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Giant Bomb are bringing back the Endurance Run... and it's Shenmue.

B

BronsonLee

Member
The last thing I want is them actually knowing what they're doing

My fondest memories of Shenmue are when I knew fuck all and stumbled about LOOKING FOR A GAME OF LUCKY HIT
 
H

Hjod

Banned
TheTylerRob said:
What's so wrong with admitting that they're bad at Shenmue? GB is bad at most games; you don't need to defend their video game skillz.
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People usually suck at playing games when they are trying to entertain the viewers at the same time. I rather have them banter and being funny instead of them focusing solely on exploring the game. Sure they could probably try to do both but I don't think the videos would be as entertaining.
 
W

Wensih

Member
Sumio Mondo said:
ITT: People shocked that an adventure game from 1999 is actually an adventure game from 1999.


This post illustrates perfectly how much modern games have ruined/watered down game design in a bad way. Shenmue is an adventure game, it would only make sense that in an adventure game you, of course, do obtuse things like look at your notebook for clues, talk to people for clues and point and click (here done by first person viewpoint) on items to advance the storyline. It really isn't that hard, apparently it is to these guys playing the game?

The fact that you are saying Shenmue should have what modern games have with the "look here!" marker is well and truly unfair such an old game. Get stuck with an old game? Read the manual. It's literally just the right trigger to zoom in/switch to first person.
Click to expand...

Here's a radical idea. Maybe game design hasn't been ruined post-1999 but has been improved by giving the player an inkling of an idea of which objects are interactable and which are not. I'm going to go out and stand on a fairly sturdy limb and proclaim that 90's adventure games were not good game design. Having a meandering pixel hunt and combining random items to progress is not good game design. It's not a puzzle. It's an illogical eye-spy.


If a game like Shenmue has the primary purpose of telling a strong narrative through interactions with in game people/objects, then its imperative to make it known to the player interactable objects from a distance. This doesn't limit exploration of the world as the player still wanders around the environment to inspect objects, but it does differentiate random background objects from interactable foreground objects. Modern narrative driven adventures like Life is Strange have handled this much better.
 
Cindi Mayweather

Cindi Mayweather

Member
Minishdriveby said:
Modern narrative driven adventures like Life is Strange have handled this much better.
Click to expand...

No it's not.

You'll see why later. Putting yourself in the game to find things is the appeal.

Life Is Strange doesn't let you let look at or interact with most things. Its interaction is limited? So having a highlighter makes sense. In Shenmue you can pick up most anything you can find. A highlighter would ruin the experience. If you highlighted everything you can interact with you'd lose the allure of finding something you can interact with. So if you're tasked with finding a certain object in the house which requires actual exploration and you have zero idea where it is, not being told what you can interact with forces you into the game world in a very natural manner. Life Is Strange is not in any way an improvement on Shenmue.
 
C

Count of Monte Sawed-Off

un33dab@dpu$$y
chromatic9 said:
Back in the 90s you'd click and walk around everywhere, this game was made just off the back of those times but in a 3D world, Vinny is coming at this with 3D modern thinking and thought there's no need to explore home and just expects the game to progress, probably heard its open world.

Will they find the Saturn or feed the bleeding cat. I was hoping when in the store the penny would drop to buy some fishy food.

Also a single player setting at home I'm sure they'd play it differently, they're sort of half concentrating and not taking in the locations very well while trying to do entertainment. If they explored a little bit more and looked at the screen longer they'd have more material to improvise on.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it doesn't help playing this game when in one ear you've got someone constantly asking inconsequential questions about how the world works, and in the other you've got someone being negative on the game and making incorrect assumptions about it.
 
P

Phu

Banned
EmCeeGramr said:
Reminding people again to be civil and not be rude or nasty.

I dunno, I've seen other playthroughs from people who didn't really like or know much about the game, but they experimented with the controls or knew about the zoom button from reading the manual or pressing the help button and were immediately all, "Okay let's look around his room then." GBE just opened a closet, thought that was all you could do, and then left.
Click to expand...

Ehh, the framing of the game is that Ryo's father is killed, he has a nightmare because it's haunting him, and the first moment of gameplay has him facing towards his door. Yeah, some people might decide to examine around the room, but the setup leans on the idea of 'get out there'.

