That's the one I meant, thanks!
Don't think I could get tired of this.
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Shenmue I & II HD |OT| Like a polished mirror
- Thread starter IrishNinja
- Start date
Don't think I could get tired of this.
Tips:
I've never personally had much trouble with the street fighting questline bosses, but making good use of the dodge/parry button (Y or Triangle on PS controllers) will make things easier to get behind them/away from them for a counter attack. Spamming it will move you out of the way (make sure you don't accidentally ring-out yourself though), but a more precisely timed use of it will deflect the attack and leave them open.
Elbow Assault ( -> -> X, or Square) is what I'd recommend if you're not very good at other combos. This move can be bashed out quick and it's actually one of the stronger ones in the game. Most Shenmue II speedruns rely on dodging and using this move to chip down health heavily and quickly. Again, don't spam it. You'll be susceptible to counters yourself.
A more advanced technique would be using the Counter Elbow Assault that Xiuying taught you, but it's very much based on timing and predicting the enemy's moves. I personally like to follow up with the Double Storm Kick (it's a move you can buy, not sure if it's available in Kowloon or just Hong Kong though) for extra damage and the knockback effect. I've managed to ring out all the street fight bosses using this technique if they're near enough to the edge.
Really though, when you know the combat well enough, you can absolutely punk these bosses.
Elbow Assault ( -> -> X, or Square) is what I'd recommend if you're not very good at other combos. This move can be bashed out quick and it's actually one of the stronger ones in the game. Most Shenmue II speedruns rely on dodging and using this move to chip down health heavily and quickly. Again, don't spam it. You'll be susceptible to counters yourself.
A more advanced technique would be using the Counter Elbow Assault that Xiuying taught you, but it's very much based on timing and predicting the enemy's moves. I personally like to follow up with the Double Storm Kick (it's a move you can buy, not sure if it's available in Kowloon or just Hong Kong though) for extra damage and the knockback effect. I've managed to ring out all the street fight bosses using this technique if they're near enough to the edge.
Really though, when you know the combat well enough, you can absolutely punk these bosses.
I finally beat him after like 15 tries... the two next were ease as hell too.
Now I'm in
guilin and damn is it long. Bur finally we see what those dreams in Shenmue 1 were about.
Questions!
If you're done with your forklift work and there are no crates left can you actually do anything else but to drive around and look busy until your shift is over?
And what exactly does Goro do? I thought he was just some punk but he got you that job and everything, so what exactly is his job at the harbor? All I see him do is walk around aimlessly.
If you're done with your forklift work and there are no crates left can you actually do anything else but to drive around and look busy until your shift is over?
And what exactly does Goro do? I thought he was just some punk but he got you that job and everything, so what exactly is his job at the harbor? All I see him do is walk around aimlessly.
Can't speak for anybody else, but it's been a gauntlet of emotions for me since release whenever I've played Shenmue II over the years.
2001 - 2003: "That's cool as shit, I want to see more"
2004 - 2008: "This is depressing as hell knowing we'll never get another Shenmue"
2009 - pre-E3 2015: "Y'know, it's still kind of bittersweet, but this is a beautiful and mysterious ending and I wouldn't have it any other way"
Post-E3 2015 - now: "The Story Goes On..."
A.) You can open your inventory. Could listen to some tapes if you've bought any, marvel at your capsule toy collection, refresh yourself on plot points with your notebook, or just find a nice spot to people watch. The short answer is: not really? There aren't many instances you can complete the full amount of crates anyway.
B.) Goro is connected (i.e, to other people who are actually useful), but he's basically a delinquent. By the end of the game you get a better idea of what he's about, but he's not hugely fleshed out by any stretch. One of the more colourful NPCs to talk to, though. Harbour hoodlum tryin' to do right.
Goro (like Tom) is an NPC I love solely due to their walk/dance animation. Dude cracks me up when I'm driving round the harbour and just seeing him do his little dance as he does his patrol round the place. I love his theme tune as well.
I finally finished Shenmue 2 since starting it back in March 2002 via my DC PAL version. It only took me some 16 years but it was still worth It.
I'll just say that I'm glad that there is another one coming after how this ended.
I'll just say that I'm glad that there is another one coming after how this ended.
I never thought they should've ended Shenmue II differently -- it's actually a great cliffhanger...that was undermined by Shenmue III never materialising (until now, 18 years later).
