First Playthrough: Were you all about the narrative or did you freely explore?

[danielmann861]

I was casually playing the Steam version of Shenmue the other night and I was deliberately taking my time to get every side event and every cut scene I could possibly get while playing.

It got me thinking about the first time I played the game when it released on Dreamcast way back.

My first time through, I was all about the narrative. I was always pushing forward with the main story that I missed SO damn much of the side events that could happen.

For instance, my first time through. I only ever had that one encounter with Enoki. That initial QTE event outside the Tomato store. I had no idea about the two other encounters you could have with him on my first playthrough.

Same thing with the lunch lady and her sister at the Harbor. I had no idea that was a thing my first time through because I never once encountered it.

Same thing with Nozomi. I had no idea there was that whole mini arch where she confesses her feelings for you because I wouldn't return home until way past 9pm so I would always miss her phone call.

I was so concerned with pushing the narrative forward on my first play through way back when that I missed all of these little scenes. Even though I liked the game on my first play through. I must admit, because I had never played anything like this before, I didn't really get it at the time.

It wasn't until subsequent play throughs when I started finding these little missed details that I think I truly started to get it and truly started to marvel and fall in love with it.

Every subsequent play through I would find another cut scene that I did not find in my first play through and it was kind of mind blowing. It slowly dawned on me that this is a game that really wanted me to explore its world and find everything it had to offer. It wanted me to invest in that world. And that's when I started to really get what the game was all about and started to fall in love with it.


But in a way, it's kind of brilliant. Because it really helps you shape your own version of Ryo...you could either have him out and about engaging in the world or you could treat him as the anti social type who were just so obsessed with hunting down the man who killed his father....in a weird way, you could make Ryo your own and that's really impressive for a voiced character.

So...what was your first play through like? Were you all about the narrative? Or did you get what it wanted you to do and did you actually live in the world?

What and what didn't you see on the first play through? And what were your subsequent play throughs like? How many things did you find that you maybe missed the first time around? Did you get it immediately? Or did it take a couple of play throughs to truly get what they were aiming to do?

 

[spud1897]

On my first playthourgh it took me a decent amount of time. I went around door knocking, talking to everyone and exploring away. Convinced I'd got every cutscene going I checked out the passport and to my horror I'd missed one (can't remember which) so the next playthrough I went through with a fine-toothcomb and got that sorted out.

Subsequent plays were more story driven until I got the game on Steam this year. My 1 playthrough on Steam (I've also played on PS4) I sat got all the scenes and spent ages messing about with toy capsules and mini games. In-fact quite often I'd go on and just play mini-games and hunt toys. :)

 

[xatruio]

A lot of times on my first few plays I caught the extra harder scenes by accident. Plenty of them are time activated, as well as NPC dialogue unlocked, so naturally I was asking around a lot to everyone for any little thing and lead to most elective moments, sporadic throughout each save file.

Then, for a very long period (probably about 2004-2010) were story driven quicker runs. Since around 2012, only random discs 2/3/4 or meticulously planned routes + collecting for rare full-game files. Conscious slow burns were definitely refreshed once I had finally imported PAL Shenmue for save transfer in 2014 :)

 

[9dragons]

My first playthrough was a mess .i avoided using guides on the Internet on purpose so I was just walking around and trying go figure everything out by myself. Was not very sucessful though. It took me some days to find heartbeats bar. It was a very immersive first playthrough because I was as clueless as Ryo was. .

Missed other Events too of Course. The most tricky part with my blind playthrough was the Harbor part. It was quite easy not to trigger some certain Events. Especially when you have Troubles finding the proper warehouses too. In the end I made it. But it took till mid january in game.

 

[DigitalDuck]

My first playthrough was kind of a mix, I didn't know what I was doing so I kinda just walked around talking to people and looking in different areas.

After I beat it the first time I waited for Shenmue II (it wasn't far away at that point) and played through that the same way. Then I went back and played through again, trying to finish the game as early as possible now I knew everyone I had to talk to.

Then the exploration started, and it hasn't stopped since.

