Shenmue thread

[Anonymous No.9673812]

How do you feel about Shenmue? Either the first game itself or the series as a whole.

[Anonymous No.9673826]

>>9673812
I like it and its sequel a lot. Maybe I'm a hypocrite because I despise modern Playstation movieshit that these games very much resemble but there's something really distinct about Shenmue. I enjoy pretty much everything about it, even the 'gameplay' if we can even call it that

[Anonymous No.9674056]

I got bored after disc 1.

[Anonymous No.9674081]

>>9673812
first time I played it felt like I was playing a movie, its really well done and the music is epic.
one of the best games ever made

[Anonymous No.9674106]

>>9673812
Shenmue is really unique on the basis of interactivity alone, to think it came out so long ago is mind blowing. Really gotta respect Suzuki for sticking to his vision when getting a once in a lifetime chance to wrap everything up, even if the game was shit

[Anonymous No.9674115]

Shenmue should have been a launch title for the Dreamcast. Possibly with a localized renaming.

Journey of Ryo
Japan Story
Virtua Life

Something like that which is less opaque and inscrutable to foreigners than "Shenmue".

>anon there's no way Shemue could be completed before the DC launch
It came out in December 1999, a little over 3 months after launch. Four days after Christmas for some silly reason.

If Susuki hadn't insisted on recording the voicework in Japan they could have had the game ready for launch.

[Anonymous No.9674126]

>>9673812
Well, I've started it twice, and I was enchanted in exploring the city and by the dialogue, which is of course both kind of poetic and hilarious. But, got stuck and felt frustrated early on. The puzzles and gameplay seem somewhat predictable fare. It's like the culmination of Sega wanting to make a movie/video-game hybrid. I actually would really like to play through it in its entirety to appreciate it for what it is, but feel perhaps I missed out on the immersive "open-world" experience it captured at the time of its release.

[Anonymous No.9674162]

>>9674115
Man, imagine Shenmue had got one of those localisations of Jap games where they try to pretend it actually takes place in America. Like Ryo is recolored with blonde hair and is now called Brad.

[Anonymous No.9674180]

>>9673826
I dislike movieshit too, but agree that Shenmue has something different about it.
For me it's the fact that Shenmue genuinely feels more freeform and open, even if it's mostly smoke and mirrors. There's no map markers or arrows, hell in S1 there's not even maps apart from looking at the big city maps on signs. The fact you have to talk to people to get directions like "go to the end of the street and turn left at the butcher shop" makes a huge difference to the immersion.
This also extends to the plot progression where you can talk to multiple people to get results, often intuitive moves reward you ie: speaking to your friend who has a motorbike about tattoos and bikers, or going to the Yakuza office and asking them about tattoos etc.
There's little things too like the combat being genuinely fun, even if it's a bit easy. The details like your moves visually changing as you get better is something I've never seen in another game to this day, and it's a real shame. I loved seeing Mud Spider go from a very basic knee kick to a handspring head kick as Ryo gets more proficient at it. AND it's all done through training and sparring, not dumping XP into certain values.
It's a lot more than the sum of its parts, and I think it's a great game.
This is not even mentioning the music, graphics and art direction which are all among my favourite in video games too.

[Anonymous No.9674186]

>>9674126
Where did you get stuck? The game does have a different mind-set to modern games or even some of its contemporaries, maybe we can give you a tip or two to jog your thinking.
Best tip I can give is talk to many people, and often it's intuitive as to who you need to talk to.

[Anonymous No.9674190]

>>9673812
Proto Yakuza, I thank it for that.
Also Ryo had the chance for so much pussy and denied all of it, that made me upset.

[Anonymous No.9674236]

Yakuza feels like the future of games we never got. But the game itself (Shenmue 1 anyway) feels like a prototype. You can't enter most buildings, those you can enter aren't interactive, and besides a couple collectibles all you can do is talk to everyone until you find the right dude to progress the story. It's weird so much effort went into easily missable content. Not like players are entitled to experience all the content, but AFAIK a bunch of it is pure chance you stumble into the solution.

>>9674190
>Proto Yakuza, I thank it for that.
In what respect? They're totally different

Oddly, the game that feels the most Shenmue to me is Rockstar's Bully. There's a clock, it's a revenge story, the game is divided into chapters, new chapters feature new areas, there's a fuck ton of collectibles/unlockables, lots of variety in missions, lots of shops you can enter, 3D beat-em-up combat (way more moves than GTA), probably more
And that's the most recent game which feels "Shenmue-y". Modern adventure games really don't compare..

[Anonymous No.9674250]

Liked them the first 2, 2 especially has this immersive and atmospheric world, Hong Kong feels very mystical, ancient, and alien. Very recently gave 3 a go and for the moment I like it. though it does feel a bit like a downgrade

[Anonymous No.9674263]

>>9674250
It's so bizarre how 3 has no Sega stuff in it at all. Not published by it, no logo, no trademark, no classic Sega arcade games, etc

[Anonymous No.9674270]

Shenmue feels like the future of games we never got. But the game itself (Shenmue 1 anyway) feels like a prototype. You can't enter most buildings, those you can enter aren't interactive, and besides a couple collectibles all you can do is talk to everyone until you find the right dude to progress the story. It's weird so much effort went into easily missable content. Not like players are entitled to experience all the content, but AFAIK a bunch of it is pure chance you stumble into the solution.