By this time I'd accepted the fact we'd probably never see Shenmue III, but I wasn't one of those fans who'd resigned themselves to being happy with a comic book summary, or Suzuki "releasing the script" or whatever. That somehow seemed even more depressing to me than receiving nothing at all because it would've meant Yu and the fans had given up. After all, Shenmue is special because it's a game. The conclusion to the story is only a small part of why I've wanted Shenmue III, IV etc. for so many years.
After like the 10 year mark I was definitely one of those fans where I would've been happy if Yu Suzuki would have finished the story in a novel. But I'm obviously estatic that Shenmue III gets to be experienced how it should be, despite how flawed the game might turn out.
I'm just hoping it maintains that level of specialness and charm the first two games have.
Yes the games are even better than the originals in my opinion just due to the amazing load times.
Oh, I agree. At no point did I wish it didn't end that way, but man, during the really dark times for the series it was hard to look at it with the same eyes. It went from beautiful and mysterious, to just depressing. Luckily, Shenmue II's ending will never have that connotation ever again.
If anything it'll become a symbol of the series' rebirth as the first cutscene of Shenmue III. This screen alone has to evoke all kinds of emotions in Shenmue fans:
Shenmue II ending spoilers
Further than...?
If you mean launch, then yes. Significantly patched, and most of the remaining bugs are just minor cosmetic hiccups.
Trust me, I get it. Those were some dark times.
I don't think we have any reason to believe Shenmue III will be a lesser game now. With Deep Silver's backing and the Kickstarter money, they've probably ended up with a bigger budget (and more time) than their highest estimates before this all began.
With Shenmue III they have the distinct advantage of not having to invent an entire genre, or be on the cutting-edge of technology.
Exactly. More can be done with less now. What also helps is Yu being fully aware the game cannot be created in the same way as the originals. Caution and self-awareness of that fact has helped steer the ship; you can see it even in how the stretch goals were originally structured during the Kickstarter.
Not that this has made development easy. Shenmue III's burden is reinventing itself, which is not a small task. It has to balance being appealing to old fans and newcomers alike, as well as being economically conscious of a modest budget and team.
Once that first combat screenshot was released:
- I felt confident on some level they had pulled it off.
Looking at this as an old school fan, it looked really similar to how I'd imagined modern Shenmue combat to look like (even the WIP UI is on-point), but at the same time when you dig into the details there are changes like a proper lock-on system, the move name coming up on-screen, and possibly a buff/revival item in the lower left hand corner. That's even apart from what we know about the control changes allowing Ryo a proper 360 degree arc to attack in.
It hasn't lost its essence, but practical updates and improvements that make sense have been worked into the formula. As long as the hardcore aren't super militant over resisting ANY changes, then things should be okay.
Oh I'm not claiming Shenmue III will be a lesser game, but I feel there are a lot of obstacles getting in the way for Shenmue III to release without any hitches. Yu Suzuki hasnt made a game at this calibur...well since Shenmue II.
Budget may have exceeded what was intitally possible, but it may still not be enough to fully realize what Shenmue set out to do. Shenmue level of immersion is on a whole another level compared to like a 2D indie game.
I'm just being a little realistic, and setting my expectations in check. That being said I will probably love Shenmue III even if it has a bunch of flaws. But that recent combat image does give me more hope that it's going to turn out pretty good.
There will always be fans who won't accept anything other than the most faithful sequel...and they're already setting themselves up for disappointment because we know the combat's going to be different already.
If the Shenmue I & II re-release has taught me anything it's that some hardcore fans will spread undue negativity like the plague if they don't get exactly what they want. Many of those fans seem to worship Yu Suzuki like a god, so it'll be interesting to see how they cope if they don't like aspects of Shenmue III for whatever reason.
The funny thing is from some of the interviews Suzuki has given, it sounds like Shenmue III is truer to his vision than the first two games.
I have faith in the community at large to... maybe act more sensibly when Shenmue III comes. I think to some of them, Shenmue I & II were disposable because they felt only the true sequel could genuinely make the case for Shenmue IV and beyond. I don't agree with that, but I could see how they'd reach that conclusion. Maybe the strength of the vitriol was partly down to continued bad blood over how SEGA treated the IP until fairly recently too.
In any case, the plates Shenmue III has to spin are all about feeling enough like the old games, while still providing refinements and additional depth. You can't please everybody, but hopefully they've found a balance that will please enough to make the militant hardcore the tiny minority of dissenting voices.
That's a little bit of a stretch, personally.