Some have brought up the tape on the desk, but it's a small and otherwise mundane item. Shenmue doesn't need important items to highlight when you approach them or to have a little quest log telling players to 'examine the tape' or anything but simply having any sort of cue to draw the player's attention to anything at all would go a long way.

Heck, all it would take is for Ine to not hand Ryo his first allowance in the cutscene and merely have her point out where she left it, having it be a thing a player would have to manually pick up/examine. Very few players would be willing to pass up collecting free money. Put it next to another object or two and it's a natural and unobtrusive way to let people know what kind of game this is and is a design method that's been around forever. No button prompts or modern hand-holdy ideas necessary.

Maybe I'm looking at it with an unfair eye, but I think games should be able to communicate and encourage the use of their mechanics through their scenarios.

I've kinda said this before here, but the GB guys have been able to progress in the game so far while not really making use of the zoom function. Additionally, they seem to be having a rough time. However, they don't even seem to know what they're missing because there's been nothing in the game that has coaxed them to examine objects. I think the proof for this is in the fact that they have examined signs and items at the store. The game stresses the importance of finding certain locations/people at certain times, encouraging them to look at signs to confirm information. The shop had interesting items that they wanted to look at. However, going back and listening to what they said while in the store, it sounds like they just wanted to see what was on the shelves, so they tried zooming, but because that's how you can buy things [especially with the prices there], it sounds like they thought the zoom button is what they had to press to initiate shopping. For just any ol' object sitting about though, what has the game done?
 
S

_StreetSonic_

Member
Haha. I knew after watching part 6 that things would hit the fan. I wasn't expecting the waiting around in the same area until after they found the parlor. That's when I and I think some other walkthroughs did the waiting. I love Shenmue, but at that point I explored everything and played everything that I knew of and didn't know what to do to kill time. I was very bored waiting for Charlie.

I was a bit disappointed, but understood why they didn't talk to the bikers after 7pm. I thought they would since they did it so much before and would be in the "Why not" mood. I can understand now as to why they aren't zooming in on anything other than the signs, but why are they still not going into places they haven't been to before? I'm also assuming they will discover the zooming in on objects later because they will have to do so later in the story.

I do think them interacting with objects and doing side quests won't change their attitude on the game, but at least it would be something to do than just standing around and running back and forth.

I know if I was going mad while playing this game I would start button mashing. I would run around and zoom everywhere pretending Ryo lost his mind. Maybe if they did that they would get a clue as to what zooming in could possibly do. I was hoping a lot they would go back into the Tomato Store. I feel like that is the key to them discovering zooming in on objects. Then again they seem to have the mindset that they can do something here, but can't or won't do something else where.
 
H

hamchan

Member
I actually think the guys have explored plenty and talked to a whole bunch of NPCs, with most of them telling Ryo either the same thing as everyone else or just telling him to piss off.

I think it's a consequence of there not actually being THAT much to do in the small space of Shenmue. It seems that unless you know the exact place to go, or the exact thing to look for or person to talk to, you're mostly going to get nothing or just repetitive dialogue for your efforts. I feel it's just a consequence of this game doing a lot of things for the first time. Other games since then have taken a lot from Shenmue with a small open world space but have also improved on it, stuffed it full of content.

Plus there's the issue of the guys finding the side stuff they did find boring too. They don't care about practicing moves. People told them to go try and beat Space Harrier in one credit. Um, I don't think they want to play Space Harrier, they want to see Shenmue's story. They played all the other arcade games and didn't find it very fun either. I had the same experience and solved it by playing Ouendan on my DS for half an hour to kill time. Too bad these guys can't do that because they're making a video.
 
Z

Zafir

Member
_StreetSonic_ said:
Haha. I knew after watching part 6 that things would hit the fan. I wasn't expecting the waiting around in the same area until after they found the parlor. That's when I and I think some other walkthroughs did the waiting. I love Shenmue, but at that point I explored everything and played everything that I knew of and didn't know what to do to kill time. I was very bored waiting for Charlie.

I was a bit disappointed, but understood why they didn't talk to the bikers after 7pm. I thought they would since they did it so much before and would be in the "Why not" mood. I can understand now as to why they aren't zooming in on anything other than the signs, but why are they still not going into places they haven't been to before? I'm also assuming they will discover the zooming in on objects later because they will have to do so later in the story.

I do think them interacting with objects and doing side quests won't change their attitude on the game, but at least it would be something to do than just standing around and running back and forth.

