Endurance Run: Shenmue - Part 14

Same Ryo-time, same Ryo-channel

Sweet! Also, please fix the youtube playlist . #13 is missing and we still got the broken #11 on there.

The Nintendo DSi does not have a cartridge slot. And Shenmue is pretty good.

*"Warehouse No 6" sits in the middle of the screen for like 6 seconds.*

"I think this is warehouse number 8". Oh endurance run.

I love these!

Still making that left turn

I love watching this endurance run, but I really don't understand why people think this is a fun game to play?

And the Help button prompt is even displayed as they approached the phone. The Help screen would have shown that they could press the Notebook button (X) while dialling, (dialing controls also in manual) as well as the Notebook controls.

Fuku-san is the worst liar, holy shit.

@alwaysbebombing: I don't think a game has to be fun to be good. I think that limits the idea of what a game can be.

As someone who just played through Shenmue for the first time, I enjoyed it. The only "fun" part of the game was the forklifting, since it was the most mechanically interesting section of the game. Maybe it doesn't come across in the endurance run or maybe it's something you have to experience for yourself, but Shenmue's world simulation was the driving force of my enjoyment. It's just something that games don't often do.

There's also some intentional and unintentional silly stuff in the game that got a laugh out of me. Some of that we'll see near the end of the endurance run.

Loaded Weapon 1 is amazing. Vinny got it right.

I'm with Dan, Wrongfully Accused is hilarious.

Man, the story does a really bad job justifying to send you on the chase for the phoenix mirror. Hours of digging it out of the secret basement just to be told that it should probably be hidden away. I usually don't have much trouble suspending my disbelief and I don't pick up that easily on plot inconsistencies, but that part is handled poorly.

@alwaysbebombing: I played this when I was 14 and you're probably right, this probably isn't a fun game to just watch many years after the fact but I really did just enjoy being in this world that was like nothing else at the time. It had a great sense of atmosphere, something I felt was lost in Shenmue 2. The dialogue, writing and delivery are quite ham fisted by modern standards but again, super impressive for 1999 but even then I'd joke about it with my friends who were also playing it at the time (how some people say what sounds like D'yo). It did feel like an adventure and I was uncovering this larger mystery. What starts out as a revenge tale becomes much more involved and complex as the story progresses.

If this ER has done anything, it's highlighted how different someone's playthrough can be. I often feel like they waste a lot of time by not fully exploring, only now just realising you can interact with objects (one of the major selling points of the game back in 1999) and going to bed at the earliest they can. I enjoyed going through all of the draws and finding objects that didn't matter, they just added more to the feeling that this was a real place where people went about their lives, went to their jobs etc. I made a routine for myself in the game, so maybe that's why I didn't feel as bored as the GBeast crew. I'd wake up, train with Fuku-san, go feed the cat, then go and do as much as I could for the day and then usually chill in the evening by going to the arcade or practising in the park or at home. There's something to Shenmue mundane-ness that actually made me appreciate what it was doing. I can see why it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea but to say it's either a shit game or bad is certainly incorrect.

Fuku-san is supposed to be the comic relief but he just comes across as irritating. There's very little reason or rationale to go to Hong Kong besides avenging your father, and it's only on a hunch you think he's in Hong Kong in the first place.

This is a fun series, enjoying watching them play it.

I can no longer have any respect for Alex's opinion on movies when he says "Loaded Weapon 1 isn't funny." Oof.

@danryckert the questions you ask about the NYC of yore would be answered if you ever watched some Law and Order. The old joke is that at the time, the NYC of real life was more dangerous than the one on TV which had people being murdered every single week, and now the one on TV is probably more dangerous than the NYC of real life.

Also fuck Giuliani. Any goodwill he had has been undone by his decade of presidential campaigns focused solely on fearmongering and 9/11 references.

@crocbox: He didn't even try to lie. He's just an idiot.

He reminds me of the character they taught wrong in Kung Pow.

I don't know man, the guy REALLY cleaned up New York in a way that can't be overshadowed by some crummy campaigning. Like Manhattan used to be a dangerous neighborhood - thats nuts to think about today.

@hans_maulwurf Everything is handled poorly...

I'd like to add that I actually like the fighting in this game and even more so in Shenmue 2 where there's a bunch of optional fights and a sort of hidden boss battle. Always loved how some of the moves actually evolve when you train them up to at least Advanced level.

Also, am I the only person in the world who automatically assumed 0468 is the area code and you can just skip it when dialing a number?

Fuku-san looks and sounds like one of the turtles from the original live-action TMNT movie.

Does Ryo have Solidsnakeitis? Mad Angels? The Chi You Men? Hong Kong? Or maybe just a case of badexpositionitis.

