Stuff Shenmue Did That Most Games Don't Do Now

Nathanial Essex

Nathanial Essex

Joined
Jul 28, 2018
Location
London
Hi all

Whilst waiting for the US Open to start, I fired up Shenmue and started the 70 man battle. Managed to defeat 69 and lose to the last guy and was impressed with the battle system; dodgy camera and flunky controls aside. Made me think, I don't think I have played a game with a more comprehensiveness fighting system. Tonnes of moves and they somehow related to how you would do them in real life. For example, I wanted to do that back throw where Ryo brings the opponent over his should in the air, drops and rolls over him. I simply knew it was back back and throw because that's how it felt.

Not too sure I have come across a game with such a comprehensive move list.

What else do you reckon the original games did which games are either not doing now or still not doing as well?
 
Most NPCs, to this day, are little more that cardboard cutout people just used to populate the streets. Only in heavily story-based games is any special attention given to fleshing out them and their stories as a central part of the game design, but never quite at the volume of Shenmue, or married with world simulation aspects where life continues to go on even without the player's direct involvement.

While Hideo Kojima and Peter Molyneux were talking about features that never come to fruition where you can plant and grow trees, Shenmue had already shown a tree blossom and shed through the seasons.

Nearly no game dares to indulge the player in the ordinary, mundane, and routine like Shenmue; and STILL manages to make it a fun part of the experience.
 
One thing it did different then, and even now, is making the player wait. I know that many people play through it the first time, have to wait a while for a certain event, and then say ‘this sucks!’ Of course, for a typical game where people expect tons of action, this would be a huge game breaker. But in Shenmue’s case, it was designed to incorporate this so called “design flaw”. Yu Suzuki decided that to make a realistic world, the player can’t get everything they want, at the exact moment they want it.

When you’re forced to wait and be patient, you start to notice the small things that make Shenmue special. From mini games, to small extra events, even interesting conversations with NPCs, it just really shines the light on all the little details Yu Suzuki included. Put together with the rest of the game, this aspect makes Shenmue the unique experience it was meant to be.
 
The most fleshed out "Original" soundtrack of all time. There's a piece for nearly everything. It's so wholesome you can pick a mood/feeling you wanna evoke and chances are you'll find a song in shenmue to associate with it. And that's only 20% of the entire catalog. I've found myself coming back to take a listen every so often over the years and it never gets tiresome. Most AAA studio will just start licensing music to build up it's repetoire but to see Sega compose 800+ tracks all in-house is a testament to the artistry talents Sega's acquired.
 
I feel most open world games are style over substance and by no means is that 100% a bad thing. I feel that too many open world games feel too much like a playground, or an endless forest or desert for you to run in or fight random monsters. In Shenmue, you actually talk to people who can be of help to you, or they just tell you to buzz off. In Shenmue 2, I like how NPCs can take you somewhere. These days, a marking on a map can take you there. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but I like how Shenmue has this sense of “interaction” that many open world games have failed to adapt.

I also like how Shenmue uses time. In MGSV or GTAV, it’s there, but you don’t feel it. You’re not obligated to be somewhere at a certain time and the time change feels random and doesn’t feel natural as it does in Shenmue. I also love how the game teaches you martial arts. In some instances, you can have the scrolls, or in other instances, an NPC teaches you first hand and you have to “translate” the instructions into the controller. When I play Shenmue, I feel like I’m there. When I play another open world game, I really don’t have that same sensation and just see it more as a playground to fuck up shit (again, nothing wrong with that) as opposed to a living world.
 
Outside of attention to detail ingeral, what Shenmue 2 did, that still nothing has ever come close to, is the realistic characters, especially the AIs, as well as organic nature of Fang mei, and Shenhua.

Something less groundbreaking, yet sadly Isn't replicated anywhere else, is how complex, and dynamic QTEs are. It's largely because other games fall back on QTEs because they're lazy, where in Shenmue It's used as a meaningful way to tell a story, as well as have branching paths. Also QTEs are handled very carefully as they mirror what Ryo is suppose to be learning/feeling


This next one Isn't unique to Shenmue, but It's so rare, It's basically unheard of. How quests are delivered organically. Despite being such a advanced design philosophy, It's actually more common in retro games, but even so, It's super rare among retro games as well.
 
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高野和泉 said:
Every NPC is unique. Never a single repeating Npc used as asset flip for another. And they all contribute to the world-building in some way. Shenmue NPCs are thoughtfully design. World class stuff folks.
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Yea this is another thing that shouldn't be rare, but is. I have a feeling the reason this is so rare, is because most developers write it off as a waste of time/not worth it.

However while there is logic in that for many genres, what developers don't seem to put thought into, is how fleshed out everything is, the fewer assets you reuse. Dragon Warrior 7 is a prime example of a earlier version of this, and omg it really brings the world to life.
 
Then there's the weather too; though it didn't have actual effect on gameplay (other than cutscene availability), to program the exact weather, to the hour, of the forecast at that point in time... just something ridiculous.

Now they have weather systems in games but are they at all as complex as 'mue's is?
 
