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[Saturnman]

Wow, how mature.

The main character models were fine...as were some of the supporting characters. THAT was impressive back in 2000...

However, the characters around the streets looked akward. It seemed as if they were trying to "fake" a lot of details and it ended up looking ugly. I thought that right from the beginning. All of the trailers and pics never really showed them, but when you really played...you could see it. Why the hell are you talking shit about something that is true? You can make low poly models look decent, but they went about it the wrong way. It could be forgiven when you consider how many characters were present, of course, but it just looked odd when some of the characters were pretty detailed while others were really not...

It was that variation that bothered me somewhat. Everything I had seen up until release suggested very detailed characters, but that wasn't the case for a lot of people. THIS is what I'm talking about...

...compared to THIS, which looks incredible (and is what I wrongly expected throughout)

What I expected was, obviously, unreasonable...but there has never been a game that I have hyped as much as Shenmue. I had entire CDRs dedicated to Shenmue videos and such (trailers, mostly), but I didn't really catch any of this until I played it. The game still looked very good...and was still impressive, but those characters ARE VERY low poly (even for the day).

Heck, for a while, I actually was hoping that the game would render in game characters with details like this...

Those face demos were such a tease.

BTW, I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the game. I DID like it. I was simply disappointed with it (and visuals were NOT the reason). I can't believe how nasty people can get when talking about Shenmue. I even LIKE the game...

I remember a particularly misleading trailer where the camera flies over the harbor and zooms in on Ryo, who turns around and looks straight at the camera. The Ryo model was the one in the Passport CD and not the one in-game.

 

[Miburou]

I remember being quite disappointed upon booting-up Shenmue back in late 2000, although that was in large part due to the crappy sound quality, especially the voices. It gave me flashbacks to AM2's other game that disappointed me with its sound quality, the game being VF2 on the Saturn.

 

[dark10x]

I remember being quite disappointed upon booting-up Shenmue back in late 2000, although that was in large part due to the crappy sound quality, especially the voices. It gave me flashbacks to AM2's other game that disappointed me with its sound quality, the game being VF2 on the Saturn.

Oh yeah, the sound quality was AWFUL!

First of all, I had listened to the Orchestral Soundtrack quite a bit prior to release and was expecting music of that caliber throughout the game. So you can imagine how disappointed I was when the game was mostly filled with rather poor sounding midi music. It worked in some scenes, but there were a lot of areas where the music just didn't fit and/or wasn't enjoyable (though, oddly enough, the non-orchestral OST is pretty decent). All of those trailers and cutscenes I had witnessed up until release had featured orchestral quality music...and while that music DID make its way into many scenes, I really was hoping for additional tunes of the same quality.

The main sound problems, however, were a result of awful compression techniques. All of the digital audio (mainly voices) samples are so just horribly compressed and flat sounding throughout the game. Shenmue also had a very scratchy quality to it that made me initially question the integrity of my VGA boxes audio outputs. I believe the voices in the Japanese version were compressed a bit better, but at that time, I was not able to understand much Japanese (I had only begun study the summer prior to release) at all so playing that version was not an option.

Really, though, this is just another example of the hype machine doing damage. There has never been a case where hype has hurt a game experience so much for me. A lot of that was obviously my own fault, of course. Still, I eventually got over those hang-ups and ended up enjoying the game (and I enjoyed the sequel more...despite the awful loading problems).

 

[Lazy8s]

If I wanted to stand atop a large bulding and watch the city below me, I should have been able to.

...

http://www.fileplanet.com/dl.aspx?/planetxbox/shenmuedojo/modclips/chawantrap.zip

Start here:
http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~shenmuedojo/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3332&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

 

[Argyle]

Ugh, I forgot how crappy and flat all the lighting in this game is Lots of noisy ugly textures too

 

[Fixed2BeBroken]

my opinion on shenmue after looking back...

I love sega, im a sega head....hated sega back in the genesis days cause I was a snes fanboy, but then i grew up and dropped allegiencas later in life and got a dreamcast and loved it and I still play it to this day...

with that said...Shenmue sucks.

6.8 is a fair damn score.

whats good about shenmue? i dont know..the graphics that dont seem so hot nowadays.
At least it ages better than something like Half life. (graphically speaking)

but thats besides the point...the game is crap.

