(Shenmue I) Difference between moves at intermediate and max?

[VagrantDuck]

I've been trying to find this information for literal years but now that I'm attempting a 100% (or near enough) playthrough for the first time ever it has become slightly more urgent.

I understand the benefit of getting your moves to intermediate: they come out quicker, there's less recovery time, sometimes a followup hit is added or even the move completely transforms.

What I can't tell nor can I find online is if there is any definitive, measurable benefit to going beyond intermediate all the way to max beyond an ever-so-slight mastery boost at the beginning Shenmue II. I don't see any further transformation, nor any extra speed gain to my eye. Is damage output increased perhaps?

Asking as the difference between "get all moves to intermediate" and "get all moves to max" is huge gulf of tedium.

 

[spud1897]

@Richard Payne you've delved into this alot. Any ideas?

 

[Richard Payne]

I've been trying to find this information for literal years but now that I'm attempting a 100% (or near enough) playthrough for the first time ever it has become slightly more urgent.

I understand the benefit of getting your moves to intermediate: they come out quicker, there's less recovery time, sometimes a followup hit is added or even the move completely transforms.

What I can't tell nor can I find online is if there is any definitive, measurable benefit to going beyond intermediate all the way to max beyond an ever-so-slight mastery boost at the beginning Shenmue II. I don't see any further transformation, nor any extra speed gain to my eye. Is damage output increased perhaps?

Asking as the difference between "get all moves to intermediate" and "get all moves to max" is huge gulf of tedium.

I can’t say for sure, but from what I could gather from my hours of play time, training moves to the max is a complete waste of time and gives you nothing in return (other than that slight XP boost when transferring the save to Shenmue 2).

You already seem to be familiar with the benefits of training moves to intermediate level. Each move behaves differently in this regard, but in general, moves can:

[1] Get a damage boost;

[2] Evolve into a more refined form (with different animation, collision and range. This is not always a good thing, but it’s irrelevant to the topic);

[3] Get a unique follow-up;

[4] Get a combination of 1, 2 and 3.

To make some examples, Brutal Tiger, Rising Flash, Mud Spider and Thunder Kick all get [1] and [2]; Mistral Flash, Windmill, Twin Hand Waves and Elbow Assault get nothing at all (or maybe they do get a damage boost, but it’s insignificant); Crawl Cyclone and Stab Armor only get [2] (yeah I know, Stab Armor’s intermediate version seems stronger, but nope, damage is unchanged ).

Maxing out the XP bar on the other hand is a different story entirely, because there are no changes to be seen at all. If Shenmue 1 featured health bars for opponents, it'd have been easy to spot any difference in damage output, but since that's not the case, I was led to believe nothing actually changes after reaching intermediate level/50% XP.

A couple of years ago, I did some tests in the 70 Man Battle with two different save files: Save 1 had Ryo’s initial moveset with 0 XP, while Save 2 had Ryo’s end game moveset with most moves between 55 and 70% proficiency. When fighting Shingo Murasaki for example (the 1st boss you face), it’d take 4 Demon Drop/Darkside Hazuki to knock him out with Save 1, but only 3 Demon Drops/Darkside Hazuki with Save 2. When fighting the weakest Mad Angels you can encounter, 2 Tiger Knuckles were enough to defeat them in Save 2, but not in Save 1, where one extra Tiger Knuckle was needed. In short, it was clear moves were stronger in Save 2 due to me playing through the game and spending time in the practice training mode.

I then tested Save 2 with a different save (we'll call it Save 3), where I had some of Ryo's moves at 100% proficiency. I could not spot any differences whatsover, until... I used Dark Moon.
In Save 2, Dark Moon was at like 65% XP, and when I went and used it against the toughest non boss opponent, he would barely survive it, and any following attack would defeat him. In Save 3 however, where Dark Moon was maxed out, that same guy would go down with a single Dark Moon, no extra Tiger Knuckle needed! I was shocked!

This kinda hints at the possibility moves do keep getting stronger after reaching intermediate level, but even if that’s the case, the damage increase is so insignificant it’s almost impossible to notice.

For example, I once maxed out all throw moves on the PC version of the game by using a trainer, and when I went and tested their damage outputs and compared them to the legit save I was using, I could not spot any difference.

In conclusion, there's evidence that suggests moves might get a very slight damage boost if they reach/get close to reach "master level", but I don't think it's worth going through hours of tedious grinding just to obtain a supposed damage boost you might not even notice during play. I had to spend hours setting up saves with very specific training levels and test moves against specific opponents just to notice Dark Moon gets an additional damage boost between 50% and 100%!

