Kiryu Hazuki
Banned
- Joined
- May 19, 2021
Account banned at user's request (Alt Account)
I’m a huge Yakuza fan and for years I’ve heard people say it’s like Shenmue and essentially a spiritual successor..that got me curious and so in January I got both games on steam and beat them to completion and I have to be honest...I think both Shenmues are bad games
now before you get mad at me, I still like the series after playing it, I can think something is poorly made while still enjoying it and Shenmue is one of those games to me.
now one problem is the voice acting but that can be rectified by switching to sub but it still counts as a criticism because for so long the localized releases didnt have the option to toggle the audio language. The voice acting is embarrassing and while I can see why it’s part of the charm for many, it’s still poorly acted and downright bad.
another issue with Shenmue are the tanky controls and while i can work around them, it’s still pretty bad and having to wait constantly is bad game design. I get that it’s there to help players explore and take in the mundane elements but rewarding the player through their own choice to explore is much more satisfying then forcing them into positions where there’s nothing else to do, this is where Shenmue fundamentally fails at exploration. I’ve 100% both games by getting all the trophies but it’s not rewarding for the first game because I simply did those things because the narrative went on pause. It clashes violently with the narrative because Shenmue is supposed to be an epic 16 chapter story that revolutionIves videogame storytelling only for the story to be very poorly placed and muddled
the forklift section is fun but I realized I was doing it for way too long and just wanted it to end, I did it for so many days on end then realized that there’s a huge catastrophic glitch in the game that makes you do forklifting for eternity if you take a different path delivering the boxes, some people say it’s an intentional exploit by the devs to get make money but the game does not make this clear at all and kind of defeats what the game was aiming for; player choice and freedom.
these issues break the game for me and what’s funny is that I still enjoyed shenmue 1 despite this and think these issues, although massive in size, can be rectified with a remake of sorts
shenmue 2 is where I think it gets really bad...
first off, I appreciate the wait feature being added and like that theres more fluidity when it comes to progressing the narrative but it creates even bigger issues that make it a terrible game to me
the quick time events are super excessive, they’re in the game at almost every turn. In Shenmue 1 I think they were well varied but here it’s just Quick Time Galore. the lifting crates QTE job is terrible, the planks are terrible (especially the section where you climb the ghost hall building) and it’s worth mentioning that the game is filled to the brim with padding, it doesn’t even need to be padded like this, take out the padding and you still have a pretty long game but no...they got over.y ambitious in that department, I like ambition but it needs good execution and this is not it..
the combat also got worse, it’s less fluid and responsive than Shenmue 1’s and I feel like there should’ve been an option to run with the npc’s taking you to your destination because it takes too long, though I do appreciate that they added this so players are never lost.
now the story is really nonsensical, the first game had a simple and easy story that made a lot of sense but here its very silly
Ryo doesn’t know Chinese and seems to be able to have perfect conversations with everyone in the game?? At first I thought Ryo must’ve learned Chinese from his dad and just had a hard time reading the letter from the first game because it had reversed characters, but then joy says something in Chinese later in the game and Ryo gets confused! So then I thought..maybe a lot of people here just know japanese
but then it gets worse...somehow Shenhua can understand what Ryo is saying despite the fact that she doesn’t know much about Japan! They threw all logic out the window and while I don’t think real world logic doesn’t have to apply to every story, Shenmue is a series that’s run on real world logic both in gameplay and narrative so to see this is very jarring and inconsistent.
the maze in the Guilin chapter was also very poorly designed, I think the Guilin chapter can be amazing in concept, just 3 hours of real human interaction and character moments as they journey through mountains can be a really powerful gameplay segment but this feels unfinished and almost like a prototype.
I also don’t understand how Lan Di got the information from Yuanda Zhu if they saved Zhu before he was handed off to Lan Di???
and Ryo taking off his bag to save Shenhua in the river only for his bag to magically appear again was weird.
as an aspiring screenwriter, I’ve learned that stories have to be consistent with its own established lore/rules and that everything has a cause and effect so when I see stuff like this, it sours the series’ consistency.
