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

danm999

Member
Ryo not knowing the age of consent in his own country is a perfect touch for someone who says "unmmm" and "ok" during most human interactions.

Ryo is suffering from brain damage in my head canon cause of all the fighting and failed QTEs where boxes fall on him or whatever.
 
Ryo not knowing the age of consent in his own country is a perfect touch for someone who says "unmmm" and "ok" during most human interactions.

Ryo is suffering from brain damage in my head canon cause of all the fighting and failed QTEs where boxes fall on him or whatever.

It's certainly plausible.
 

Kiske

Member
Wondering if they do a marathon run next episode to the end (it's very much possible), but I feel they'll split the endgame and it'll finish pretty neatly on Friday.

Vinny will soon find out that he
needed to play more Hang On
.

So you think they will be done by tomorrow?

If today's episode doesn't last around 30 minutes, I'm good ;-)
 

Tuffty

Member
"Not even cl..I can tell you just looking at it that it's not that"

Come on Alex, it's Virtua Fighter. A modified version, but it is Virtua Fighter.

The
70 man battle
is going to be interesting.
 
Fucking what?

The finale of the game is one long, unbroken (no loads, no cutscenes) 70-man battle against basically all of the Mad Angels. There's one final one-on-one fight after that, but the crescendo of the game is a 70-man fight. You are joined by AI Zhang for it though, so you're not alone.
 

Maiorum

Member
The finale of the game is one long, unbroken (no loads, no cutscenes) 70-man battle against basically all of the Mad Angels. There's one final one-on-one fight after that, but the crescendo of the game is a 70-man fight. You are joined by AI Zhang for it though, so you're not alone.

Oh, that's going to be a long episode.
 

Spaghetti

Member
Should have spent more time on Hang On, Vinny. Still, three tries isn't bad. Once you get the drifting down it's smooooooth sailing to the harbour.
 
The storyline makes less and less sense as we progress.

Ryo is a bad person.

I'm not sure how it makes no sense given Ryo's characterization in the game? Ryo gets more and more extreme as the game goes on. I'm pretty sure the game has clearly said multiple times that revenge isn't worth pursuing?
 

Spaghetti

Member
I'm not sure how it makes no sense given Ryo's characterization in the game? Ryo gets more and more extreme as the game goes on. I'm pretty sure the game has clearly said multiple times that revenge isn't worth pursuing?
The Guizhang thing? It makes sense when you actually get to the fight. At least, it always made sense to me.

Ryo only agreed because he'd try to get Guizhang to throw the fight for show... only Guizhang is a.) too stubborn to fake a loss, and b.) smart enough to know Ryo shouldn't trust Terry, so they end up legit fighting until double KO.
 
I'm not sure how it makes no sense given Ryo's characterization in the game? Ryo gets more and more extreme as the game goes on. I'm pretty sure the game has clearly said multiple times that revenge isn't worth pursuing?

I just feel absolutely no empathy for the protagonist at this point whatsoever and I feel like that's down to the writing more than anything.

At least in Shenmue II you have the fish out of water thing to latch onto.
 
I just feel absolutely no empathy for the protagonist at this point whatsoever and I feel like that's down to the writing more than anything.

At least in Shenmue II you have the fish out of water thing to latch onto.

Shenmue II's writing of Ryo is ten times better and his story for inner peace is really something I connected with.

I think 1 goes in a different direction than II though. I really empathize with Ryo. A lot of the NPCs say he's acting completely differently from usual and how selfish his acts are. So it's not like the game isn't self aware of it. Ryo says this episode "it was all my fault". He's willing to admit that. Old man asks "what about the Hazuki style?" in the episode the other day. The game shoves in your face that Ryo's behavior is letting people down, that he shouldn't be acting like this. Ryo doesn't even go to school anymore. While everyone else like Nozomi and Noriko are preparing for exams and university, he's trying to find information on a Chinese cartel. I think Shenmue 1's portrayal of a story about loss of innocence is fairly good, despite the bad voice acting and translation. There's a hint that Ryo's life was going pretty swell before Lan Di showed up. I find it really hard not empathize with Ryo and all he tries to do just to get to Hong Kong itself. I also think that its use of escalation is fantastic. Doesn't II build upon a lot of Ryo's character development from 1 as well?

Like Spaghetti said
he never intended to seriously harm Gui Zhang to begin with.
 
Shenmue II's writing of Ryo is ten times better and his story for inner peace is really something I connected with.