>>9674190
>Proto Yakuza, I thank it for that.
In what respect? They're totally different

Oddly, the game that feels the most Shenmue to me is Rockstar's Bully. There's a clock, it's a revenge story, the game is divided into chapters, new chapters feature new areas, there's a fuck ton of collectibles/unlockables, lots of variety in missions, lots of shops you can enter, 3D beat-em-up combat (way more moves than GTA), probably more
And that's the most recent game which feels "Shenmue-y". Modern adventure games really don't compare..

[Anonymous No.9674282]

>>9674270
Yeah, Bully and there's also that David Cage game called Omikron but it's pretty fucking bad

[Anonymous No.9674283]

>>9674162
That would have been bad.
It didn't need any heavy localization. Just a name change. Or only a subtitle. Or a pre-title.

Virtua Life: Shemue
Shenmue: Ryo's Saga

[Anonymous No.9674340]

>>9673812
I absolutely loved this game. I played all three Shenmue games, but my favorite will always be Shenmue 2 because I like that I could unlock the arcade games and play them all, I also like that I could unlock certain secrets in Shenmue 2, which I found in the strategy guide I bought, but holy fuck is that strategy guide expensive.

[Anonymous No.9674345]

>>9674250
Not much he can do about it. The budget was smaller, he had to use crowd funding, and Sega wasn't involved. Just be glad the series got finished at all.

[Anonymous No.9674353]

>>9674250
I don't even care about the downgrade. It's more the fact it does absolutely nothing for the story. It's probably the most enraging and frustrating game ever made unironically.

>>9674263
Sega had 0 to do with Shenmue 3.

[Anonymous No.9674410]

The 1st Shenmue is one of the greatest games ever made. Haven't played 2 or 3.

[Anonymous No.9674548]

>>9673826
>>9674180
I share the same sentiment. I guess the difference between movieshit games and Shenmue is that Shenmue still has a large amount of interactivity and uses its unique gameplay style to further this. There is a main storyline that the player is supposed to follow, but if they want, they can go play arcade games all day everyday, spend all of Ryo's allowance on capsule toys, ask every single NPC about each of Ryo's objectives and so on. While the game is "cinematic" it plays into the strengths of that by fleshing out a detailed and highly interactive world instead of simply just 'point A to B' in between 8 hours of cutscenes.

[Anonymous No.9674564]

Overall, which version of Shenmue 2 is better? Dreamcast or Xbox?

[Anonymous No.9675004]

That stealth segment was pretty shit though to be honest.

[Anonymous No.9675023]

Played this game on DC practically 24/7 with my best bro. Shenmue was ONE of the things that got me to move to Japan (not the sole motivation).

[Anonymous No.9675035]

First two are excellent. Three was a huge disappointment, and it sucks that the series will likely never have a proper conclusion.

[Anonymous No.9675058]

Shenmue 2 is the better game.
Shenmue 1 is the better experience.

[Anonymous No.9675060]

>>9673826
Its the reason why I hate Sony movie-shit and not good JRPG's, visual novels or shit like Shenmue. All those things completely commit to the pacing and gameplay they want the player to experience. I don't play a VN thinking "wtf when is the action gonna start???" and nor do I play Persona 4 while thinking "Fuck! When will this shit be over? I just wanna do dungeons/do social links"

You know exactly what you're signing up for when you start playing, and to expect something else is silly.

But with these Sony movie games, there is no core gameplay. It's a completely schizophrenic mess of an experience which is trying to be everything at once and as a result fails to be good at much of anything. Having to babysit your character as you slowly plod through a walky-talky on rails segment is MUCH more frustrating than watching a cutscene or reading text boxes because they dangle that illusion of player interactivity in front of you while also completely restricting your moveset, which is what makes controlling your character enjoyable. They're just slop, I hate that shit so much after Uncharted 4.

Matthewmatosis has a very interesting point on their popularity. The kinds of people who enjoy nu-God of War or The Last of Us are "mechanical introverts" meaning they just sort of slog through the actual combat and gameplay sequences then feel relieved when its time for cutscenes and slow walking. Meanwhile, on places like /vr/, you're more likely to find "mechanical extroverts" who place a lot more value on being able to fully control your character at all times and find cutscenes to be a break for the gameplay, not the other way around.

[Anonymous No.9675065]

>>9673826
That's what being a brand loyalist looks like. Admitting you're a hypocrite just makes it worse.

[Anonymous No.9675068]

>>9675065
What a stupid non-pinion.

[Anonymous No.9675071]

>>9675068
Sure kid. It's even more absurd coming from Sega considering they were the only of the big 4 whose arcade mentality in game designed was their core and stuck until the DC era. It doesn't matter that Shenmue goes against all of that, as long as it has that Sega sticker on it right? Suck my dick.

[Anonymous No.9675072]

>>9675071
>instantly starts seething and shitting himself
Didn't read. Man, what a sad little goblin you are. You can't even have fun when talking about video games, lol

[Anonymous No.9675074]

>>9675072
I win, you lose.

[Anonymous No.9675075]

>>9675074
Not him but you seem like a tremendous faggot, you lose.

[Anonymous No.9675078]

>>9675075
>not him but
Didn't read.

[Anonymous No.9675108]

>>9673812
The first game was kinda magical, for some reason I don't see in any Japanese game willingness to catch the feeling of the Japanese 80s even as some nostalgic myth but Shenmue did it very well. I guess GTA3 close the door for such cozy and naive games.

[Anonymous No.9675109]

>>9673812
It's a minigame collection with a bad story and voice acting.