-first of all, the whole Quick button for sequences thing....lame lame lame excuse on being to lazy to implement controls where you can do those things yourself without having to push some random button at an exact time to Watch ur character do a preset animation.

-"Hey Mr. ....you Wanna WRASTLE?!?!"
NO YOU LITTLE SHIT...im too busy walking around asking people about Stupid shit and Oh wait...i gotta be home by 11:00pm or I will automatically teleport back home...cause u know, im a Grown man who has a curfew.

-Yay! I can collect stupid little toys that arent physically REAL.!

-I get off work to come home, turn on my dreamcast and get into a Forklift to start work all over again, cause hey, you know, I LOVE working! Screw having Fun!

-"Hey Mr. ....you Wanna WRASTLE?!?!"
NO!...and even If I did.....the Limited controls wouldnt let me, either that or Id have to push some random buttons at a certain time to signal our animations which is lame.

-awe look at the stupid ass kitty! Hey...My Father Died in my arms while I screamed "Noooooo!" in the most gayest possible way and what do I wanna do? Play with this kitten....thats right....Meow.

-More toys! YAY!

-"Hey Mr. ....(i wish this was grand theft auto right now)

-Let me go to the Many Rooms and Doors in this village and find out that The Same few people seem to live in Every single one of them and they are either not home or too busy to not even Show thier DAMN FACE....why? cause a few more polygons would Crash the dreamcast.

-Hey This Hot chick wants me but Im too obsessed with little kids who wanna WRASTLE, Little stupid ass toys that dont Exist, and a little kitten. I dont know, Maybe I am Gay? (not me but the bastard who keeps wearing that wrinkled ass brown jacket)

-Music (one of the good things about the game...No not the music you heard throught the game, which was decent, but the Shenmue theme...ahhh...great song).

Shenmue sucks and some of the voice work was the most horrid ever for a game thats shooting for realisticness. Only Resident evil 1 can beat the shenmue games in craptacular voice acting.

there I said it....shenmue is crap.

If they make a shenmue 3, they need to Rechange the whole gameplay and not make it feel so stiff and Limiting....
I feel like Hariot tubman when I play this game.....that and also like someone who is Narcaleptic.

peace

 

[Ghost]

Why does everyone who says Shenmue sucks forget to mention the combat?

I havent seen a game that did 3rd person combat better (without swords) when i think of what a 3d beat-em up should be(As the next step from the classic 2d beat em ups like Streets of Rage etc) , Shenmues combat system is it, loads of moves, LOADS of enemies, boss' that make you think tactically, easy to mash but more fun to master.



I wish they made 70-man battle into another game

 

[dark10x]

...

Start here:
http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~shenmuedojo/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3332&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Ha ha, I'm sure you were joking with that first pic...

At least I hope so. Hacking the game to stand over a tiny, empty section that is no bigger than an average Quake 2 map is not exactly what I was originally getting at.

Thanks for the link, though...I'll look through it now.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

I still find the visuals very impressive.

 

[dark10x]

I still find the visuals very impressive.

Whoa, seriously?! Considering how hard you are on all non-PC platforms these days, I'm shocked to hear that!

Well, I guess it is impressive in the same way that Saturn Shenmue is impressive. That is, it looks dated by today's standards, but is quite impressive for the hardware.

 

[Optimistic]

I like Shenmue. I was disappointed with it overall, it was hyped to high fucking heaven, but with all that said, it was a very impressive game. Shenmue 1 is the most atmospheric game I've ever played, walking around the streets, seeing characters going about their daily business realistically, weather changes, etc etc...it was amazing. It also has THE best intro ever, or at least it's tied for the best with FF8. Also, I loved the QTEs, they were great fun, and holy shit they looked sooooo fucking cool. Disc 3 was amazing, the forklift driving I actually found to be quite enjoyable, and the assortment of characters were all fantastic. The music was very, very good, too. And full voice in the game was also excellent; sure, it wasn't the best, but as I had never been exposed to a game that was fully voiced, I enjoyed it immensely (and it's a shitload better than FF11's voice work too, in both acting and facial expressions). And come on, the graphics are still preety draw dropping, no other console game has locales so detailed. The town looks incredible.

