We have seen proper trolls, infiltrate as staff members and try to take the boards down permanently.
Some have posted images across 1000 separate topics which took days to clean up.

Please, tell me you're kidding. :shock:

Mention the word, "tubgirl" to any old skool Dojo'er and watch them shudder.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/GeneralDisguisedCuttlefish-size_restricted.gif

Recent PSN Halloween sale:

http://games-mag.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/resident_evil_0.jpg

http://cerealkillerz.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/resident-evil-revelations-2-opening-sequence-ready-for-the-undead-revelations-2.jpeg?x87430


Current PSN flash sale:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/01/Headlander_cover.png

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/281200/header.jpg?t=1453381026


http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums/y494/RA1TH0S/Games/20161129_193648_zpsbvydzyem.jpg?t=1480386842
Damn, this looks great!

My top 5 games on PS1:

1. Xenogears
2. Final Fantasy VII
3. Suikoden II
4. Grandia
5. Lunar Silver Star Story Complete

Mine are un-numbered, because greatness comes in too many individual forms. Also there are ten, because five is too limiting.

Bushido Blade
Parasite Eve
Ridge Racer Type 4
Final Fantasy VII
Mega Man Legends
Tenchu
Vagrant Story
Ghost in The Shell
Front Mission 3
Metal Gear Solid

(it also pains me to leave out Chrono Cross, Jumping Flash, Resident Evil 2, and a few others. But that's how lists go. Fuck you, lists)

The PSP, what a fantastic system.

Whilst we're talking PlayStation consoles, here's my top 10 PSP games:

Growlanser IV: Wayfarer of Time (Secretly one of the best JRPGs ever made)
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (Secretly one of the best stories in gaming)
Metal Gear AC!D 2 (Secretly one of the best Metal Gear games. Also best Metal Gear on PSP)
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (Secretly the best Final Fantasy story ever now even better than the PSX version)
Persona 2: Innocent Sin (Secretly the best Persona story yet. Also one of the best game OSTs I've ever listened to, Eternal Punishment's also included, of course)
Gungnir (Secretly one of the toughest Tactical RPGs out there)
Generation of Chaos: Pandora's Reflection (Secretly one of the most overlooked Tactical RPGs I've played with one of the most fun systems I've come across)
Black Rock Shooter (Secretly the best Action RPG on the system)
Metal Slug Anthology (Secretly one of the best game collections out there since it's Metal Slug, on your handheld)
Carnage Heart: EXA (Secretly one of the best mech games out there. The level of customisation on offer is mind blowing. You either play it like FFXII - complete with an even more intricate version of the Gambit system or fully controlled. Lot of programming/micromanagement madness.)
Knights in the Nightmare (Secretly the trippiest JRPG ever made. Also really good.)

Oooooweee, balls deep now. Can't resist.
My PSP favorites:

Black Rock Shooter - SO underappreciated. Great, original gameplay, amazing music (still the only instance of me importing a soundtrack before playing the game itself), and one of the best "end of the world" stories I've experienced. The fact that literally everyone in the entire world aside from Stella herself dies before the end is pretty notable to me, and yet it still manages to end on a vague note of hope. So good.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Adds a good deal to the established lore of FFVII without stepping on any toes. Great battle system, amazing graphics for the system, excellent soundtrack, and one of those emotional gut-punch endings. Really wish they'd remaster this one for PS4.
Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble - It's River City Ransom, but in 3D. And I do loves me some Japanese street punk fighting action whenever I can find it.
Ys: The Oath in Felghana - A remake of the third game in the Ys series, which probably had my favorite setting/story/soundtrack in the entire series. And now it's mixed with classic top-down Ys action. There's not a single thing here I could complain about.
Pursuit Force 1&2 - Some of the most visceral, fast-paced action sequences in gaming are right here, hidden on the PSP. Car-hopping at 200 miles per hour while firing off an automatic weapon; not a common sight, even in gaming, and yet they pulled off the mechanics to make it work almost perfectly on the first go, on a freakin' handheld. Unbelievable.
Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X - Simply put, one of the greatest videogame remakes ever made. It's essentially the original Mega Man X, but with 3D graphics, full dialogue, and anime cutscenes (including a full 25-minute prequel episode that sets up the game).
The 3rd Birthday - Yeah, there's a lot of hate out there for it, but it's all based on what people think it should have been, rather than what it actually is. Sure, it may not be the Parasite Eve successor that so many of us wanted (and trust me, I understand that disappointment), but the actual game mechanics and polish on this sucker are pretty high-level. Aside from the enemies being a little too resilient, it's a fantastic little sci-fi shooter with a lot of originality and, much like Crisis Core, a seriously impressive level of production value considering the tech it's on. Again, wish this would be remastered for PS4. It deserves it.
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions - Like Henry said, it's the original game made even better. And the original game was amazing. So what's better than amazing? Uh... super duper? Super Duper good. Also them cel-shaded cutscenes are ridiculously gorgeous.
Star Ocean: First Departure - Another remake, sure, but it's a remake of one of the last great Super Famicom RPGs which never originally made its way to the west. One of those that I'm damn thankful to have, and had a blast grinding through it.
Undead Knights - Probably the least-likely game to appear on a "best of" list that I'll mention. I have a weird affection for it for some reason. Dynasty Warriors-style combat in a medieval fantasy setting, featuring characters that have been resurrected by the devil in order to avenge their fallen clan. And they do it by turning people into marauding zombies. Also they say things like "Burn, fuckers, burn!" while they pull off super moves and a thrash metal soundtrack plays. One of the earliest game to come out of the Koei/Tecmo merger, and it's a perfect mix of both companies; it's the aesthetic of the Deception series mixed with Dynasty Warriors. Really unique, unfortunately forgotten.

Honorable mentions (not on the actual list mainly because I still haven't finished them): Persona 2, Valkyrie Profile, Tactics Ogre, Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, Daxter, some others.
Still a lot I haven't played on the system, and Henry's list mentions a few I want to tackle. Already have Carnage Heart EXA, just have to play it.

Going short of creating a topic as this generation is probably not old enough to warrant that, but as I'm considering getting a PS4 for Yakuza 0, are there any overlooked or hidden gems I should look into? Including PSN-only releases, of course.

I just bought Wild Guns Reloaded, and it's literally like they made a new SNES game and just put it on a disc instead of a cartridge. Beautiful release.
Nobunaga's Ambition is on the PS4 as well, if you like that kind of strategy stuff. Haven't delved deep yet, but they seem pretty polished and enjoyable from what little I have played.
I just finished Styx: Master of Shadows, which is download-only. Awesome title if you like pure Tenchu-esque stealth games. Was really surprised by it (and a sequel is out in a couple months).
Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess. A bit wackier/not as dark as earlier entries, but still a fun bit of trapping action.
Earth Defense Force 4.1. An enhanced remake, but it adds playable giant robots vs. kaiju. The only thing the series was missing before.
Assault Suit Leynos. Excellent remake of the Genesis/Megadrive original.

