Hero-of-Time Posted August 25, 2018 Posted August 25, 2018 21 minutes ago, Fierce_LiNk said: Technology has, unfortunately, moved on very quickly. I say unfortunately, because maybe this game doesn't look so great anymore. But, times change. I'm interesting to see what similarities there are in Shenmue 1 and 2 compared with what's out there today. You see, I have no issues with how games really look. Yes, tech moves on but if the core gameplay loop is strong enough then the game will hold up. It's why a lot of retro games, especially Nintendo ones, are still very playable despite how visually rough they can be. With Shenmue the gameplay is either bland or just doesn't exist. I'll leave it at that. I think I've waffled on more than enough about how much I dislike the games. I leave the thread to those who are actually enjoying the game.
Ashley Posted August 25, 2018 Posted August 25, 2018 1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said: I dunno, I mean back then I thought it was just an alright game and nothing really special ( hence why I never played the sequel) and, as I mentioned earlier, my mate hated it when it was originally released on the Dreamcast. The amount of free time I had when I originally played it on the Dreamcast is pretty much the same amount of free time I have now. I was working then and I'm working now, so that hasn't had any bearing on my thoughts on the game. I think it was originally released in a very specific time bubble. If it was released just a little bit later then I don't think it would have recieved the praise it did at the time. Im sure those who hold the game very close to their hearts are able to look past the design flaws but I couldn't. There was nothing really fun about it and it's been interesting reading comments from those who are also revisiting the games realizing the same thing, that Shenmue actually a really boring game back then but we simply didn't know any better. It's going to be interesting to see just what kind of damage this release has done for the future release of Shenmue 3. I imagine it may put a lot of people off picking it up if the gameplay is going to remain the same. Not to mention the bugs that these games have released with. There's a list of them over on Shenmue Dojo. For some reason it seems the game was rushed for the release. You even have Sega of Europe tweeting out asking early adopters of the game to report any bugs that they find. Great! I guess we'll do the quality inspection for you. This isn't an early access game, it's supposed to be a finished retail title. I'd forgotten you'd played the first actually and thought you were coming at it afresh sorry. Hmm maybe it's just different focuses. I liked the story so much I kind of forgot what the gameplay was like and maybe at the time I was happy for the trade off. And I'm still unsure how you have so much free time to complete games so quickly but that's one of life's great mysteries
killthenet Posted September 17, 2018 Posted September 17, 2018 I love the first Shenmue but I hadn't played it since completing it on the Dreamcast over ten years ago. I was excited for the remaster but concerned that, playing through it again over a decade later, it wouldn't cast the same spell over me - that the game would have aged beyond the point of enjoyment and that my memories of one of my favourite games would be sullied by the negativity of a bad play through. I was nervous when I booted the game up for the first time and the poor audio quality irked me at first but very quickly I felt the game tighten its grip on my heart once more. Despite my oft-professed love for the first Shenmue game I had never actually completed Shenmue II so for the sake of avoiding bias I'll wrap up my impressions of replaying the first game into a larger discussion of the sequel, it allows me to more fairly assess the game on its merits without much of the fog that nostalgia can bring. To avoid spoilers I avoided posting in this thread until I'd played through both games and I completed the second one last night. I tried to play it on the Dreamcast pretty soon after I finished the first game but the lack of English dialogue really threw me at the time so I never got very far in it - the wooden acting was a huge part of the charm the first game had over me and it just didn't feel right without it. I had always intended to buy an Xbox and play through it but never ended up getting one so the remaster was my first real opportunity to play through it. In the little that I did play of the Dreamcast version I had barely reached the Come Over Guest House so when I started the PS4 version last week I wasn't too surprised when at the end of my first session with the game I had already got significantly further into the game than I had previously. Yes there are tedious moments in gameplay, the job moving crates in Hong Kong and the sequence volunteering at the temple can be particularly irritating, and Ryo's movement is stiff and slow but I'm actually a big fan of the FREE camera system and hope that it returns in Shenmue III alongside more up to date analogue controls for Ryo's movement. The atmosphere and narrative are gripping and the environments can be mesmerising. Even with the dated low-poly graphics I was fascinated exploring the streets of Hong Kong and the dilapidated walled city of Kowloon is one of the most intriguing locations I've ever explored in a video game. Certainly the game is slow paced and but it is not an experience designed to be rushed through, not just another platinum trophy to add your collection, it's a game about patience and taking your time to explore your environment, it's