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Shenmue 1 & 2


radiofloyd
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Just got to Kowloon, so about halfway through maybe?

 

So far it is considerably better than the first:

 

Combat feels quicker and more responsive, audio quality is much better, VO has improved, more interesting characters. I can't believe how much bigger it is too, what a jump. 

 

 

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  • 4 months later...

I picked up the Remaster when it came out with great anticipation, I had alway wanted to play this game, but did not have a Dreamcast at the time, 

the Visuals always looked so impressive and from gameplay videos I had seen on a  Video Game VHS (I Think)  I looked on in envy.

 

Alas the Remaster comes out and fire it up, and I wish I hadn't, That's not a slant on the game itself, I can appreciate why it was held in such high regard, but by 

modern standards even the remaster was showing it age in many respects.

 

Granted as an avid Yakuza player since its launch this really did seem like something I should enjoy but the controls to much of the game felt archaic, and the combat I

couldn't get on with them but then I never really got on with Virtua fighter games so that might explain that, still I persevered.

 

The Audio, Seriously Sega, would it have hurt to clean it up just a little?

Fortunately the Visuals reminded me of what I remembered watching over so much, and once cleaned up for the main still look pretty good for a game of its age.

 

The Story was fairly good though pacing was let down badly by the god awful day clock, I get they wanted to add a sense of immersion, but there really arent enough side activities to help

fill out the time, I found myself waiting at relevant spot, watching videos on youtube or reading, c'mon If I'm playing a game like this I dont want to have to find real world distractions!

 

eventually the game changes up we get to the harbour despite some slightly janky controls I enjoyed the forklifting, but again killing time around the harbour and horrible stealth section 

before , grahhhhhhhhhh.

The waiting just broke any interest I had in the game, I did slog through it to the end, but I now have no interest in PLaying Shenmue 2, I will no doubt watch a story playthrough on youtube sometime, but just cant bring myself to play it.

 

Though to be fair to the game, Its the same for a lot of early 3D titles and we have been spoiled in recent years and so frequently these titles dont hold up well.

 

It's a shame I really wanted to play it, but I would say to anyone in same position as me, dont bother, much the same as I suggested to a friend who last year kept asking me about 

Final Fantasy 7 to me one of my most loved titles to be it holds a warm nostalgic feeling, But going into it now, its a Horrible mess at times, from poor translations and annoying controls.

 

All i can hope is Square Enixs remake is more playable than Segas Remaster, but having recently revisited FFXV Im not holding out much hope for that either.

 

 

 

 

 

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As I type, Ryo is stood outside the Tattoo Parlour like an old person at the doctors impatiently waiting for it to open. This is the worst part of the game so far, waiting for the game to tick along in Shenmue time (5 minutes for an hour or there abouts). I don't remember this being a problem for me back in the days.

 

I've been loving playing detective though, asking people for clues, finding locations on the map, I've been getting a real sense of satisfaction from it.

 

Controls suck a bag of balls but i do love playing this game again.

 

I

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  • 4 months later...

Right I’ve got to get through two of these by November so I booted up my file on the first game (which I had only just started). Mostly just walking around Dobuita talking to various people. I like how the non-Japanese characters (like the Italian pizza chef and Tom the hot dog stand guy) speak Japanese in a heavy “foreigner” accent mixed in with their own languages. The level of detail in the game is impressive, like the animation that plays when you select a song from the jukebox.

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Starting to love this. It must have been so impressive back in the day. The level of detail - like how the characters who you see driving around on their motorbikes or doing deliveries are the same people who you can meet and talk to, like how you can see store owners opening the shutters to their shops in the morning, like how you can see characters arrive at buildings and then walk inside - and so on, it all adds up to create the sense of a living, breathing game world. Another example - in the shrine near Ryo’s house, where there is a kitten in a box, at various times of the day different people will be with the kitten. And if you talk to the girl a few times, she tells you that she has named the cat “Mimi:” From then on, Ryo will cat the cat Mimi.

 

And possibly the most impressive achievement of the game is the voice recording. All (or at least, many of) the NPCs have recorded dialogue that changes according to to what Ryo is looking for or where he is going. The voice acting itself is excellent, I already like many of the characters. And the music in the game is lovely too. In many ways it feels like I am playing a point and click adventure, with occasional combat. This game must have been mind-boggling back in 1999.

 

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Well more so than the quality the volume of recorded dialogue is impressive. I guess what I mean about the voice acting is it has that typical Japanese quality of being convincing enough to draw you into the story. Old people use the language of old people, little children speak like little children. Serious dialogue is delivered in a natural way. I think Japanese games like Shenmue could suffer badly when translated into English (especially if translated literally) as it’s not just the words that are different, the manner of speaking between the languages is so different. Things that would sound normal in Japanese sound ridiculous in English, because we don’t say them. 

 

Also, I’m curious, what did they do with the foreign (English speaking) characters in the English version of the game? In the Japanese version they speak in the “dumb foreigner” accent (that’s pretty widespread in Japanese comedy), in a mix of Japanese and English. How do they portray that in the English version? Everybody speaks English I assume so how do the non-Japanese characters stand out...

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Story progress (not really a spoiler):

 

Spoiler

I’ve played as far as finding the Phoenix Mirror.

 

I love how the game doesn’t even remotely tell you about the first person view/inspect function. I needed to look up a number in the phone book but I couldn’t interact with it, in the end I googled the solution out of despair and that’s when I learned about it. I guess if I had the physical game manual I might have noticed it. 

 

 

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Went to the Asia travel agency at 9am and now I have to wait for the guy to call me back tomorrow morning. I’m just gonna leave the game running while I go do something else lol. Terrible game design.

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