Aw, nice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpWaza_UhEU
Missed that this was announced last month. I haven't played particularly far in the original game (only about three levels), but I always liked the idea of it, being like a big, flashy boss run of sorts. New one looks like it might have some slightly more involved levels though. And man, dat art design.
This gives me the urge to pick up my Vita and finally play all the way through Malicious Rebirth.
Really hope the new one gets localized. The first game seemed like an unlikely candidate for it, but we actually managed to get both the original PS3 version and the expanded Vita version in the west. So I've got hope for this one (even if it is strictly digital, like the others).

http://oi63.tinypic.com/2udxovo.jpg
http://oi64.tinypic.com/k50i9v.jpg

Finally preordered Nioh (about time, it's out in a few days), and impulse-bought Chase while browsing the Nintendo e-shop (only $5.99, and since my interest in story-heavy adventure games has been reignited by Ghost Trick, it was an easy choice).

Ha, I was just thinking about making this very same topic the other day. :D
(images in spoilers)

Haunting Ground (PS2) - One of the absolute most underrated/underappreciated/under- recognized games of the 128-bit era. Phenomenal game as a whole, but even more than that, it's also an incredibly gorgeous one as well. This has to be one of the most AAA-looking obscurities in existence, containing all the glossy flair that Capcom releases tended to have during that era, but with an interesting sense of class all its own. Just about the only drawback of its visuals is the hardware it happened to be on, which was fine at the time, but in retrospect makes it suffer from a serious case of the jaggies.
And what point is there to a remaster if not to simply accentuate the beauty a game already had? That's why remasters like the Ico/SotC collection and MGS collections are so good; the visual design was already excellent, they just needed stronger hardware to bring it out further. That being the case, Haunting Ground ought to have been the perfect candidate for remaster. And giving more people the opportunity to play it would be a nice extra (it's oddly rare/expensive in the US, so its fanbase remains small).
http://oi67.tinypic.com/2yjprw2.jpg http://oi68.tinypic.com/10deg6s.jpg http://oi68.tinypic.com/2z871ww.jpg

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams (PS2) - Another unfortunately underrated game on the PS2, and easily one of my favorites on the system (if not the absolute winner in that regard). In my eyes -- and I've been saying this for years -- it did everything for the Onimusha series that Resident Evil 4 did for RE, yet it never got the same level of respect and acclaim that RE4 got. Never understood that.
Anyway, the art design is phenomenal and, just like Haunting Ground, is mostly only held back by an extreme case of jaggies. The game actually shipped on two discs (a rarity for games of the era), which I've always suspected was because of the abundance of varying visual elements. Also, the cinematic cutscenes are squeezed down into these little spaces on screen to facilitate the fact that they're intended to be widescreen, yet the game didn't actually offer widescreen support. Really neuters what should be some of the prettiest in-game movies of the 128-bit era. It would be amazing to see that issue ironed out.
I would absolutely lose my shit if a remaster of this were made.
http://oi68.tinypic.com/kbsoef.jpg http://oi67.tinypic.com/juxvso.jpg http://oi65.tinypic.com/dp95bs.jpg

Front Mission 5 (PS2) - I've never actually played this one, but god dammit, I want to. Part of why I'd want a remaster; I think in this day and age, if Square actually went to the effort of remastering an old PS2 game like this, it'd be practically guaranteed to make its way abroad of Japan. And dammit, from all I've seen, the Front Mission series has never looked as good as it did in this game (it looks even better in motion), and I want the friggin chance to experience it.
I know there's a fan translation out there and all that, but I'm dopey with that stuff, so just give me something official (spoiler: it'll never happen). In my mind, this is the most important Square-developed game that was never localized. That ought to be remedied.
http://oi64.tinypic.com/24mrehc.jpg http://oi64.tinypic.com/2w1sjmb.jpg http://oi63.tinypic.com/29z5so8.jpg

Otogi 1 & 2 (Xbox) - I'll just make this simple: pretty much every Front Software game ought to get a remaster. Grand majority of them have serious visual merits in one way or another, but the Otogi series has always stood out to me as their best, pre-Demon's Souls. It's the series that made me first take notice of their name, and recognize it in other places.
It's always been incredible to me how deftly they manage to make a game so colorful, yet still have a solid tone of bleakness throughout. It's always a beautiful thing to see, and Otogi deserves a bit of new love.
http://oi64.tinypic.com/2w7fitf.jpg http://oi67.tinypic.com/r7iwqv.jpg http://oi67.tinypic.com/24e2rm9.jpg

Maybe I'll bring up more later (there are indeed many).

Its like the past 20 years of Omega Force games were building up to this. They edit it together with bits of the movie trilogy and it looks great, with tightened up Warriors game play. Its so good.

Ah, okay, I getcha then. I've totally experienced that before; I think I was that way with Demon's/Dark Souls at first. I didn't really get why there was so much fervor over them before I'd tried them, because on the surface, through trailers and whatnot, it just looked like a bunch of random medieval fantasy tropes. "So what?" I thought.
Of course playing them turned that around pretty quick.
I still feel that way about the Mass Effect series too. Looks like the most generic sci-fi imaginable, and I don't have much desire to play them at all. But with all the acclaim they've gotten, I still get the feeling that playing them might change that perception.
So yeah, I can understand if Nier doesn't seem so hot from the outside.

If nothing else, I recommend listening to a little bit of the soundtrack. This stuff, even out of context, would be enough to convince me to play it, personally. ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1CjxQXXA7o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2lwFiIaMAE

When it comes right down to it, even though I'm not quite as nutty about Nier as some others (still love it regardless, don't get me wrong), this is simply some of the best music in gaming in my eyes.

Hmm, I'm not as much into Japanese music and vocals as you are (at least that's what I got from browsing bits of that Japanese music topic for example), but yeah, those are some fine tunes. Nothing that convinces me of really needing this game (and soundtracks can have that effect on me) right now, but still very beautiful. In the end it's all a matter of personal taste, heh.
Well, now that you've explained it, the four endings sound pretty great and not like a chore at all. Like I said, for now I won't go out of my way to play Nier on a PS3, but me buying an eventual PS4 remaster is a sure thing. Mainly thanks to you and Henry explaining your love for it. :D

This is really good. So sad that he's gone, but man what a great manga to go out on. Just as good as his animes.

