Is it worth playing the re-release or sticking with the originals?

While I haven't played the Dreamcast originals, I've read and watched enough about them to know that I wouldn't be interested in playing them. By far, the biggest issue is the loading screens. I would have spent at least 30 minutes longer staring at load screens if I'd been playing these games for the first time on Dreamcast as opposed to the HD release, and that's a very conservative estimate. Maybe they're better through emulation, but every time I look at Shenmue emulated, I'm seeing problems with the emulation that bother me.

The far cleaner presentation also adds a lot, especially with Shenmue 2. The lack of mipmaps in the Dreamcast version of that game is brutal, but doesn't pose any issue while playing the HD releases vanilla. The supersampling option is a nice bonus, as is being able to turn bloom on and off at will. The ability to switch between English and Japanese with ease is very nice to have, too. (The 4:3 cutscenes don't bother me in the slightest, nor have I encountered any issues with inconsistent or out-of-place letterboxing.)

As for bugs, I haven't encountered any, really, nor have the HD versions crashed on me. The only real problems I've had with the releases are the lower quality voices, which can be fixed with a mod (with the exception of Shenmue 2's Japanese voices, which the modder hasn't finished working on yet, unfortunately). Other than that, it's been such smooth sailing that I would never recommend the original Dreamcast or Xbox versions of the respective games to anyone aside from being a nice bonus to fans.
 
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Some people have picked up on awkward pauses in conversations when playing in Japanese, due to the timing being based on the English dialogue (or something along those lines). However, I've barely noticed anything out of the ordinary. In fact, playing in English has reminded me of how many awkwardly placed ellipsis...there are in the middle of...sentences with the English VO, presumably because they were trying to match the JP timing.
 
The HD version is better but kind of disappointing at the same time. I've never played a game with so many bugs in my life but the load times are gone and it looks a lot better in 1080p. Personally I'll probably never use the originals again. Shenmue 2 hd has the best of the dreamcast and xbox versions so it wouldn't make any sense to go back to the original. I noticed that you can buy the game for $20! People are trying to sell the dreamcast version of shenmue 2 for over $100 so it's good that the HD versions exist.
 
Well I just bought Shenmue I & II HD for the PS4 in preparation for Shenmue III, just waiting for it to arrive! I'm not a longtime fan like many here but I hope I can get the same level of enjoyment from the series.
 
A huge thing for me is that the ports added in a way to keep track of your collections. This along with load times and convenience make the ports my go to. Although I'm not so set on them to say I'll never again play the originals as many are saying here.
 
HD or Dreamcast? It's a curious question. I still tend to lean towards the Dreamcast versions although the HD versions are...decent at best.

The biggest pros of the HD versions has to be both the load times and the higher res nature of it. It does admittedly look better than ever. No shimmering and those load times are incredibly

But I'm in the position of having a GD EMU in my Dreamcast (my GD drive burnt out a year or so back so I moved over to GD EMU) so the load times are no longer a thing for me in the Dreamcast version. GD EMU loads in quite quickly and I could never really go back to my GD version of Shenmue or Shenmue II (although I still have both of them). So load times are about on par with the HD version and no longer an issue in the Dreamcast versions for me.

But even though the HD versions have been cleaned up, I still think it isn't perfect. On release, both of those HD ports were pretty bad. Lots of bugs (I had so many bugs in my first playthrough of each game that it would take me a long while to list them all) and some really weird issues with Black Crush. I platinumed Shenmue II at launch, but it was not an enjoyable experience as the game was just so dark. I have no idea what was going on with the renderer but it felt like there were just massive issues with the gamma at launch. And it felt like the in game toggles to correct some of that stuff were just broken. I remember trying to turn off Bloom off and still seeing Bloom in the game.

It was pretty broken at launch.

Granted, they have kind of fixed it with patches (it is still not perfect but it is far better than it was at launch) but yeah, the black crush really bothered me about those HD releases at launch. And it still does a little. It's better than it was but it's still not perfect either.

For me, my preference still lies with the Dreamcast versions. It feels right at home playing those games on a Dreamcast. But the HD ports are decent and it is nice to have them
 
Somehow it seems that Bugs tend to avoid me.:p Maybe they are afraid of me. Minus the bug that Ryo gets sometimes invisible in S1 I never had any Bugs with Shenmue 1. Shenmue 2 even was flawless experience. So many People complainend about Bugs. I never knew why. Never had any major issues

Same goes for Days Gone. Many People complain and complain and I never had any Problems. Even with earlier updates of the game. It was always running fine.
 
