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Giant Bomb #24 | In the beginning...

M

mnz

Unconfirmed Member
KingKong said:
its a role playing game isnt it? I mean most shooters aren't going to age much but games with new mechanics will
Click to expand...
Well, you play a role in pretty much any game. It's an action adventure in my opinion. But it's tough to compare it to anything of that year, there's nothing like it.
 
E

EmCeeGramr

Member
pizzacat said:
Lay it on me, tell me what happens in chapters 2-5 of the shenmue saga
Click to expand...

Ryo arrives in Hong Kong and is immediately robbed of all his money.

He meets a bunch of friendly street punks and fights his way through a bunch of gangsters in the Kowloon Walled City, and there's like cage matches and dudes with chainsaws

He meets the guy who wrote the reversed letter who talks about how the mirrors are part of some ancient Chinese dynasty prophecy or something, and also the guy that Ryo's dad supposedly killed was actually Lan Di's dad

Ryo sees Lan Di hanging from a helicopter ladder but Lan Di is all "lol peace out" and flies away while Ryo fights some other gangster

Ryo finds out he has to go to the countryside region where the mirrors were made. There he finally meets the girl from the boxart and intro and all the dreams of Shenmue I, in the final act of Shenmue II

They spend in game several days and real world hours of game time hiking through woods and traditional villages talking about stuff, and her dad is missing

Shenmue is the name of the tree on her lawn

BTW she has magical chi powers, and they go into a cave and use the mirrors and a sword on a Indiana Jones puzzle and she makes the sword float with her magic powers and reveals two giant mirrors and she repeats an ancient prophecy about how Ryo is destined to save the world or something

The game ends right there with Ryo and Shenhua looking at each other while the magical floating sword is there
 
T

Tagyhag

Member
It really sounds like a love it or hate it game.

As a fan of David Lynch, I'll probably end up buying it later, but this review really put me off for now.

When a game is as beautiful and full of potential as Virginia is, it's difficult to admit that its flaws outweigh its better aspects. I wanted to like this game, but I feel like I'd be lying if I were to recommend it.

The art and music work well together to fashion a stunning world from an aesthetic standpoint, but upon closer inspection that world falls apart. The lack of interactivity in the environments are more reminiscent than a sparse model home than the life-filled spaces of Gone Home or Firewatch. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the same charm of other "walking simulators" to carry it. The game's soundtrack is ambitious, but inadequately implemented (more on this in a moment). The game's scenes are jarringly short, which ends up as a bit of a paradox, as the game's pacing makes it feel like one long scene rather than a fulfilling narrative. At the length of a fairly short movie by today's standards, Virginia still dragged. The soundtrack tries to match the game's pacing, and succeeds for some of the quieter moments, but the tense scenes feel too thinly stretched, going on for far too long for the music's urgency to have the same impact.

From a gameplay standpoint, there isn't exactly much to talk about. Your control over the main character is criminally shallow, leaving a unsatisfying disconnect. Often in environments there's only one thing to interact with, and there's no feeling of exploration when you're being railroaded through the story with even less agency than similar titles. It's difficult to call Virginia a "walking simulator" when you aren't even doing much of that, but "clicking simulator" sounds too close to point-and-click adventures, so I suppose I must settle for "watching simulator." This brings an issue to mind: I'd much rather be watching this story as a movie than playing it as a game, especially given how little gameplay there actually is. Were this an animated film, perhaps it would have faired better, but as a game--even as a narrative experience--it's sorely lacking in giving any sense of fulfillment.

Much of the unfulfilled feeling this game leaves lies in the story. Now, I'm not dead set on narratives requiring traditional structures, and I love movies that incorporate strong visual storytelling (Upstream Color comes to mind), but Virginia's narrative has an indirectness that leads to confusion rather than good old fashioned min♥♥♥♥ery. The developers did, indeed, set out to make a confusing game, but rather than being a complex mystery Virginia ends up as a scattered, unfocused, vague mess. Trust me, I got the major points of the story. It isn't that hard to piece together. However, what the game presents is, again, unsatisfying. I believe a lot of this is due to the lack of voice acting. While the NPCs were characterized well, Anne herself feels criminally shallow for the weight attributed to her story. The player doesn't identify with her because her motivation's don't align with ours in the slightest. Were there some narration, perhaps this wouldn't have been so jarring, but as it stands this alienation doesn't add anything to the game.

I feel like this game could have been more. Had the player been given more agency, there would have been a better connection to the story rather than the unshakable feeling of being an outsider. The visual style doesn't make up for the lifeless environments, and the music is largely hit or miss, with more of the latter in the long run. The story felt rushed and the pacing dragged, and the game's world isn't fleshed out enough to feel its own.

To sum it up in a word, Virginia was unsatisfying. Perhaps I'm missing the point. But perhaps the game just needs to make its point better.
Click to expand...
 
S

SatelliteOfLove

Member
hamchan said:
Games from 2000 that aged better (and are better) than Shenmue:

The Sims
Vagrant Story
Majora's Mask
Deus Ex
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Tekken Tag Tournament
Final Fantasy IX
Skies of Arcadia
Space Channel 5
Diablo 2

Why don't I just copy and paste the whole list of year 2000 games and then delete Shenmue?
Click to expand...

Our next er with Dan at the helm. Heh
 
E

EmCeeGramr

Member
neshcom said:
That sounds awful. What sort of hubris does it take to wait until the end of the second game to actually get to the
prophecy and magic stuff
?
Click to expand...

