This isn't gameplay. It's nothing. It's pressing 'A' to view a slow, boring, poorly acted, poorly shot, glacially paced cut scene. This game is literally running up and down the street and getting shitty cut scenes to lead you to the next shitty cut scene for hours on end.
In every other game, the actual game part isn't the "pressing A to view cutscene and trigger then next possible cutscene availability", it's what you do in between them to get there. It's the action in between, the traversal in between, the puzzles in between.
Here you have a game that eschews the actual interesting things you do between the cutscenes, all while having terrible cutscenes as a reward.
"Isn't gameplay" is the laziest fucking retort. I was giving examples of ways to fill the free time they spent running up and down the street, all of which are valid ways to spend that free time instead of just camping outside the next story location. The only one that involves a cutscene is learning the move, and involves more than just "pressing the A button".
I mean every time they talked to those dudes they just told them to fuck off, it makes no sense that it would work now
But they
know that NPCs will have different things to say depending on where they are in the story, the game has already established that logic. If they already falsely identified the biker as Charlie for having a tattoo, why wouldn't they think about talking to the biker?
It's not really a big deal, as they'll likely be directed to them through another NPC next episode, but it's entirely possible to skip that step and doesn't require intimate knowledge of the game to figure that out.
The game does an awful job of telling you about any of that.
They 'played' slots btw. It was a slot machine in a video game. Even worse than actual already terrible slots.
I don't think they are 'frustrated' just that they are reacting to a severely awkward and antiquated game that had a novelty to it at the time because it was ahead of its time but all of that has aged terribly. Every mechanic here has evolved by leaps and bounds.
I'm finding zero emotional investment in the storytelling because of how weird and terrible the characters are. People can put up with a lot if they cared about where the plot was going but Shenmue makes it extremely hard to do that.
The game isn't supposed to tell you any of that, that's the point! You're meant to go find it out for yourself, the game was sold on exploration in an unprecedentedly detailed environment. They
are getting frustrated, and the reason for that is that they're fighting the tide of the game's pace. If they ever just kind of let up and embrace filling that time and exploring a bit more, then it'll be a smoother play-through.
And no, they didn't play slots. They walked up to the machine, and left. There's nothing much to win from the slots besides an item, but it's at least worth a try to kill time.
Yeah, they went to that guy because he had sunglasses, a leather jacket, tattoo, etc., just like Charlie, but the dialogue didn't change from when they were just standing on the side of the road. If there wasn't new dialogue because he was a dude who matched Charlie's description, what reason would they have to believe there would be new dialogue because he has a tattoo?
Again, because he has
tattoos, which is how they wrongly identified him as Charlie, and are now looking for a
tattoo parlour.
Not to play devil's advocate, but this is a game that very much goes out of its way not to tell you stuff so you'll explore for yourself, which I think is part of the charm.
Finally, a voice of reason.
Look, I'm enjoying the endurance run a lot, but you can't put the game at fault for them killing time running up and down the same street when there
are options to fill that time. The game does best when you just submit to the fact you'll need to kill time, and find an activity that does it for you.
For example: now that Vinny knows you can win mini items of the arcade machines, why doesn't he try winning
all of them?