[Anonymous No.9675110]

>>9674345
>Not much he can do about it. The budget was smaller, he had to use crowd funding

More than that
>gets funding from fans, Sony, DeepSilver
>still didn't make the milestones

>be glad the series got finished at all.
Should we tell him?

[Anonymous No.9675126]

>>9674190
Yakuza is inferior to Shenmue, it's just a TV show missions + minigames. It doesn't work thug simulator. Yes, Shenmue has minigames and random fights on a small map too but they are absolutely different in concept.

[Anonymous No.9675136]

>>9674190
>Proto Yakuza, I thank it for that.
>Also Ryo had the chance for so much pussy and denied all of it, that made me upset.
Kiryu must've taken another page out of Ryo's book for that

[Anonymous No.9675148]

>>9675078
Faggot

not the other two anons btw

[Anonymous No.9675162]

>>9673812
I tried to play the game but I don't really get it. You just walk around and talk to people. It's like the opening of a particularly slow RPG that never ends.

[Anonymous No.9675173]

>>9675162
My first experience with this game was "So when does the game start?" until I realized... this *is* the game. Jumping back into the game after knowing what it is-- it's kind of just a relaxing game to zone out and explore and get to know the world. I like it.

[Anonymous No.9675178]

>>9675060
>The kinds of people who enjoy nu-God of War or The Last of Us are "mechanical introverts" meaning they just sort of slog through the actual combat and gameplay sequences then feel relieved when its time for cutscenes and slow walking.
Honestly, a lot of "classics" like Silent Hill or Metal Gear Solid lean into this group. The difference is their stories are genuinely compelling, and in Metal Gear's case, the gameplay is good enough that you can release it as a stand-alone game and it will still sell (i.e. VR missions). Silent Hill's gameplay is pretty mediocre, but it's been fairly criticized for that, and the games have stellar sound design and environmental spooks, which makes them really enjoyable from moment to moment. I've never been bored in a Silent Hill game. Same with Metal Gear, and Persona, and Shenmue.

New God of War is lame because it's not really trying to be the best at anything. They took the camera angle from God Hand but made a worse combat system -- Alright. What about the story? Well, it's just modeled after Hollywood. At best, it's just going to be a subpar Hollywood movie with a game stapled to it. So by design, there's nothing these games can be the best at. Their gameplay is surpassed by PS2 games from 20 years ago, and their stories, writing, music, and characters are surpassed by modern Hollywood. So what's the damn point?

[Anonymous No.9675210]

The slice-of-life aspect reminded me of French filmmaking and its surprising that French developers haven't done something similar to Shenmue in the nearly twenty-five years since the game released. Even in spite of Shenmue's obvious limitations and flaws (pretty elaborate combat system for a game with very little fighting, and QTEs were pointless in retrospect) it's still disappointing that titles like Metroid Prime receive more acclaim.

[Anonymous No.9675216]

>>9673812
I'm quite nostalgic for the first game but it was incredibly slow. I remember grinding up my moves in the park for hours. I liked playing the arcade games too and buying the little toys from the quarter machines

[Anonymous No.9675319]

>>9674345
Could have tried to get some actual developers to help him instead of random Indians

[Anonymous No.9675325]

>>9673812
I liked the first one when it came out cos it was so unique at the time.
Dropped the 2nd game after 3 hours.

[Anonymous No.9675372]

>>9674180
>It's a lot more than the sum of its parts, and I think it's a great game.

What I see in what you've said is that there is a level of granular detail in the player process of interacting with the game world that sets Shenmue apart from modern open-world games.

A modern game might present the player with a streamlined set of missions with obvious markers nested inside a visually realistic environment. There can be very convincing environments. You might even be able to do some world-building side game like a drinking competition at a saloon, let's say. But often with modern games the world building stuff is atomised and limited in its enmeshment as a whole - not unimpressive by any stretch, but there's something about Shenmue!

Shenmue kindles fascination in the player as arbitrary interactions with the gameworld layer up subtly with narrative meaning. It's cool that you can buy gacha toys, for instance, and that's indeed a bit of a talking point when it comes to the game itself (you can buy toys in this game?!) - but then, you can go into the corner shop right there. You can cash in points for purchases which might net you a better gacha toy, so in that way there's a continuity of game systems. But on top of this you have to deal with the old lady working in there to get the toys - naturally you get a sense of her relationship to the kids outside who are all about the gacha after school, and she might have details pertaining to Ryo's interests.

The game isn't just filled up with realistic activities, it's *built* up of them and they are inter-dependent. Shenmue's map is not anywhere near as sprawling as a modern open world, and so - sans the need to fill a large world with a baseline of engaging content - the developers had more attention to pay to a small world of high detail. There's a more artisan feel to the way characters, narrative loops, mechanics and player actions play out

[Anonymous No.9675379]

>>9675372
I think this is especially true of Dobuita, and I think that street is the soul of Shenmue right there. That main street is like, the promise of the future of gaming as it appeared at the turn of the century.

Also that first track that plays when you leave your property for the first time and it's all cold and misty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMMQEXzKcb4
unbelieveably moody. esoteric feels like - what the hell seriosuly

[Anonymous No.9675381]

>>9673812
Shenmue 1 is a genuine masterpiece

[Anonymous No.9675384]

>>9675372
Have you considered writing about games professionally?