 

[VagrantDuck]

I can’t say for sure, but from what I could gather from my hours of play time, training moves to the max is a complete waste of time and gives you nothing in return (other than that slight XP boost when transferring the save to Shenmue 2).

You already seem to be familiar with the benefits of training moves to intermediate level. Each move behaves differently in this regard, but in general, moves can:

[1] Get a damage boost;

[2] Evolve into a more refined form (with different animation, collision and range. This is not always a good thing, but it’s irrelevant to the topic);

[3] Get a unique follow-up;

[4] Get a combination of 1, 2 and 3.

To make some examples, Brutal Tiger, Rising Flash, Mud Spider and Thunder Kick all get [1] and [2]; Mistral Flash, Windmill, Twin Hand Waves and Elbow Assault get nothing at all (or maybe they do get a damage boost, but it’s insignificant); Crawl Cyclone and Stab Armor only get [2] (yeah I know, Stab Armor’s intermediate version seems stronger, but nope, damage is unchanged ).

Maxing out the XP bar on the other hand is a different story entirely, because there are no changes to be seen at all. If Shenmue 1 featured health bars for opponents, it'd been easy to spot any difference in damage output, but since that's not the case, I was led to believe nothing actually changes after reaching intermediate level/50% XP.

A couple of years ago, I did some tests in the 70 Man Battle with two different save files: Save 1 had Ryo’s initial moveset with 0 XP, while Save 2 had Ryo’s end game moveset with most moves between 55 and 70% proficiency. When fighting Shingo Murasaki for example (the 1st boss you face), it’d take 4 Demon Drop/Darkside Hazuki to knock him out with Save 1, but only 3 Demon Drops/Darkside Hazuki with Save 2. When fighting the weakest Mad Angels you can encounter, 2 Tiger Knuckles were enough to defeat them in Save 2, but not in Save 1, where one extra Tiger Knuckle was needed. In short, it was clear moves were stronger in Save 2 due to me playing through the game and spending time in the practice training mode.

I then tested Save 2 with a different save (we'll call it Save 3), where I had some of Ryo's moves at 100% proficiency. I could not spot any differences whatsover, until... I used Dark Moon.
In Save 2, Dark Moon was at like 65% XP, and when I went and used it against the toughest non boss opponent, he would barely survive it, and any following attack would defeat him. In Save 3 however, where Dark Moon was maxed out, that same guy would go down with a single Dark Moon, no extra Tiger Knuckle needed! I was shocked!

This kinda hints at the possibility moves do keep getting stronger after reaching intermediate level, but even if that’s the case, the damage increase is so insignificant it’s almost impossible to notice.

For example, I once maxed out all throw moves on the PC version of the game by using a trainer, and when I went and tested their damage outputs and compared them to the legit save I was using, I could not spot any difference.

In conclusion, there's evidence that suggests moves might get a very slight damage boost if they reach/get close to reach "master level", but I don't think it's worth going through hours of tedious grinding just to obtain a supposed damage boost you might not even notice during play. I had to spend hours setting up saves with very specific training levels and test moves against specific opponents just to notice Dark Moon gets an additional damage boost between 50% and 100%!

Great write up and thank you for your service in investigating.

I think this confirms my mindset that a “100%” playthrough should just for sanity’s sake be intermediate alone. A theoretical ~5% damage output increase is not worth the grind.

I’d be very interested in your thoughts on which moves suffer from their intermediate transformation. In a similar vein, I’ve done runs in the past where I’ve avoided learning a specific move or two due to preferring the base move that gets replaced.

Shenmue II removes that issue by letting you pick but that leaves a lot of Shenmue 1 content where you might miss an old move.

 

[Richard Payne]

Great write up and thank you for your service in investigating.

I think this confirms my mindset that a “100%” playthrough should just for sanity’s sake be intermediate alone. A theoretical ~5% damage output increase is not worth the grind.

I’d be very interested in your thoughts on which moves suffer from their intermediate transformation. In a similar vein, I’ve done runs in the past where I’ve avoided learning a specific move or two due to preferring the base move that gets replaced.

Shenmue II removes that issue by letting you pick but that leaves a lot of Shenmue 1 content where you might miss an old move.

No problem, I'm happy to know you're not going to torture yourself by training all moves to the max. I did that in both Shenmue 1 and 2 and it was penance from beginning to end.
It took me months to go through the process, meanwhile watching movies, YT videos, listening to music and podcasts, and still could not make the experience any less painful and boring. It's also kind of impossible to do in Shenmue 1, because throw moves will never progress far enough to reach 100% by the time you're fighting Chai at the harbor.