I found a sealed copy of the first edition of this game! Quite pristine for its age. As I never actually got to the end of DX1 back in the day, I decided to play it again on a Steam copy I got while I take a break from the newer games I've been playing.

https://s7.postimg.org/i02e7bqe3/DSC_0518.jpg

https://www.technobuffalo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Mass-Effect-Andromeda-GIF-4.gif


https://media.giphy.com/media/l0HlvB3KUh8qn0vZe/giphy-downsized-large.gif https://i.makeagif.com/media/6-14-2015/k8FMHy.gif http://i.imgur.com/biDFHU0.gif

So I randomly woke up at 3am and decided to log back in.

Really enjoyed the new Twin Peaks.

As a massive fan of the original series, I found myself conflicted at the extreme slow pace, and difference in direction that Lynch wanted to take the Series in. Not sure what the rest of you guys thought, but in similar fashion to Shenmue , I'm glad that we got to see more.

It's vastly different, and I welcome the change. Even if the majority of the new Season is based upon ' a dream', it was nice to see some of the old cast back together. I would need to watch the entire Series again, but my initial thought was that the new direction is the portrayal of what occurred inside the Black Lodge - after Cooper gave up his soul (Season 2 finale)

I enjoyed the ending. (episode 18) My initial conclusion is that there are two 'dreamers' - both Laura and Cooper. They are each trying to find a way out of the Lodge. Together; they keep failing. It leaves the door open for a potential Season 4 but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't happen. Fans have been asking for a continuation of the Series for such a long time that this is perhaps the final product.

I'll watch it all again and make another post on the subject, but I'm convinced there's much more to be decoded in Season 3, and that multiple timelines/dreams/real-life events are occurring simultaneously. Lynch is the master of experimenting with alternate realities, and ultimately, still manages to provide the audience with their own personal interpretation of what's occurred, without losing credibility. I can't think of one other film director who is so good at finding such a balance. Love him or hate him, his work is an experience , like a fine art which can take a lifetime to digest, and just as long to question why you indulged yourself to begin with.

I have absolutely no doubt that many are probably whining about this, over the fact that it isn't a new mainline, wanzer-commanding strategy game. Shucks to all that; this looks and sounds fucking cool. Love the idea (oddly enough, I've actually fantasized about a stealth game against giant robots before), the visual design is in good hands, and you probably couldn't ask for a better director for something like this. Also very cool that it'll be based in Zaftra for once (one trailer says Novo Slava, but I'm guessing that's the name of the city); unless I'm mistaken, we've never really seen Zaftra before, right? Had them as enemies, but I don't think the series has ever actually gone there .
Takes place five years after FM5, so in a sense it actually is a followup to the main series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NKXaBo3Ld8

Maybe I'm crazy, but I almost got a bit of a Nier vibe off of the music in that trailer. Just the moody, choral style of it.
I think this game just jumped to the top of my "Good god, I want to see more" list.

I tend to stay out of the Shenmue areas of the forums for the most part, so excuse me if this gets talked about much.
But random thought: I really hope SIII maintains the replayability of the previous two games. I was thinking about it, and the first two have a very unique style of progression, where being at this place at this time will trigger a unique event, and there's absolutely no hints or indicators signalling exactly where and when they're placed. It all just happens organically, and as you play the game subsequent times you discover new little tidbits here and there, with no reward other than the experience of finding them. And yet, missing these scenes and then hearing about them later from others never makes it feel like you screwed up; it just gives you a little urge to try and see them next time. You're practically guaranteed not to see everything the first time through, and yet no playthrough of either game ever feels "incomplete."
Most games nowadays have absolutely nothing like that. Not that I can think of at least. Games nowadays tend to point you directly toward any additional scenes or events that might happen. And if they don't , then people label the un-marked events as easter eggs. By that logic, Shenmue and Shenmue II were just littered to the brim with "easter eggs," but never acted like they were anything super secret; they were just extensions of how lively the game world was.
I really hope Shenmue III follows through in the exact same way. I don't want any glowing indicators on a world map telling me where everything is; I want to stumble across it all myself, or hear about things on the forum here. I think "modernizing" the game too much with things like that would absolutely kill some of the appeal of subsequent replays.

This post is overly long and not really a big deal, but I believe it's possible that there was a section of FREE exploration cut (or at least significantly reduced) towards the end of the game. So when Ryo gets fired from his job, it's around 10.45am and from the Alpha Trading Office you can either choose to wander around for a very short time, or go directly to meet Tom, before auto-jumping to meeting the Mad Angels at 10pm that night. Meeting Tom will trigger the point of no return, in the sense that you're on a linear path of move instructions, battles and cutscenes to the end credits. If you choose not to walk towards Tom, Ryo's watch will sound at around 12.30pm or 1pm, and you'll go there automatically. So that gives you barely 10 real-time minutes of final FREE gameplay.

I do find it strange that there's no kind of menu prompt informing you of this, the way there was in Shenmue II (At the end of Disc 2, you're informed that saying goodbye to Xiuying will trigger Ryo's departure for Kowloon, as well as the option to have one final day of free time before infiltrating the Yellow Head Building.) But what's also strange is that during that short window between getting fired and meeting Tom, you can have a significant amount of unique conversations with NPCs relevant only to that point in the game, with it even being possible to travel back to Dobuita and do the same. Even the fortune teller has a unique reading for Ryo, foreseeing his eventual meeting with Shenhua. You can have a specific conversation with Ine-san at that point too, but have to make a bit of a speedy dash to the Hazuki Residence in time to get it. In a moment uncharacteristic of Shenmue, you have so little time that you have to pick and choose where you're going to go/who you're going to speak with.

I think it's possible that after learning the Tornado Kick/saying goodbye to Tom, FREE gameplay was intended at one point to resume until 10pm that night, giving you a more natural and relaxed pace to explore/train/speak with people one last time, as opposed to jumping straight to the Mad Angels meeting. Perhaps the team felt that the slower pace would've killed the building momentum of the story at that stage, or they wanted to include the scene of Ryo watching the airplane from the harbour in a more essential way. I dunno. But it's interesting that after being fired, Ryo's notes inform us that he "should check with everybody", yet the game barely gives us ten minutes to do so.

KidMarine wrote:

Henry Spencer wrote:My random thought: Has the notebook been confirmed as coming back for III?

Yes, you can definitely see it in one of the dev room videos.

Here:

Henry Spencer wrote:My random thought: Has the notebook been confirmed as coming back for III?

Yes, you can definitely see it in one of the dev room videos.

Henry Spencer wrote: Guys, guys...You know what I think would be the best promotion for Shenmue 3?

Shenmue 1 & 2 KIWAMI.

Fixed.

It's quite surprising just how dead this forum is outside of the Shenmue III forum. The whole time we were waiting for SIII,
GD was the most active and now SIII is a reality everyone has fucked off.

For me it’s 2 things:
1. I don’t like the random thoughts or random gaming thoughts topics. I think after they were created people stopped making topics and just posted in them and if you missed the conversation it was too late to jump in.