An organic sense of world and character building. What I mean is that in Shenmue there are so many little scenes that can be missed which build relationships and character but you can simply miss them because you weren't in the right place at a certain time.

The game tries to adapt Ryo to how you play. If your only interest is revenge and pushing the main quest forward then you'll miss so many of the little details and it will change the way that you see the game. Where as another player may spend time living in the world and find all these little scenes that another player may not see simply because they engaged with the world as opposed to just being focused on the main quest at heart.

The way the game does this character and world building is kind of organic and entirely dependent on the player. I was thinking about this after watching the Giant Bomb endurance run where they missed so many of the little details because they were only focused on the main quest. But I can't say they played it "wrong" because, in a way, they played organically to the way they play and saw only a small portion of it and thus built a version of Ryo that was solely dependent on revenge and revenge only. The curious thing about Ryo is that he is somewhere between a blank slate (or enough of a blank slate for the player to project themselves onto) with just enough character and personality to stand on his own. Ryo's a curious creation.

It's kind of interesting. In a day and age of check box games where you're simply checking off boxes, Shenmue doesn't give you any real clue as to the things you can see in it. Outside of the notebook, but even then the notebook gives you no real clue as to what you missed. The only way you'll find those things is to engage organically in its world. To take as many knees as possible and simply wander about. To live in its world is to be rewarded.

It's a world that tries to simulate the idea that time moves on with or without you. It's an ambitious feat that I just don't see in open world games to this date. It really does try to organically build not only a sense of place, but also strives to give you a sense of freedom as to how you engage in its world. How you build your version of Ryo is something more organic rather than mechanical.

I remember back in the day the advertising for the game used to say "no two playthroughs will be the same" and, in a way, it wasn't just hyperbole. They kind of achieved that. The first time I played, I missed so much of the side stuff that my second playthrough was entirely different as I organically started to see more in it by simply exploring more and playing in a different way.

There was a real ambition to that first game. The second game builds on that ambition. I hope the third game continues to build further on it, because it's something I don't see in a lot of games. An organic sense of both world and character building.

I play most open world games and I feel they're just mechanical...fun but mechanical. I play Shenmue and I get a different sense. The sense that the world moves on with or without you. In most games, I feel that the world kind of revolves around the main protagonist. In Shenmue, I get the opposite feeling. It's a feeling I don't get from games today. There was a real ambition behind Shenmue that a lot of games simply have not matched.

Or maybe I'm just being hyperbolic, but I've always appreciated that it's a game that urges you to live in and engage with its world to get the most out of it. As opposed to just filling out check boxes.
 
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高野和泉 said:
Don't forget shenmue is also technically the most impressive use of Qte's.
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Yea, that's a definite :) I always find myself feeling like I'm in a difficult spot, whenever I have to describe that aspect to anyone who doesn't know about Shenmue, all because literally every other game out there, just uses QTEs as a means to cut corners sigh.
 
Yes, QTEs feel unnatural in a majority of other games and they don’t really feel like part of the experience in comparison to Shenmue
 
Shenmue did everything better than most other games even now. It has a open world that is worthy the term. You are not a random dude in a random world, to do mundane Tasks nobody cares about. You are part of the open world in Shenmue, and not just a foreign Body that was implanted into the world .

I absolutely dislike open world Games. I find them boring and mundane. Shenmue is the only open world that really managed it to Keep my busy. It was the first open worldish game I ever finished and played several times again. I have tried many of the famous open world games, but I found them all boring so never finshed them.

Only Shenmue and Days Gone could entertain me enough that I could finish them.


ps: Yeah I know I am a super Shenmue fanboy, but I am not speaking out of Nostalgia. I did not play Shenmue before the year 2018 and I tried the famous open world games out before I played Shenmue. So I am rather objective because I tried the supposedly better games out before I tried out Shenmue.
 
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9dragons said:
Shenmue did everything better than most other games even now. It has a open world that is worthy the term. You are not a random dude in a random world, to do mundane Tasks nobody cares about. You are part of the open world in Shenmue, and not just a foreign Body that was implanted into the world .

I absolutely dislike open world Games. I find them boring and mundane. Shenmue is the only open world that really managed it to Keep my busy. It was the first open worldish game I ever finished and played several times again. I have tried many of the famous open world games, but I found them all boring so never finshed them.

Only Shenmue and Days Gone could entertain me enough that I could finish them.


ps: Yeah I know am a super Shenmue fanboy, but I am not speaking out of Nostalgia. I did not play Shenmue before the year 2018 and I tried the famous open world games out before I played Shenmue. So I am rather objective because I tried the supposedly better games out before I tried out Shenmue.
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Shenmue is also the embodiment of forward thinking in game design. Taking chances on new bold ambitious ideas. Finding outside tech that can help you achieved an epic vision in uncharted waters. A design philosophy that is sadly lost in this generation of cookie cutters and less risk takers. Games quality has taken a hit and the industry become stale with progress halted to a slow crawl as a result, we've never seen another "Shenmue" tier ambitious game ever again in the last decade.
 
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