Shenmue sucks

[Kid Ice]

It got better when they put in shotguns and stealing cars and called it GTA3. ;-)

[Gapporin]

Excuse me, but do you know where I can find some sailors?

[Gamereviewgod]

"Have you seen the black car?"

Ugh. Don't really care for GTA either, but Shenmue was an ambitious mess.

[Muscelli]

what can you tell me about the 4 woo doo

[Vinnysdad]

LOL LOL yeah Shenmue was boring.

[heybtbm]

After 7 years, I haven't been able to get into Shenmue either. I even bought the sequel for the Xbox years ago, but never opened it.

[schnuth]

I've always liked Shenmue and it's too bad they will probably never finish the story. To each their own.

[Emuaust]

Well I loved the original, the second one wasnt quite as interesting, but IMO they are great games and deserving of a play through.

I could say Kid ICE SUCKS, but that doesnt make it true, it would be just my opinion now wouldnt it ;)

GTA3 = 2nd most overrated game ever.

[ShenmueFan]

It got better when they put in shotguns and stealing cars and called it GTA3. ;-)

The FIRST GTAIII was fun. Vice City & San Andreas are overrated but the entertainment we get from Jack Thompson is worth the price of two glorified expansion packs!

This thread was about Shenmue, right? Oh yeah...back on topic! :love: (Any doubt as to my stance?)

[s1ipmatt]

"Have you seen the black car?"

Ugh. Don't really care for GTA either, but Shenmue was an ambitious mess.

Finally someone who i agree with. Shenmue was so boring all you ever heard was "Have you seen the black car?" no wonder sega lost so much money on the series.

[Kroogah]

http://www.spaceballsthewebsite.com/yashiro/shenmue.jpg

[asharru]

I loved shenmue. I'm actually gonna bust it out and start playing where I left off because of this thread. I find it very immersive.

[le geek]

Wabbit Season!

[Kroogah]

Duck Season! Fire!

[Rogmeister]

Ya got me, Doc. Do ya want to shoot me now or wait till you get home? :D

[Captain Wrong]

Best dart simulator of last gen. Dude, no one has gotten those sweet dart physics so right.

[rcgamer]

For me Shenmue is one of the best games ever made. Unlike GTA games it kept my interest and I actually finished it.

[Pantechnicon]

I liked Shenmue a great deal, primarily for the atmosphere and the setting. But I can see where the organic pacing of it wouldn't agree with Generation Ritalin. I've got the PAL version of Shenmue II for DC and will probably make that my summer game project.

I once came into the game room and found my son playing Shenmue using my VMU and squandering all my yen on gashopon. That was sort of funny.

@Kroogah: That comic is both funny and accurate. But I still like the game. Try this one (http://www.mega64.com/shenmue.htm) on for size.

[Oobgarm]

Try this one (http://www.mega64.com/shenmue.htm) on for size.

"I'm looking for the man who killed my father"

"That's pretty deep"

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

I nearly shat myself the first time I saw that a while back. The pacing and unintended comedy make for endless parodies.

[Nebagram]

That video was awesome :D But yeah, I loved Shenmue when it came out- unintentionally camp though it might have been, the story does need continuing.

[ShenmueFan]

http://www.spaceballsthewebsite.com/yashiro/shenmue.jpg

LOL.....that is funny...


What can I say? Ryo is a man on a mission!

Just imagine how dedicated he'll be once he gets revenge and then can focus all that Shenmue-ing on the ladies!

[Kroogah]

I liked Shenmue a great deal, primarily for the atmosphere and the setting. But I can see where the organic pacing of it wouldn't agree with Generation Ritalin. I've got the PAL version of Shenmue II for DC and will probably make that my summer game project.

I once came into the game room and found my son playing Shenmue using my VMU and squandering all my yen on gashopon. That was sort of funny.

@Kroogah: That comic is both funny and accurate. But I still like the game. Try this one (http://www.mega64.com/shenmue.htm) on for size.

I like the game too, but not enough to play through it more than once. Its sort-of-open-ended gameplay really stood out in 2000. My favorite moments in the game were....finally getting the Super Sonic figurine and making it in the online ranking for Space Harrier. This tells me something.

And yes, although I loathe most of Mega64 ("let's put a bear mask on, grab a plush bird in a backpack, film ourselves running around and call it a Banjo-Kazooie parody" or even "let's get kicked out of a mall for taking pictures and call it a Dead Rising parody") I find the Shenmue skit actually funny. Quite so, in fact.

