Endurance Run: Shenmue - Part 26

I miss Tom already

The End?

Wow, I didn't think they'd do the rest in one long video. That's a wrap, folks! I'm gonna miss this.

Lan Di, get yourself together...

So hey guys, when are you doing another endurance run......?

All that forklift driving lead up to this...

The End

Thank you Vinny, Alex and Dan!

Hopefully this hasn't put you off any future ERs as it's been very entertaining to watch. :D

I feel like we all learned a valuable lesson this past 5 weeks.... and thats Shenmue is a bad game.

When's the next endurance run?

This truly was, an endurance run.

Over already? It was a fun ride, at least. Great work, guys. <3

POCKET SAND

Oh man, what if Tom had slowly lowered his sunglasses and it was Lan Di the whole time.

Woo!

Man, you finished Shenmue quick.

Thanks for this endurance run guys!

Yeah Shenmue has problems that comes from it pacing, lack of development with characters, and any real interaction. It the problem with Japanese story telling when they want you to assume what characters are thinking and background. This game would had benefited with the episodic design of modern games since that where it was going for but had to pad it out due how games where back then.

This is the death of the Shenmue Endurance Run. Long live the Shenmue 2 Endurance Run!

I LOVE

THE SHENMUE ENDURANCE RUN

I do not love Shenmue.

Whoa, this didn't last as long as I expected. Congrats guys.

Man.. I feel like this game really gave truth to the title, 'Endurance Run' because it sure as hell took some of that to get through!

Yeah, Shenmue... "thanks." Thanks for ALL you've accomplished.

As a massive fan of Shenmue, thank you Vinny, Alex and Dan for an entertaining endurance run! Hope to see you play Shenmue 2!

Some spoiler-free notes for Shenmue 2:

The story is actually good (even as a Shenmue fan the story in the first is bad)
The pacing is VASTLY improved. There are far more fights and the fights are much better.
There are much better characters and Ryo actually gets a personality. There are some genuinely touching scenes.
The crazy stuff they wanted starts happening.
It feels much more like a Hong Kong revenge movie.
There are some really "unique" gameplay elements that I'm sure they will have great reactions to :P
It fixes a lot of the complaints they have such as having the ability to skip time.
The translation is much better though the dub is possibly worse.

I really hope they do play through it as I think it will really help them understand why people want Shenmue 3 so much. The series really finds it's identity in 2.

I wonder if they can continue their save into Shenmue 2 since they have the US version of Shenmue and Shenmue 2 only came out on DC in EU so I don't know if the save is compatible. But they might play the XBOX version anyway and I don't suppose you can import a DC save to the XBOX.

I've never played the XBOX version of Shenmue 2 so it will be strange to hear everyone speak English. I'm used to the Japanese voices with subtitles that the EU version of Shenmue 2 on DC have.

Awwwwwwwwww Tom and Ryo are best friends!!!! =D

The natural progression is to also play Shenmue 2 right?

Nice Batman V Superman reference Alex.

Shenmue: Prologue

I may actually need to know what happens next now.

Time to get my Ryo ♥ Nozomi tattoo I guess...

What a terrible, terrible video game. But I had an amazing time along the way.

I'm currently on episode 24 and the concept that this wraps in two episode is mind-boggling to me. It still feels like we should be in the opening third of the game. Enjoying the series but that's pretty crazy. I'll wait until finishing this before I note any more, though.

It's not possible to do it natively. There IS a conversion process, if you can get your save file from the VMU to a desktop, and use a hex editor to edit the file, then transfer it back. But of course I really doubt the crew will bother with that, if they even play 2 at all. Which I really, really hope they do.

Absolutely loved watching this whole Endurance run and I hope you guys go on to do Shenmue 2 when Dan rejoins GBEast

This was a lot of fun. Thanks for doing the endurance run.

The game was impressive for its time. A large part of that was the world, because so few other games had attempted anything like it. Even today, most games don't have that many characters with the kinds of detail and daily routines in the game. It's a game that wanted the player to be immersed by talking to a lot of people. That's not really as interesting on its own now. Today, the other things about the game like the pacing stand out more because the rest of it is less impressive.

Well, that was that. The endurance run was pretty great. It was also eye-opening to me as someone who hadn't really seen a lot of Shenmue yet. I'm sure it was impressive for the time, but it absolutely doesn't hold up.

However I'd still love to see an endurance run for Shenmue 2.

Before anyone asks, no, you don't need to end the Chai fight with the Swallow Flip. That was just a happy coincidence.

You also may have noticed that the Swallow Flip was the move that Gui Zhang used on Terry right at the beginning of their fight.

Now do Shenmue 2!!!

I never played Shenmue and I was expecting it to be like that, but I was wholly unimpressed with what you got by talking to people. 95% of the characters literally had the same dialogue: Ryo asking them what he had to do next and the characters giving him a vague hint or telling him they have no idea. The remaining 5% is comprised by the NPCs who give you actual hints and the minor sidequests you have to really really look for to find.

That immediately turns most people off, and I think that's the main culprit in the crew feeling they had absolutely nothing to do during most of the game. Honestly, voicing every single character but feeding most of them generic main quest lines is almost criminal, even for its time.

It's totally understandable that some people didn't like it then, and certainly now. It was fun to watch them play it.

Back then, just having so many characters in a big world to explore who have daily routines was really immersive. The characters at the shops all say slightly different things, and you can kind of expand on their backgrounds by talking to them at different points of the game. There's a lot of dialogue that's depends on when you talk to them. Today, all that's not really impressive and some of the other issues with the game are more obvious.

I'd watch them play Shenmue 2 at some point.

Thank you for this Endurance Run!

Please create more series like this or premium series like Metal Gear Scanlon in the future.

Stuff like this really helps create classic Giant Bomb moments that will be called back to for years and allows people to really get to know the guys better. Dan is all set to immediately feel like part of Gbeast already. You even get all the silly and awesome fan art and videos.

Regularity or a set schedule of content really helps too if possible, people like to know what they're getting and when they are getting it.

Good luck with the new GBeast era!

Thank you, guys!

Glad we got some quality time with Tom before the end.

An Endurance run where the initial reaction was like "what, why?", to at the end being pretty enjoyable.

Guessing we wont see a Shenmue 2 till a little bit after Dan moves to New York. i'd totally watch it, and i hope they do the Yakuza series eventually.

Really enjoyed the Endurance Run but still hate Shenmue.

I love how Ryo was more sad about Tom going to America than his girlfriend(???) going to Canada.

Awesome. I loved the endurance run. Shenmue is terrible, and I'm grateful to have watched it all without playing any of it. So Shenmue 2 Monday?

I feel like playing a sequel to a game already played almost goes against the spirit of the Endurance Run series at this point. But that could change, or they could just do it as part of another feature.

I still don't know what the fuck that blueish mark on Ryo's cheek is. A bandaid? A tattoo? Warpaint?

...not with a bang but by slowly shuffling back and forth

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