Why do people love Shenmue?

[nakamura]

Sam dont come on here posting crap about me being anti sega. I blitzed the MD but you cant play every game. I loved Sonic 1-2 but so what if i thought 3 was too OTT with far too complex levels.

I had a saturn with Guardian Heros, both Panzer shooters and a lot more. The machine was also switched and had a hell of a lot of imports including the Capcom fighters, plenty of shooter like Terra Diver, Donpachi and Radiant Silvergun.
I dont hate Shining Force at all, i have never really played it as i dont like SRPGs.

I have a DC too and completed a lot of titles on it. I didnt finish Skies because the encounter rate was annoying along with some difficulty spikes. I absolutely love Phantasy Star but so what if i never completed it.
I completed JSR maybe 3 times, both Shutoko Battle games I completed on Jap and Pal. Capcom vs SNK I unlocked everything on the Jap version and that took hours. Speed racers I completed, god i hammered my DC too come to think of it.

I think you need to get your facts straight before you post a lot of crap that makes me look stupid. And for the record I clearly dont hate the DC. I simply dont think its perhaps as good as people say. I wanted to discuss it with people the same was I wanted to discuss Shenmue.

[Sam The Man]

If i remember correctly Martin when i last mentioned playing Shining Force 2 & 3 your response was ''I HATE SHINING FORCE ITS ****!!!''

And when i last asked you if you ever had Guardian Heroes your response was ''NO BUT IV PLAYED IT''

I know your not stupid or anti Sega and i never said you HATED the DC but in all the time iv known you i cant remember you being a huge Sega Fan.

[Sam The Man]

Lol Martin is a bit ANTI Sega samanosuke. He never liked Sonic 3 or Sonic & Knuckles. He's never played Toejam & Earl. He's also never had Nights Into Dreams, Guardian Heroes or Panzer Dragoon Zwei and hates Shining Force 2 & 3. And although he had a Dreamcast he didnt finish half the games he had for it including Skies Of Arcadia & Phantasy Star Online.

Dont get me wrong he enjoyed a few Megadrive titles and the odd DC game but in all he's not a huge Sega fan.

Right i think this post wasnt entirely accurate. The things i was incorrect on was that you never had Guardian Heroes or Panzer Zwei when you apparantly did have both games. And although you didnt finish all the DC games you had, you did infact have and play alot of DC games during the time you had a DC. Infact you probably had more DC games than me but i finished every DC game i had and only wish you apreciated some of the DC games more (Skies Of Arcadia, Shenmue, Ecco The Dolphin).

Iv known Martin for a long time and know he loves his games as much as me but even though my previous post was fairly accurate there were a few incorrect statements i made.

[BigDeadFreak]

I’m currently playing Yakuza 2 and this, along with the first game, has helped me to fully appreciate the Shenmue games even more.

Yakuza is far more action packed than Shenmue; there’s a lot more going on and it moves at a much faster pace. However, you could draw similar conclusions by comparing Snatch to The Godfather but to say that this proves that the former is superior to the latter would be equally wrong in both cases.

What I miss so much in Yakuza is the details that were so prominent in Shenmue. For example, the crowd noises when you’re outside are so generic and sound almost identical wherever you are. They are also just very short clips played on an endless loop and this gets very repetitive very quickly. In Shenmue the background noise was different wherever you went and changed according to what was going on. This really helped with the total immersion that made the game so compelling. One thing that has been mentioned is the fact that, in Shenmue, you could follow an n.p.c. as they went about their daily business and see them going to work in the morning and going home at night. Whilst I never did this personally, I think it highlights yet more attention to detail and shows how lacking yakuza, and many other games, are in this department. In yakuza most of the crown completely changes as soon as you move from one camera view to another; there is no consistency as the n.p.c.s are just randomly generated automatons as opposed to individual characters with their own agendas. Also, despite the fact that there is over 5 years between the two games, Yakuza (and G.T.A. 4 for that matter) still features rows and rows of buildings that cannot be entered and serve a purely aesthetic purpose. It is often said that, for all the detail in Shenmue, most of it could not be interacted with in any way. However, I think that it shows just how far ahead of it’s time Shenmue was that games of this type are still offering a similar level of interactivity to this day.

I’m not blind to Shenmue’s floors but it really was one of the greatest gaming experiences I’ve ever had. When I first played it I’d just bought a switched Saturn and didn’t want to play anything that didn’t move at 10000 miles per hour. However, I revisited the game a couple of years later and absolutely loved it. I think if you are in the mood for a slower paced game and really want to go to another reality for a few weeks then Shenmue surpasses everything else out there.

