This is after you start the forklifting job, when you're already on rails to finish the game and have no free time because you have a daytime job and then he can't leave the harbour until you explore the cutscenes.
Yes it was a great game, except:
- Clunkiest movement controls. I never touched the analog stuck, why it's the D-pad?!
- Racist character design
- So many loading screens, moving around the world takes ages
- It feels like a waiting simulator (maybe this is a plus because I got so many chores done around the house "playing" this game)
- Nothing is explained about the Slothouse. What are these SEGA tokens for? I can't trade them in anywhere. I read the manual AND passport and it said nothing about what to do with tokens. (Barman takes my tokens when I exit but they still show in my inventory?!)
- So many collectibles; no money to get them.
- 100 collectibles but buying from the shop in the slowest possible way 1-by-1.
- NPCs who have nothing to say are rude to me
- When learning moves the hint on the VMU only shows AFTER you executed the move correctly. I spent half an hour trying to do the Swallow Tail move Master Chen teaches you at the end of the game, guessing the buttons.
- Pointless shops like Mahjong (but you can't play Mahjong!), Nagai Industries and all those food places. Nothing to do in them and game doesn't take you there.
- Inesan keeps pestering me about getting home by 10pm but actually there's no penalty for running out the clock: you just teleport to your bed.
Except those things and the ruining my save file yeah it's a great game.
No, it's the day you get fired from the forklift job. You have one of two choices. Continue on with the story and end the game...or spend some extra time pursuing collectiables back in Dobuita before moving on
There is only one major deadline in the game and that comes if you hang around until March and get the bad ending. But you are literally free to keep spending time in the world rather than push on with the main story which locks you out. That's the point of the final hint in question. It's the game giving you a sly hint that if you carry on then it will lock you out.
As for the list
1.) Kudos for playing it on the Dreamcast. It is a bit weird to control Ryo with the D pad, but alas, I put this down to the way it was designed. You control Ryo's head (camera) with the analog and movement with the Dpad. Clunky? Yes but I would assume limitations of the Dreamcast controller. Besides, that was an era where I think developers were still experimenting with 3D in general. Nothing had been set in stone and it was sort of the Wild West in the way developers approached 3D design as opposed to today where everything is almost standardized. Shenmue II on the Dreamcast does fix this issue though as you can toggle movement to the stick in the options.
2.) I disagree...I would say maybe stereotypical character design. Racist character design to me implies hate and I don't get the feeling its a hateful game in the slightest. Stereotypical? Yes. I would very much say stereotypical.
3.) The game came out at a time when there was no method of Data Streaming from the Disc. Not to mention the limitations of the hardware in general. This was GTA's big innovation on the PS2 in the sense that they could stream large chunks of area from the disc. Something that was not afforded to Shenmue at the time. Instead, Shenmue split each section and loaded each area individually. Something that is less a problem when you play on a Dreamcast modded with an ODE (or if you play the remastered versions) but it is what it is. That era was infamous for long load times from CDs in general. Limitations of the hardware.
4.) The rhythm of Shenmue is very much this; you get one or two story events per day to pursue followed by free time to explore the world at your own pace. The game is really split into three modes of play. Detective Mode. Battle/QTE mode. And FREE mode. FREE mode promoting your chance to simply just explore the world and collect stuff. While I do agree it's not perfect, it is fairly intentional. I mean for me, I've said before that I think Shenmue is a glorified tutorial for what was to come as Shenmue II does flesh out its world a little better. It fleshes out the job system. Gives you more freedom in how you earn money and makes money more important. As much as I love the original game, it is still a little bit tutorial in feel. But yeah, the game can be simply boiled down to those three modes of play. That's the basic rhythm of Shenmue but its also what I like about it. That it actually promotes the idea of exploring its world at your own pace.
5.) Well to be fair, nothing is explained in general in Shenmue
Even the combat system has no real tutorial
Truth is you can't do anything with the tokens other than accumulate them. The real victory to be had in the slot house comes from the rare capsule toys you can win while playing. I also assume this is a reflection of Japan's weird real world gambling laws as gambling is technically illegal in that country. Not that it stops them
The tokens are just there though to keep you playing and the prizes to be had are simply the rare capsule toys you can win while playing.
6.) While I've never gone for full collection...I have to assume someone has done full collection in Shenmue, right? I mean I would assume it was balanced and there is a way to earn everything in the game, right?
7.) Intentional design choice. I get it. It's slow and clunky compared to what was to come in Shenmue III, but I think it was just an intentional design choice striving for the idea of realism. A big part of this game is examining its world through Ryo's eyes and generally just living Ryo's life.
8.) Really? So every random person you meet in real life is also expected to be nice to you?
9.) I mean the audio clues are pretty obvious. This was one of my favorite things about Shenmue. That it didn't give you the obvious visual prompt and instead asked you to pay attention to what they were saying. The clues are usually pretty obvious. Swallow flip can be difficult to time, but once you figure it out its rewarding as all hell.
10.) Yeah, a Mahjong mini game would have been nice. As too would it have been to eat food in restaurants (even if it was just a pointless cut scene like drinking a can of soda)...I've always said that. It would have been nice for the restaurants to be a little more active as it never made sense to me that you could drink a soft drink but you couldn't eat anything in game. (shrugs)...I still think there were a lot of things they wanted to do in this game that simply just didn't get finished. The cinema is another example. There is a Cinema on the map yet it's completely inaccessible. Just makes me wonder what more they wanted to do?
11.) Gee, it's almost like they're building the illusion that Ine-San actually cares about you and is WORRIED about you
That and its also a sly hint that if you come home early, you might get a surprise cut scene that here and there