I feel like fake locations was a mistake.

Well, it's based on actual locations and feels very Chinese to me. The surrounding environments almost gave me that Yangshuo feeling, a place I visited in 2016. Yu Suzuki took some liberties with Kowloon too and placed it on a mountain.

As I said, I agree for almost every location but some of the stuff in Niaowu was just baffling and seemed out of place to me. Is it meant to be a tourist trap town? Genuine question because that's what it felt like.
 
I thought Niaowu was beautiful until you get to the weirdly out of place areas like the arcades and Ice Cream stores/burger shop. It felt like a tacky theme park, is that in any way linked to the real city being a tourist trap or something in the 80's? I feel like it was just poor design, which really disappointed me.
Agreed that it was strange to give it a fake name.
The design looked a bit strange within that world. But Yu said in an interview that the city tried to attract more tourists and Chobu-chan was a way to get them to visit more stores and see more of the city. He mentioned this while explaining the Chobu-chan concept. I liked that he had thought of a reason to incorporate this since it made a side activity part of the world in a more realistic way. It also made the player explore more, just like the tourists within the game.
 
Anyone else? Up until Niaowu...
Can’t say I have too much to add to the discussion, but I just wanted to take the time to show some appreciation for the word play in your opening line (intentional or not). Bravo!
 
Shenmue also has the potential to touch on issues of the hill tribes (Miao, Hmong), a subject that is often tiptoed around in China, so I can see it self censoring if it has to.

Also, I heard that the Chinese version of the game doesn't even take place in China but a fictional country. Not sure if that's true though.
 
I really don't understand it at all considering the government loves foreign portrayals of the warring states and other historical eras. Is the issue simply that Shenmue covers an era too recent?


I dont get how a country with so much nationalistic and cultural pride adopted Russian ideology...
 
I didn't really get a period feel from either location. I didnt really feel love it was the 80s but also didn't feel like it was present day
I felt like it was present day because of "Show Me The Money!" when viewing the how to fish Help menu, couple times someone says "really?" or "seriously" and of course seeing the Shenmue capsule toys.
 
The design looked a bit strange within that world. But Yu said in an interview that the city tried to attract more tourists and Chobu-chan was a way to get them to visit more stores and see more of the city. He mentioned this while explaining the Chobu-chan concept. I liked that he had thought of a reason to incorporate this since it made a side activity part of the world in a more realistic way. It also made the player explore more, just like the tourists within the game.

Yeah it felt like a tourist city for sure, but is that actually accurate, or just a way to excuse the weirdly out of place buildings?
 
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