[Graham Mitchell]

Shenmue is one of my favorite games ever. People make fun of me all the time for playing it, but I don't care. I think I like it so much because not only is the atmosphere and detail pretty interesting, but it kind of is the game I dreamed about making when I was a kid. I wanted to make a game about life that turned all the banalities of it (working, going to school, petting the kitty) into something fun. I wanted a protagonist that I could really relate to, and a story line the paralleled my own life in some ways. While Ryo's story is pretty much totally outside of the range of normal experience for most high school students, a lot of elements of my dream game really are in there.

I think that people get too caught up on the awkward appearance of characters in the game. To them I just say "Dude, it's a video game." Most people who play games submit to the fact that, for the most part, no video game will ever look exactly like real life, unless the actions of the characters are extremely limited (like sports games). As such, it requires a little suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy it. Shenmue does look a bit funny, but I think it gets the point across better than any game before it, and I'm sure that a lot of designers learned a lot from Sega's example, paving the way for even better looking characters today.

I also tend to bear in mind that it's not a movie; it's a game. Criticisms to any cinematics or flashy visuals are, to me, secondary to whether your interaction with the game is interesting or not, and that's the bottom line. To me, Shenmue succeeded in providing a neat world to play with, and a style of gaming unlike anything I'd seen before. I dug it.

[Kid Ice]

wow...after all those thoughtful, well written posts, it turns out THIS is how I get a lot of responses. I'm finally starting to understand my internets now!

Kidding aside, the title of the thread was a joke directed at someone I was having a conversation with. But does anyone else remember when Daily Radar said Shenmue was the best game ever made. What were they thinking?

[neuropolitique]

I really like the idea behind Shenmue. However, I think the execution is horribly flawed. I was very excited when I bought it, but then I played it. I wanted so much to like it I bought the Xbox game, hoping they had improved things. They hadn't. I hope one day they get it right, but my hopes aren't high.

[PallarAndersVisa]

Shenmue has its flaws, but what game doesnt. The games are great, Shenmue 2 is more exciting so far than the first. I couldn't be happier with the realism in these games.

[Damaramu]

Hah! That's a funny one! Here's a classic strip:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v163/Damaramu/shenmue.jpg





LOL.....that is funny...


What can I say? Ryo is a man on a mission!

Just imagine how dedicated he'll be once he gets revenge and then can focus all that Shenmue-ing on the ladies!


http://www.spaceballsthewebsite.com/yashiro/shenmue.jpg

[Dire 51]

I always found Shenmue to be pretty involving, until I had to go to work. Then the game just ground to a halt. It was like "jesus, I have to work for a living, why the hell should I be working on my OFF TIME?!"

Somewhere out there are loads of VMUs that have Shenmue saves on them in the exact same part where I last saved my game and never continued.

Although I will say I could always count on Shenmue if I needed a quick Space Harrier fix.

[Sotenga]

Y'know... I got the game a few years ago, and I played it for about an hour, mostly screwing around at the arcade. And since then, I've never been back to it. o_O

[Aussie2B]

Shenmue and GTA aren't anything alike and shouldn't even be regarded as in the same genre.

Honestly, I can't blame anybody that hates Shenmue or games like it. It's a really, REALLY tough game to "get". You either do or you don't, and even if you do, it's still a highly acquired taste so it may never be your cup of tea.

People go into Shenmue trying to link it to other types of games, but it really defines its own genre. You have to change how you approach games, so you understand that character interaction is not just a part of the story as in an RPG but rather the interaction is the gameplay itself. Of course, it's Shenmue's story too; it's the plot, it's the action, it's the puzzle-solving, it's everything. Getting from one place to another by a certain time, that's your action, figuring out what exactly a person wants, that's your puzzle-solving, planning out the order of how you should approach people and events, that's your strategizing. It really is a fascinating type of game because not only is the gameplay experience so unconventional, but it also has a way of sucking you in because no other games feel so truly alive.

Of course, they threw in the Virtua Fighter style battles to offer a change of pace now and then, and there are plenty of other games that take after Shenmue but similarly contain other elements to the gameplay like Majora's Mask, Radiata Stories, and Chulip. Not surprisingly, these games meet the same disdain that Shenmue does.