Alex thinks everything is bad besides Murder She Wrote. Not to be trusted.

@epidehl: Yes! I've always thought this.

Hmm, I get you. I might just be too young to fully grasp it, but like...I get it, this place used to be dangerous and now it's much less so, but the "Broken Windows" and Zero Tolerance stuff was often just a smokescreen for cop bullshit and organized attacks against the poor and also the black population, a la "Stop and Frisk". There's no guarantee that it was actually the reason why NYC got "better", and if anything, the evidence suggests that the cleanliness of NYC was a result of programs put in place by previous mayors, not Giuliani. He's the Joe Torre to Ed Koch's Buck Showalter, coasting on his predecessor's success.

Also I just think Giuliani is a scummy dude who didn't give a shit about the people. He cracked down on the mafia because he had an Italian name and couldn't have people thinking he had mob ties, even though he definitely did.

I feel like the last two episodes were short enough and related enough that they could've just been one episode.

@awkwardloser: We're dealing with Vinny taking every excuse he can find to stop playing. "I have something to do, so let's call it." "Oh it's night time, this seems like a good place to call it (even though it's only been 20 minutes."

Soon, though, we'll have quite a few days that you have to spend entirely at the docks, and they don't know that you can save anywhere. They think the only stopping point is at home, so that'll probably give us longer episodes.

I think whatever enjoyment you manage to get out of a game is always a good thing. If going about this computer world was something that really spoke to you then that is great. That said I do think the primary focus of a game is "to be fun" more than anything like graphics or even framerate which in turn makes it a "good game" and isn't something that should be overlooked so lightly. Of course "fun" is a very nebulous concept that as I mentioned above can present itself to different people in very unique ways so go figure. One person will play through a Grand Theft Auto murdering people and never doing a single mission while another will go through the campaign A-to-B and never stray from the path. As long as they both had fun the game will be good in their eyes.

Thats a lot of writing about something that is at once very obvious and very ephereal, but I guess ultimately I think saying things like "games don't need to be fun to be good" isn't something we as end-users should ever propagate. I fully understand that you might end up appreciating a not-so-fun playing game on various levels, (I've definitely played my fair share of games that I respect even though I didn't enjoy) but that shouldn't excuse it's shortcomings. I shudder at the thought of developers making these products and at any point of development thinking "well this section blows but in the long run people will appreciate what we're doing here.."

He's pretty much right.

@humanity: When I think about people who insist that a game must be fun for it to be good, it reminds me of people who only like upbeat music that you can dance to. And that's okay, it's just personal preference, it just means you're looking to get a very particular thing out of the medium. But too often if feels like people look down on those with broader taste who want to explore every facet of what the medium can deliver. Should we be restricting what a video game or music or whatever can be?

Most artists make things for themselves, first and foremost. Instead of thinking "this section blows but in the long run people will appreciate what we're doing here," they might be thinking, "someone is going to really dig this." And if not everyone does, that's okay!

I'm with you. It's why a lot of mainstream games criticism is just really, really not for me. It usually just boils down to "is this gun fun to shoot?" and not bigger questions like "why does this gun behave the way it does?" It's why I like Giant Bomb so much though. While their reviews are probably geared toward that general audience, it's easier to get more out of some their long form videos and podcast discussions.

I agree with both sentiments but sometimes something just isn't fun or good for that matter and it's no longer a case of artistic expression but poor design. So I'm just saying we shouldn't universally excuse bad design when it does rear it's ugly head - sometimes that bigger question and broader discussion is definitely there to be had. Other times it's just bad design and thats that.

I assume that Dan was actually referring to An American Carol.

Well, when have stories in movies, game, books, or plays not had plot holes?

When Chen is resistant to helping him and sending him home after the meeting you have to allow for the fact that a barefoot dude just jumped out his window. At that point I might be, "You know what? Go home Ryu...just go home." Chen needed to know where it was or if it existed, but in the end he just wants this kid to go the hell home and live his life without getting tangled in this. Chen said, "Go home" he didn't say or reveal why he wanted that.

Telling Ryu to show you the mirror and then sending him home right away doesn't make the action meaningless from all point of view. From one angle, Chen needs Ryu to go home so his son can protect him. Chen can't hide the mirror at warehouse 8 because the weirdo already saw it there, but nobody - not Ryo, not Chen, and not the son- knows that where Ryo lives has been revealed too. Also, Chen sees Ryu is not being totally rational, so Chen can't just take the mirror from him. Taking teh mirror could cause Ryu to flip-out and not even trust they one solid allie he has. So, Chen with what little he knows sends Ryo and the mirror as far as he can from the docks for teh moment. Meanwhile it not like Chen doesn't have a plan for dealing with the weirdo, the Angels, or Lan Di. If Chen gets the weirdo before he reports to Lan Di the loop is closed - Ryu and his family are safe.

