In S1, the worst part of the game is Disc 1; there's no point in any of it until Ine San gives Ryo the letter, it has the forced "waiting for Charlie", there's basically no fighting, and even during my first play through I knew that no one I was talking to was going to be able to actually lead me to Lan Di, which is Ryo's only objective for the bulk of it. Disc 2 is perfectly paced and imo all that S1 should have been. Disc 3 is mostly filler but at least that filler is used to expand the world and justify the length (as opposed to the Disc 1 filler which is just literal time wasting). Forklift driving is OK, definitely not something I ever thought the series would return to, but you rightly point out that the main flaw with Disc 3 is that it's completely on rails. You basically can't practice or buy new moves anymore unless you rush home after work, (which the game discourages you from doing) even though Disc 3 is where all the fighting is. S1 goes from a game grounded in realism with virtually no combat and a leisurely pace to an insane 70-man brawl that sees Ryo (a high school student) single-handedly defeat an entire gang of thugs. It's probably one of the most jarring gameplay shifts I've ever seen.
Disc 1 has a lot of problems. The dead end until you get the letter, the waiting around, the pointless sailor and charlie quest which became memeable. However, I still think Disc 3 is worse.
Thing is Disc 1 is really short. You can finish it in around 4 hours on your first play through and half of that if you really know what you're doing. The most egregious and lengthy parts of it are waiting around with nothing to do while looking for Charlie. However about 50% of Disc 1 is good. It sets the stage well, and has you looking to translate the letter and find Master Chen. While parts of it are bad, if that was all Shenmue 1 had detracting from it, it would be fine. Better games have had their share of tedious or bad parts.
The other thing to remember is that these things don't seem as noticeable when you are first playing the game, especially when it came out, because it had enough technical wow, novelty, and side content, to distract you for the 1-2 hours it makes you waste.
Disc 3 on the other hand, while having more action and world building, takes 50% of the games play time. that coupled with the fact that after a slow start the story starts to take momentum to basically come to a halt for Ryo to go to work for a week. Also, the time wasting waiting parts are sprinkled throughout the game, so it doesn't end with Disc 1.
Don't get me wrong, I like aspects of Disc 3 and I still think the MA and the Long Zha should have been in the game. I just don't think you should have had to grind at a job for so long and have it so drawn out. It would have been better to reduce that down to a third of its length and have you fight the MA 2-3 times before the ending of the game.
As for the 70-man brawl, I liked it as a set piece to end the game but it does detract slightly from the impact of Ryo losing to the Heavens in S2.
I would say that S2 does a far better job of gesturing to what the series is (a martial arts epic) than S1 but, really, I think the fault is that Shenmue does a horrible job of establishing what kind of game it is. There are people who prefer either Doom 2016 or Doom Eternal but no one is debating over whether or not they're games about shooting demons; there are literal arguments between several members on this forum over what genre Shenmue belongs to. Is it a cheesy martial arts revenge story? Is it a somber reflection on finding meaning after immense loss? Is it an epic adventure where the fate of the world hangs in the balance? Is it an RPG? Is it about fighting? Is it about martial arts philosophy? Is it about talking to random NPCs and playing minigames? Is it all of these things?
This is a good point. I've always thought that Shenmue's gameplay and pacing should suit whatever the story needs from it. There are times to pick it up and have action, and times to slow it down and have exploration or dialogue.
The key is to have deliberate pacing, but Shenmue 1 doesn't feel this way.
don't see how going from a leisurely pace in the first two discs to the increase of fighting in disc 3 is unrealistic. You are investigating a gang and getting involved in their affairs. The only thing I find unrealistic about that scenario is that Ryo isn't shot to death. Though once again, I find it ironic that people complain that the pace is too slow, but once it picks up, it's now a problem.
I think a lot has been said on this already and you don't seem like you want to continue to engage further so I'll leave it at this.
I think that more action often gets confused for faster pace. In terms of driving the story forward and feeling like you are accomplishing something Disc 2 does it much better. You find Master Chen, learn about the mirrors, discover the basement, discover the Phoenix Mirror, learn about its legends and Phantom River Stone, try and fail to get to Hong Kong. All of that in a few hours and with only 2 combat scenes (Guizhang, Chai). Not to mention many of the best scenes with family and friends that develop the characters happen on Disc 2.
Compare that to Disc 3 where you have to spend the next 10 hours trying to stop the MA, knowing full well that it won't lead anywhere to finding Lan Di, and spend half of that time driving a forklift. It just stops the pacing in its tracks and turns a lot of people off.
I think these are the reasons that a lot of mainstream people became turned off from Shenmue and never gave the sequel a chance.
Gets me every time.