We're definitely getting into the territory where we see the parts of China that inspired Yu to create the series, but mechanically the only changes that you could say are closer to his true vision would be taking the combat away from the Virtua Fighter roots. When you dig into the earliest days of the creation of Shenmue, Yu said the VF combat was really only there as something familiar for the developers to latch onto, as opposed to creating a game made entirely of unknowns and firsts. It was a practical concession, rather than artistic intent.
The situation is now reversed for Shenmue III, and honestly? You can't fault the logic that if you want fighting game inputs, you should play a fighting game instead of a narrative-driven story game.
Now people panicked that this meant dumbed down combat - but when you really listen to what Yu has said, like wanting to have tactics like divide and conquer and using the environment to your advantage, it still sounds skillful but takes the burden off being able to bust out a combo from memory, and places it on using your judgement.
I never experienced much of that myself but wow, that is an extremely short-sighted view to take. The availability of Shenmue I & II on modern platforms is extremely important to the future of the series. It may not have set the sales charts on fire, but as the release of Shenmue III approaches, having the originals there for people to easily play, at a relatively cheap price, will be vital to expanding the fanbase.
But I agree that the community will likely be more united over Shenmue III.
I did see anger towards SEGA as a whole for their treatment of the IP, but I also saw quite a few SEGA Japan apologists -- fans who couldn't accept that an outside developer was working on the series via SEGA Europe, despite SEGA Japan having zero interest in the series.
I finished the second game two days ago, got lucky with RNG money so never had to cheat with my saves! Wanted to let the games sink in a bit before writing someting.
I am now a HUGE Shenmue fan and consider them some of the best games I have ever played. They are flawed but to me that's part of the charm. There are some stuff I would have liked to see made in a different way, mainly how money and jobs are handled in both games (I want a mix of 1 and 2). I am very impressed with how both games really succeeds in atmosphere, the attention to details in everything and how godly the OST is. I could go on and on about these games and everything I enjoyed about them but it has most probably already been said. Think I am just going to start over with one again instead, time to 100% these.
I am now a HUGE Shenmue fan and consider them some of the best games I have ever played. They are flawed but to me that's part of the charm. There are some stuff I would have liked to see made in a different way, mainly how money and jobs are handled in both games (I want a mix of 1 and 2). I am very impressed with how both games really succeeds in atmosphere, the attention to details in everything and how godly the OST is. I could go on and on about these games and everything I enjoyed about them but it has most probably already been said. Think I am just going to start over with one again instead, time to 100% these.
True. I would not be interested in 3 at all without the HD release. The story and experience is too important and playing 1 and 2 before 3 is, if you ask me, vital to the experience (saying this without having played 3 obv so what do I really know). I feel bad for not backing the kickstarter but I honestly thought it was something I could still do but I have zero experience with these things.
I'm of that opinion myself. I do feel like the way YS has been talking, Shenmue III is definitely closer to Yu Suzuki's vision even more. In past interviews, he's stated that "The part of the story that means the most to him" is in the third game. Also, he has consistently referred to the character of Shenhua as a "representation of his life's work". I have no idea what that exactly means, but I'm sure we'll find out in August.
Also to add to that point, Masaya Matsukaze has said in an interview a while back during the recording of Shenmue III that he was blown away at the grand vision of where this series going to go. Then you add what Corey Marshall recently said about the depth of Ryo's character being explored in III.
With that said, not only am I optimistic that Shenmue III will meet my expectations personally, I think it will surpass them in ways I didn't expect it to.
Finished Shenmue II a few days ago. The first game has all the nostalgia, but the second really is the better game, if only because of the quality of life features. Although things...actually happening in the plot really helps. I've not played it since it was originally released on the Dreamcast. The boss fights were easy (thanks, dodge button) but the QTEs were the real struggle. The last one for Dou Nui failing for some reason despite pressing the buttons in order and having to do the entire fight again wasn't nice. I also actually quite enjoyed the Guilin section, but I can see it being tedious in repeat playthroughs.
How fixed are the ports to the originals nowadays? I've not seen any of the issues in the sequel which I saw when playing through the first at launch (weird cutscenes, randomly ending up, etc.) but I'm also nowhere near as familiar with the series as some people are. The second game seemed fine enough besides the pause menu coming up in cutscenes disabling background SFX (like Cool Z's radio), but I've not played that since the Dreamcast release. Maybe one day I'll actually see how awful the English audio for Shenmue II actually is.