2. The Shenmue III announcement brought a slew of people who don’t stick around and just want to talk about Shenmue. Before Shenmue III we had a strong 20 or so regulars that got along and knew each other’s likes and dislikes. If someone recommended me a game I took the suggestion seriously as I knew they knew what I was into. Even the general topics were normally a laugh from anything to people talking about their life, funny news stories or serious debates.

We even put rules in topics like the gaming music thread that no Shenmue music could be shared because we knew everyone liked it and we didn’t need to just talk about Shenmue. After 10 years of no Shenmue news most of the regulars were bored of talking about it, I’m still bored of talking about Shenmue and I’m just waiting for Shenmue III which I’m really excited about but have no interest disecting every screenshot. I imagine most of the old regulars feel the same as I don’t see many in the Shenmue forums and although they all at least liked Shenmue to most it wasn’t the best thing ever.

I’ve thought about trying to inject life into the forums and just posting tons of topics to try and get conversation flowing again. The thing that put me off was that I didn’t know most of the names posting anymore, I used to know every name that posted here and their personality. I don’t really have much interest in talking to a bunch of people who don’t hang around like 95% of those who posted in the introduce yourself topic. I’d take 20 people who come onto a forum to bullshit, have a laugh and discuss their hobby over 50 that have an interest in one topic. This forum has always been a Shenmue forum in name but the 10 odd years I was posting here it was more a general gaming forum with down to earth people.

I finally took the courage to start doing martial arts again (Jiujitsu). I did a lot of Karate and Kickboxing before entering college, but after so many years in the workforce I felt a bit uncoordinated and too old to go for it again. What really got me to do it is the fact that I started to show symptoms of depression over the years and I don't often exercise as much as I used to.
Sure, I hit the gym here and then but it was not enough to instill a sense of discipline and motivation in me.

Peter has just opened a new Youtube channel dedicated to Shenmue where he intends to stream Shenmue at least 3 times a week.

Check out the video below for more details

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A04vV8hyCLE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrMXhLoFEbI

Looks awesome. Cant wait to see more and best of luck Peter.

I'm currently playing the remake of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together on the PSP. The game is a remake of the predecessor to Final Fantasy Tactics and offers player choices to bring characters down either a law or chaos route (and later neutral, i believe). I've just made my first choice at the end of chapter one, and I think I've gone down the law route, although the choice itself is not "good" by any means. Definitely an interesting story and I can see some serious parallels with Final Fantasy Tactics--primarily with the characters of Vyce(LUCT) and Delita(FFT).

The gameplay, however, seems to be much less interesting than FFT. There are tons of classes, but you can only change classes if you find the classmark for the class. As far as I can tell, these are found as (random?) drops from battles. While a lot of these classes sound cool, most of them seem to be pretty useless in battle and I find myself defaulting to my archers and magic-users, or my flying unit because it has superior mobility. Melee classes are just too slow and are outclassed by archers to the point of irrelevance. Further, the skills are just much less interesting than the ones in FFT, so customizing your characters isn't quite as cool. The game really feels like a vanilla version of FFT, which, in a sense, it kind of is. It's still a fun game but it isn't quite as interesting as FFT, at least so far.

Sorry for directly comparing it to FFT, but I think in this case, it certainly is acceptable. I think I'll do a full review when I manage to finish the game, although I'm not sure when that will be.

Currently alternating between a bunch of stuff, which is generally unusual for me; I usually try to focus on one at a time.

Bought a game called Ruiner on the recent Steam sale. My current avatar is from it. And actually, the avatar sums up the game pretty well: cool aesthetics and a whole lotta killing. I'm not usually interested in twin-stick isometric shooters, but this one has enough personality and enough of a sense of cool to genuinely keep my interest. The fact that it's cyberpunk (not just futuristic, but genuine cyberpunk) helps too, since I'm a nut for that shit. It's fecking hard though.

(EDIT: May as well spread some love while I'm talking about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg2uB60DFS0 )

Also started a game called Scrap Mechanic. I think it's still in early access. There's no story or anything, but the whole game is all about building whatever the hell you want using a huge variety of scrap. My first attempt at a car failed pretty hard, but I'm still learning. And that's really the bottom line with it: there's a lot to learn. The potential for amazing things is high though, so it's been keeping my interest.

Found out The Saboteur was on gog.com, so I grabbed that too, fitting in with my recent groove of trying to play old PS3 favorites on PC. Game is just as fun as ever for me. Only disappointment being that there isn't a whole lot in the way of graphics options. No anti-aliasing, no option to remove motion blur, and the draw distance remains relatively short for characters and cars (even though my computer could totally handle it if the option were there to change this stuff). Still, getting to play with mouse aiming is great, and everything else functions really well with a "wasd" setup. And it looks better than the PS3 release regardless, so it's all good.

*Kenshin Himura* wrote: Kudos to whomever banned that retarded twat shoomzip and the rest of those cunts. Let’s clean up this place.

And I'd just made use of the ignore list for the first time..

Hello, guys. If i'm breaking some law you'll just delete this post, i suppose.

I'm currently in development of the game heavenly inspired by Shenmue and Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari. It's an open world game about japanese delinquents focused on story and small things that don't do much but matters a lot in the end (like feeding a cat in Shenmue).

So i'm just looking for players who could be interested.

Here's a greenlight trailer i made a year ago and some screenshots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrny2lpeT_s

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxYOdZnVIAIa_nj.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C01bcNGW8AElp6U.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cw1G0bMXgAAqyIJ.jpg

http://ringo.by-yeo.ru/img/Ringo_gifs_2.gif

If you don't mind i'll be posting some news about the game once in a while.

Sorry for an adv.

A primary school for underprivileged children in Guilin, China, has recently received a donation of 166 books, paid for by Chinese fans of the Shenmue series of video games partly set in the remote area. [Read more]

https://s17.postimg.cc/xmrtm7xpr/guilinbooks-_Dzm_ZYie_M-dojo.png

It's the latest chapter in a remarkable story that began during Shenmue III's Kickstarter campaign in 2015. Two American brothers volunteering at the elementary school donated substantial personal funds to the crowdfunding appeal, hoping to use the associated perks to draw wider attention to the school and its needs.

Before such rewards could even be finalized, media coverage of their intentions caught the eyes of the Chinese Shenmue fan community, which set about honoring the brothers' contributions to the game by donating equipment and materials to the school.

In December of that year, 200 books were delivered to the young children, followed in May 2016 by a brand new projector. One fundamental snag, however: the school's bare external windows made the classroom too bright to see the projections - so by the end of the year fans had also donated curtains!

The latest donation of a further 166 books really highlights the scale of compassion and generosity inspired by Yu Suzuki's Shenmue saga, with a fan community so committed to giving these kids in Guilin a better start in life.