[Anonymous No.9675468]

>>9674564
Obviously the Xbox port is alot sharper than the dreamcast,, but its mostly depends on personal preference to be honest.

https://youtu.be/7HNOSQqoUcg?t=892

[Anonymous No.9675475]

>>9675384
that's nice of you to suggest - i hadn't thought about it really. could be fun to try make a youtube video

[Anonymous No.9676629]

>>9675475
Not that anon, but I also think you could make good analysis videos.

[Anonymous No.9676662]

>>9674270
>It's weird so much effort went into easily missable content.
I feel this way too! In Shenmue II for example there's a whole electronics shop district that I never really bothered checking out until my most recent playthrough. There's seemingly no plot requirement to ever go there, but damn it's impressive how many characters and shops are there and how detailed they all are.
I kind of like that they reward exploration for the sake of it, but there's also not much to do there.
Perhaps a better example is the 'Rooftop Fight' where you can find the arm wrestling club on the roofs of the docks. I think that also has zero plot progression but it's a cool place and has the toughest (nearly impossible IMO) arm wrestling battles.

[Anonymous No.9676670]

>>9674564
thats a shitty emulator you got there, dc on vga mogs the shit out of the xbox version

[Anonymous No.9676676]

I'm deciding whether I should pick back up my save file from a few years ago and review the journal, or if I should start a new save. I've gotten halfway through the game two or three times. One time was because I got the game used and when I got to the second disc it was too scratched to read so I had to wait and get it resurfaced which derailed my playthrough. The other times were because I got sidetracked. The main reason I'm hesitating to restart is because I won the boombox in the corner store drawing on my last playthrough.

[Anonymous No.9676678]

>>9676670
Shut the fuck up

[Anonymous No.9676681]

>>9676670
I took this screenshot from a thread on the "Shenmue Dojo" fansite forums. Do you know of a better comparison?

[Anonymous No.9676773]

>>9674283
I kind of agree, Shenmue now is pretty well known and recognised (infamous maybe), but I do recall when it was coming out nobody knew what the fuck it was or what it was about.
I like the idea of having Shenmue as the subtitle for something else.

[Anonymous No.9676783]

>>9676678
I won't niger

[Anonymous No.9676785]

>>9674564
I don't know why but that air-conditioning unit on the awning just stuck out to me. Like, such a small detail they didn't need to include, but they did.

[Anonymous No.9676792]

>>9675060
>The kinds of people who enjoy nu-God of War or The Last of Us are "mechanical introverts" meaning they just sort of slog through the actual combat and gameplay sequences then feel relieved when its time for cutscenes and slow walking.
I know at least one friend who played the nu-GoW and actually got pretty deep into character building and min-maxing a loadout etc. But he's an old school Diablo-head so I think he finds that opportunity wherever possible.
Having said that, I do think a lot of people who enjoy those kinds of games are more won over by the production value than anything else. Like my friend who barely plays games coming over with a copy of The Last of Us and telling me how it's the best game ever made. We still had fun playing through it together, but I found it to be a pretty standard third person shooter, just with really polished acting/graphics.

[Anonymous No.9676805]

>>9675108
It's true, Shenmue 1 and even 2 have that ability to create 'false' nostalgia? I'm not sure if there's a term for it, but it makes you feel very at home, or long for a place that you've never been to.
It might just be that many of us grew up in the early late 80s/early 90s so playing a game that was full of rotary phones, no computers, arcade machines and the like made us remember our childhood. Even things like calling a phone number to get the weather forecast, it's such a small detail but triggers something in my memories.
I wonder if that was a conscious choice? Like if someone today were to make a game set in the late 90s/early 2000s would it have the same effect on the younger generation.

[Anonymous No.9676806]

Trash knowing it's being outsourced

[Anonymous No.9676807]

>>9675162
Kind of like what >>9675173 said, a lot of the game IS just walking around, exploring, talking to people etc. I've always said it's almost similar to a point and click adventure like Monkey Island or something.
There is the addition of some really cool combat and of course the mini-games, but you'll spend a lot of the time exploring and following leads and clues to progress the plot.

[Anonymous No.9676808]

>>9675178
>Silent Hill's gameplay is pretty mediocre, but it's been fairly criticized for that, and the games have stellar sound design and environmental spooks, which makes them really enjoyable from moment to moment.
The combat in Silent Hill never felt special, but I thought the puzzle design was pretty good, which also makes up the gameplay.

[Anonymous No.9676834]

>>9676676
Hmm, that's tough. Honestly the boombox isn't that big a deal, so I'd probably say start a new game? If you really feel like it you can then go back and finish the original playthrough later.
If the story/events are fresh enough in your memory though, no harm in just continuing and reviewing the journal.

[Anonymous No.9676836]

>>9674270
Bully is the best game Rockstar has ever made. It's the only one of their games I find myself coming back to. It's a shame they didn't make a sequel back in the day. There have been more rumors over the past few years, but it's too late now. If we got it nowadays, it would be an online-focused microtransaction fest and the story would be about a black trans "lesbian" wo(man) rising up against the school staff for being misgendered.

[Anonymous No.9676842]

>>9676834
Thank you for the advice, anon. I find the game relaxing so I might just start from the beginning again. Maybe I will check out the journal from my last save file and if I dont remember the context of enough of the notes, I'll start a new file.

[Anonymous No.9676960]

>>9673812
Love Shenmue 1 to death, brilliant game. It was a system seller for me at the time I hold the sequel in the same regard.