How fixed are the ports to the originals nowadays? I've not seen any of the issues in the sequel which I saw when playing through the first at launch (weird cutscenes, randomly ending up, etc.) but I'm also nowhere near as familiar with the series as some people are. The second game seemed fine enough besides the pause menu coming up in cutscenes disabling background SFX (like Cool Z's radio), but I've not played that since the Dreamcast release. Maybe one day I'll actually see how awful the English audio for Shenmue II actually is.
I'm liking Shenmue II a lot more than the first one so far, but I gotta ask...so far there's also more combat already than in the entire first game but the camera in combat seems even worse than the first game...there's absolutely no way to at least re-center the camera or something right? Because more often than not the camera will just position itself on the ground floor at some corner of the area. At least the combat encounters were really easy so far.
Speaking of combat...I've never gotten a real hang of it in both 1 and 2 and just button mashed my way through, it's fine in combat training because the camera always defaults to your side, so the directional inputs will always be left and right, but as soon as you enter actual combat scenarios and you can walk in all directions and the camera does whatever it wants I barely get any move inputs right.
Speaking of combat...I've never gotten a real hang of it in both 1 and 2 and just button mashed my way through, it's fine in combat training because the camera always defaults to your side, so the directional inputs will always be left and right, but as soon as you enter actual combat scenarios and you can walk in all directions and the camera does whatever it wants I barely get any move inputs right.
As far as I can tell, some background music isn't 100% accurate to the Dreamcast MIDI, and that's about it. If there's anything else it's very minor.
Unfortunately that's a side effect of more fights, and more close-quarter fights in particular. Thankfully many of the important fights play out in large enough arenas that it's not a huge issue...but there is one area in particular where it's really bad. So yeah, the combat isn't perfect but it's pretty fun anyway in my opinion.
When the camera went into an almost-FPS view during the fights on Beverly Hills Wharf I actually thought the game glitched out at first, that was some weird stuff.
Yeah those parts are weird, I never understood why they did that.
whats the current status of the music in shenmue 2 on ps4? did they ever fix it? i put it down to play other stuff, hoping they[d patch the game by the time i went back to it.
A lot better than launch. Still not perfect in spots but how much you notice will really depend on how well you know Shenmue II's music. I doubt new players will notice anything at all, but huge fans of the music will.
So, after 15 years I finally replayed and finished Shenmue 1, want to give my impressions, the first time that I played the game I really loved it and found it almost perfect, but my 15 year of experiences playing lots of open world videogames really opened my eyes on all the issues than this game has.
- I think that Shenmue 1 biggest sin is that in the free time you can't really do much things, like is cool to have the arcade and other minigames, but they grew tiresome really quick, training is cool and all but it doesn't feel that necessary, and I hate how you can't train that much with Fuku. I guess that you could spend your time trying to discover what are the npc doing in their lives, but most of the time I seem to trigger conversations related to the actual quest, and not on their lifes. And this problem definitely gets worse when you arrive in the harbor, when you can't even leave the place even after you did all the possible things to advance your quest. And this is a real problem because you really have a lot of free time in between the main missions, so isn't like you can't easily skip, by the end of the final days I jsut spend my free time buying gatchas in a vain attempt to kill time. And speaking of gachas, they rates of the figurines are way worse than the mobile games lol.
- Interacting with the objects is cool and all, but it grows tiresome quickly, to the point that I didn't bother to do it after a while, also, I hate how most of the items in the shop are totally worthless and are there just for the sake of including realism. I have to buy potato chips and chocolates to get some rare prizes but in the end I couldn't do anything with them, not even an animation of ryo eating them and enjoying it or gifting it to some npc.
- The combat definitely is a little stiff at the beggining, but once you understand it is amazing, I feel like the game would have been better with more 1 vs 1 combats to make the virtua fighter engine shine more, since the multiple battles were not very rewarding. That being said, the mad angels final shodown is as good as ever and I feel that this game pulled it off better than any yakuza game ever.
- Besides all my criticisms, I still had a good time with it, the game has a lot of charm, at first I hated this but after a while I really appreciate how easy is to miss cutscenes and dialogues in this game, it makes the playthrough feel more unique ad make more entertaining to talk about this game with other players who played it, and discover things that you missed while also telling them things that they missed, and that regard the game is very unique and feels more "FREE" than games like Yakuza where everything feels more scripted.
