Dissecting SEGA's Shenmue Patent: Magic Weather & Magic Rooms

Switch

Shenmue analysis at www.phantomriverstone.com
Joined
Jul 28, 2018
Location
Japan
Thanks as always for the informative post @Switch

Shenmue’s magic weather and it’s free music are two elements I feel it does better than Shenmue 2. Just the diversity of sky patterns and weather conditions and your article in some ways shows the greater variety or malleability as the index shows.

To be frank I have always loved when games make a real attempt to use weather conditions. My mind instantly goes to seeing individual raindrops on the pavement in Shenmue, the Tanker level in MGS 2 and how rain droplets hit the camera in first person mode. I am struggling to think of when a game in recent times has really impressed me, perhaps Uncharted 4’s marooned level with the thunderstorm.
 
Shenmue’s magic weather and it’s free music are two elements I feel it does better than Shenmue 2.
I agree. For me the weather in Shenmue I almost feels like another character in the game in its own right, with specific weather conditions being associated with various memorable events - both in the story (especially Lan Di's visit at the start) and also the way it changes through the seasons: Xmas, New Year and Spring.
 
I love this. Thanks for posting. ^ Agree with you guys. Hong Kong only has heat, rain, and more rain. It would've been cool to leverage that by pushing the outer maximum timeframe past April, then work in a terminal monsoon in May. But by the time the devs got to Shenmue 2, Sega was fading fast, and they had to rush it and make it as simple as possible.
 
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