There really aren't many good categories for Shenmue 1 because of the nature of the game - the lack of cutscene skips plus the forklift stuff at the end means a lot of "auto-scrollers". I've been thinking about new categories that might be worthwhile and one that does come to mind is collecting all the cassette tapes.

There is some lottery RNG but it's pretty minimal compared to the prospect of say, collecting all the figures, and although not all the tapes are available from the beginning (it's date-dependent) all of them are available before December ends and the intervening days could be passed by failing the stealth section over and over. Plus, you don't have to play through the whole game, so the forklift would be kept to a minimum.

This may be an interesting run, but I haven't played the game myself so I'm commenting from an outsider's perspective. Thoughts?

Well, it's better than a "100%" run at least...

The intervening days can't simply be passed by failing the stealth section over and over - skipping too many days will result in missing tapes, and you'll have to wait for them to cycle round again (which is an extra 15 minutes if you realise before you exit the stealth section, or about 7 hours if you don't). Once you complete the stealth section you can't use it to skip days anymore.

Cassettes change in the shops every Saturday. Normally you wouldn't be able to access the first set of cassettes in the harbour, and would have to wait until January for it to cycle around again; but glitches let us speed that up a bit.

So we'll start by listing what's available and when:

Dec 03-05: Dobuita - Go Go, Flower Girl, Antiquity Tree, Linda Harbour - Hip de Hop, Like a Feeling, NaNa, Spider

Dec 06-12: Dobuita - Feel Tired Song, Hip de Hop, Like a Feeling, Heart Beats Harbour - Liquor, Destiny, Boz Nov, Strong

Dec 13-19: Dobuita - Dandy Old Man, Liquor, Destiny, Boz Nov Harbour - Flower Girl, Antiquity Tree, Be-Witch, Harbor Beats

Dec 20-26: Dobuita - Be-Witch, MJQ, Harbor Bar, NaNa Harbour - Feel Tired Song, Dandy Old Man, Harbor Bar, Glyfada

Dec 27-Jan 2: Dobuita - Spider, Glyfada, YADA, Yokosuka Blues Harbour - Go Go, Linda, YADA, Yokosuka Blues

To win in raffle: M.S. Shower Hang On Space Harrier Final Take Off

Found in Ryo's room: Shenmue Shenhua

The best way to show the problem with this run is to present what I believe to be the most optimal route:

Dec 3: Do any% speedrun route up to the harbour, do everything with Warehouse No. 8. Go to Harbor Lounge, buy Hip de Hop, Like a Feeling, NaNa, Spider. Try to enter Old Warehouse District, and then go back and trigger the sidequest with Hisaka; go to the back of Warehouse No. 17 and fail the QTE, skipping the rest of the day. (Total time so far: ~20 minutes. Money remaining: ~8780)

Dec 4: Go to Tomato Mart, buy Go Go, Flower Girl, Antiquity Tree, Linda. Bus spam until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~50 minutes. Money remaining: ~5200)

Dec 5: Collect Shenmue and Shenhua from Ryo's room, the key from Iwao's room, and the flashlight from the cupboard; put the sword in the wall. Bus spam until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~1:20. Money remaining: ~2820)

Dec 6: Go to Tomato Mart, buy Feel Tired Song, Heart Beats. Go to Harbor Lounge, buy Liquor, Destiny, Boz Nov, Strong. Bus spam until money nearly runs out (make sure you still have more than 320 yen left at Dobuita), repeatedly run home and then fast travel to Dobuita until 6:30pm. Sneak into Old Warehouse District. Fail until Dec 18, meet Master Chen. (Total time so far: ~2:10. Money remaining: ~2400)

Dec 19: Talk to Ine, talk to Fuku. Go to Tomato Mart, buy Dandy Old Man. Go to Bunkado Antiques, come home (fight Gui Zhang), talk to Ine. Go to the basement, get the Phoenix Mirror. Go to Harbor Lounge, buy Be-Witch, Harbor Beats. Go to Master Chen (phone on whichever side of the bus is better for time, I'd need to play through to find out which). (Total time so far: ~2:30. Money remaining: ~1680)

Dec 20: Talk to Fuku, go to Global Travel Agency, get flier, talk to Fuku, talk to Wang, go to Asia Travel Company. Go to Tomato Mart, buy MJQ, Harbor Bar. Use stair clip to get out of bounds and go to Harbor Lounge, buy Glyfada. Bus spam until 6:30pm, go to Asia Travel Company, go to sleep. (Total time so far: ~3:10. Money remaining: ~7720)

Dec 21: Go back inside and pick up your allowance, stair clip into Game YOU early, lose to Chai. (Total time so far: ~3:20. Money remaining: ~8220)

Dec 22: Bus spam until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~3:50. Money remaining: ~5840)

Dec 23: Bus spam until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~4:20. Money remaining: ~3460)

Dec 24: Bus spam until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~4:50. Money remaining: ~1080)

Dec 25: Bus spam until money runs out at about 2pm, repeatedly run home and then fast travel to Dobuita until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~5:30. Money remaining: ~300)

Dec 26: Do one bus loop, repeatedly run home and then fast travel to Dobuita until bedtime. (Total time so far: ~6:20. Money remaining: ~480)

Dec 27: Go to Tomato Mart, buy YADA, Yokosuka Blues. Estimated run length: ~6:30

Note that this assumes you have the most amazing luck and manage to win all four of the raffle-only cassettes from the draws you get from buying other cassettes. In reality, with a ~1/32 chance of winning a cassette you can only expect to get one, in which case you'd have to spend one of the other days (Dec 24th would be best if you believe the "lucky days" are real - yet to confirm this myself though) buying chocolates at a total expected cost of ~12000 yen to get the remaining cassettes... which means you can't waste money on bus spam, instead having to take the slower option.

The end result is a run that is longer than any%, in which the vast majority of the run is spent running backwards and forwards.

I mean, you're free to run it if you want...

That's a shame. Oh, well.

Shenmue is a game that really resists being speedrun, isn't it?