[samanosuke]

Yakuza is far more action packed than Shenmue; there’s a lot more going on and it moves at a much faster pace. However, you could draw similar conclusions by comparing Snatch to The Godfather but to say that this proves that the former is superior to the latter would be equally wrong in both cases.

Perfect analogy, especially as The Godfather is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time

[Lyris]

I don't know what people are thinking when they say that. Maybe we should have a "Why do people love The Godfather, or pretend to love it so they look high-brow" thread.

[samanosuke]

Maybe we should have a "Why do people love The Godfather, or pretend to love it so they look high-brow" thread.

Surely Tomas Gutierrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment fits into the latter category better?

[garrz32]

we've just done a top 25 dreamcast games. A lot of gamers are going to be very upset...

Just got my copy thro the letter box today...haha,got to say it's not a bad 25 tbh

[Shoju]

I'm a fan of Shenmue but admit there were long sections that were boring. There's something about the whole however (characters, story, atmosphere, music, sound, scenery) which made it stand out. The official DC magazine actually made a similar point. I think technically it looked amazing at the time of release although there were problems with the animation. I still think of it as 7 or 8/10 game though.

Shenmue 2 I thought was much better. Initially you feel a bit alienated and lost (Ryo doesn't know anybody and it's a new larger area), but once in to it, it gets so much better. There's more to see and do, more secrets, better fighting, the storyline gets more interesting with better characters and some really fun mini games. I really liked all that martial arts lore too.

About the Yakuza comparison mentioned before, I'm also missing a lot of the detail that the Shenmue games had. You pretty much hear no voice work outside of cutscenes, very few people to interact with and most buildings/houses/shops are inaccessible. The characters and story don't interest me as much. I'm only on the 1st Yakuza though so hopefully it improves in the later games.

[Lyris]

Surely Tomas Gutierrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment fits into the latter category better?

I've not seen that - should I inflict it on myself?

Love your avatar BTW, Shoju. I grew up on those

[Shoju]

Love your avatar BTW, Shoju. I grew up on those

Me too, it's the 50th anniversary and the series continues even now.

If they were to go back to Shenmue I'd expect them to start with a remake (so that all the new players could experience the story from the beginning) and then take it from there if it were successful enough. They could maybe use the Yakuza 3 graphics engine and most of the gameplay and voice acting (both Japanese and English) is already done. Maybe that would be a practical relatively cost effective way of getting the series going again?

[Duddyroar]

Shenmue is probably the most relaxing video game I've ever played. Most people might find that strange but the sheer ambiance of the setting, the soothing music and the atmospheric sound effects...it was just bliss.

[Sam The Man]

I'm a Sega diehard but have to admit for all its technical accomplishments Shenmue was dull. As in makes Bioshock look good dull.

Lol saying Bioshock is/was dull is like saying Muhammed Ali in his prime was slow or Diego Maradona in his prime couldn't dribble.

Shenmue definitely had its flaws but for me Shenmue was much more than the sum of its parts, it was a great experience.

[samanosuke]

Lol saying Bioshock is/was dull is like saying Muhammed Ali in his prime was slow or Diego Maradona in his prime couldn't dribble.

...or saying that Garou: MotW is ****e. Yes FamiDude, I'm looking at you!

[MikeRox]

While I agree that the DC is being looked back upon with rose-tinted glasses, I also believe that it more than deserves all the praise it gets.

It's really the last system of it's kind and in my eyes, wether that's justified or not, it's the last of the consoles built for gamers.
By that I mean gamers like the ones who grew up on 8 and 16 bit systems and such, not necessarily the 32-bit kind.

The gaming scene drastically started to change after the Dreamcast.
Some for the better, but on a more personal level, a lot for the worse.
Much of this has to do with my love for arcade style games and it's decline.

I feel exactly the same way. You still get the occasional gem, but what is now becoming the main type of game I don't find as enjoyable as the more off beat quick fix games I cained the hell out of on the DC. Not knocking what we have now, games like Uncharted 2, KillZone 2, Forza 3 etc I think are all good too, just not the same as what we used to have.

As for your Shenmue 1 vs 2 thing, I agree 100%. Shenmue 1 was a more intimate and I found the same, that connection with the environment was what made it. Shenmue 2 you were constantly looking at new areas, so you never really felt "at home" but that would make sense, what with Ryo no longer being at home. I think Shenmue as a series actually hit a lot of emotions/feelings that games can very rarely get near, even if the actual game itself as a game, isn't the most exciting story (how many people's lives are actually genuinely exciting?), doesn't have the greatest dialogue and doesn't have the most responsive combat controls etc.