Overall, I hated the game more than before, but also loved it more, gonna play Shenmue 2, I game that I dropped in the middle since I played it in an emulator ages ago, and then be excited for Shenmue 3
- I think that Shenmue 1 biggest sin is that in the free time you can't really do much things, like is cool to have the arcade and other minigames, but they grew tiresome really quick, training is cool and all but it doesn't feel that necessary, and I hate how you can't train that much with Fuku. I guess that you could spend your time trying to discover what are the npc doing in their lives, but most of the time I seem to trigger conversations related to the actual quest, and not on their lifes. And this problem definitely gets worse when you arrive in the harbor, when you can't even leave the place even after you did all the possible things to advance your quest. And this is a real problem because you really have a lot of free time in between the main missions, so isn't like you can't easily skip, by the end of the final days I jsut spend my free time buying gatchas in a vain attempt to kill time. And speaking of gachas, they rates of the figurines are way worse than the mobile games lol.
- Interacting with the objects is cool and all, but it grows tiresome quickly, to the point that I didn't bother to do it after a while, also, I hate how most of the items in the shop are totally worthless and are there just for the sake of including realism. I have to buy potato chips and chocolates to get some rare prizes but in the end I couldn't do anything with them, not even an animation of ryo eating them and enjoying it or gifting it to some npc.
- The combat definitely is a little stiff at the beggining, but once you understand it is amazing, I feel like the game would have been better with more 1 vs 1 combats to make the virtua fighter engine shine more, since the multiple battles were not very rewarding. That being said, the mad angels final shodown is as good as ever and I feel that this game pulled it off better than any yakuza game ever.
- Besides all my criticisms, I still had a good time with it, the game has a lot of charm, at first I hated this but after a while I really appreciate how easy is to miss cutscenes and dialogues in this game, it makes the playthrough feel more unique ad make more entertaining to talk about this game with other players who played it, and discover things that you missed while also telling them things that they missed, and that regard the game is very unique and feels more "FREE" than games like Yakuza where everything feels more scripted.
Overall, I hated the game more than before, but also loved it more, gonna play Shenmue 2, I game that I dropped in the middle since I played it in an emulator ages ago, and then be excited for Shenmue 3
When you get the harbour job it's definitely the worst part for having to wait about. It takes a lot of control away by basically forcing you to stay there until 8PM. Even if you've seen all the scenes for that night it won't let you home (the only exception being the evening before the motorbike run).
It's also the most finicky for triggering cutscenes. Especially since it assumes you'll do the same forklift route as on the map. You can miss the trigger point and then you have to wait the entire day, staying at the harbour until 8PM despite there being no chance of progressing, so you can do the forklift job again and get it to trigger this time.
I remember watching speedruns for the game and the runner would just speedrun other games while doing those bits just because there's so much down time that you can't avoid. xD
It's also the most finicky for triggering cutscenes. Especially since it assumes you'll do the same forklift route as on the map. You can miss the trigger point and then you have to wait the entire day, staying at the harbour until 8PM despite there being no chance of progressing, so you can do the forklift job again and get it to trigger this time.
I remember watching speedruns for the game and the runner would just speedrun other games while doing those bits just because there's so much down time that you can't avoid. xD
The PC version hasn't got the music fixed I don't think, so I doubt the PS4 version has. However this comment is true, it's not a big deal if you're new -
bah. i suppose better is...better than nothing
ive got other games to play, i guess ill just keep putting off my shenmue 2 re-p[lay in hopes that they fix it. but i'm not holding my breath at this point
ive got other games to play, i guess ill just keep putting off my shenmue 2 re-p[lay in hopes that they fix it. but i'm not holding my breath at this point
I haven't played the Originals so I can't speak about some songs supposedly sounding wrong, but I can say the audio mix is pretty bad and very inconsistent, sometimes it's the voices that are too loud, sometimes the music, etc. so you can't really offset this with the different volume sliders.
Also, while I did complain myself that there isn't too much to do while you wait for the next event, I appreciate that all the practice you put into Hang On at the arcades actually paid off at the end when Ryo is on the motorbike. it's like straight out of some 80s kids movie and it's great.
Also, while I did complain myself that there isn't too much to do while you wait for the next event, I appreciate that all the practice you put into Hang On at the arcades actually paid off at the end when Ryo is on the motorbike. it's like straight out of some 80s kids movie and it's great.
Yeah I always thought that was pretty clever. Hang On is basically preparing you for that part of the game.
While I'm playing Shenmue 2 know, overall I don't like walking on Hong Kong that much since I don't like the structure of the city and that the navigation tools in this game are not that great to make walking through this city entertaining. Sure they included a in game map that shows up in you hid all the time, but so wish that the game gave you a real map that you could ask any time instead of this "game like" map. At least it was ace to have some NPC guide you to your next destination, so in that regard, I don't mind this THAT much.