I know if I was going mad while playing this game I would start button mashing. I would run around and zoom everywhere pretending Ryo lost his mind. Maybe if they did that they would get a clue as to what zooming in could possibly do. I was hoping a lot they would go back into the Tomato Store. I feel like that is the key to them discovering zooming in on objects. Then again they seem to have the mindset that they can do something here, but can't or won't do something else where.
Click to expand...

Yeah even know with re-playthroughs Charlie always makes me wait. I can minimise waiting time for everything else, but it just seems unavoidable for that.

As for interacting, they know how to interact. I mean they went in the Tomato shop and bought that torch, and looked at magazines. It's just they're not really doing it very often.

I think it's very much that they went in playing it as if it was a modern day game where generally you just can't interact with stuff or go inside buildings. Most modern game open world design use the world as kind of a prop for your entertainment, and so they only bother making stuff interactable if it's used in some way for a mission or something. Shenmue did it different in that it tried to make a believable little world, and made a good amount of it interactable and explorable. However, if you go in with the modern day mindset, you wouldn't even think to try it.

Over all it's a shame really, I wish more games these days had this kind of attention to detail.
 
W

Wensih

Member
Cindi Mayweather said:
No it's not.

You'll see why later. Putting yourself in the game to find things is the appeal.

Life Is Strange doesn't let you let look at or interact with most things. Its interaction is limited? So having a highlighter makes sense. In Shenmue you can pick up most anything you can find. A highlighter would ruin the experience. If you highlighted everything you can interact with you'd lose the allure of finding something you can interact with. So if you're tasked with finding a certain object in the house which requires actual exploration and you have zero idea where it is, not being told what you can interact with forces you into the game world in a very natural manner. Life Is Strange is not in any way an improvement on Shenmue.
Click to expand...

Here's the thing though, you can't pick up almost everything you find in Shenmue. Case in point the closet trophies.

In Life is Strange, if you're placed on one side of the house and the object you need to interact with is on the opposite side of the house, then you are still interacting, picking up objects, and exploring. You just know which objects are interactive and it leads to less confusion and frustration of knowing when you've actually finished interacteing with objects in an environment or if you missed something.
 
J

jcjimher

Member
I'm amazed at some of the arguments here!. Some random personal notes from a veteran Shenmue player:

  • I was never bored when I had to wait for events. I always found something rewarding to do. In fact I never ever skipped time in Shenmue II even though I had the option.
  • With that said, even back then I thought that most Shenmue minigames and side activities would have been better if being a bit more fun. I was only hooked for real with darts, lucky hit and some of the Kowloon fights (forklift crate moving was good too).
  • After I grasped the controls and the game in general, I often walked with the D-pad and at the same time I extended my right thumb to reach the left analog stick of the Dreamcast controller, in order to look at things while walking. So I agree a double-analog modern controls would be really welcome.
  • I played Life is Starnge in its entirety (and enjoyed it), but that "marker" system of highlighting "useful" things, while serviceable, devalued the exploration and immersion factor a lot. I wouldn't want that in a Shenmue game.
  • In fact I never ever bought any city or area map in Shenmue II, even though the game gave you that option.
  • Back then the Shenmue games were really the top experience a console gamer could have, a big event. Maybe if I played it now with a 50+ games backlog competing for my time I would have been less patient and maybe would express some of the complaints "modern" gamers are expressing.
 
B

BlackLagoon

Member
Sumio Mondo said:
ITT: People shocked that an adventure game from 1999 is actually an adventure game from 1999.

This post illustrates perfectly how much modern games have ruined/watered down game design in a bad way. Shenmue is an adventure game, it would only make sense that in an adventure game you, of course, do obtuse things like look at your notebook for clues, talk to people for clues and point and click (here done by first person viewpoint) on items to advance the storyline. It really isn't that hard, apparently it is to these guys playing the game?
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Really, because to me some of the Shenmue game mechanics seems archaic and unnecessarily obtuse compared to LucasArts adventures of the early 90s. They'd ditched the "What is" command with Monkey Island, letting you clearly see which items on screen were intractable as you moved the mouse around, and all actions available to you were right there on the screen at all times.

And these games were constantly responding to your actions in interesting ways, heck, the same goes for a lot of the adventure games of the 80s, like Sierra's AGI games or even the Infocom text adventures. There was always a funny quip, a harsh critique, or a grisly death to be discovered. In Shenmue it seems like the vast, vast majority of any random exploration you do is rewarded with either nothing, "Ask someone else", or "Sorry, I don't know anything about [current mission objective]". And I dare say that deficiency in the game design that can't simply be hand-waved by pointing at its age.
 