I think 1 goes in a different direction than II though. I really empathize with Ryo. A lot of the NPCs say he's acting completely differently from usual and how selfish his acts are. So it's not like the game isn't self aware of it. Ryo says this episode "it was all my fault". He's willing to admit that. Old man asks "what about the Hazuki style?" in the episode the other day. The game shoves in your face that Ryo's behavior is letting people down, that he shouldn't be acting like this. Ryo doesn't even go to school anymore. While everyone else like Nozomi and Noriko are preparing for exams and university, he's trying to find information on a Chinese cartel. I think Shenmue 1's portrayal of a story about loss of innocence is fairly good, despite the bad voice acting and translation. There's a hint that Ryo's life was going pretty swell before Lan Di showed up. I find it really hard not empathize with Ryo and all he tries to do just to get to Hong Kong itself. I also think that its use of escalation is fantastic. Doesn't II build upon a lot of Ryo's character development from 1 as well?

Like Spaghetti said
he never intended to seriously harm Gui Zhang to begin with.

Tom, I'm already a demon.

But really, Ryo should have just kicked Terry's ass right then and there. I don't know why he just goes "All right." This is why he gets conned out of his time and money all the fucking time.
 
Tom, I'm already a demon.

But really, Ryo should have just kicked Terry's ass right then and there. I don't know why he just goes "All right." This is why he gets conned out of his time and money all the fucking time.

Haha, I know right? I don't think he could take on the entire Mad Angels by himself though.
 
I just hope with the
70 man battle that they go beyond the starting area. I did not like that Game Informer didn't even attempt to try to see where all the fighters were coming from.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
I'm going to be honest:
At this point I don't remember at all why they are working in the harbour, who exactly the Mad Angels are and what they have to do with anything. It might be cause I stopped caring about the story of this game ~15 episodes in though.
 
I'm going to be honest:
At this point I don't remember at all why they are working in the harbour, who exactly the Mad Angels are and what they have to do with anything. It might be cause I stopped caring about the story of this game ~15 episodes in though.

You have to start working at the harbor because you want information on Lan Di and the Chi You Men. The Mad Angels work with the Chi You Men and the sailors always fuck with the new dock workers. Plus, with Ryo's ticket gone it's a good way to make money for a boat ticket to Hong Kong. The Mad Angels want to coy favor with Lan Di and the Chi You Men. They ship drugs and made a partnership with them.
 
I actually thought today was going to be the last episode. The motorcycle "race" to save Nozomi was the last distinct memory I had of the game. I can't remember a single thing after that that happens.
 
I'm on episode 08. Is the best yet to come? Which episodes are the highlights? So far, Vinny losing his shit in episode 5 or 6 when he realized what kind of game Shenmue is was the funniest bit.
 
I'm on episode 08. Is the best yet to come? Which episodes are the highlights? So far, Vinny losing his shit in episode 5 or 6 when he realized what kind of game Shenmue is was the funniest bit.

Vinny losing his shit is kind of a recurring theme and generally the best part of the series. The inevitable "Best Of..." YouTube cuts will be fantastic.
 
LMAO

"Vinny please kill this guy"

*kills him with like one hit away from death"

*all sigh relieved*

*two more guys appear on screen*

*GASP*

I genuinely gasped with them lmao
 

Tuffty

Member
Huge fan of Shenmue and so I want to say thanks to Vinny, Alex and Dan for an entertaining endurance run! Here's hoping they come around to playing Shenmue 2.
 
I never thought to read the credits that reveal Tom and Honey's full names are
Tom Johnson and Honey Jackson. Honey-san is from Connecticut.
 
Tom flew away to K-PAX .

His voice acting really falls apart at the end (as bad as it is), you can hear the voice actor barely staying in character.
 
So I guess Shenmue 1 is like the first 45 minutes of a real game that is about the set up before setting off on the real adventure.

Only its 25 hours long and all the game.
 
So I guess Shenmue 1 is like the first 45 minutes of a real game that is about the set up before setting off on the real adventure.

Only its 25 hours long and all the game.

Shenmue 1, 2 and 3 were originally planned to be one solitary game on the Sega Saturn, but when the game moved to the Dreamcast, they decided to split the game up into three separate releases. So yeah, basically. Shenmue 1 is an epilogue to a bigger game.
 

Kiske

Member
Thank you for the ride Vinny, Dan & Alex. Going to miss this ER.

As a Shenmue fan, It wasn't a perfect journey but it was fun and entertaining.

See you (hopefully) in Shenmue 2!
 

Hasney

Member
So I guess Shenmue 1 is like the first 45 minutes of a real game that is about the set up before setting off on the real adventure.

Only its 25 hours long and all the game.

Hey, Shenmue 2 was supposed to just be the boat ride. Shenmue 2 is better for being compressed as parts 3-6, as much as I do like the original.

Loved this playthrough though. Really want to see 2.

EDIT: Well, I was pretty sure about the boat thing from chatter at the time as it was labelled as chapter two on the original timeline, but this seems to be under dispute. Still, the boat ride was released as a comic at least.
 
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