Well, from what I understand

-A lot of Shenmue 1 and 2's events were supposed to be one game
-Shenmue 1 sorta dabbles in that stuff
Ryo's dreams about Shenhua are supposed to be actual visions, as well as Chen talking about how the mirrors can cause some horrible disaster
-Yu Suzuki once said
that by the end of Shenmue II's development they knew the writing was on the wall for the series at the time so they went a bit extreme with the ending on purpose
 
N

neshcom

Banned
broncobuster said:
Comedic effect aside, Shenmue 2 has a reasonably compelling storyline in the near term. Shenmue 1
really drags the idea of finding Lan Di, but its immediate story line is about Chen and the Mad Angels; the monster man is even disconnected from that.
Click to expand...
Yeah, so far S1 has all been to find Lan Di and all these piddly in-between reasons why that isn't happening yet.
Though lobbing narrative criticisms at a 16 year old game seems pointless...
 
G

Gozer the Gozerian

Member
justjim89 said:
With the CRPG revival of the last few years, I'd love nothing more than for Bethesda to publish another isometric Fallout game made by a smaller studio that harkens back to the old games. Spend a bit of money to appease series die-hards while the main series gets further streamlined into oblivion. How fucking good would that be?

bz2nbobadufitdhhj6qg.jpg
Click to expand...

To resurrect a discussion from a couple days ago, are you guys who were wishing for a new isometric Fallout game excited by the Wasteland 3 announcement? Never played 2, but looks pretty promising and reminded me of the mock-up screen justjim posted above.

Ctc_NPEWYAA7om8.jpg:large
Click to expand...
 
S

Sleeping Lesson

Member
Tagyhag said:
It really sounds like a love it or hate it game.

As a fan of David Lynch, I'll probably end up buying it later, but this review really put me off for now.
Click to expand...

It's more like it's inspired by Lynch but the devs don't actually understand what makes Lynch great. The game is a lot of ambiguity for ambiguity's sake and meaningless symbolism.
strafer said:
makes me wanna play it even more
Click to expand...

Despite my criticisms I still think it's worth playing. $9 and 2 hours, not a big investment either way.
 
P

pizzacat

Banned
EmCeeGramr said:
Ryo arrives in Hong Kong and is immediately robbed of all his money.

He meets a bunch of friendly street punks and fights his way through a bunch of gangsters in the Kowloon Walled City, and there's like cage matches and dudes with chainsaws

He meets the guy who wrote the reversed letter who talks about how the mirrors are part of some ancient Chinese dynasty prophecy or something, and also the guy that Ryo's dad supposedly killed was actually Lan Di's dad

Ryo sees Lan Di hanging from a helicopter ladder but Lan Di is all "lol peace out" and flies away while Ryo fights some other gangster

Ryo finds out he has to go to the countryside region where the mirrors were made. There he finally meets the girl from the boxart and intro and all the dreams of Shenmue I, in the final act of Shenmue II

They spend in game several days and real world hours of game time hiking through woods and traditional villages talking about stuff, and her dad is missing

Shenmue is the name of the tree on her lawn

BTW she has magical chi powers, and they go into a cave and use the mirrors and a sword on a Indiana Jones puzzle and she makes the sword float with her magic powers and reveals two giant mirrors and she repeats an ancient prophecy about how Ryo is destined to save the world or something

The game ends right there with Ryo and Shenhua looking at each other while the magical floating sword is there
Click to expand...
1304601031309179025.gif
 
F

FStop7

Banned
Does Lan Di show up at his buddies' LAN parties and always crack the same joke about how flattered he is that the party's in his honor?

Oh that Lan Di, such a kidder.
 
J

justjim89

Member
Gozer the Gozerian said:
To resurrect a discussion from a couple days ago, are you guys who were wishing for a new isometric Fallout game excited by the Wasteland 3 announcement? Never played 2, but looks pretty promising and reminded me of the mock-up screen justjim posted above.
Click to expand...

Oh shit. I didn't even know there'd be a Wasteland 3. 2 was really good from what I played of it.
 
U

ultron87

Member
Virginia has a ton of style and has a lot of momentum as you play it. At the end the story is kind of just a "huh?" but I didn't really mind that from a 2 hours thing for 10 bucks. Like there are pay offs for some parts of it, but the overall thing is pretty confounding.

It definitely isn't the most interactive thing.
 
S

Sleeping Lesson

Member
Salarians said:
Virginia's soundtrack, art, and style seem really cool but everything I've heard about the actual narrative leaves me disinterested.
Click to expand...

I hope they have a vinyl release of the soundtrack, because it's fantastic. It should get a mention during GOTY soundtrack talk, but I doubt anyone will play it enough to think of it.
 
M

mnz

Unconfirmed Member
Soundtrack discussions are weird. You better have a track that's immediately catchy when played on your phone or you won't stand a chance.
 
E

EmCeeGramr

Member
Fantastapotamus said:
What? No. It's not a role playing game. How is it a role playing game?
Click to expand...

So it started as "Virtua Fighter RPG," they looked at RPGs while developing it, and there's some poster in the Shenmue demo saying "1999... RPG has changed."

I guess the whole idea of going around and talking to NPCs while learning new skills and leveling up moves was considered enough for people at the time to consider it a new kind of RPG or evolution of the RPG concept if you stretched the term broadly.
 
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