Shenmue 3 is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF_Ca45JRFs

[Anonymous No.9677116]

>>9676960
I kind of agree that Shenmue III sucks, but it's such a weird mish mash of some things we loved about the original and then a bunch of modern gaming stuff forced in.
Like why does Ryu have a stamina bar now? I hate that you need to wolf down garlic just to not die. Not to mention the stupid energy drink you can take to regain health during a fight. Very immersion breaking and doesn't feel like Shenmue at all. Some decisions like those just really felt like they were saying 'Uhh, other games do this, we should do it too'.
By comparison there's also stuff that's a result of having no budget, like the combat is ATROCIOUS, it's honestly the worst combat I've seen in a modern video game. I loved S1 and 2's combat by comparison. I honestly would have been happier if they just made it turn based or something at this point.
The thing that really annoys me though, is zoomers saying 'Shenmue III was bad because it was too close to the old school mentality', when in reality all the shit that sucks in Shenmue III is the NEW stuff. Had they actually stuck to making it old school it would have been much better.
And of course yeah, the story goes nowhere.
Finally, did anyone else get a chuckle at Lan Di's 'Elite Guard' clearly being made up of white video game nerds, since they were the ones who backed the kickstarter the hardest?

[Anonymous No.9677121]

>>9677116
And this fella too. So out of place.

Regardless, some NICE things to say about Shenmue III;
The music was still cool.
SOME locations felt nice, although the second town feels like a theme parkand I didn't like it. The first area was okay.
I actually liked some of the exploration and talking to people bits. I didn't like the sidequests at all though, another part that felt like 'Uhhh let's just copy other games?'

[Anonymous No.9677147]

>>9677121
>Lan-Di's "elite guard" is a bunch of soijaks
Fucking kek

[Anonymous No.9677194]

>>9676842
new file is the way to go I think. It's not that long of a game, and it's a delicacy

[Anonymous No.9677346]

>>9674115
They should've market it as a game not a movie. They kept showing cutscenes, showed QTE events so much that people were actually surprised to find out that Shenmue has actual non-QTE fighting in it.

[Anonymous No.9677764]

>>9675372
Good insight here. Japan refers to the series as "Miniature Garden" games. Small world of high detail is very apt, in that it's built around functional mechanics with intent.
Instead of merely fulfilling a rough sandbox - everything serves a purpose.

[Anonymous No.9677784]

>>9673812
really impressive game especially for its time
blew my mind in '99
got it somewhere between christmas and newyears

[Anonymous No.9677791]

>>9674564
>Soul vs Soulless
>>9675058
Sums it up well. Same goes for Metroid Prime 1 and 2.

[Anonymous No.9677804]

Started a new file and got two winning cans already. This is a good save.

[Anonymous No.9677835]

>>9676805
>Even things like calling a phone number to get the weather forecast, it's such a small detail but triggers something in my memories
It's normal to feel attached to the world you grew up in the most. Until the last 200 years, nothing really changed between generations. The idea our entire lives will totally change every 10 years is crazy, nostalgia is the voice of reason in a world gone insane.

[Anonymous No.9677864]

>>9677835
>nostalgia is the voice of reason in a world gone insane.
Very profound.
nta but the world becomes increasingly more unrecognizable to me each year. I feel like a bitter old man even though I'm not old enough to be one. Games like Shenmue are great because it let's me become immersed in a simpler time.

[Anonymous No.9677890]

>>9677835
I feel like the world was completely different 15 years ago. Moloch really stop holding back since then.

[Anonymous No.9678371]

>>9677764
Modern open-world games are like making a soup out of shop-bought beef stock and tinned beans, but to make shenmue soup you have to make your own stock from scratch and soak some legumes yourself. That's why I've always called Shenmue a miniature soup game.

Actually really though, that's part of the reason older games have soul - is that every element present in an older game is a problem solved in the unique way that a developer and its staff may go about it, with the fingerprints that come with it. So many modern games would use unreal engine or whatever and have lighting solutions ready to go (store-bought beef stock) and it kills the opportunity to birth originality, eben though I can understand why it's used

[Anonymous No.9679210]

>>9673812
are xbone ports ok?

[Anonymous No.9679284]

>shenmue
>biggest and best game on the dreamcast
>nobody gives a single fuck shenmue on the xbox and ps

[Anonymous No.9679312]

>>9679284
Shenmue II was released on Xbox.

[Anonymous No.9679325]

>>9679284
really makes u think...

[Anonymous No.9679692]

>>9679284
Tbqhwy people hardly gave a fuck about it on the Dreamcast as well. Did it even break the top 10 best selling games on the system?

[Anonymous No.9679942]

>>9674564
Dreamcast since the Xbox version has that horrendous bloom that can't be disabled, and you can use your Shenmue I save when starting a new game on the Dreamcast's Shenmue II. Xbox version also has some censorship here and there, like Yuan being a woman instead of a cross-dressing male. One other weird thing is that some assets got botched during the port to the Xbox. Xiuying (pic related) has no teeth in the Xbox version.

[Anonymous No.9679975]

I want to like it, but idk, after the first few hours I always feel less than engaged. It's just been that way since I first bought it. Maybe if I just see the game as a life simulator rather than a game I could better enjoy myself. Like seaman but with ryo. Everything is really nice in the game so it's gotta be a me problem.

[Anonymous No.9680020]

>>9675319
>Could have tried to get some actual developers to help him instead of random Indians
Not enough money for that. It only met some of the stretch goals. Not all of them.