Also, something very minor, but I really hate how Ryo is capable to perfectly speak with Chinese people without having trouble to understand, since it seems like everyone in Hong Kong is fluent in Japanese. It's obvious that by the end of the day, they had to do this because is a video game where one of its biggest selling points is how you could talk with almost anyone to progress in the story, but for a game that goes to extreme lengths to simulate real life, I found this a little immersion breaking. I would have loved to see a throwaway line in Shenmue 1 saying that Ryo knew some Chinese because Iwao teached him so he could read martial arts scrolls or some other bullshit explanation.
Now, saying all this, the second game is a huge improvement, even today the size of the city impress me, and I like how there are more options to spend your free time, while also give you the chance to skip time when needed
Also, the mini games are better and less tedious than the first game, some of them like arm wrestling and lucky hit are amazing because they feel like something that you are playing in real life (My arm started to hurt just like a real arm wrestling match) also, the integration of QTE are superb and I feel that even today no other game has matched it
And an special mention to some of the training segments in this game, that scene of Ryo catching leaves was one of my favorite moments in gaming when I played the game on the last decade, and know somehow I found it more impressive than before, since it really requires to concentrate like Xiayung tolds you to complete, all combined with a very touching musical piece
Well I'm about to travel to Kowloon, but so far I'm having a great time with this game, I wanted to trigger the fangmei birthday scene, but O discovered that I have to wait until February 28Th to trigger the next scene, while I'm still playing in January 17th, and honestly I don't feel like waiting 45 in game days to trigger it. At least since the requirements to trigger are so ridiculous, I'm just going to consider it a non canon scene
Also, something very minor, but I really hate how Ryo is capable to perfectly speak with Chinese people without having trouble to understand, since it seems like everyone in Hong Kong is fluent in Japanese. It's obvious that by the end of the day, they had to do this because is a video game where one of its biggest selling points is how you could talk with almost anyone to progress in the story, but for a game that goes to extreme lengths to simulate real life, I found this a little immersion breaking. I would have loved to see a throwaway line in Shenmue 1 saying that Ryo knew some Chinese because Iwao teached him so he could read martial arts scrolls or some other bullshit explanation.
Now, saying all this, the second game is a huge improvement, even today the size of the city impress me, and I like how there are more options to spend your free time, while also give you the chance to skip time when needed
Also, the mini games are better and less tedious than the first game, some of them like arm wrestling and lucky hit are amazing because they feel like something that you are playing in real life (My arm started to hurt just like a real arm wrestling match) also, the integration of QTE are superb and I feel that even today no other game has matched it
And an special mention to some of the training segments in this game, that scene of Ryo catching leaves was one of my favorite moments in gaming when I played the game on the last decade, and know somehow I found it more impressive than before, since it really requires to concentrate like Xiayung tolds you to complete, all combined with a very touching musical piece
Well I'm about to travel to Kowloon, but so far I'm having a great time with this game, I wanted to trigger the fangmei birthday scene, but O discovered that I have to wait until February 28Th to trigger the next scene, while I'm still playing in January 17th, and honestly I don't feel like waiting 45 in game days to trigger it. At least since the requirements to trigger are so ridiculous, I'm just going to consider it a non canon scene
The problem is that would go against the bits in the first game where Ryo needs to get Chinese translated. xD
On that line of thinking though, it'd have probably made more sense for the English dub to be the default over Japanese for the second game. The Japanese dub may arguably be better(and the only one that existed until the xbox release), but yes it is kind of funny that the people there speak it so fluently, where as English would be a lot more believable.
If you're going for that it's kind of recommended to fail the barber QTE a number of times when learning about the Wudu. If you fail it you skip to the next day to try again, so it's a really quick way to skip to the date you need.
I think its better to do the time skip when your trying to enter the Man Mo temple for the first time. You get an option to come back tomorrow (for the life of me I forget the exact choice) but you can basically keep doing this to skip days. Its just closer to when you meet Fangmei so its just a better time skip point. I've never done that event though, I really should do it one day but I always finish the first two disk two quick (and I prefer to go for the Duck Racing hidden content).
And yeah, the whole Japanese/Chinese thing in 2 is just something I don't think about. As it technically breaks the immersion of the game completely. Always cracked me up though. Guess Yu kinda wrote himself into a corner with that one!