O

orient

Neo Member
BlackLagoon said:
Really, because to me some of the Shenmue game mechanics seems archaic and unnecessarily obtuse compared to LucasArts adventures of the early 90s.
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Wow, really? The vast majority of '90s point & click adventures are extremely frustrating to play nowadays, even the good ones. I played the MI remaster and hit many "what the hell am I supposed to do next?" moments. In Shenmue, you almost always know what to do next. There's perhaps one section of the game that you can get hung up on if you don't "zoom in" to a particular area, but nothing compared to the inventory nightmares that are point & click adventure games.
 
K

KageMaru

Member
Watching these guys play is great. It's fascinating to watch them almost struggle to play the game or figure out how to properly use the mechanics. While not great, and haven't aged well in ways, I still think Shenmue controls good enough when you figure them out. I basically never hit up on the dpad but instead would use the right analog stick to control the walking speed.

With that said it's entertaining to see these guys do things like buy a flashlight. That only highlights one of the strengths of Shenmue IMO. There are different ways to handle certain hurdles and that's awesome for a game that launched in 1999.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
Khezu said:
The game doesn't seem to give much of a reason to explore.
It just gives more badly acted and directed cut scenes.

Or sometimes little figurines, is there even any point to them? Do they unlock something if you collect all of them?
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It gives you forced breaks in the main story where you might as well go around and see/collect those things.

I'm not saying that's a great incentive, but better than playing the crappy minigames over and over or walking in circles doing nothing as you wait for time to pass.

Bigger problem is there's no good way to know that stuff is there for you to do, without outside help.
 
S

Sexually Aggressive Uncle

Member
Everyone saying that this game was amazing when it came out and that it's simply a case of it not aging well...... Spoiler Alert:

The game was dog shit back in 2000 too.

The only thing it had going for it were the character models, which were pretty impressive back then. Other than that it was a train wreck of an experience that is somehow remembered fondly by some whom I suspect were either very young when they first played it or are insufferable Sonic flag waving Sega fans...maybe a combination of both.

And Shenmue 2 isn't that much better. The dialogue and story is still mind numbing, the ball crushing jobs the game forces on you (I still have PTSD from stacking books), the 3 hour walk in the woods..... Omfg this stupid game.

Again I hope they continue and do Shenmue 2 because I want to see Vinnie and Alex crack. It'll be amazingly entertaining to watch them get stuck in all the asinine nonsense that game has to offer.

Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?



*dead*
 
T

Toparaman

Banned
This endurance run (and the conversation surrounding it) has actually gotten me more interested in playing Shenmue for myself. Even today, there aren't that many adventure games with a fully 3D world. A lot of them still use static camera angles. Also the unusually formalistic tone of Shenmue is growing on me. I hope Sega ports Shenmue 1/2 over to modern systems.
 
K

KageMaru

Member
Sexually Aggressive Uncle said:
Everyone saying that this game was amazing when it came out and that it's simply a case of it not aging well...... Spoiler Alert:

The game was dog shit back in 2000 too.

The only thing it had going for it were the character models, which were pretty impressive back then. Other than that it was a train wreck of an experience that is somehow remembered fondly by some whom I suspect were either very young when they first played it or are insufferable Sonic flag waving Sega fans...maybe a combination of both.

And Shenmue 2 isn't that much better. The dialogue and story is still mind numbing, the ball crushing jobs the game forces on you (I still have PTSD from stacking books), the 3 hour walk in the woods..... Omfg this stupid game.

Again I hope they continue and do Shenmue 2 because I want to see Vinnie and Alex crack. It'll be amazingly entertaining to watch them get stuck in all the asinine nonsense that game has to offer.

Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?
Would you like a game of lucky hit?



*dead*
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24wsgLU.gif


There are few games that have captured the atmosphere of Shenmue to this day IMO.

Yeah some of the controls haven't aged well and the dubbing wasn't great, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the game. For a game that mimicked so many Kung Fu revenge movies, the dubbing seemed kind of fitting =p
 
J

jcjimher

Member
Chuck said:
follow up; how old were you when you first played shenmue?
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I was 21 when Shenmue released, so I don't think I'm biased by some childhood nostalgia. Started gaming with 8-bit computers and specially 16-bit consoles.

