Shenmue confessionals

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RyoHazuki84

俺が益荒男
Joined
Aug 1, 2018
Location
Yokohama, Japan
Favourite title
Shenmue
This is a thread to make some confessions in relation to Shenmue

I have never once played Shenmue II on XBox. I never personally owned an XBox or its successors though my brother does have one and Shenmue II on XBox.

I have never played a fresh game of Shenmue II. I always binge play from Shenmue 1 and then use that save to carry over to Shenmue II.

Due to this, about 90% of my exposure to Shenmue has been in Japanese. I studied Japanese for six years (3 years in high school and 3 years in university), and Shenmue has always been a driving motivator for me. Now I have been living in Japan for almost 10 years.

I once visited a harbor when I first moved to Japan (I was living in a small city known as Sakaide in Kagawa, Japan’s smallest prefecture at the time), and asked some fisherman where I can find some sailors and they all told me they didn’t know.

I didn’t get around to visiting Yokosuka until i moved to Yokohama 3 years ago (I have also spent time in Ehime, Hiroshima, Niigata, Saitama, Tochigi and Ibaraki). But I have visited most areas portrayed in Yakuza 5 except for Hokkaido.

I have visited a seiyuu cafe in Akihabara owned by Masaya Matsukaze, the Japanese voice of Ryo, but he wasn’t there.

I once used a double palm strike in a fight in high school LOL. Hit the solar plexus with the right force and timing and it does work. But I already had a black belt in Tae Kwon Do at that point. The opening was just there and I took it.
 
I needed 10 years to find out that you can actually block your opponent's attacks by pressing Y while Ryo is immobile. Then my vision of the Shenmue combat system completely changed lol.

When I was bored by my Judo sessions, I decided to skip them and play Shenmue II instead. To offset my lack of training and my feel of doing something bad, I doubly listened to my NPC masters (i.e. Xiuying) to learn from their advice and took my sparring with Jianmin very seriously.

reminisce said:
I never actually played Shenmue I...settled for the dang Xbox movie...

But 15 years later and my mind is clear as a polished mirror...

So I’m ready to begin...again
Click to expand...

Wow. I was in the same situation some years ago. Although I now love both games with no preference, Shenmue I has less, less content and pace than Shenmue II so prepare yourself and have a nice play!
 
Yokosuka said:
Wow. I was in the same situation some years ago. Although I now love both games with no preference, Shenmue I has less, less content and pace than Shenmue II so prepare yourself and have a nice play!
Click to expand...

Thanks bud! Gonna take it all in! One of the few things I recall from Shenmue II is how it kept on going ha....so Shenmue I should be perfect!
 
I have never touched the Xbox version as well. I actually skipped most of the PS2/Xbox and early PS3/360 era of gaming.

Yokosuka said:
Although I now love both games with no preference, Shenmue I has less, less content and pace than Shenmue II so prepare yourself and have a nice play!
Click to expand...

You make it sound like Shenmue I is a worse game than the sequel, and to that I beg to differ. The first game certainly has less content as it is not as lengthy and also not as action packed as Shenmue II. That said, the one mechanic that set Shenmue apart from any other game kinda got lost on Shenmue 2, which was dialog trees tied to timed events. It means that if player is at a specific location and at a certain time, an unique event/scene will play out. Examples would be
saving Nozomi from bullies, Ryo's friends coming over to his house for a get together and having an intimate phone conversation with Nozomi.
As each day is unique in the game (the calendar keeps rolling), many of these are gone forever once certain time has passed. It was a clever way from the developers to soft push players to explore more of each nook and cranny area of the game to help pass time (time is unskippable) as they might be rewarded with unique event/ dialogues when they do so. Now in Shenmue 2, this element is almost gone entirely because there's a time skip mechanic for the player to take advantage of, and so instead of these time events the second game is populated with more activities and side quests. That is why I recall just one specific "side quest" that comes to mind in Shenmue II that resembles those elements of the first game. Anyway, my point is that there's even something sorts of one of a kind experience by playing Shenmue I that you will not get anywhere else, not even in Shenmue 2.
 
Guppy said:
I have never touched the Xbox version as well. I actually skipped most of the PS2/Xbox and early PS3/360 era of gaming.