However, the game was often boring, as I would wonder around without a clue of what I was supposed to do or where to go half the time, and there was also the trouble of having to wait around until a certain time of the day. Also, it pissed me off that the fighting engine had to switch to "another" world ala the FF series, there was no smooth transition, wrecking the whole illusion of reality. And the character pop in was also frustrating. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed the game.

Shenmue 2, while improving the gameplay, and while probably a better "game", simply lacked the atmosphere of the first. The environments weren't constructed with as much care, they weren't as detailed, and the colour scheme was unrealistic. It certainly played better, but the atmosphere simply wasn't as good, and that really hurt the game for me as it was the atmosphere that compelled me to play the series. Also, they fucked up the QTEs. Even so it was still an enjoyable game with some great moments.

 

[dark10x]

(and it's a shitload better than FF11's voice work too, in both acting and facial expressions).

I assume you mean FFX, not XI...and you are high. Shenmue's US dub is one of the most insulting attempts at a dub I've ever heard. It sits at the bottom of the barrel for me...

FFX had some akward moments ("HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA", for example), but it is LIGHT YEARS beyond what they gave us in Shenmue. That is why I refuse to play the XBOX version of Shenmue 2. I'd love the faster loading and improvd visuals, but the experience would be destroyed if I had to hear those awful AWFUL voices again.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I assume you mean FFX, not XI...and you are high. Shenmue's US dub is one of the most insulting attempts at a dub I've ever heard. It sits at the bottom of the barrel for me...

FFX had some akward moments ("HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA", for example), but it is LIGHT YEARS beyond what they gave us in Shenmue. That is why I refuse to play the XBOX version of Shenmue 2. I'd love the faster loading and improvd visuals, but the experience would be destroyed if I had to hear those awful AWFUL voices again.

The voices were fine IMHO.

 

[dark10x]

The voices were fine IMHO.

They were NOT fine by any means...

Just LISTEN to the dialog, man...it's awful. I know you love the game to death (which is why you might be able to overlook the flaws), but those voices are terrible. It's worse than a bad anime dub. Most of the voices have NO emotion (including Ryo) and it really pulls you out of the game. I connected with Shenmue 2 much better than the original due to the voices. I didn't like Ryo in Shenmue 1, but I actually grew fond of his character in the sequel. Shenmue 2 has some great characters, and the English dub seriously damages that...

Some people are able to stand bad voice acting, though. I know plenty of people who watch poorly dubbed anime and have no problems, for example...but that kind of stuff just bothers me.

Was Shenmue 2 for XBOX ever released in Japan and, if so, did it feature the original Japanese voices? I'd like to replay the game again sometime, but the DC version has way too much loading...and I'd assume it is just fine on XBOX.

Oh, and I'm sorry about coming off as a bit harsh, Pana. I respect your love of the game. It's just been a sore point for me as a result of the incredible hype that I created for it. Please don't take my complaints the wrong way. I enjoys these arguments...

 

[Panajev2001a]

Ryo is an emotionless character, that is his personality in the whole game.

I have met people that talk like that and I have not smacked them because they have not gone to acting lessons.

Most of the other characters sounds MUCH better in terms of charisma, personality, emotions: that was true in Shenmue I and even more true in Shenmue II.

Joy was fine, Nozomi was fine, Xiuying was fine, Shenhua was fine, Lan Di was fine, etc... pretty much anyone except Ryo (and even he was a bit more alive towards the end fo Shenmue II IMHO) was not suffering from lack of emotions.

Darkx10, do not worry no harsh feelings .

 

[dark10x]

Well, it's just that the characters sound so much better in their original voice overs that it was hard to handle the English. Ryo ISN'T an entirely emotionless character...but he sure seems that way in the English dub. In the Japanese version, he tends toward the emotionless side most of the time...but you can see through it at times and he really just comes off as a different kind of character. The characters sound VERY un-natural in English, that's the problem. It doesn't sound like normal people talking nor does it sound like quality acting.

I'd like to hunt down the Japanese DC release of the original sometime as well. I played Shenmue II entirely in Japanese, and found it to be more enjoyable that way...so perhaps I'll have to look for a copy next year when I'm around. The voice acting has kept me from wanting to replay Shenmue 1.