If you'd like to see the teachings of these games reach a wider audience amongst today's potential players, the monthly #SaveShenmueHD Tweetathon brings you side by side with a global community of fans requesting of Sega that Shenmue 1 & 2 be made available on modern systems.

The next occasion is tomorrow, February 3rd, and you can pre-load a customized AutoTweet for all future events at TeamYu.net .

Thanks to our friend Li of the Shenmue bar on Baidu Tieba for helping us share this great story.

Grab a cup of coffee or some snacks. Its about to get detailed!

So, hello everyone!

A lot of visitors here may recognise my name, but for anyone who doesn't, or is unsure, allow me to introduce myself. My names Peter Campbell, im 34 years old and live in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Life was going swimmingly until one day i picked up a copy of Official Dreamcast Magazine off of the shop bookshelf, and my life changed course from that moment on. I have been a huge Shenmue fan since that day, and it wasnt too after finishing the games back in the early 2000s that i found this site, The Shenmue Dojo. Over the course of the past 14 years i have regularly contributed to this site, firstly as a registered user, and then as a staff member. After a brief hiatus last year, i was contacted recently by the then current owner, George aka "Yama", and offered the chance to become the owner of the site and begin to get this place ready for the crazy future we have soon ahead of us. If you missed his topic, you can check it out HERE!
Shenmue has been a huge part of my life for the past decade and a half, from playing the games beyond any sort of countable number, to finally realising a dream come true, meeting Yu Suzuki in Japan during the Kickstarter Backer Dinner. This series and this site was dead just a few years ago. It really was. 8 years ago Yama took over and did an outstanding job making the site more appealing and accessible for anyone who visited, and all during that time we lived in hope that it wouldn't all be for nothing. It really did begin to look like a waste of time and effort, but thanks to excellent fan spirit and great community building and campaigning from the 500k Facebook group, Team Yu group and longstanding French partner site Shenmue Master, a relatively impossible dream came true and we are well on the road to actually holding a controller in our hands and walking down to Bailu Village to get some clues on the hunt for Lan Di. Its been an insane ride! But the rides nowhere near over yet!

In this post, i will be going over a few key areas in detail, about what the aim of this fansite is, and any subsequent changes may be coming in relation to the future release of Shenmue games. One of the key words i hope to always stick to is transparency, so everyone knows exactly what is going on. So like i said at the top, i hope you got some food and drink!

______________________________________________________

~~~~~FORUMS~~~~~

We may as well start where we are, and that's with the place most members, if not all members visit the most; The Forums. Its where we all talk and get to know one another. Realise each individuals reactions to all things Shenmue. In terms of changes here, it will mostly be structure based, with a few cosmetic tweaks for reason i will explain.

First off, before even taking over me and Yama discussed at length the staffing of the boards, and what their roles are. A lot of users within the roles were either AWOL or just didnt bother to make any decisions or act when needed to. So we put together a list of names that we both felt from the beginning of my tenure that we felt comfortable with, and also what role they will play. Below is our selection, and what that role means:

Shenmue Dojo Owner & Administrator - Peter
Administrator - Yama

The role of myself and Yama as administrators means that we have access to the ACP, and can make relatively any decisions in terms of usergroups, permissions, cosmetic look of the forum makeup etc. Its all pretty much behind the scenes stuff. We also take the wheel of the ship, and help make sure the site has the right tone and feel in terms of staffing and making sure this place serves the best interests of Shenmue and the site itself.
Yama has kindly offered any advice 24/7, but as owner, the overall look of the site design and any future changes to anything i will have to decide upon. That means everything, from a new site, social media ideas and direction, forum upgrades and design, listening to members, staffing members.... its no easy job thats for sure, and these past two weeks, i could count the hours of sleep ive has with just my 2 hands. I will be active on the boards, that goes without saying, but i wont be as active as i was back years ago as a regular member. Gone are the full weekends of chatting, bottle of wine, and nude pictures (dont ask!).

Global Moderators - BlueMue, Henry Spencer, James Brown, Jibby, OL, ShenSun, Sonoshee, Spaghetti

The team selected i feel is a great mix of everything. Old members, new members, full of ideas and all sing off of the same hymn sheet. First and foremost, this is a Shenmue fans website. We come here for our love of the series, and as of late, it doesnt seem to be that way. Open troll comments which differ from constructive criticism, and branding the entire Kickstarter as a scam are not topics of conversation that serve both Shenmue and this website well. Theres a fine line between keeping negativity off the boards and censorship, and the reason ive selected this team is because i feel they have the experience and intelligence to make a call and do whats right. We are a site for the fans by the fans, and i hope the staff sets the tone and attitude for people who contribute to the site.
If someone is just joining up here to troll for some giggles, or get some hits on their Youtube site by badmouthing the series then they will act swiftly and appropriately. All staff have been given instructions to be as transparent as they can. If a user gets warned, or banned, their post will be edited by the moderator taking action, so that everyone can see. Sadly until the forums are upgraded this is the only real way of being transparent with other users so until then, please bear with us. Any more issues or questions, please dont hesitate to ask!

News Posters/Veteran Contributors - alimn, Axm, Bysby, Kiske, Kiyuu, LanDC, Sonikku, Switch

These members have the ability to post in the current News and Updates forum, where we try and bring any and all Shenmue news to the public as quicky and clearly as possible. It was an original group, which has been merged with longtime veteran contributors of the site whom also have been given the same permissions. They have no moderator permissions outside of this.

Shenmue 500k Staff - Shenmue Stare, shengoro86
Shenmue Master Staff - Shendream
Team Yu Staff - Team Yu

The Shenmue Community has grown a lot over the past 6 years, and i will be trying my best to make sure we remain as a team. Any sort of mentality of "us versus them" i want put to bed from the start. We all co-exist and form one entity, and it offers every Shenmue fan their own unique platform to which they want to contribute to! If you dont like the Forums here, Facebook has you covered with 500k. If you want to help with the #SaveShenmueHD campaign, then Team Yu is the spot for you. Shenmue Master has any French speaking Shenmue fans covered and has been around for as long as the same time the Dojo has. It doesnt matter where you contribute, it matters that you contribute in the first place, be it here, there or anywhere! The one common goal here is the success of Shenmue, and thats all we want together. But wait, doesnt the Shenmue Dojo have a Facebook page? Yes it does! But its a page, and we use that primarily as a news outlet extension to the forums. 500k offers a group platform, to talk about everything Shenmue in a more hot take/smaller post type of fashion. The Dojo forums offer intense debate into any little aspect of Shenmue, so again, its all there to cater to the Shenmue fan. Its not a competition if we are all trying to reach the same goal with the same intention.


Shenmue Dojo Coder - MrRod

I finally had the pleasure of speaking to MrRod on social media over the past few weeks, and he is a great guy. I cannot stress enough the work he has done in the past, and to be honest, it would not be online if it was not for him. He has kindly offered to continue on serving as our coder when we need him in the future, which i will touch upon in more detail in a little bit.

But for now, thats what will make up the structure of the site.


One other thing i need to mention is the option users have had in the past to donate to the forums for upkeep and maintenance. Now let me be clear on this topic, this isnt a negative take on Yamas tenure, where he introduced this feature. It just feel that if anyone has any money they would like to give to the site, give it to the Shenmue 3 PayPal campaign. Or hold onto it and buy the game when its released!! I will cover all costs of the site, and look at any upgrades to the service if we get to that stage and need it. Anyone that knows me, knows what i am like with money. If this site is mine, its my responsibility to cover it financially, and it will continue to be 100% free for all members to use. I do this out of love for Shenmue and thats where i stand.
With removing the donation option, i have decided to remove the various "donor" usergroups, and the relevant username colours and titles, and i humbly thank you all for any support you have given in the past. I know this is the Shenmue Dojo, and change usually brings with it a 15 page argument with nothing but popcorn bags left in its wake. But i do have reasons. This site is on the cusp of its biggest moments in its history. Yes we are in a lull now for many reasons, but Shenmue 3 is fast approaching, and possibly Shenmue HD with it. The attention the series will get, and as an extension the community and this site, will rise to numbers we may not have seen before. When get have new members join here, i want them to see clearly who is who, and what is what. The only people with any sort of distinction are those with key roles, and the colours simply make them easy to identify. Green = moderator. White = newsposter. So on an so forth, This means people know who to go to if they need anything, and also who is making staff decisions at any given time.
Another reason the groups have been streamlined and tidied up is because of something that i touched upon earlier. With a site thats been online this long, and one which started out on its own before becoming part of a community, its inevitable that a hive atmosphere can develop over time. Like i also said, we are all friends, but we are all here for Shenmue, and ultimately on the same page. I want things to be as transparent as possible, and as clear and straightforward as possible, so any sort of special privelidges or cosmetic changes have been removed. I dont want a hierarchy here, and if i could run the place without any sort of groupings then i would, but unfortunately thats not how the way the world works. But, outside of the staff, we are all human being. All together. All Shenmue fans, and i dont want anyone seeming like they are above someone else. It cant be helped when a user joined, or how many posts they have made. We all contribute equally, and great users come along at anytime. Being here for 10 years doesnt give you a badge of honour or any sort of hierarchical standing. We are all Shenmue fans, regardless of if you picked up the controller last week, last month or last year.

The last thing i have to say about the forums is it is currently on an old version of PHPBB. Thats why it looks the way it does, doesnt have Emoji support and other bells and whistles which other more modern platforms may have. The plan is to upgrade the forums ASAP, but it will take a lot of work. As i touched upon earlier, MrRod has kindly agreed to help out with this, and we will try to get to work on it as soon as we can. In preparation for future Shenmue games, we know we also have to move forward. We will have more information on that in the future as it happens!

______________________________________________________