I must add that I've never been much into graphical adventure games or RPGs (more of a platformer and puzzle guy) but the Shenmue games really clicked with me.

Ah, and another note I missed in my earlier post: not being a native English speaker, the dub of the first Shenmue felt alright to me when I played it the first time :-O. But after playing II in Japanese I wouldn't go back...
 
J

jcjimher

Member
Sexually Aggressive Uncle said:
And Shenmue 2 isn't that much better. The dialogue and story is still mind numbing, the ball crushing jobs the game forces on you (I still have PTSD from stacking books), the 3 hour walk in the woods..... Omfg this stupid game.
Click to expand...

I recognize some jobs were boring (the crate moving specially, more than the book airing which was tolerable). But that "3 hour walk in the woods" are the most enjoyable 3 hours I've spent on gaming.

Of course to enjoy them at that point you are expected to be somewhat invested in the characters and story, and appreciate the music and the sheer beauty of it all. I'm surprised you reached that far disliking the game so much.
 
S

Sumio Mondo

Member
Minishdriveby said:
Here's a radical idea. Maybe game design hasn't been ruined post-1999 but has been improved by giving the player an inkling of an idea of which objects are interactable and which are not. I'm going to go out and stand on a fairly sturdy limb and proclaim that 90's adventure games were not good game design. Having a meandering pixel hunt and combining random items to progress is not good game design. It's not a puzzle. It's an illogical eye-spy.


If a game like Shenmue has the primary purpose of telling a strong narrative through interactions with in game people/objects, then its imperative to make it known to the player interactable objects from a distance. This doesn't limit exploration of the world as the player still wanders around the environment to inspect objects, but it does differentiate random background objects from interactable foreground objects. Modern narrative driven adventures like Life is Strange have handled this much better.
Click to expand...

Yeah, since flashing icons that scream "click on meeee" is so much better than investigating at your own pace and not thinking for yourself instead of being led here and there with markers that say "it's time to go here NOW" with no alternative routes to accomplish tasks are such better design decisions. Yup, totally. We'll never in a million years agree on this. 90s/00s adventure games>adventure games of nowadays (TellTale, Life is Strange etc)
 
J

Jintor

Member
I don't think the divide is neccessarily between "Everything must glow" vs "Here's an ocean of stuff, why don't you try individually clicking every object/pixel" like some people are casting it here.

90s/00s adventure games>adventure games of nowadays (TellTale, Life is Strange etc)
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Hv7x7b3.jpg


although my personal bugbear is that god damn duck balloon puzzle in The Longest Journey
 
B

broncobuster

Banned
It'll be interesting to follow this thread as they get deeper into the game. Some might say the game silmuntaniously gets better and worse. There's a good chance the
stealth section
breaks Vinny.
 
D

dan2026

Member
broncobuster said:
It'll be interesting to follow this thread as they get deeper into the game. Some might say the game silmuntaniously gets better and worse. There's a good chance the
stealth section
breaks Vinny.
Click to expand...

Oh God there's a
stealth section
, with those controls?

Hellfire, that sounds like the worst thing ever.
 
O

orient

Neo Member
Sexually Aggressive Uncle said:
Everyone saying that this game was amazing when it came out and that it's simply a case of it not aging well...... Spoiler Alert:

The game was dog shit back in 2000 too.
Click to expand...

LOL, let go dude, it's been 16 years. You know what I do when people like a game that I don't? Nothing! You should try it. It helps with not looking like a baby on the internet.

*Those worrying if the
stealth section
will break Vinny...the forklift job will be the real patience test. I love Shenmue, but even I can admit that you work that job for 2-3 days too long, and it becomes pretty boring to walk around the harbour at lunch with mostly nothing to do, and drive the routes until that day's cutscene triggers...then do it all again tomorrow.

Those asking for precious dollars of the Shenmue 3 budget to be spent on a forklift driving mini game are mental.
 
B

BlackLagoon

Member
orient said:
Wow, really? The vast majority of '90s point & click adventures are extremely frustrating to play nowadays, even the good ones. I played the MI remaster and hit many "what the hell am I supposed to do next?" moments. In Shenmue, you almost always know what to do next. There's perhaps one section of the game that you can get hung up on if you don't "zoom in" to a particular area, but nothing compared to the inventory nightmares that are point & click adventure games.
Click to expand...
Haha, what was it the guy I responded to wrote... "This post illustrates perfectly how much modern games have ruined/watered down game design in a bad way."