 

[Optimistic]

What I loved about Ryo's english voice over, is that although he was empotionless most of the time, he would every now and then turn into a raging psychopath, breaking peoples arms and throwing them against walls and shit. It was awesome, the only emotion he felt was anger.

 

[Kiriku]

I remember this one girl in school when I was younger. When she was speaking in front of class, she had the same tone ALL the time, almost like a robot with no emotion to it whatsoever. It's on my top 3 list over the most sleep-inducing, tedious voices I've ever heard.

So yeah, I agree the kind of voices found in the English version of Shenmue do exist in real life. Sadly.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

Whoa, seriously?! Considering how hard you are on all non-PC platforms these days, I'm shocked to hear that!

Well, I guess it is impressive in the same way that Saturn Shenmue is impressive. That is, it looks dated by today's standards, but is quite impressive for the hardware.

Textures, textures, textures.

That's one area where console games have made no progress in.

 

[dark10x]

Textures, textures, textures.

That's one area where console games have made no progress in.

Except for the fact that they have.

Shenmue actually has pretty bad textures, overall. Most things are rather blurry or lacking in detail while certain large areas might have a few decent, repeating textures. There are a lot of textures per scene, so the resolution and color depth of those textures suffered and they end up looking pretty poor.

Really, though, I don't see how you could complain about textures in top console games. Ninja Gaiden has very high-res textures and looks lovely as a result...

They can't make huge strides on fixed hardware, though. Really, current consoles have proven to me that you don't need high-res textures to create visual materpieces...

 

[Lazy8s]

Shenmue makes every single store front and character look completely unique through its texturing. They may all not be the sharpest textures in the world, but it's certainly a feat of variety even today.

 

[dark10x]

Where did you GET that second pic?!? That's a great looking shot (even though it clearly is not in game...just a high-res shot of one of the maps)!

 

[Lazy8s]

That's in-game. It was just one of those many gratuitous engine demos where they'd show the scale of a scene by pulling the camera back and running behaviors, time of day changes, or weather. If you've got the time, the What's Shenmue promotion they taped to VHS has a lot of engine footage running off DC.

http://www.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?/planetxbox/shenmuedojo/ShenmueBeta/Dreamcast-Shenmue_BETA(DivX-YAKUMO).avi

 

[dark10x]

That's in-game. It was just one of those many gratuitous engine demos where they'd show the scale of a scene by pulling the camera back and running behaviors, time of day changes, or weather. If you've got the time, the What's Shenmue promotion they taped to VHS has a lot of engine footage running off DC.

http://www.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?/planetxbox/shenmuedojo/ShenmueBeta/Dreamcast-Shenmue_BETA(DivX-YAKUMO).avi

Lazy, I'm sorry...but the Dreamcast did not display that scene with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. When I say "in game", I mean a scene that appears WHILE you are playing the game (in this case, I would be looking for an actual screenshot taken while the final game was running). There are no characters or objects present in that scene and it is rendered with filters that were never present during the game.

I would believe that the scene (and its contents) are pulled from the game itself, but that scene does not represent the output fidelity of the Dreamcast. You can not load up the game on your Dreamcast, output via VGA, and witness any scene of that quality.

The reason that shot impresses has a lot to do with the image quality combined with the "big picture" it presents. Many Shenmue scenes look fantastic when viewed from a distance and improving the image quality would only enhance that. However, while actually playing the game, a high level of detail can not be maintained per individual objects.

That's what was quite deceiving about Shenmue...

Some pictures of the game that were released still look absolutely incredible...but the actual game fails to compare. This is not exclusive to Shenmue...

Those original Fable shots, for example, WHERE being rendered on the XBOX in realtime. However, you'd be very wrong if you were to suggest that they represent what the final game looks like.

Surely you agree with me...

 

[Lazy8s]

First of all, it's accepted that it was a dev capture. However, there's no need for anisotropic in that shot because of the perpendicular view angle and the limited coverage of each texture. As for the filter, that was characteristic of this particular beta scene and was demoed on the DC:

Note the tin roof and awning.

 

[Sho Nuff]

Shenmue is evil because it spawned crap like THIS:

More of this crap here