[Anonymous No.9680067]

>>9673826
shenmue has an amount of interactivity/attention to detail most of these modern AAA movie games wish they had half of. shenmue is a game telling a story; movie games are movies have stories dragging the game

[Anonymous No.9680379]

>>9679942
Damn. I only have the Xbox version, so I might end up playing it that anyways. The Eurofag version is too expensive now and I obviously can't carry over my Dreamcast save of 1 to the HD version either. I guess I'll just play through the Xbox version and then next time I do a playthrough do it through 1&2 HD.

[Anonymous No.9680386]

>>9679942
>Xbox version also has some censorship here and there, like Yuan being a woman instead of a cross-dressing male
How times have changed

[Anonymous No.9680396]

>>9679942
>Xbox version also has some censorship here and there, like Yuan being a woman instead of a cross-dressing male.

That's not censorship. Thats Xbox fixing a stupid story element. Being a cross dresser adds absolutely nothing to the story. It's only there for jap fetish bait.

It's the same meme of:
>Japanese draw an obvious girl
>call it man

Yeah. No. We don't need that.

[Anonymous No.9680407]

>>9680396
>It's only there for jap fetish bait
Sounds like an integral part of the Japanese video gaming experience then

[Anonymous No.9680410]

>>9680396
It is censorship. That character was intentionally created as a cross-dressing male & thank God that Shenmue The Animation fixed this & kept the character as a cross-dressing male.

[Anonymous No.9680489]

>>9680396
Just because it's gay doesn't mean it isn't censorship. It's changing the original intent of the creators which always bad.

[Anonymous No.9680585]

>>9673812
I fucking adore Shenmue and when I was a kid thought its level of interactivity would be the future of video games.

[Anonymous No.9680601]

>>9680067
Shenmue isn't a game, it's an interaction simulator. Movie games have more game than Shenmue.

[Anonymous No.9681142]

>The critic Jim Sterling wrote that "Shenmue is dreadful [...] Maybe at the turn of the millennium when this game was worth a shit it could get away with being bold, but boldness is no excuse for wasting the player's time, having absolutely no respect for the audience or its patience, and generally expecting people to make their own fun in a game that doesn't really give all that many tools to have fun with."

Based Shenmue filtering fags to this day

[Anonymous No.9681329]

>>9680601
A game is an interactive experience. Movie games are so surface level that they basically play themselves. Shenmue on the other hand is very interactive.

[Anonymous No.9681381]

>>9681329
Picking up objects and look around it is interactive, but it's not a game.

[Anonymous No.9682026]

>>9681142
is (s)he right?

[Anonymous No.9682036]

>>9681381
What about picking up objects and looking around while looking for a cat. That's a game

[Anonymous No.9682828]

>>9677804
Absolutely based.
I thought it was cute that Shenhua appears on things like cans in the game, even though it makes zero sense.

[Anonymous No.9682871]

>>9674115
December 1999 in Japan, it came out in 2000 in the US which means it still needed to be translated, unless they rushed it or kept it on Japanese for immersion and had it translated like they did Shenmue 2.

Although, it's a shame Shenmue only got one Christmas on the market.

[Anonymous No.9682903]

My zoomer girlfriend got bored of it, asked to play stuff on Saturn instead.

[Anonymous No.9682935]

>>9682903
>t. things that never happened

[Anonymous No.9682936]

>>9676662
>There's seemingly no plot requirement to ever go there, but damn it's impressive how many characters and shops are there and how detailed they all are.

You should see this video and how there's just 20+ minutes of dialogue for a section of the game you'll probably only see one or two of these people in, if that. So impressive that all of these NPC's have lines for her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl5c0ws7j20

[Anonymous No.9682967]

>>9675379
>hearing FREE 15 (https://youtu.be/rkXzpu2lq9g)) while walking around Yamanose on a rainy day.

[Anonymous No.9682995]

>>9673812
I gotta replay it. Felt like I rushed through alot of it. It's such a cool game but it's so... unique in how you can just miss a ton of small moments if you don't explore

[Anonymous No.9683125]

>>9679692
I think it sold pretty well for a DC game. It apparently sold about 1.2M units on the console.

[Anonymous No.9683530]

>gets cucked

[Anonymous No.9683535]

>>9682995
I still run into new stuff in each play through and I've had the game since it came out.

[Anonymous No.9683580]

>>9682936
>You should see this video and how there's just 20+ minutes of dialogue for a section of the game you'll probably only see one or two of these people in, if that. So impressive that all of these NPC's have lines for her.
It's interesting and still impressive in terms of building up the environment, but the lines don't build mystery or suspense around the character of Xuying. The NPCs won't elaborate on any rumours for example, but they'll mention that she assisted with a man's back pain or helped a child, etc. You can't even really choose subjects for discussion so the player is less interested with every redundant conversation. Still, this was achieved on a very compact form of media.

[Anonymous No.9683843]

Are we ever going to see a conclusion to this series or is Yu Suzuki not going to be able to scam Deep Silver and Sony out of enough money again?

[Anonymous No.9683856]

>>9683843
I'm surprised anybody gave him money after 2, let alone 3. Shenmue is a poisoned IP now.

[Anonymous No.9683872]

>>9683856
I really hope he was just sticking to "his vision". He's lucky he got another chance at a game, and he should have realized he needed to conclude it here.

[Anonymous No.9683890]

>>9682828
You know, Shenhua is a pretty strange character in general. She appears on everything Shenmue as much as Ryo does, yet she doesn't debut until towards the end of the second game? Pretty unique, honestly.

