You were the one to specifically call out the gameplay -- not the overall experience. You were downplaying the importance of gameplay to support your stance that Shenmue II's the best game because of its story, but then insinuated the gameplay is also better in II:
I mean you literally quote me as saying "on its own the gameplay is nothing special" and I've said pretty much nothing but "all that matters in Shenmue is the story, that's the only reason to continue the series" and "why would you even want the series to continue if all you like is the gameplay? Suzuki could have made a spiritual sequel" etc. I even compared it to adventure games, which all basically share the exact same mechanics because those mechanics, and that genre, are primarily about telling a story. So where you're getting this notion that I'm saying S2 has fundamentally
different gameplay from S1 is very mysterious to me, please quote me if I've said it. It's
better because it doesn't waste your time (as much) but, as I said, at the end of the day, all 3 games are basically just running around pressing A on things and getting into fights.
So yes, I completely understand if someone prefers Shenmue II because of its atmosphere, story, its "context",
Then you understand me. The only difference is that I argue that the difference in context is the difference between a good game and a bad game.
but that wasn't what you were arguing in the post I quoted.
Yes it was. How you perfectly articulated what I was saying and then somehow told me I arrived at a different conclusion is beyond bizarre to me.
(in fact, III has way more to do than I and II, but I digress)
There's more to do in Wario Ware, does that make it the best game ever? More to do =/= good. Again, in my adventure game example I specifically call out adventure games that focus on gameplay gimmicks as being bad.
I'm not presuming anything, I'm literally going off the opinions you've posted on here: you don't think 1 is that good and you think 3 is terrible: both games sway heavily in the "life simulation" direction.
I meant to say this before but I'll say it now: Shenmue actually doesn't have that much "life simulation" to it apart from how time governs things and possibly the need to realistically earn money. It certainly doesn't amount to half the experience as you suggest. S3 adds the need for food but it's so haphazard that I would hardly count it as a "simulation": you eat bananas and garlic when your health is low. I wish Shenmue had more life sim to it, needing to cultivate relationships with the other characters, especially in S1 when Ryo could have to balance his normal life with his quest for revenge would make that game so much more personal and interesting. S3 makes vague gestures toward this with the Shenhua conversations but they don't amount to anything, the writing is bad, they repeat a lot of ground that was covered in S2, and the game abandons the concept halfway through.
Again, I would argue that S2 gets the life sim/story balance right; you have to air out books before you can continue your investigation, the need for money gets in the way of Ryo's quest for revenge, the practicality of finding one person in a huge city comes up several times, and the bond that's forged between Ren and Ryo is basically all due to them spending several days/weeks together going after a common enemy etc. S1 and 3 have far more isolated story moments that feel like they could happen at any time, rather than building off the fact that the world is "alive".
You even admit that 2 "wastes" the player's time too at points, and it's the "worst parts of the game"...it's pretty clear you just don't like one of the major aspects of the series, which is why you only really like one of the games in it. Not sure why you're not willing to admit that.
Yes, I don't like when games waste the player's time. That should be a pretty uncontroversial thing to say. If you consider "wasting the player's time" to be a "major" aspect of the series, then why do you like it?
C'mon dude.