreciated! Of course he's not an overly important character but I just find it very strange the guidebooks list him if he is not in the final release of the game...
If anyone else wished to see if they can get him to appear during the Lucky Hit job - see below for a list of stands where you can do this:
Aberdeen
A lot of you will know of the project I spent considerable time working on, the Shenmue II Character Database, with the aim of cataloguing all 700+ characters, using Japanese strategy guidebooks of the game as sources.
In the Shenmue II Perfect Guidebook, there are four NPC's who are listed under the 'Lucky Hit Customers' section - referring to customers Ryo encounters while working the part-time job at the Lucky Hit stands. This comes with a caveat - these particular NPC's don't actually play with Ryo, they just ask him for directions etc., or flat out state that they don't want to play against a 'part-timer'. The customers that do play against Ryo are actually seen elsewhere in the game and are mostly made up of bookies from other gambling stands, or pawnshop owners. Hence their profiles are included elsewhere in the guide.
The non-playing customers profiled in this section are (left to right)
Dong Yangming - scroll down a bit on this blog post on the great Phantom River Stone site for some background and info about this guy's originally intended role!
Zhang Xianghe
Han Xuan - this guy is quite distinctive for his shirt that says 'GET!' on it
And... Gao Ding... who we'll come to...
While Yangming only appears when working the Lucky Hit job in the final game, you may recognise Xianghe and Xuan as also being two of the generic 'pedestrian' NPC's you see wandering around (in both Hong Kong and Kowloon). In fact, in another official guidebook, the Shenmue II Complete Guide, lists these two under the 'Passerby' section of character profiles (it also includes Yangming, but I can't say I've ever personally seen him wandering around as a pedestrian in normal gameplay, as said only ever during the Lucky Hit job)
So what about this guy on the end here, Gao Ding?
At the time I was putting the character database together, I must admit it seems I simply assumed this guy appeared in the final game, so of course included him - assuming that he's seen while Ryo is working the Lucky Hit job, and presumably also as a generic pedestrian wandering around. But is that actually true?
The only reason I recently came to question this is while I was rifling through Shenmue II's character models to root out the ones that are unused (thanks to @Switch to sending me images and file name references of these!). There was one NPC I initially identified as unused as I certainly did not remember seeing such a distinctive T-shirt design on a character anywhere in the final game! He has the character ID of YM2 (the 'YM' presumably stands for 'Young Male' if the other characters with this prefix are anything to go by)
But wait - his head and shoulders are suddenly recognisable, right?
Once I realised this, I started investigating and to see if he actually does appear in the final version of Shenmue II. After working the part-time job at each Lucky Hit stand that it is possible to do so at a few times, he never seemed to appear for me. The other three previously mentioned did - but never Gao Ding. I just assumed he'd behave similarly to them and either ask Ryo for directions or just refuse to play him at Lucky Hit. But nope, never appeared for me, at any of the Lucky Hit stands you can work at. He seems to have eluded the folks at this Shenmue Wiki as well, as his page has no info!
Because the Complete Guidebook also lists him under the 'Passerby' section, I then did sweeps of Aberdeen, Wan Chai and Kowloon to see if he is indeed seen as a pedestrian wandering around in normal gameplay. But I had no joy there either - this was after looking everywhere, including inside shops. He simply doesn't seem to appear in either of these roles.
Now, it's not unheard of of the guidebooks to have slightly inaccurate information - I went into this in a post on my Shenmusings blog, where two NPC's I initially thought were unused turned out to be in the game after all (e.g. the Perfect Guidebook claims an NPC is found in Worker's Pier, when in reality he only appears very briefly in the background of a cutscene in a totally different location!)
The Phantom Teahouse Lady (+other guidebook oddities) – UPDATED 6/11/18 – She’s in the game after all!!
UPDATE 6/11/18 – She’s in the game after all! Well now, don’t I feel a little silly after initially making this post… So as it turns out, this character is in fact in the fi…
shenmusings.wordpress.com
But this guy is completely eluding me. Leading me to the conclusion that he is indeed unused. For what it's worth, he doesn't seem to appear anywhere in the recently discovered Game Jam prototype either. So when the heck did this guy actually exist in the game?
So what I'm asking is - does anyone else recall seeing this guy anywhere in the game? If not as a Lucky Hit customer or a 'passerby', maybe he's randomly in the crowd in a cutscene or something? If anyone can prove he does and can provide screenshot/video evidence, it would be very much appreciated! Of course he's not an overly important character but I just find it very strange the guidebooks list him if he is not in the final release of the game...
If anyone else wished to see if they can get him to appear during the Lucky Hit job - see below for a list of stands where you can do this:
Aberdeen
- Fortune's Pier (by No. 10 Warehouse) - run by Ji Hande
- Queen's Street (near the Big Catch Tackle Shop) - run by Chuan Yueshan
- Green Market Qr. (next to Bar Man Mo) - run by Liu Feng
- South Carmain Qr. #1 (by Carmain Pawnshop) - run by He Shenshi
- South Carmain Qr. #2 (Alleyway behind Sunny Capital Pharmacy) - run by Yan Yuxiang
- South Carmain Qr. #3 (next to the Wise Men's Qr. gate) - run by Xu Yingnian
- Dragon Street (near Thousand White Qr. entrance) - run by You Canbai
- Thousand White Qr. (by Stand Qr. path) - run by Yang Chengfu
- Thunder House - run by Duan Zhaozhi
- Moon Child Bldg. 2F - run by Hong Youshen
, well he’s the most memorable of the three to me!