~~~~~WEBSITE~~~~~

The website runs off of both links of shenmuedojo.net, with shenmuedojo.com as a redirect. We pay and own both domains, and each will take you to the website designed by Yama almost 10 years ago. Along with the forums we will be aiming to update them and bring them in line with modern day sites. At the beginning of the process of the handover, Yama had designed a brand new site which i had seen at various stages along its development. Yama has done a great job with a new website design, with a more clear structure, greater social media integration, community partnership and mobile response.

https://i.imgur.com/rZxnGcX.jpg

As much as i would love to use the new design (it would be in place right now!), its been designed on a Wix site for ease of access and user friendliness. The problem is however is that its not our first option. The most ideal method would be to build a new website from scratch, but if anyone who has any experience knows, this is indepth and time consuming. As well as needing knowledge of HTML, CSS, databases and other such technological wizardry.
Another major issue with the Wix site is that the forums cannot be brought along for the ride, and the support isnt there on the Wix end. This would mean one of two things; the forums as we know them would be deleted with new forums created over on the Wix end, or, the furrent forums have a domain change, and run separately on another link. This could be an option, and linking it to the main site would be straightforward, but that means the new domain would be starting from scratch. All previous links that exist across the internet from the past 15 years would essentially be broken. We would also lose our Google hit rating and for a time, the new link would not show up for any searches.
The option i think is best, is to build a new site with Wordpress, and retain everything together. I have been reassured by a lot of people supporting me that its more then accomplishable, but despite that, its a much deeper job then just putting a few things in place. Ive toyed with the idea of a new logo, and that means design work. Then theres the look and tone of the new logo defining the look and tone of a new site. Image assets need to be obtained, a new layout needs to be designed, what plug in options are available and how will they be implemented, all links to social media, community sites, wiki links, forums etc all need to be working. All of that takes time and effort not just from me,but from anyone willing to offer help and support. Will i get that? I dont know, and if i have to i will outsource a new site to a company here in Belfast, which could compromise the Shenmue feeling this place has always had. All of that is in the future which i will have to decide on, but for now i just wanted to keep everyone updated.

~~~~~SOCIAL MEDIA~~~~~

The site has various forms of social media, which are generally used to post news updates as well as other content.

Facebook Page (Shenmue & community news posts)
Twitter Account (Shenmue & community news posts)
Twitch Channel (Streaming service)
Instagram Page (Shenmue artwork & image service)

We did have a YouTube Channel, which i would like to go into in a bit more detail in the interests of transparency.
The second owner of the website was a person by the name of Hellraiser, whom you would know better here now as Ziming. In 2009-2010 he then passed the website to Yama who built it to its current stage. Unfortunately i am not sure of the arrangement they had or how we was still involved with the site. But he did own the YouTube Channel which, for many years was under the title of The Shenmue Dojo. There is a difference between just a title change and an actual domain ownership, but it doesn't change the fact that he does, and always owned that channel. He also was responsible for all of the content added to the channel, and no one can argue it is a huge Shenmue resource.
Recently during the MAGIC 2018 conference a video was shown with a disclaimer for it not to be recorded. The video was an extended cut of the released Shenmue 3 teaser from last August, and was only shown to journalists at the event. Of course people either missed the instruction or chose to ignore it, the video was recorded and it appeared online, including the YouTube channel owned by Ziming. This wouldn't be an issue except not only was the disclaimer clear for it not to be recorded, but i spoke personally with Deep Silver staff after the event as well as Yu-san himself and both said that the trailer was not to go online. Other members of the community at the event were also told the same thing, and we all have refused to host the video as per request. Of course, individual people posting it was inevitable, but a YouTube Channel with the content and subscriber size that's supposed to stand for Shenmue going against the wishes of both the creator and the publisher is not something i can support or endorse.
Ziming has been a unique character over the course of the history of the Shenmue Dojo, and an opinion on him will very to neutral to negative depending on whoever you ask. But in terms of the YouTube Channel not being owned by the Dojo exclusively, it was asked of Ziming to remove all Shenmue Dojo links and branding in light of not removing the video. 2 days ago, i sent him a message asking for him to remove the video and explained the reasons why. As far as i know, i am certainly not the first person to do so. If he feels differently to the hosting of the video that's his business, but with no responses to my messages i will be banning his account here, with no promotion of that Shenmue outlet. If anyone posts a video that's linked to his channel, and its in the context of a conversation at that point in time, then it will be allowed to remain. We are not going blanket banning videos to his site at the punishment of the user. But there will not be dedicated topics to videos that appear on the site.
This was not an easy decision, or one that was quickly made. Nor was it a personal decision, and the list of people i spoke to about the matter for advice should emphasise that. I should also say that i understand if it was such a huge issue, then perhaps Deep Silver or YSNET should issue a copyright strike against it and i shouldn't be making this decision. That may be true, but that's their business, and maybe they don't want the hassle. Again i don't know, but what i do know is i need to make the best decision for both this site as well as Shenmue. One final point is that this call does not reflect or represent the Shenmue 3 team in any official way. This is a site decision, and I wish him all the best with his Channel.

That brings me onto the resulting matter.