[Anonymous No.9683896]

>>9682026
Excuse me sweaty. The correct pronoun is "gendertrash". Maybe next time you should consult the Twitter profile before speaking of a brave and stunning individual, m'kay chud?

[Anonymous No.9683923]

>>9683872
It seems like he's out of touch though, sad to say. That vision is something that would have found purchase on systems in the mid 2000s, but - I mean the guy says he doesn't even play videogames. If he's not inhabited familiarity of the rhythm of technological progress by way of games development, then that creative spark which produced the OG games isn't going to connect with the state of things. I mean Shenmue made in Unreal engine... You may as well take the dog out back...

That trinkety interconnectedness of the first game... Yu Suzuki was on the bleeding edge of games development where the technology was just barely providing fertile ground to scrape a convincing "miniature garden" type of world together. It's in the soul of the little low poly models of microwaves and swing-sets and the like. Shenmue 1 was the most expensive game made at the time, right? Or - I think I read somewhere it was actually the combined budget for 1 & 2, nevertheless he was casting a stone into the future. He was on that triple A, generation-defining kind of juju.

It's like how Brian Wilson canned the Smile album, because he was getting too much pushback from his bandmates (among mental illness and such). But there were attempts to repurpose the material later on, and it just doesn't have the same magic.

The Dobuita street always hints at the sensation of the full scope of Ryo's journey when I give it enough time to replay Shenmue again. The scope of Shenmue's plot, and fans' hopes for it really coincided with the horizon of turn-of-the-millennium technological improvement. Had the budget been there to keep the story going within a reasonable time-frame, Shenmue could have lived. But that Dobuita street, man. It's like a vibe capsule. It always feels like the whole thing, all the sequels that never were, are somehow - like, I feel the potential for them when I'm playing. That's part of the magic, I think, and shows how much care went into the first title.

[Anonymous No.9684109]

>>9683923
>It seems like he's out of touch though, sad to say.
He must be have brain tumor to don't see this was once in a lifetime opportunity to end the saga, but no, let's make a filler chapter :^)

[Anonymous No.9684568]

>>9682936
I remember there being all kinds of hidden events with her and the younger girl, some of them involving just waiting to let a lot of days pass.

[Anonymous No.9684840]

Was Shenmue 1 the most graphically advanced video game on Earth when it released in 1999?

[Anonymous No.9684854]

>>9684840
Twas 4 CDs did the Playstation got a DVD gaem on disk in 99?

[Anonymous No.9685673]

>>9673812
I just want to know how it ends.

[Anonymous No.9685785]

>>9683923
Another problem with Shenmue 3 and onwards is Yu Suzuki's insistence on trying to "modernize" Shenmue. He should've taken the concept of a living breathing world, but taken it a step further using advancements in technology (such as having a lot more memory to work with). Instead, what we're left with is a watered down game that doesn't feel modern OR like Shenmue.

[Anonymous No.9685793]

>>9683872
>>9684109
>>9683923
I actually feel like the biggest mistakes made with Shenmue III were Suzuki trying to compromise in some ways. Things like side-quests with NPCs, the stamina system and costume changes all seem like they were directly inspired by 'What is everyone else doing these days?'.
Suzuki never played video games when making his older titles, but he DID go and research other games before Shenmue III and I think that trying to shoehorn in that stuff instead of just focusing on what he wanted made it suffer (along with the small budget and refusal to lower the scope of the game).
If you played 1, 2 and 3 back to back today for the first time ever, 1 and 2 are still miles better, so I don't think it's a case of Shenmue 3 having an 'old' mindset.

>>9683923
>It always feels like the whole thing, all the sequels that never were, are somehow - like, I feel the potential for them when I'm playing

I know what you mean, it sends shivers down my spine to this day. To think it's over 20 years old and still has more impact than most games that come out today. It's partly intangible, but also just the small things like the unique people on the block, the shops you can walk into, the ability to play games and train in the parking lot. It's so dense, and it hasn't really been matched (and probably never will be, outside of some mad indie game that someone might make one day)

[Anonymous No.9685805]

>>9684854
It was 4 GD ROMs, which were 1GB, so slightly bigger than a CD.

>>9684840
Good question, the Dreamcast was spectacular for the time, having launched in 1998. The only competition in 1999 when Shenmue launched would be the arcades (probably also driven by Sega) and PC, but I can't think of anything on those systems that matched the spectacle of Shenmue.

[Anonymous No.9685807]

>>9685785
One of my friends insists that Suzuki should have just used the same engine from Shenmue 1 and 2 to make 3. I agree in principle that it probably would have been a million times better, but I wonder how much harder it would be to program for/find people who can use it decently, and also if he would even be allowed to use it since it would still be owned by Sega who wasn't involved in S3 beyond allowing Suzuki to use the IP.

[Anonymous No.9685854]

>>9684840
Probably, yeah. Syphon Filter was also pretty impressive

[Anonymous No.9685920]

>>9685807
I've been an advocate for the idea that 3 should've gone for a "Dreamcast aesthetic" as if it was a long lost sequel. The low poly aesthetic in an age that values "soul" wouldve been more appealing than whatever the fuck 3 was. Using the same engine as before probably would've been too much work. It would've been easier to replicate it in a new engine with support for modern platforms.