[RegSNES]

I never really played the game but from the reviews I read years ago and fromn the feedback I've read on the net over the years (and in this thread), I'd say Shenmue is a game that won't appeal to everyone. Like someone already said, the game defines its own genre.

Though it does be a game most seem to love to hate, the game does have fans.

[mregashu]

There are very few games I consider to be on the same level as Shenmue. That being said, it is very, very much something you love or hate. Personally, I will continue to google "Shenmue III" every few months just in case, though I now it is never happening.

The thing about Shenmue is that unlike many other cult games, there is a great divide even between true game aficionados. I think a great deal of us here would think that something that others may scoff at - Ikaruga, or Powerstone for example, we DPer's will mostly enjoy unless we really dislike the genre. Yet even here, in what I would consider the best gaming community on the net, there is a mixed reaction to Shenmue.

Personally, I think one of the best things about Shenmue is what it failed to deliver. It was supposed to give us this world teeming with reality and it doesn't really do that, yet it comes close enough that the imagination can fill the holes.

[frap]

There are two good things about Shenmue:

1. Space
2. Harrier

-frap

[segagamer]

I agree with PallarAndersVisa and I too enjoy both Shenmue games very much.

[8-bitNesMan]

what can you tell me about the 4 woo doo

Just wanted to say thanks... Now that stupid phrase is stuck in my head!

[mezrabad]

Put me in the "likes Shenmue" box.

I just wish there had been a little bit more to it, or that they had used that engine to make a better game. I love the idea of having the little capsule toys around to collect, the arcade games and the glimpses into everyday Japanese life (the squid in the convenience store isn't just for cats).

I felt like they could've done more with the people walking around. Like if you'd spoken to a random stranger too many times after they'd told you they don't have time to talk that they'd get annoyed, call the police or shoot you. Each and every character in there had a back story according to one of the guides for the game. I think it was also the first game where the faces actually looked like faces.

Shenmue with the GTA:SA engine could actually be pretty damn cool provided the character meshes became Shenmue.

Also, some of the eye candy was just wonderful, particularly the snowing scenes. The lighting was just "right".

Anyway, I can blame no one for disliking Shenmue, the pacing could be considered painful. It's not for everyone. For those who were able to really enjoy it, I'm right there with you.

If they made Shenmue III but used the same engine as the DC and said okay, we're saving a lot of money because we're reusing the old engine, but we're going to need to charge $200 for the game because of the limited market, I would still be on board, pre-ordering.

I just wish they'd setup the Shenmue Online site again. :( I want to know how many times my Ryo has bumped into a wall. :D

[PallarAndersVisa]

i would really like to see the entire Shenmue story completed sometime in the future

[suppafly]

Shenmue is my favorite game ever. Its an amazing experience

[bangtango]

Shenmue was the first in a string of rude awakenings to gamers who thought Sega was infallible. Just kidding, I felt like drawing the ire of a hardcore Sega fan :)

[GaijinPunch]

I guess the dialogue isn't as dissectible in English. It went pretty well in Japanese, and of course, didn't have any homoerotic overtones.

[diskoboy]

Shenmue sucks

That's a bold statement, that I happen to agree with. The only part of the game I enjoyed was playing Hang On and Space Harrier in the arcade.

[jpark203]

Personally, I have enjoyed the Shenmue games. I prefer adventure games over any other genre, and I'm one of the few who can't stand games like GTA or Halo. :)

[Streetball 21]

I like the Shenmue games also. Nothing better than that huge battle royal towards the end of the first Shenmue. Now hopefully Shenmue III comes out...

[Richter Belmount]

HOW DURE U SAY THUS HERESY AGUNSTH TEH CATHUILOC CHURCH!213o1n

[ShenmueFan]

HOW DURE U SAY THUS HERESY AGUNSTH TEH CATHUILOC CHURCH!213o1n

Someone's been drinking on Sunday night! :cheers:

[Censorship-Zen]

Shenmue 2 is the best video game I have ever played. It is a marvelous experience with its action paced third disc and its warm cool down on the 4th.

Shenmue is a good game, but starts off very slow until finishing nicely in a 70 person battle.

Both are must haves and every true gamer should have completed them at least once.

[Emuaust]

Shenmue was the first in a string of rude awakenings to gamers who thought Sega was infallible. Just kidding, I felt like drawing the ire of a hardcore Sega fan :)

Almost as much as I love doing it to nintendo fans!