Speaking of training moves, the base VS intermediate debate is a huge topic to tackle, mainly because it depends on your playstyle and personal preference. I could write an essay on which form I prefer and why for this reason alone, but will have to postpone it to some other day for now.

While Shenmue 2 does mitigate the issue of "giving up moves" by letting you pick which one you'd like to use, it did ditch a lot of move forms that were present in Shenmue 1, and even changed a couple of moves entirely (Twin Swallow Leap is a completely different move in Shenmue 2, though it's arguably the better version of the two).

In addition, Shenmue 2 punishes you for missing story moves in Shenmue 1 by making them completely unavailable. Say you missed or simply decided not to learn Double Blow because you liked Twin Hand Waves more, you won't have it in Shenmue 2. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense obviously, but it kinda forces you to always pick the same moves in Shenmue 1 because you don't want to miss out on them in Shenmue 2.

To provide a personal example on why I hate this, I do not enjoy Tornado Kick at all, especially in Shenmue 1. It takes ages to start up and enemies can often see it coming from a mile away, dodging backwards as soon as you input the move. It also doesn't help it likes to miss at random and it's easy for enemies to interrupt it. With that said, it does do massive damage when it connects, being able to take out multiple opponents at once, which is one of its strongest points.
The problem I have is you need to let go of Against Cascade to learn it. AM2 couldn't have possibly picked a worse move for the swap, since Against Cascade can be of Ryo's most useful moves in Shenmue 1 if trained to intermediate and used correctly. However, thanks to this design flaw, I'm always forced to ditch Against Cascade because I don't want to miss out on Tornado Kick in Shenmue 2... and because I don't like the idea of saying no to Tom!

 

[xatruio]

Moves which are replaced such as Against Cascade and Twin Hand Waves I get to at least half between Intermediate and Max, so i can change based on mood in Shenmue 2 and still have both at good training level.

Despite the incremental power difference, I actually love training, it is a bit of a bare bones rhythm game for me; stringing two or three move combos or doing repeated move in sync so they segue into left or right hand stance. Besides I personally feel the difference more than incremental--all in my mind?

Tornado kick i usually do the single A input due to the long startup

 

[VagrantDuck]

Aaaand that's every non-throw move raised to intermediate! Date is Dec 13 and I'm at the very end of what would be Disc 1 (literally could hop on the bus to track down Warehouse No. 8 now but I still need to do the final Enoki fight behind Wakaba Apartments) Can finally set my training focus to be throws going forward as well... all moves intermediate feels very achievable now.

Interestingly enough, the one move that wouldn't unlock was Shoulder Buster, despite me doing the input during fights and Fuku-san sparring sessions. But that finally unlocked when I got the notebook entry that said I can get the bus by the Tobacco stand. I've seen folks online saying it didn't unlock until they had the forklift job, or some that it never unlocked at all. And I'm fairly sure I myself have had it unlocked much earlier on in previous playthroughts. I wonder if there's a random chance check involved at every point of story progression?

Notebook I've 100%'d as much as is possible (i.e. except for the notes that are mutually exclusive). Those Lapis clues become very expensive! I'd never gotten them before because, honestly, they're compeltely unecessary. But it's fun seeing what some of the gaps in the notebook are all these years later. Not sure I'd both to get them again even on future near-100% runs though.

Due to Lapis I have just 540円 left to my name now and I'm yet to buy a single gacha or play an arcade game! Not sure how I'm going to have enough money to do the Abe Store raffle prizes on Christmas outside of ridiculous levels of save scumming. At least the PC port makes saving and reloading hyper fast.

The problem I have is you need to let go of Against Cascade to learn it. AM2 couldn't have possibly picked a worse move for the swap, since Against Cascade can be of Ryo's most useful moves in Shenmue 1 if trained to intermediate and used correctly. However, thanks to this design flaw, I'm always forced to ditch Against Cascade because I don't want to miss out on Tornado Kick in Shenmue 2... and because I don't like the idea of saying no to Tom!

Yes! This one! Against Cascade is such a great, instant-input punish move. Especially at intermediate as you say when it becomes a Muay Thai-style flying knee.

Tbh as a Virtua Fighter fan all these moves (and more!) could have been kept accessible if Shenmue allowed slightly more complex input patterns rather than just variations of left and right. I get why they ultimately went for a simplified system however as they weren't trying to appeal explicitly to the fighting game crowd.