Have You Seen Me? Possibly Missing NPC in Shenmue II

[Miles Prower]

Love the effort here of looking for this guy! Kinda like an early easter egg hunt.
Unfortunately I can't really partake in this atm for hardware reasons, but I still thought about things.

Wouldn't it be more efficient to look through the code if the game even has instructions to spawn this NPC model? And since you are already considering to check the Japanese original, how about playing Lucky Hit in the Game Jam Beta? We don't know what the people who put together the guide books got from the dev team to put the information together. The basis can very much be a pre-release build.

@LemonHaze contacted me about this on Discord and has shown me there are indeed instructions to spawn him during the Lucky Hit job.
I have also tried in the Game Jam beta but couldn't get him to appear there either - also the part time job can be very glitchy or unfinished there, in some cases in Kowloon I either had no customers at all or the bookie never came back!

 

[BlueMue]

Interesting! So he definately should appear. I wonder if the randomizer skips over him then or something.

Also that Game Jam Lucky hit job... Either playing forever or never? That's some purgatory right there.

 

[Nigel]

@LemonHaze contacted me about this on Discord and has shown me there are indeed instructions to spawn him during the Lucky Hit job.
I have also tried in the Game Jam beta but couldn't get him to appear there either - also the part time job can be very glitchy or unfinished there, in some cases in Kowloon I either had no customers at all or the bookie never came back!

Do we know if these instructions mean that he can be spawned in the regular game, @LemonHaze , rather than something that would have to be artificially manipulated via mods? I'll still gladly hunt for him if the former.

 

[Seaman]

Advanced the story further to get different flags that could bring him someway (assuming he is a Heaven, again that outfit is totally Beverly Hills..).

There were some points that I thought he could pop out:
- When looking for Ren first timers I went through the longer route asking at souvenirs sellers and gambling characters (normally I would go to the Blue Sky dart player). They tell you about Heaven members standing by arm wrestling at Rooftop Fight and also other spots. There were Heaven lookin' NPCs there but not Gao Ding. I really thought that was a affine flag for this quest.
In fact, my game glitched the passerby loop while doing the part time job in this story part. Loop was Delin, towelhead guy, Delin again, towel... Many many times until the thing did reset to Fortune Pier title screen, and I lost my profits!
Maybe there is fish idk..

- Went through every cutscene, mandatory and optional, where Heavens appear. No Gao Ding.

- When prompted to get $500 for meeting Ren, and finish the day without meeting, there's a cutscene at Wong's boat where he tell us about job at South Carmain Qr. & Queen St. pachinkos.
I believe the latter is not accesible in other way. And its extremely close to Heaven gang territory.
Miles, I see you listed this Lucky Hit since first second. In my game, this guy never offered me a job but pointed me cargo or other LH, until Wong told about.

- Just in case he is with the real baddies Yellow Heads (?) did optional scenes too, like Man Mo Park at night (Chawan segment), looked for him at the White Dinasty epic QTE too.

Right now I'm at saying goodbye before Kowloon on March 6th. Gonna look another rounds while doing Pine Arcade fights and Duck Races. Then I'll move to look for this guy in Kowloon.

Oh, may I know what made LemonHaze say Gao Ding should be at Fortune Pier or South Carmain? Note that there's Kowloon citizens at Aberdeen and Wan Chai.

Lucky Hit unlocked by Wong:

Han Xuan as passerby at Green Market and South Carmain:



To finish post up, I'm not being lucky at bringin Xuan at Lucky Hit job but as passerby he pops a lot in my game.
Also my game seems to like Zhang Xianghe at LH job, and like I said just once Han and never(!) Dong Yangming.

It has been pointed previously about the randomizer skipping, which may be possible, but Im more prone to think in a very low value for appereance. Almost zero or such.

 

[Miles Prower]

Appreciate all you’re doing @Seaman - what I will say is that if Gao Ding was a Heavens member, he would have been included in that section of the character profiles in the strategy guides- as I said in the original post and on the blog, the Complete Guide lists him as a ‘passerby’ character, while the Perfect Guidebook lists him as a Lucky Hit customer. All Heavens members that appear in fights in BHW etc are listed as such in my character database and on wikis :) (he’s also not listed as a Yellow Head, btw)

 

[Seaman]

the Complete Guide lists him as a ‘passerby’ character, while the Perfect Guidebook lists him as a Lucky Hit customer

I don't believe them. They don't seem so Complete and Perfect as they claim ah.
Lucky Hit costumer sure, but also a Heaven. Look, he has a roarin tiger on his tshirt. Obviously a thug.
If he finally exists and its a heaven I want a token.

 

[RyoHazuki36]

Sorry if I'm not supposed to bump this topic! I just wanted to share my thoughts on the mystery of this NPC and what the truth could be.

Since the game's files have a code to trigger him and he's actually listed in the Perfect Guide Book, I'm wondering if encountering him is one of those super secret hidden stuff in the games like Nozomi actually being able to help Ryo fight Enoki and Nagashima that was a major secret for over two decades and required very specific requirements to trigger.

There were several Shenmue II guide books released in Japan as well, so if the Perfect Guide Book was actually the last one to be released, which I think it is since it's "perfect" and lists everything that's in the game and just seems "newer" and "fancier" than the others, I doubt he would be something that was unused, especially since there's several other NPCs that we know for a fact are unused and not listed in the guide.

Would be interesting if Gao was like the best Lucky Hit player in the game or something that was a hidden secret NPC and can be encountered by doing specific commands. He's also the last character in the section of the Lucky Hit customers profiles, so I wonder if he is a secret NPC or special in some way.

I think the best bet would be to go within the game's files and code and see what the truth is for anyone who knows how to do that. I really doubt he's unused. They really put so much effort and dedication to that guide book, so it just seems unlikely to be that he would be unused unless they made a mistake.

 

[RyoHazuki36]

Has anyone tried seeing if he appears as a Lucky Hit customer in Kowloon? Maybe he could be a passersby character there too. If he's not appearing in Wan Chai or Aberdeen, then that maybe could be the reason.

 

[Seaman]

Has anyone tried seeing if he appears as a Lucky Hit customer in Kowloon? Maybe he could be a passersby character there too. If he's not appearing in Wan Chai or Aberdeen, then that maybe could be the reason.

I tried at Kowloon too without success. But I admit putting my efforts at the previous areas as LemonHaze and also Miles pointed those. Meaning, I didn't tried every Lucky Hit job at Kowloon.
I would love to see this guy appearing into a kind of hidden for years secret, like the scenes with Nozomi that you mention.
Interesting that he could be a pro player by the position he occupy at the guide.

 

[RyoHazuki36]

I tried at Kowloon too without success. But I admit putting my efforts at the previous areas as LemonHaze and also Miles pointed those. Meaning, I didn't tried every Lucky Hit job at Kowloon.
I would love to see this guy appearing into a kind of hidden for years secret, like the scenes with Nozomi that you mention.
Interesting that he could be a pro player by the position he occupy at the guide.

Yeah I really think he may be a secret character. The games have so many neat very hidden secrets that every player couldn't possibly find unless they found out about them on the internet or the guide books.

Like I don't think anyone would know about the Izumi and Eileen fights and the duck racing if it wasn't for the internet and guide books.