- Joined
- Aug 22, 2018
So that was... something. It took me 90 minutes to complete blind. The story is 100% self contained and offers no new insight into the larger Shenmue story. I’d love to say that I enjoyed it, but it felt like a bit of a chore.
If you haven’t already paid for it, I’d recommend saving your money and reading the below spoiler tag...
My issues with this DLC...
If you thought the story in the main game was bad, just wait until you play this.
If you haven’t already paid for it, I’d recommend saving your money and reading the below spoiler tag...
Zang shows up and tells you that he’s been sent to keep an eye on the Chi Yu Men. Shortly afterwards, he goes missing and another guy shows up and acts as your point of contact. After learning that a gang called the ‘Blue Spiders’ have come over from Hong Kong and are causing trouble, you have to put up different Cha wan signs in different areas of Niaowu. After a few notes, you learn that the Blue Spiders are none other than the gang of thugs from Bailu. After beating up a few of them, your new contact takes over the interrogation but later goes missing. You’re given yet another random new contact and must go back to randomly posting Cha wan signs around Niaowu. After a few more notes and pointless bits of information, you’re told to go to the upstairs of one of the restaurants but need a date and formal clothing to gain entry. After running all the way back across Niaowu, your contact happens to have a formal dress and training suit to hand and you take Shenhua to the restaurant. Here the game glitches out and you get another note. Now it’s time to go to the hideout (it’s been accessible the whole time but nothing happens when entering until you’ve progressed the story). You find Zang tied up and learn that your second contact (his name might have been Wei, but I forget as there’s no real character building) was actually a mole and is the leader of the Blue Spiders. Beat up the thugs and then defeat Mr Muscles MK1 again. Zang thanks you, gives you a phone card and tells you that you can keep the formal clothes. Then he leaves, giving no new information.
My issues with this DLC...
As the script for this was written and recorded in 2018, there are several parts where the dialogue no longer matches up with the task you have to do. You’re told that if you see Zang you should tell him to go back to the hotel, but after searching around Niaowu for about 20-30 minutes, I checked the notebook and found that I should actually have gone back to the hotel. I was told to ask people on Vender Avenue for information. Again, after speaking to loads of random people on Vender Avenue, I checked the notebook to see that I was actually supposed to be asking people on the promenade. After being told that Zang has been taken by the Blue Spiders, I go back to the contact to give him the information only to be told that Ryo hasn’t learned anything yet. After speaking to two more people who give me the same or less informative information, I finally get a prompt to go back the contact. There are bonus items that can be picked up by performing Cha wan signs at certain times/locations, but I didn’t pick up any of them on my playthrough despite often having to sign at 4-5 locations at each stage. I found myself asking what the point of the Cha wan signs was when there is constantly a guy sitting at a table that you or anyone else from Zhou’s organization can pass information to. I had no idea why you’re able to access the Blue Snakes HQ so early on and why Ryo doesn’t acknowledge the giant blue spider painted on the side of the building until the point in the story when you need to find the hideout (even though you know that they have Zang from a very early point in the story). I found myself wondering why on earth random contact #3 just happens to have formal clothing for a male and female to hand and why they didn’t use one of the many pointless shops for this story beat instead. I’m not sure if it was just my playthrough, but when exploring the Dim Sum restaurant, my notebook opened and told me that I’d got a note and should go back to contact #3 before I’d even sat down and received the note. I was also a little disappointed to see that after the quest is complete, you can no longer use the cups to sign and so I’ll have to replay the story on a different save to pick up the items/trophies that I missed.