9dragons said:
Somehow it seems that Bugs tend to avoid me.:p Maybe they are afraid of me. Minus the bug that Ryo gets sometimes invisible in S1 I never had any Bugs with Shenmue 1. Shenmue 2 even was flawless experience. So many People complainend about Bugs. I never knew why. Never had any major issues

Same goes for Days Gone. Many People complain and complain and I never had any Problems. Even with earlier updates of the game. It was always running fine.
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I also got lucky with the bugs on the PS4. The slightly borked music in 2 can be a bit of pain but meh. I've just started playing the PC version with the Audio restoration and it is superb.

Days gone I ahd loads of sound issues, it woudl regularly cut out before the mose recent update. Now it is all fine.
 
Shenmue said:
Well I just bought Shenmue I & II HD for the PS4 in preparation for Shenmue III, just waiting for it to arrive! I'm not a longtime fan like many here but I hope I can get the same level of enjoyment from the series.
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I bet u do enjoy them
 
I appreciate the convenience of the HD versions, they look nice and especially with the latest patches they run fine aside from the odd issue with darts music in Shenmue 2. Load times and save anywhere are also really big pros for the new versions.
I'll always keep my original DC versions though, because I love those versions and they are still technically the "best" versions of the games when it comes to them not including some glitches introduced in the HD ports.
 
RunningWolf said:
The HD version is better but kind of disappointing at the same time. I've never played a game with so many bugs in my life but the load times are gone and it looks a lot better in 1080p. Personally I'll probably never use the originals again. Shenmue 2 hd has the best of the dreamcast and xbox versions so it wouldn't make any sense to go back to the original. I noticed that you can buy the game for $20! People are trying to sell the dreamcast version of shenmue 2 for over $100 so it's good that the HD versions exist.
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You sir should try a bethesda game!

The audio - especially in Shenmue 1 was the biggest disappointment. At times it feels like something someone did as a hack to make it play on modern consoles/pc or a backwards compatibilty type of thing rather than a proper commercial re-release (that had an actual disc release as well).

So for me I felt it fell short of the standard - especially when being asked to pay £30 for 20 year old games with no other work being done to them other than making them run in HD and re-doing the menus.

That being said especially for Shenmue II (which has way less audio issues) other than the horrible lazy 16:9 boxed in a 4:3 frame for the cutscenes this is the best version of the game. SII on Dreamcast suffers from dreadful slow down in places - it pushed that little grey box to the limit (and often beyond!), the load times are pretty severe as well. The X-Box version (The original SIIx release - not this dual pack) runs a lot better but lots of the wierd blur effects on the fighting and the english dub (with no option to switch to the JP) is pretty second rate.
 
One thing that I appreciate about Shenmue III is that the text and fonts in the game look very similar to the Dreamcast versions and not the HD releases. It's like Yu Suzuki went and pressed the undo button on III.

The HD versions are okay. I'd recommend them to any first time player. But if you want a pure Shenmue experience, Dreamcast is where it's at.
 
Of course its worth to play the Re Releases or Shenmue 1 & 2 HD Collection,,, last year when it came out I did it on the xbox one,,,completed both with all achivements had only a lil Sound issue after the Patches It works really perfect then this year at january I do it on PC steam at my Friends House don't own a Pc by own.sure I got again all steam achivements too.Well and now at may 2019 I got finally a ps4 pro and I am at the moment half way thought the story of Shenmue1 after Ryo pay that 69000 Ticket that was a trap ? good old Ryo still believes in the trust of People and well sure I am gonna do there also all trophys....What Can I say? SHENMUE 1 & 2 are the best game they was it when the came out 20 years ago and they are it now on any console or PC yeah they have and had maybe some bugs at the beginning but Not for me...All I can say is at least give it a try with the newest Patches and I am almost sure u won't regret it....Can't wait 4 Shenmue 3?❣❣? The Love of my Life
 

A great video from Adam. It shows that, even with the DCHDMI mod (which gets the cleanest VGA signal from the system and outputs in 1080p), the Dreamcast version of Shenmue does not and cannot look as crisp as the re-release. It's just impossible due to the much lower native resolution and lack of anti-aliasing.
 
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