Shenmue? 1st Impressions

[andymol21]

Well I finally got Dreamcast emulation working on my new laptop (old desktop was too slow) and started off with Shenmue as I heard it was one of the defining games of the console from a little website I know... Also, any game with a $20 million buget must be good, right. Well, my first impression aren't good, the d-pad control scheme is almost unusable to me, reminds me of early Tomb Raider games. Why when the Dreamcast came with a very good analogue stick did the developers decide to use archaic d-pad controls. Also, the localization from Japanese to English seems a bit ropey, whithin the 1st cutscene I was laughing out loud (loling if you will) at some of the pauses and elongated syllables that the localization team had used to try and get the words and the mouth animations to sync. The English voice acting itself is a bit of a joke, with sentences being in a completly different tone to the one that had just been said, and some of the accents makeme cringe when i hear them (the Japanese/Jamacian one sticks out quite a lot). My real question is, and the poll at the top proves it, is Shenmue worth my time? Will it get any better? Will it engross me so uterly that I will live, eat and sleep it for it's entire duration. Or will the gripes that I have pointed at the start of the game ruin my overall appreciation for it?

[peace4myheart]

It's worth my time at least, but it looks like it's not your cup of tea.

[vlame]

it's a game, you should be playing the pal version anyways.

[nick944]

You get used to playing with the D-pad after awhile. I never thought the voice acting was bad, though if you are not a patient person you probably won't like it at all. The game ususally tells you a time to be somewhere and leaves you about 5 hours (in game) to do what you want, like looking around, buying things, or going to the arcade. Personally it's my favorite game ever.

[andymol21]

I don't really know what my cup of tea is. My favourite game ever is Zelda OOT, so a sprawling Action/Adventure/RPG, as Shenmue is described as should be just what I'm looking for. I'm really not very patient when there are real design flaws within the first few seconds of me playing a game. Ah well, there are other fish in the sea. When I finaly get round to buying a Dreamcast, I'll probably pick this up for a decent price just to see it on it's original hardware, maybe thats my problem rather than the game itself.

[Droid party]

it's a game, you should be playing the pal version anyways.

What is the difference between the ntsc and pal releases?

[vlame]

it's a game, you should be playing the pal version anyways.

What is the difference between the ntsc and pal releases?

if you play 1 pal you can read the subs (i think) but the best part is you can carry over your items from game 1 to game 2.

[dudex77]

I would say play the game for 3 hours and if it still isn't your thing put it away and play the second game since the first game is basically just building up the story and hardly any real action actually takes place.

[ImportBoy]

While Shenmue is the greatest game created ever in my opinion it is certainly not everyone's cut of tea. The start of the first game can be a little slow but does pick up after a few hours.

As was suggested with the PAL version you can easily transfer your save directly to Shenmue II. You can do this with the American version as well, but you'll need to hex edit your save game file (they is a guide on gamefaqs how to do it).

Yes the voice acting is meh....when you hit Shenmue II you'll have Japanese voice acting with English subs which is considerably better. One of the projects I've wanted to start was swapping out the English voice acting in Shenmue with that of Japanese version. I own both copies, just need a way to rip them.

[NebachadnezzaR]

The start is (at least IMO) boring as hell, but after that it slowly starts to build up and when you notice, you're already addicted for life! At least that's what happened to me... The first time I've played it, I turned it off after exploring the room, so damn bored I was. After that, and with somewhat lower expectations, I decided to give it another try, and I slowly got the hang of the game. After a while it gets a little predictable, not in the bad way that you don't want to play because you already know what's going to happen, but in the good way that you already know how the game works and what you can expect from it, instead of being completely lost in this mammoth of a game.

And then the story develops, you get immersed in the "almost as real as life itself" feel of the game, and you truly start to appreciate the truly unique masterpiece that is Shenmue.