Its because of this, that we will need to build a new Shenmue Dojo YouTube Channel. Now as tempting and as easy it would be to begin ripping content or duplicating the channel we once had, its a messy road to go down, and one which benefits no one. There's no point confusing that platform for a user searching for Shenmue related videos. So, the idea which Yama had for the entire Dojo will carry over to the new channel. It will serve as a fan service, with playlists and links to fan created content. A Rolodex for the amount of excellent fan content that's on YouTube. We will of course have our own content being added to the site, aiming to serve as an introduction to Shenmue for new users which, again, we will be expecting with the release of the new games and the attention it brings. Also on there will be a library of live streams and Shenmue Lets Plays both conducted by ourselves at the Dojo, as well as across the web. All content not ours will be play listed only so that when people click on any said video, the proper content creator will get the view, not us, which is fair.
Again, that's the plan, which will take time and manpower to create so bear with us. That applies to all forms of social media which i open the doors to any fans who feel they could contribute to the brand. From updating Facebook and Twitter with news, posting images and artwork to our Instagram etc. I used to stream and work across the board on all sorts of social media when i was a staff member but i very much doubt i could handle it all on my own now.

______________________________________________________

TL;DR

Yea i know. A huge intake of words. I know. I apologise if i've rambled in any areas but its been 3 days and i cannot remember what sleep is like.

One last personal request i can only ask for is from everyone, to help get this site to whats generally regarded as its former glory. I don't want to see people at each others throats and attacking each other which the Dojo seems to bring out in people throughout the years. Also, if you can keep in mind I've never been in a position such as this before, and to please help be supportive. We are all human and make mistakes, and again in the interests of transparency, I've already clicked the wrong button and deleted a forum which was created for a members work, so i am reluctant to even type on this keyboard right now in case i nuke the site by some mad ass command. I apologise to Mittens too for the forum deletion. He undertook a Shenmue Project with other fans of the site to make a fanmade shenmue game. The project was dropped a while back, and no valuable content was lost thanks to him having back ups, but still, i made the mistake of deleting them instead of hiding them in the ACP and humbly apologise. Even if i mess up, you will hear about it. Theres no brushing of anything under the rug anymore. Not even from me.
But in the run up to this, i can only say thank you to the numerous people that have said the kindest things to me, encouraged me, and gave me confidence that actually makes me believe that i can do this and make this place a success!

I genuinely hope we can all move forward together towards Shenmue 3, and hopefully Shenmue HD. I don't think i need to reiterate that i will be giving this my all, and if you ever want to talk to me about anything then drop me a message on here, or do a search on Facebook for me and drop me a message!

Oh and thank you for lasting this long if you read through it all!!

If you look at the bottom of this MobyGames list (http://www.mobygames.com/game/dreamcast/shenmue/credits) it actually gives us the answer to this, albeit not descriptive who does what but I recall looking into it a few years back and seeing some links between the developers, the staff within SEGA Japan do move around a lot (there's been so many division merges and renames it becomes really confusing trying to keep up with it all). I think that ultimately, it all comes down to the project leads that matter since there's so much shuffling around, so I agree that the link between Yakuza and Shenmue isn't as big as it's made out to be, just shares some of the same staff (Nagoshi supposedly when in the pre-production stages went around SEGA divisions showing off the Yakuza concept to all staff and whoever showed interest joined him to make it).

The other thing I found when looking into Shenmue's credits through MobyGames was that a lot of the staff just frankly disappeared from game development without a trace. So either they went freelance/contracting after this and went to work at somewhere like TOSE (a company renowned for never getting credit despite helping create some of the most popular Japanese video games of all time and having really talented staff) or they just left game development entirely. Always found that aspect of the development kinda fascinating.
Can't believe I was nuts enough to do it, but I've basically sat and gone through the credits for most of the staffers on Shenmue II.

You're right that a lot of developers just disappeared after these games, moved to a different division of SEGA (a lot appear to have worked on Sonic stuff), or just stayed at AM2 (surprising amount have worked on Miku games). Although others seem to have moved to Nintendo, Namco, Capcom, Sony, Konami, Square Enix, Mistwalker, Koei-Tecmo, etc.

That is, if they're actually the same person and not another developer that shares the same name. Yu Suzuki, for example, is weirdly credited on Mobygames as a designer on a Kingdom Hearts game from 2016 when we know that obviously wasn't the case.

Potential inaccuracies aside, the Yakuza links are still pretty tentative from what I can see. A few animators, sound designers, 3D artists, and support staff of various disciplines. They also seem to mainly be contributors from the PS3-era games onward, although some have dropped in and out over the years.

Myth busted, I guess?

I bought some NeoGeo games on Switch.
Magician Lord
Sengoku 2
Sengoku 3
Robofight
Pulstar

http://oi68.tinypic.com/ou1moz.jpg http://oi65.tinypic.com/168bjm8.jpg
http://oi68.tinypic.com/nyco4g.jpg http://oi67.tinypic.com/ac76tl.jpg
http://oi68.tinypic.com/2hdznfb.jpg http://oi65.tinypic.com/33m6f10.jpg

So I guess I'm officially over my years-long aversion to modern anime-style Japanese games. Maybe. For the moment at least. I'm a total fucking flake. It turns on and off.
Originally wasn't super interested in Nights of Azure 2, because the whole focus is on tits. But now I'm like, hey... tits. Still need to beat the first game though.
Blue Reflection is the kind of thing that usually repels me completely, but I randomly watched a small bit of gameplay, and the visuals and music are just so... weirdly fucking pleasant . It's modern Sailor Moon, but relaxing. The fuck is that all about?
Utawarerumono, I'm still a bit iffy about, because I'm not usually a big visual novel fan. But the interspersed SRPG gameplay looks nice, and apparently the world and lore are really well-realized. So I'll try it.
Alliance Alive is from the same devs as Legend of Legacy, and that was pretty cool. Very Saga-esque, but apparently AA has a much better story (written by the creator of Suikoden, so maybe that'll appeal to some here).
And Nobunaga's Ambition ain't anime-style, but I always preorder this series as soon as they're announced. I like that KoeiTecmo takes the risk of releasing niche stuff like this so often, so they've got my support.

So yeah, mostly a weird batch of games for me. But, excluding Nobunaga and Alliance which are both Amazon, they were all surprisingly cheap on Gamestop's site, which is rare. Been a while since I've just grabbed up a big haul of games.