You make it sound like Shenmue I is a worse game than the sequel, and to that I beg to differ. The first game certainly has less content as it is not as lengthy and also not as action packed as Shenmue II. That said, the one mechanic that set Shenmue apart from any other game kinda got lost on Shenmue 2, which was dialog trees tied to timed events. It means that if player is at a specific location and at a certain time, an unique event/scene will play out. Examples would be
saving Nozomi from bullies, Ryo's friends coming over to his house for a get together and having an intimate phone conversation with Nozomi.
As each day is unique in the game (the calendar keeps rolling), many of these are gone forever once certain time has passed. It was a clever way from the developers to soft push players to explore more of each nook and cranny area of the game to help pass time (time is unskippable) as they might be rewarded with unique event/ dialogues when they do so. Now in Shenmue 2, this element is almost gone entirely because there's a time skip mechanic for the player to take advantage of, and so instead of these time events the second game is populated with more activities and side quests. That is why I recall just one specific "side quest" that comes to mind in Shenmue II that resembles those elements of the first game. Anyway, my point is that there's even something sorts of one of a kind experience by playing Shenmue I that you will not get anywhere else, not even in Shenmue 2.
Click to expand...

Very simply put from me given I'm at work....

Shenmue 1 is much more of a warp around experience not only of the story but the community around it. While it's not a big area it's huge within itself.

Shenmue 2 expands the story and play area but loses some of the community experiences that 1 had. Then again I think it's supposed to.
 
@ Guppy. I'm not saying the contrary. But while your approach is very descriptive, my take is more emotional. Beating Shenmue 1 after Shenmue 2 is a really different experience than taking the classic way. I just wanted to warn reminisce which specifics parts of the game are potentially going to dilute his experience and not to be negatively surprised by them.
 
Never played the Dreamcast version of Shenmue 2.

I scoured for it when I was a kid but could never find it, so cheated on my Dreamcast with the Xbox version instead. :eek:

Now I finally own it, but the thought of playing through 1 and then 2 where Ryo is suddenly speaking a different language feels weird. Will instead wait for the HD's and experience 1 & 2 with their original Japanese voices that way.
 
Reading this makes me see things in new perspectives. I understand we all didn't have the opportunity to import and all that. But Shenmue 1, despite being a smaller game than 2, does not make it lacks any substance what-so-ever. I really have no preference and I want to see the saga as one big games.
 
I have never beaten Chai in You Arcade. Won't be this way for long, however. I'm gonna kick his bald little head around that place like a football come the release of Shenmue I & II!
 
I've actually completed Shenmue II only once... And Shenmue twice.
 
Oh, and I'm guilty of button-mashing during combat... I never learned the combat.. *confession bear*
 
Heh. I was already a long time Virtua Fighter fan when I got into Shenmue, so the combat came naturally to me with a good percentage of the moves. Between 2000-2009, I played the games at least once or twice a month.

At the top of my head, I've probably played the English version less than 10 times.
 
-I have never been able to see Mr. Yukawa's appearances outside of youtube. It's just been way too hard to get it although admittedly I haven't tried hard enough...
-I have learned an applied some martial arts skill due to this series
-I've never really played slot house for more than a couple minutes per game. It's just so boring to me...
-I found the duck racing my first playthrough, but I didn't learn about finding my own duck and racing it until a few years ago...
-I've never successfully done to completion all the Fangmei stuff. I've gotten really close many times, but ended up dropping the ball on some small detail and missing something somehow...
-I wear Shenmue clothes in public
-While I think Shenmue 2 is objectively the better game, Shenmue 1 will always be my favorite...
 
-ive said it before but i have not played shenmue 1 or 2 since 2007/8'ish. -i was mainly trying to get to the point where i could replay them and get that "fresh" feeling again. - hd release means i dont have to bother with re-buying a dreamcast & the games (y)

-i owned shenmue2 on the xbox for many years but couldnt bring myself to play it.. again i think it was due to over playing the dreamcast copies.

- ive never got a shenmue bad ending.

- i have never done the Fangmei birthday thing. (ive done the duck race & shop girl fight :cool:)

- i have very little interest in the capsule toys.

-im addicted to qte title acade game.

- i paid to get a shenmue t-shirt printed up & wore it when i was a kid in 2003.
 
I've never owned a copy of shenmue 1. The HD release will be the first time I actually own a copy of it.
 
I never completed the Xbox version of Shenmue 2 since I literally couldn't stand the English VA. Especially after I'd already played the game umpteen times on the Dreamcast with Japanese VA. I cringed whenever I heard some of the English VA in Shenmue 2.

I actually genuinely liked the English VA in Shenmue 1. Nowadays, I like it since I find the VA charming in the first game, wonder if it will be the same for Shenmue 2 when I play the re-release, or not...

I would wake up before school every morning (very early) when I first got Shenmue 1 just playing it and making myself late for school some days...I was obsessed back then.
 
I always thought that Tom was on the plane that Ryo watches right after saying goodbye to him. Took long to realize is was just symybolism.

What also took me very long it to find out that the whole set of counters and parry moves are still in Shenmue II, just with much harder timing.
 
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