I dunno whether it makes that much of a difference though. There's basically only one event between the two skipping opportunities. Well, unless there's something you really want to do before going onto Disk 2 I guess. :P
I seem to remember that Yu Suzuki mentioned in an interview that at one point when they were developing the game all NPCs in Shenmue 2 spoke Chinese and Ryo had to look for people who spoke Japanese, but it didn't work so they changed it. I guess Ryo just learned Chinese REALLY quickly while he was on the boat to Hong Kong lol
That would've still kinda worked though, because the written chinese texts he had were kinda difficult to translate for most of the other chinese characters in the game too.
When it comes to linguistic believability the first game already fails with all the western military base workers and sailors. Even if they speak very broken japanese with half english sentences thrown in, I'm sure that is already more than most base workers stationed over there speak.
Anyway, the idea is probably that they *are* speaking english in Shenmue II, the japanese audio just translates it for the audience. I'm sure Ryo picked up lots of english from Tom.
So I finally finished Shenmue II. What an ending! I didn't expect
to be introduced in the story. Can't wait for SIII now.
I did finish SII back when it came out on DC (imported it from Europe) but I gotta say, I didn't remember that ending sequence one bit! I remember the tree and being amazed at its name, but nothing about that cave.
I was around 18 back then and I think I was a bit turned off by the whole third act being almost exclusively dialogue. So I guess that's why I didn't care much for the end. Also, I was more interested in Japanese culture at that time and so I wasn't as impressed by SII being set exclusively in China. But now my interests are more diverse and I really appreciated SII, third act included. There's a whole lot of stuff being revealed in that long walk.
Like some people say, I think SII it's the better game now, even though the original has all the warm fuzzy feelings attached to it because of its smaller nature.
I'm very excited for a more complete reveal of SIII!
magic
I did finish SII back when it came out on DC (imported it from Europe) but I gotta say, I didn't remember that ending sequence one bit! I remember the tree and being amazed at its name, but nothing about that cave.
I was around 18 back then and I think I was a bit turned off by the whole third act being almost exclusively dialogue. So I guess that's why I didn't care much for the end. Also, I was more interested in Japanese culture at that time and so I wasn't as impressed by SII being set exclusively in China. But now my interests are more diverse and I really appreciated SII, third act included. There's a whole lot of stuff being revealed in that long walk.
Like some people say, I think SII it's the better game now, even though the original has all the warm fuzzy feelings attached to it because of its smaller nature.
I'm very excited for a more complete reveal of SIII!
Strictly speaking it's
chi, rather than outright magic. I also think some minor details of that ending are going to be subject to retcon anyway when we see that scene as Shenmue III's intro.
So, I finished Shenmue 2 today, when I played it last decade dropped the game before the part where you need to collect 500 dollars for a second time to get into the required fights. This was a long time ago so I forgot a lot of things of the game, so this was for at least a 40% of the time, a new experience to me.
So yeah, back then I didn't finished the game because I got tired, the emulator wasn't that great, and overall I felt like getting a cliffhanger that probably would have never been resolved wasn't worthy, but now that we know that Shenmue 3 is coming, I'm glad to have finished both games and refresh my memory in the story. Also, since know it has passed almost 20 years from the release of both games, with the knowledge of how modern gaming has improved, I can say with total security that besides some very bad rough edges (that for the most part were fixed in the second game) both games have aged very well, at least the second game, the first one if you consider it as a prologue and a piece of his time is ok, although it could be hard to convince people to enjoy it
- I can't explain what exactly they changed in the fighting engine, but so far, I think that the game improved a lot, some of the combats are almost straight copies of Virtua Fighter 3 and 4, and I said this as a positive, since those games are great. I love how there are parries, counters, tech throws, which were also on the first game, but here they feel more prominent. Combats are not hard to be honest, specially if you have some knowledge of 3d fighting games, but the thing that makes some battles hard are the QTE.
- And speaking of QTE, I'm not a big fan of those ones where you need to do a multi sequence for just 1 action, there is something odd about the timing on hwo those inputs work, and so far are not that gratifying. But after a while I managed to pull most of them, I still hated how one mistake made you repeat some parts all over again. And I definitely think that this game improves a lot thanks to the save anywhere option, although some parts are easy to exploit with this, so it definitely destroys some of the balance of the game. Still, the QTE sequences in this game are definitely an improvement over the first game, with some parts being very exciting, increasing the inmersion of the game in a good way.