@humanity: The exploration aspect and the immersion I felt when I first played this game were a big part of what made this particular game fun/engaging/enjoyable for me. I feel that the mundaness of it all serves to support this. But I'm by no means protective of Shenmue as a whole. In fact I don't actually like the first game very much. We're already past my favorite part, exploring the secret basement (shame they missed so much stuff in there). I hate the slog that is the fork lift driving later on or the cut-off times for many of the early investigation parts we've already seen. The voice acting is laughably bad and every single person is either a completely flat caricature or has a progression that most players will never even encounter. Did you know that Kurita (the guy in the camo hat) is from a well-off family and mostly runs his shop because he's really into military gear? He also starts dating Yuriko (flower shop lady) while Ryo is running around trying to avenge his father.

I probably said this already at some point but to me Shenmue=Shenmue II is as Mass Effect=Mass Effect 2. They solved so many problems in the second game:

-Having a "Wait" option when you're supposed to meet someone at a specific time

-Maps in your inventory so you can always look up where you're going.

-Generally more stuff to do with all the lucky hit stands, betting, part-time jobs, fight contests, more arcade games

-Sidequests that give you a reason to explore outside of following the story.

-More fleshed out characters that you learn stuff about during the course of the game

-The original Japanese voice acting for the PAL Dreamcast version

-Instead of new moves simply replacing your old ones you can actually select which ones you like best

-DUCK TRAINING/RACING!

But yeah, most of all I love the atmosphere of these games. Without spoiling anything, the last few hours of Shenmue II are something that's always stuck out to me because it's very unusual to see in a game. Well, at least until a few years ago when indie games started exploring similar territory.

As I said, I usually tend to notice them a lot less than other people, so it has to be pretty glaring for me to stumble over it.

Chen knew where the phoenix mirror was and that it existed, that's why Ryo started looking for it in his fathers house to begin with. Chen could have just told him what he knew about the mirror without risking it being stolen by gollum after Ryo dragged it to warehouse 8 from its pretty secret hiding place.

Thanks! Should be fixed now?

I think it's fairly important to remember context too, for many Shenmue let people take a somewhat stilted tour of a modern japanese town. Accurate or not, it filled a purpose and need that isn't as important for most anymore. For one of the first stabs at cinematic open world/life sim it was certainly worth a look.

I'm actually surprised people don't compare it to animal crossing more. It's somewhat like a more realistic version of that.

Well, Alex, Halloween was about Christians feeding the homeless... nothing about druids. for some reason, people kicked Christ out of Halloween and made it about crazy demon jump scares and being ok for people to dress up as random things to get free candy from people.

@epidehl: hahah great call dude.

@paulunga: except ME 2 was extremely limited in so many ways and took so many things away as far as mechanics and scale. I don't think it's a good comparison.

I think Shenmue 2 is just a way better game in virtually all ways and it really added things vs taking things away. I think ME2 got rid of way too many awesome parts of 1 instead of just polishing. I know many love ME2 but I think there are many in my crowd that think they took way too much RPG out of the series and also did awful storytelling things like not having a villain to pit yourself against in 2. Not that it's a bad game but ME 1 is fantastic, roughness and all.

Do you even realize they filmed a ton of these back to back? The last few episodes have all been back to back.

I cant believe I'm watching all of these. Is this my life now?

Would just like to add in, fuck Rudy Giuliani, his "America's Mayor" bullshit has always been just that, bullshit.

He is a cancerous, race baiting, sexist little shit, but hey, making sure Times Square can have a second TGI fridays and being all law and order makes up for how he treated (and still treats a talking head) civil liberties like a disease

@artisanbreads: Obviously they didn't record one episode per real-life day. But the flimsiest of opportunities to end episodes have been consistently taken, driven by wanting to get away from the game. 20 minute episodes, 30 minute episodes. Why is that, if they're just pausing for a few seconds and then starting a new recoding? Every episode begins with either an explicit or implied "Why are we doing this?" so it's easy to infer why.

I will be sad if they don't play the second game - specifically the PAL version, rather than that naff NTSC 'knock-off' that was on the first gen Xbox.

While I consider myself a 'fan' of the Shenmue series, I have to admit I was never much a fan of the first one. The Japanese voice acting and street gambling (plus a lot of QoL improvements) in the second game added so much to the experience.

Also, no Fuku-San! Win win!

@gregalor: .... they continue to play the game after the episode ends. Did you read my post? They are not walking away from the game.

@artisanbreads: Making 20-minute episodes to upload for the day make even less sense.

@gregalor: a 37 minute episode is fine. The episodes are all at least about twice as long as you are saying. You are not using any logic.