about reevaluating your expectations and ambitions and being open to new ways of thinking. That's not to say that the game can't still be tedious - the sequences that string QTE's together are often frustrating, they can be easy to mess up and can really ruin the flow of the game. Similarly the mid-battle QTE's when fighting stronger opponents feel really unfair, Ryo can be dominating his opponent only to lose because of the never explained timing of the QTE's. The remaster itself seems to be mostly solid, it retains the feel of the original games replete with the weird animations and it all feels faithful to the original releases. I ran into a couple of glitches where the camera would clip through Ryo's character model during conversations or the camera would be in the wrong place during cutscenes which resulted in looking at the action from bizarre angles. The biggest improvement over the original games is definitely the speedier load times, areas load in a handful of seconds at the most, compared to the painfully long load times (accompanied by the deafening buzz of the disc drive) of the Dreamcast originals. Spoiler The last section in Kowloon as you inch your way through the confusing Yellow Building felt suitably intense and had varied gameplay but the pace is often slowed by the QTE sequences which only have two outcomes, they would be more tolerable if a failed QTE section just resulted in having to engage in combat with the henchmen of the Chi You Men rather than having to begin the whole sequence over again. Joy's appearance towards the end feels shoehorned in to provide unnecessary tension and feels at bit backwards casting Joy as the damsel in distress - I think it would have been better had Joy shown up to lend a hand rather than under duress. Despite the shortcomings though both games still have that certain magic about them that 'engaging gameplay loops' can't hope to replace; the characters, the music, the environments, the way the story unfolds, it all coalesces into something wonderful that, to me at least, feels as if it could only exist in a video game. This feeling was exemplified by the finale in Guilin. After arriving I was expecting the game to end quite swiftly so I wasn't prepared for the long journey through the mountains and forests that followed. It was one of my favourite sequences in the game, the pace deliberately slow as you finally get to meet Shenhua. I was enthralled listening to her talk about life in her village; the little nuggets of Chinese mythology she dispensed, Ryo offering stories of his own past that remind you of the arduous journey you've been on with him. I don't mind admitting that I shed a tear or two when I heard Shenhua singing that indelible melody in the glow of the campfire. Then reaching the outskirts of Bailu, exploring her home and discovering the myriad connections Shenhua and Ryo had in their pasts despite their vastly different upbringings, solidified by their discovery in the quarry that will change their lives forever. The way that Shenhua is immediately endeared to you is backed up through the conversations you hear on the journey and for me is one of the best examples of how interactive storytelling can offer a greater sense of depth and character development than television, cinema or even literature. It's negative reception from some quarters has definitely disappointed me but I hold out hope that new players can still find the same magic in it that I, and many other fans, continue to find in the games. Sure you can look at them from a purely mechanical point of view and say they have aged poorly and - save for the solid fighting system - are positively archaic from a gameplay stand point. You can remove all the emotion and reduce a video game to a dispassionate list of game mechanics and scenarios, but to do so negates the truth that video games are an art form, equal to any other. Yes, the animations are wooden, the audio quality is bad, the voice acting seems phoned in half the time... but there is nothing else, certainly no other video game, that is quite like Shenmue and it warms my heart that I get to experience it again. 1 2
Julius Posted October 15, 2018 Posted October 15, 2018 I haven’t posted my thoughts on the games yet (I had them completed by the end of August, and thoroughly enjoyed them), because I’ve been quite busy as of late, and so I’ve done quite a lot of reading/watching into the series’ production, history and plans, so I hope to give more comprehensive thoughts on the games in the near future. For now, though, and my reason for posting this, is that Eurogamer have released an article stating that a remake - not remaster - was indeed in the works by SEGA, but ended up getting cancelled. Digital Foundry shows comparisons between the HD rerelease and the cancelled remake that was in the works, and I have to say, it looks gooooood. 1
Helmsly Posted October 15, 2018 Posted October 15, 2018 Seeing what the Shenmue remake could have been breaks my heart
killthenet Posted October 15, 2018 Posted October 15, 2018 It obviously looks pretty good but it's hard to judge from the little footage there is. I'd like to see what Ryo would have looked like, he looks a bit weird in the stuff from Shenmue 3 that they've released so it'd be interesting to see if this team fared any better with his face. It's clearly an issue of budget that the full remake was dropped in favour of a more straightforward remaster, I think d3t did a pretty good job of the remaster - I don't understand all the people in the resetera thread for this video calling the remaster trash.
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