 

[BlueMue]

It took me quite a while to really get engrossed in the story. First time around I enjoyed Sonic toy capsules and the arcade more than anything.

 

[Amir]

My first playthrough I somehow saw a lot of things I didn't see in subsequent ones, like the lunchlady/schoolgirl side quest, the Enoki fight, some other things here and there. Think it was because I was a kid with a lot of free time and I just wanted to see everything in the game

 

[openrob]

With the game spanning 3 discs, I assumed it would be like Final Fantasy 7 and would take weeks, if not months to complete.

I sped through and completed it in three days haha. Though I immediately replayed it and took my time with it

 

[Vivi-gamer]

The one thing I remember from my early playthrough was being so puzzled in how to find the Phoenix Mirror! I didn't think it would be hidden within the Dojo itself so I spent much time chasing after Master Chen & visiting the antique stores with the Swordhand Guard in my possession I know it was certainly beyond Christmas before I had started exploring more around the dojo.

 

[code l name]

Great thread, it’s honestly hard for me to recall my initial play through as it tends to blend together with subsequent playthroughs. I’m fairly certain I missed all the optional Enoki fights outside the first encounter, lost to Chai in my first play through and pretty sure I didn’t call Nozomi religiously everyday.

One thing I do recall was being stuck at Harbour, getting the ‘ground-hog day glitch’. Which resulted me spending a lot of idle time talking to people, training and I believe getting some optional conversations.

 

[RyoHazuki84]

As I shared in previous threads, my first exposure to Shenmue was through the Japanese version on December 31, 1999. I was taking Japanese lessons at my high school and I actually had the highest grade in the class! I thought Shenmue would be a great way of supplementing my Japanese studies, so it was a take what I could get kind of scenario. I had my notebooks, textbooks and dictionaries on me as I played so if I didn’t know something, I could immediately look it up, or document it to look it up later or ask my teacher lol. Incidentally, it became about the story for me since that was the main focus. I still explored what stood out to me such as being able to practice moves at a parking lot, play games at the arcade, or buy capsule toys. For the most part, I was able to understand getting directions but for deeper story qualities, it was still difficult for me at that time since my studies weren’t that far yet. I was one of those kids back in school who always thought to myself “I’m never going to use this,” but when it came to Shenmue and the Japanese class I took, my first playthrough was about that.

 

[Nigel]

I was pretty hardheaded about finishing the quest, but I did take a lot of time to stop and listen to the cassette tapes. Similarly, I found myself hanging out in Bob's Pizzeria to hear the jazzy groove; Lan Di could've escaped easily.
The second time around, I explored much more, esp. the Hazuki Residence. I always thought there was more to find than there is.

Only in 2019 did I attempt a perfect capsule run for I/II: there were far fewer items to collect than I expected, which softened the blow.

 

[Mittens2317]

They say there's four styles of play that separates people when it comes to games. Those are achievers, explorers, killers, and socialisers. Personally, I find them - for myself, at least - to be four modes, or mentalities, for different stages of the game itself.

So, my typical playthrough of every adventure style game goes as such:

Unlock section of story.
Explore new instance of area. (Explorer)
Speak to all NPCs that do not progress the story. (Socialiser)
Unlock any new additional abilities. (Achiever)
Improve upon any skill or level-based abilities. (Killer)
Unlock next section of the story.

I have another pattern for linear action/platformer types, and another for competitive multilayer games.

Future playthroughs (unless I'm looking for just one particular thing like a collectible) do the same thing but more rigorously.

Aside from financial reasons, it's why I'm always so far behind on recent games, as I like to get my money's worth, and enjoy every little thing they have to offer.

On the one hand that's what makes Shenmue so enjoyable for me: no map markers. No floating icon that tells you "oi, there's summat over here you might miss out on, come and have a look before it fucks off!"

On the other hand it can make for a slightly frustrating experience when you just wanna get it over and done with.

I'll also say my first playthrough suffered from the killer aspect, as I got used to navigating the harbour in the forklift the quickest way I could, so got stuck in the infinite loop for a couple of weeks. ?‍