- Even though the game doesn't have as much unique NPC's as the first game, in this game the arquitechture definitely compensates into the inmersion department, I know that the magic room technique doesn't add anything into the gameplay aspect of the game, but it totally improves the experience.
- Also, this game must have one of the best pacings that I ever seen in gaming, I never felt like nothing was happening, even though the story wasn't advancing that much most of the time, but it was still great to see how Ryo was learning martial arts through training and meeting others. Some of those sequences felt very real in how you need to approach them to solve them.
- The friends that appear in this game were great too, I loved the relationship of Ren and Ryo, same with Xiuying which must be one of the best female characters that I have seen in the medium.
- The "final dungeon" was also very entertaining, it felt more epic than Shenmue 1 last sequence.
- And finally, the last chapter was amazing, don't know how they did, but I really feel like I was lost in the forest walking with Shenhua. Speaking of it, I liked how the conversations with she were handled here, not only helped to introduce the kind of world that you were going to find in a rural village in mainland China, but it was also a great summary on all the adventures and moments that you lived in the 2 games, making them feel more personal. I wish that more games did a job as good as this one to remember past games or situations.
- And speaking of QTE, I'm not a big fan of those ones where you need to do a multi sequence for just 1 action, there is something odd about the timing on hwo those inputs work, and so far are not that gratifying. But after a while I managed to pull most of them, I still hated how one mistake made you repeat some parts all over again. And I definitely think that this game improves a lot thanks to the save anywhere option, although some parts are easy to exploit with this, so it definitely destroys some of the balance of the game. Still, the QTE sequences in this game are definitely an improvement over the first game, with some parts being very exciting, increasing the inmersion of the game in a good way.
- Even though the game doesn't have as much unique NPC's as the first game, in this game the arquitechture definitely compensates into the inmersion department, I know that the magic room technique doesn't add anything into the gameplay aspect of the game, but it totally improves the experience.
- Also, this game must have one of the best pacings that I ever seen in gaming, I never felt like nothing was happening, even though the story wasn't advancing that much most of the time, but it was still great to see how Ryo was learning martial arts through training and meeting others. Some of those sequences felt very real in how you need to approach them to solve them.
- The friends that appear in this game were great too, I loved the relationship of Ren and Ryo, same with Xiuying which must be one of the best female characters that I have seen in the medium.
- The "final dungeon" was also very entertaining, it felt more epic than Shenmue 1 last sequence.
- And finally, the last chapter was amazing, don't know how they did, but I really feel like I was lost in the forest walking with Shenhua. Speaking of it, I liked how the conversations with she were handled here, not only helped to introduce the kind of world that you were going to find in a rural village in mainland China, but it was also a great summary on all the adventures and moments that you lived in the 2 games, making them feel more personal. I wish that more games did a job as good as this one to remember past games or situations.
So yeah, back then I didn't finished the game because I got tired, the emulator wasn't that great, and overall I felt like getting a cliffhanger that probably would have never been resolved wasn't worthy, but now that we know that Shenmue 3 is coming, I'm glad to have finished both games and refresh my memory in the story. Also, since know it has passed almost 20 years from the release of both games, with the knowledge of how modern gaming has improved, I can say with total security that besides some very bad rough edges (that for the most part were fixed in the second game) both games have aged very well, at least the second game, the first one if you consider it as a prologue and a piece of his time is ok, although it could be hard to convince people to enjoy it
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Glad you enjoyed it! It's awesome to see people finishing Shenmue II for the first time in preparation for III.
As for your points, I pretty much agree with all of them: the fighting does feel better in II (the controls in general have improved), and the multi-button "Command QTEs" have never felt great to me, even back on Dreamcast. There's just too much ambiguity in how long you have, when you're supposed to perform each input etc. Some fans like them, but I say the very concept of complex QTEs that escalate in difficulty is flawed. It made sense at the time, but with almost 20 years of hindsight I don't think it has worked very well in any game, whether it be God of War or Resident Evil 4. I'd actually like it if Shenmue III had a graphical representation of how long the player has to complete a QTE (just a subtle thing).
Restarting an entire section after failing a QTE is always bad, but it was more forgivable in 2001 when constant auto-saving wasn't yet a thing and people expected to redo parts of a game if they failed. It's something that will surely go away in Shenmue III.
I'm finally about to finally about to play Shenmue I and this menu opening is pretty interesting. I find it so haunting, but pretty at the same time. It's just a prophecy telling I guess, but pretty neat.