Just finished Yakuza Zero.
Got about halfway through the game doing side-activities as much as possible, then just fast-tracked it to the end once the story got too intriguing to put aside. And god damn.
I knew it was going to be good, and I fully expected a lot of badass posturing and a return to legit yakuza politics and whatnot (which was very, very welcome after the weird sidetracking done by Yakuza 5), but I definitely didn't expect it to be genuinely touching on top of it all. Some of the final scenes -- particularly stuff with Majima and Makoto -- actually managed to choke me up just a bit. Really, really good storytelling.
I was also thinking the whole game, as things ramped up and got more and more serious... how the fuck is any of this going to segue properly into the story of the original game/Kiwami? Seemed so much like bridges were being burned and original plot points were being overwritten. And yet... it all works out. Perfectly. In ways that prequels rarely ever seem to get right.
Not to mention that the final fight playing as Kazuma is easily one of, if not the absolute greatest one-on-one brawl in the series (and remember that I haven't finished 5 or played through 6, so I can't count those). And the final scene, when the intro music for the original Yakuza on PS2 starts playing? Goddamn, what a great feeling that was.

I'm often late to the party on playing certain games, and so often people will tell me "Once you play it, you'll be kicking yourself for not doing it sooner."
That never happens. I'm usually completely content in just waiting for the mood to strike me, and I never mind that I waited.
But this is probably the first time I actually am kicking myself.
I got burnt out on the Yakuza series by playing 50-something hours into Y5 and then getting such a bad taste in my mouth with the Haruka stuff that I just had to put it down and leave it for a while.
But man, if I'd actually just worked my way into Zero back when it was first released, it would have brought my taste for the series back almost immediately. Should have done it sooner, without a doubt.

I think now I will go back to Yakuza 5 and finish that. I remember just where I was (right around the point of starting Akiyama's story), so it'll be no problem jumping back in. Shouldn't be long before I finish that, and I'll figure out if I want Y6 immediately after, or if I should give Kiwami a go first.
But yeah, mood's back. So much that I might just go watch one of the Battles Without Honor and Humanity movies tonight.

I hate to say it, but I think you're setting yourself up for disappointment. I think he just threw 5% out there, not really thinking about what effect that would have on this community. D3T doesn't seem like a company that produces any new content, so I don't know how any of those ideas would play into this re-release. The budget price also leads me to believe we're not getting many extra frills and chills.

It's funny that people are always comparing the Yakuza series to Shenmue, and now the voice actor for Shenhua is named Haruka.

Suzuki confirmed that Ren's style of combat will differ from Ryo's, and that Shenhua doesn't fight. "She's smart and uses other tactics ," he noted

Shenhua dance battles confirmed.

Looks like 3, 4 and 5 are coming West http://segabits.com/blog/2018/05/29/nag ... t-content/

It's official https://twitter.com/SEGA_Europe/status/ ... 1511746570




October 2nd EU/US $59.99 Dual audio for those like me who want to hear Kiryu's voice in one more game.

Yeah, this is, uh... disappointing.
I'll just get out of the way that I hate that girl. HATE her. Jesus christ, that's gonna be one annoying-ass character to have around for a whole game.
Having Nero around is fine (I loved DMC4, screw the haters), but there's something about these modern graphics that bothers the hell out of me. Is it weird to say that I don't like how realistic the people look? There was always a very videogame-specific type of stylization to the characters in past generations, but now that the graphics are more realistic... I dunno, it just saps a bit of the likability away.
I've also never seen so many smug little shit-eating grins in one trailer before.
And the gameplay looks pretty meh.

And what the fuck kind of crappy music is that? What happened to the Zombie-influenced industrial freak-metal they always had before? That shit defined DMC before, but in this trailer they showcase some shitty electro-pop?
Ugh.

After finishing Wolfenstein 2, I got the urge to go back and try to finish Doom. Only got about three or four levels in before. Playing past that, it's crazy how intense the action gets later on. And it's kind of amazing how true it is to the spirit of the original, while still feeling fresh and modern as hell. Just such a fantastic FPS. I might be only about halfway through, I think, but I'm already way more hyped for the upcoming sequel now.

Also grabbed both Destroy All Humans games on a flash sale on PSN a few days ago. Been playing the first, and I'm weirdly blown away. I never really looked into the series before, but it's a helluva lot of fun so far. Also didn't realize it was made by Pandemic (the same now-defunct studio that made the Mercenaries games and The Saboteur). It's one of those series that I always saw on store shelves but never payed any attention to, so it's like a weird little revelation playing it now.

Got Earth Defense Force 4.1 on the Steam summer sale as well, so I've been playing a bit of that in co-op multiplayer with my brothers. Just good, dumb fun. My brothers had never played the series before, so they seem to be continually impressed by how expansive the levels are, and how big the scale is of some things. One of them played as an Air Raider yesterday and called in the Walking Fortress Balam (a giant robot, one of the main new additions to 4.1), and it was just a chorus of all of us on Discord going "Whooooaaaa, what the f..."

And a totally random thing, I started up Front Mission Evolved, since I never finished that back in the day. Had it on Steam as well. It's actually much, much better than I remember. Most Front Mission fans seem to absolutely hate it for the fact that it isn't a strategy game like the rest of the series. I personally never really hated it, but I was bothered that it was another one of those Japanese series outsourced to be made by a western company. I remember thinking, if anything, that it was just kind of unremarkable.
But booting it up now, it's actually pretty damn good, all things considered. Pretty basic third-person shooter, but the aesthetics are really nice, and the cutscenes are really well-animated and directed. Back when Segata Sanshiro used to post on here, I remember him basically likening it to a modern remake of Front Mission: Gun Hazard, and y'know what... that's not a bad comparison. I'm having fun with it now, so that's what matters.
Makes me itch even more for Left Behind, the upcoming stealth-action game set in the FM universe. My biggest disappointment with the recent E3 was simply that that wasn't shown at all.

I picked up Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Gravity Rush 2 and Yakuza 0 today