the inclusion of characters that were not even important enough for me to remember their names
So NPCs should just not exist without an extremely detailed background? I assume you can all 1100+ NPCs of Shenmue I & II then, and why you care about them?
the unnecessary and unwelcomed comedy included between what should have been dramatic scenes
To each their own, I was indifferent, but it shows that there are these things called opinions.
The cheesiness of thinking that this is/was the chi you men headquarters
It's not. It's simply one of Niao Sun's bases, which Lan Di happens to be at. Tentei was the one who gave the direct order to retrieve both mirrors. Whether that was to the whole organization or just Lan Di, we don't know. But we do know that Lan Di has the Dragon Mirror, and by the time we see him fly off from the Yellow Head Building in Shenmue II, he presumably does not know where the Phoenix Mirror is. Hence why Zhu says he is heading to Bailu. But then we meet the Red Snakes in Bailu, and not Lan Di. My theory is, this area being Niao Sun's, he just figures he will let her branch take charge for now and he is in a holding pattern until further orders come in or something from above...hence him waiting in Niaowu, a short bit away from Bailu, which is where he was presumably headed at the end of Shenmue II. Yanlang says that he is part of the Red Snakes, and they were more or less forced to look for the stonemasons and Phoenix Mirror...Niao Sun's doing. Hence why we see Li Feng in the Red Snakes' hideout before the Old Castle saying that it is her territory, and why Ge, the leader, is at the top of the stairs waiting to stop Ryo and Ren.
and their guards can be defeated by a girl with a broom and also the body guards of Lan di can be defeated by Ren easily makes you think that everything that has happened in Shenmue 1 and 2 is unnecessary.All you need is a fucking broom and a fat man and you can charge into the headquartes of the powerful, yet very “dangerous” Chinese mafia.
I fully agree with you about Shiling. She had no place to be there. But Bei's student, the fat guy, is a trained martial artist, and the only one in town at that point who was strong enough to stand up to the Red Snakes. I have no problem with him being there.
Bad dialogue, no sense of edition (and I am not referring to the constant loading screens – I grew accustomed to that), bad choice of music and completely anti climatic ending.
I would feel embarrassed to show this to someone and call myself a Shenmue fan.
Hyperbole aside, everything else is just an opinion. Doesn't make it more or less valid than someone who loved the ending. What do you mean by edition? Editing?
Then looking at things into perspective and analyzing the story of this game as a whole it doesn’t get much better. The game forces you to lose two times (even though I clearly beat both of them during the free battle) to go on a quest to learn 2 equal moves to defeat what is basically the same guys.
The Body Check and Reverse Body Check are two completely separate moves. I wish I could remember where the post was...but someone who either was a martial artist and/or could read the Japanese translations of them explained it a bit better than I am now. But they, while similar looking to the untrained eye, are different moves. Do you remember losing to Dou Niu the first time, by the way? You can easily defeat the Yellow Heads around him and fight him, but it blacks you out nonetheless...just like the Heavens. The only training Ryo receives between the fights with Dou Niu is from Kai with the Predictive Explosion. He also receives zero training between the end of II and losing to the thugs. It's not at all unrealistic. He's not outclassed, he just gets an overly muscular guy's punch to the head, being caught off guard. Unless you just want him to be invincible the entire time. Destroying everyone in his path with no training is much more realistic.
You find Shenhua’s father Yuan (should you even be looking for him considering his letter at the end of Shenmue 2?) and you lose the phoenix mirror to Niao Sun (BTW the only good story related inclusion – it really shows what could have been achieved only with better direction).
That’s it. Nothing else is memorable.
What disappoints me most is that they failed where it should have been the easiest. They delivered a great GAME with low budget, clearly due to the effort and countless hours of hard work of many people but failed in delivering a good story, where only good writing, creativity and art direction was required.
I am still a Shenmue fan and will continue to support Shenmue.
If somehow they acknowledge that this aspect will be improved going forward I will also support a future Kickstarter for Shenmue IV if there is one.
I suppose I will start to look of the bright side of things again and focused on the positives as some time goes by, but right now, I don’t think things are looking too bright for a Shenmue IV to ever happen. If a Kickstarter is needed to fund the project, I predict we won’t even get half what was accomplished for making this sequel.
What is amazing to me is how I have seen numerous people with grips about the game have a constructive dialogue around it, but the comments from everyone stating AS FACT that everything sucks seems to outnumber those healthy discussions. Since when did anyone's opinion become straight up fact?