I will say that after you get out of the forest, the ending is very ominous and got me invested to see where it goes next, I think pulling crazy supernatural stuff as a cliffhanger for a series grounded in reality makes this moment really iconic! I just think the stuff that lead up to that moment needed better writing which is why I look forward to the anime, as I think it can help Shenmue reach its full potential story-wise.
so that summarizes my thoughts, while I don’t think it’s well made, I do like these games and I’m currently downloading Shenmue 3 to see if it improves upon any of these issues I have!
now before you get mad at me, I still like the series after playing it, I can think something is poorly made while still enjoying it and Shenmue is one of those games to me.
now one problem is the voice acting but that can be rectified by switching to sub but it still counts as a criticism because for so long the localized releases didnt have the option to toggle the audio language. The voice acting is embarrassing and while I can see why it’s part of the charm for many, it’s still poorly acted and downright bad.
another issue with Shenmue are the tanky controls and while i can work around them, it’s still pretty bad and having to wait constantly is bad game design. I get that it’s there to help players explore and take in the mundane elements but rewarding the player through their own choice to explore is much more satisfying then forcing them into positions where there’s nothing else to do, this is where Shenmue fundamentally fails at exploration. I’ve 100% both games by getting all the trophies but it’s not rewarding for the first game because I simply did those things because the narrative went on pause. It clashes violently with the narrative because Shenmue is supposed to be an epic 16 chapter story that revolutionIves videogame storytelling only for the story to be very poorly placed and muddled
the forklift section is fun but I realized I was doing it for way too long and just wanted it to end, I did it for so many days on end then realized that there’s a huge catastrophic glitch in the game that makes you do forklifting for eternity if you take a different path delivering the boxes, some people say it’s an intentional exploit by the devs to get make money but the game does not make this clear at all and kind of defeats what the game was aiming for; player choice and freedom.
these issues break the game for me and what’s funny is that I still enjoyed shenmue 1 despite this and think these issues, although massive in size, can be rectified with a remake of sorts
shenmue 2 is where I think it gets really bad...
first off, I appreciate the wait feature being added and like that theres more fluidity when it comes to progressing the narrative but it creates even bigger issues that make it a terrible game to me
the quick time events are super excessive, they’re in the game at almost every turn. In Shenmue 1 I think they were well varied but here it’s just Quick Time Galore. the lifting crates QTE job is terrible, the planks are terrible (especially the section where you climb the ghost hall building) and it’s worth mentioning that the game is filled to the brim with padding, it doesn’t even need to be padded like this, take out the padding and you still have a pretty long game but no...they got over.y ambitious in that department, I like ambition but it needs good execution and this is not it..
the combat also got worse, it’s less fluid and responsive than Shenmue 1’s and I feel like there should’ve been an option to run with the npc’s taking you to your destination because it takes too long, though I do appreciate that they added this so players are never lost.
now the story is really nonsensical, the first game had a simple and easy story that made a lot of sense but here its very silly
Ryo doesn’t know Chinese and seems to be able to have perfect conversations with everyone in the game?? At first I thought Ryo must’ve learned Chinese from his dad and just had a hard time reading the letter from the first game because it had reversed characters, but then joy says something in Chinese later in the game and Ryo gets confused! So then I thought..maybe a lot of people here just know japanese
but then it gets worse...somehow Shenhua can understand what Ryo is saying despite the fact that she doesn’t know much about Japan! They threw all logic out the window and while I don’t think real world logic doesn’t have to apply to every story, Shenmue is a series that’s run on real world logic both in gameplay and narrative so to see this is very jarring and inconsistent.
the maze in the Guilin chapter was also very poorly designed, I think the Guilin chapter can be amazing in concept, just 3 hours of real human interaction and character moments as they journey through mountains can be a really powerful gameplay segment but this feels unfinished and almost like a prototype.
I also don’t understand how Lan Di got the information from Yuanda Zhu if they saved Zhu before he was handed off to Lan Di???
and Ryo taking off his bag to save Shenhua in the river only for his bag to magically appear again was weird.
as an aspiring screenwriter, I’ve learned that stories have to be consistent with its own established lore/rules and that everything has a cause and effect so when I see stuff like this, it sours the series’ consistency.
I will say that after you get out of the forest, the ending is very ominous and got me invested to see where it goes next, I think pulling crazy supernatural stuff as a cliffhanger for a series grounded in reality makes this moment really iconic! I just think the stuff that lead up to that moment needed better writing which is why I look forward to the anime, as I think it can help Shenmue reach its full potential story-wise.
so that summarizes my thoughts, while I don’t think it’s well made, I do like these games and I’m currently downloading Shenmue 3 to see if it improves upon any of these issues I have!