Seriously though, yes, the 90s adventure games were much more complex, but my post was about how they were generally quite clear and upfront about their mechanics and what could be interacted with. Heck, even in a game like the original System Shock there was a hint function that would highlight and identify anything you could interact with if you looked at it, and the UI (while admittedly being an unwieldy, overwhelming mess) was designed around showing the player all their options without digging out the manual. Same goes for first person adventure games like Normality.

These were not unknown, yet to be implemented ideas by the time Shenmue was made. Rather Shenmue made finding side-stuff more obscured and cumbersome than plenty of games preceded it, and provided encouragement to keep doing it (in the form of new and unique content) far less frequently. Now if someone still enjoys digging around Shenmue's world in spite of this, that's perfectly fine. Knock yourself out. Just don't go around claiming that if someone doesn't it's because they're not l33t enough to appreciate older games.
 
F

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Jintor said:
I don't think the divide is neccessarily between "Everything must glow" vs "Here's an ocean of stuff, why don't you try individually clicking every object/pixel" like some people are casting it here.

although my personal bugbear is that god damn duck balloon puzzle in The Longest Journey
Click to expand...

Alone in the Dark 2 (or 3?)
"Oh boy, I'm trapped! How can I open this door? Well, OBVIOUSLY I have to throw that sack of scorpions down this hole, duuuuhhhhh"
 
O

orient

Neo Member
BlackLagoon said:
Just don't go around claiming that if someone doesn't it's because they're not l33t enough to appreciate older games.
Click to expand...

I 100% agree, but I still think the "readability" of Shenmue's gameplay -- while not perfect by any means -- is not terrible for a 16 year old game. Yes, they don't teach you how to use the zoom. It also isn't rocket science to figure it out. It's mapped to one of two triggers on the controller. The GB guys have used it when they've needed to. They haven't missed anything important, despite what some people are saying here. They're doing okay.
 
R

_Ryo_

Member
For the record, I didn't play Shenmue 1 until like 2004-2006. I didn't play Shenmue 2 until 2012. In Nov, I'll be 29 yo
 
Cindi Mayweather

Cindi Mayweather

Member
Fantastapotamus said:
I really hope they play Shenmue 2 cause now I want to see this "3 hour walk" thing you people are talking about.
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Like everything Shenmue, it's love it or hate it. It comes after a climatic action set piece full of gangsters, Kung fu, and crime - a Jackie Chan film put to a video game, multiple camera angles of action shots and all. It's basically a preview for Shenmue III in terms of basic features and a way to wind down after the crazy action of the previous disc of the game. It's also the reason Shenmue is still alive today. If Shenmue II ended with that action packed section, it'd just be a really great game. The Guilin section adds mystery, and a human tone to the story. It is literally the reason the series still exists and why the fanbase has held on for so long. Without this section of II, there would be no III. It is that impactful and brings a great game to the level of masterpiece.

II >>>> I
 
J

JodokusK

Member
People defending Shenmue: sure, to each his own.

People blaming GBEast for acting like they do while playing Shenmue: guess why? They think the game is boring and I'm right there with them.

As long as they keep bantering and whatnot, it's a fun ER to listen to. I can't actually watch the videos longer than a minute or two 'cause HOLY CRAP, it's an awful game with worse voice acting than Dynasty Warriors 3.

Persona 4 and Deadly Premonition are both games I'd never really play myself, but I'm glad I experienced them through GB's ER-videos. I have a fondness for those games now and I can appreciate them. Not having seen Shenmue in over fifteen years and now watching this? Holy crud. It's a straight up 'bad video game' that doesn't seem engaging AT ALL.
 
W

webrunner

Member
I think part of it is that the game doesn't look like you are missing something. When 10 npcs give you the same convo you don't expect 11 to suddenly crack the case... and if an npc says nah I don't know you don't expect to talk to the same npc again and get information. And if you can't walk down a alleyway in daytime it doesn't immediately follow that you can at night..

The game almost telegraphs the opposite of the truth in a way. I mean.. there is a Interactive button that appears on screen but most things you need to use a different button to interact with? The game is full of "here is the thing" for stuff that isn't the thing, while the thing is something obtuse.

If the game did less pointing it may be easier because it gives too much impression there's nothing else.
 
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