I received the game yesterday, but only got around to playing it for about 30-40 minutes before posting this. Which sort of shows the pessimism I had for this release after reading the early pages of this thread!
Firstly, the sound really is the biggest issue in my opinion. If you've ever played Shenmue IIx on the Xbox 360, it's essentially like that at its worst. Volume dips, sound effects completely missing, general game sound being much too quiet etc. It's honestly enough for me to stop playing and wait until a patch hopefully fixes things.
Some other things I observed from my brief playthrough:
- The stairs glitch seems to have been corrected, which is a shame!
- Arcade games: Darts, fine. QTE Title, fine. Space Harrier, died on the second boss and it automatically put me on the third stage? Hang On, analogue controls seemed tighter which is good. Excite QTE, broken. Screen glitches and pressing up didn't seem to work!? All had sound issues sadly.
- Positives: Loading times are great. I like the collectables guide. Graphics are sharp and the switch from 4/3 to widescreen isn't as jarring as I expected. Able to switch from English to Japanese voice acting, save anywhere, controls etc. all the things already mentioned.
Overall it's just a sloppy release. It's 90% there, but the missing 10% is really noticeable.