[Anonymous No.9685931]

>>9685807
It would be such a hipster move but I love the idea. The fact that it wouldn't be some indie game to do this but an actual big title by competent developers is really cool. Like some prominent filmmakers who still choose to make black and white films

[Anonymous No.9686214]

>>9685920
>>9685931
I totally agree it would have been fucking cool to go with the Dreamcast aesthetic. I guess I was just wondering how realistic/possible it would be to rip the existing models and animations, or if Sega would protect that as their IP.

[Anonymous No.9686567]

>>9683923
The issue IMO is that Shenmue only got the spotlight in '99 because it was (at the time) the best looking game/world there was. Sure you had people that loved the immersion and cultivated garden aspect, but they were easily a minority. As soon as game graphics/size outpaced Shenmue (almost immediately), the game's mass appeal was dead.

Nowadays, stupid casuals want game worlds to be massive even if there's nothing to do in them. They're just too dumb to appreciate or understand the game. Even something like Majora's Mask which experimented similarly with missable content had a huge backlash because people were too retarded to get the time system. Sad to say, but the reason Shenmue never took off is because gamers are just too dumb for it.

[Anonymous No.9686687]

>>9686567
There was a great post in a previous thread that summed this up, and I think I agree with it.

[Anonymous No.9687043]

>>9684840
>>9685805
Soul Calibur

[Anonymous No.9687387]

>>9682967
How can one man build a biceps that huge without the rest of the arm?

[Anonymous No.9687445]

>>9686567
Well, there may be truth to that, but Shenmue III didn't even deliver on succeeding the particular niche that the first two games set up, right?

I mean, as far as mass appeal equals more funding for the series, I take your point. There could theoretically have been an independent pathway that Yu Suzuki could have taken with the series if we're talking about the 2000s. I mean, he's Yu Suzuki. He could have gone all Kojima Productions on it. If you made Outrun Virtua FIghter and Shenmue, like - idk. He could have played it different.

Anecdotally, I played Shenmue in front of my flatmates and they went, damn, this actually looks pretty in-depth. I think the inter-connected depth of the game reads for people - maybe not the same way it did in 1999. But uh, yea III looks trash. I've not played it but I'm not interested in doing so.

[Anonymous No.9687479]

>>9675210
But... They have. Indigo Prophecy is the only one I can think of that qualifies as vr, but pretty much everything by Quantic Dream is highly cinematic eurojank

[Anonymous No.9687656]

>>9687445
I'm mostly thinking about II's failure to sell rather than III's failure to be good
The whole reason the series died is because II didn't sell, of course
If it lived, we'd have gotten a way better III

[Anonymous No.9687773]

>>9673812
I played both 1 and 2. I have zero interest in 3 for reasons. I liked 1 and 2 a lot. I at least considered them to be great games back then. These days I am not sure though. Maybe I wouldn't like them as much but I doubt it because nostalgia for me often makes me have a positive attachment for anything I ever liked. However I still wouldn't recommend them to anyone who is new wanting to get into the series because I absolutely know they are a product of their time in terms of mechanics and gameplay. This should have never been a series that has like 12 games or whatever. That is dumb. This faggot couldn't even wrap up the series with the third one despite it being so long since the first two games. Who the hell ever knows if it will truly get a conclusion.

Honestly just screw the series. Its cool sure but the creator having the chance to bring it all to a satisfying conclusion has been lost. Kind of makes everything about the series shittier. Its not a strong enough brand to keep going endlessly for many games. It arguably shouldn't have even been a trilogy it probably should have been a simple martial arts story with a revenge plot that concludes by 2 or 3.

[Anonymous No.9688060]

>>9683923
I always wonder where the revenge plot was intended to go. These things usually get nuanced, "don't get consumed by revenge" etc etc., but it feels like Shenmue 1 already expresses that enough. Despite the magnitude of Ryo's feelings when his father is killed, he doesn't get swept up in dramatic events, instead he immediately gets bogged down in minutiae. Life goes on and you can't help getting involved in it. Sorta feels like Shenmue 1 already tells a complete story in itself.

[Anonymous No.9688649]

>>9687043
I was thinking of stuff like Soul Calibur and DoA2, but while they had better character models they were also much smaller in scope. I think the fact that Shenmue had such a big world and detail put it over the edge for me and most people.

[Anonymous No.9688670]

>>9687479
They're cinematic in that they have lots of dialogue and cutscenes, but do they have the same atmosphere and incidental little things you can do that reflect the day to day life?
Genuine question, I've not played them.

[Anonymous No.9688687]

>>9688060
I figured it was going to pivot into more mystery and supernatural leanings. We start to see that Iwao had a life that Ryo never knew about (the secret room under the dojo, his link to other martial artists) and then the building up that this is more than just a revenge tale since we learn of prophecies around the mirror and start to see supernatural elements come into play by Shenmue 2. (I still think that the old man doing tai chi is meant to be the first inkling of supernatural martial arts, the way he touches the tree softly and causes it to violently shake).

[Anonymous No.9688735]

>>9688670
Yes, but theyre more segmented. Not VR, but Heavy Rain has you just walking through the mall with your kids for like 20 minutes until one gets kidnapped
Though none of their games are open world in the way Shenmue is

[Anonymous No.9689779]

>>9674263
Sounds like you didn't play it. There are lots of Sega things, both direct and indirect in the game. There's a Sega Saturn in the temple. There's a miniature Hang On machine in Chaos room. Chobuchan Fighter contains levels and character names and costumes from VF. Afterburner music plays when you excel at chopping wood.