After some years, finished Shenmue II for the 2nd time

(Chapters 3-6)

After some years, finished Shenmue II for the 2nd time

Postby strider16 » Sat Sep 09, 2017 6:19 pm

Hi there!

Pretty much the title, the game is superb, I started this savefile in 2015, I think, or even before if considering I used a converter for load the savefile from my US shenmue 1 on the EU shenmue 2.

Since I have a ntsc dreamcast, and the my shenmue 2 is pal, bought it few years ago, it came with a prima guide for xbox version. So, I had to use a bootdisc. At home we have a plasma tv, but it sadly doesn't have a vga port, and the composite cable is plain awful. Seriously, looks really bad, all colors and bright far off point, no way to play anything on that (at least without an vga -> hdmi converter). We have a crt tv too, but I thought shenmue could use my retrobit vga box too, so I played it on my lcd monitor.

DCX works well when with my japanese games on composite or vga, but not with my shenmue 2, in this case only works for composite. So, I had to burn codebreaker. I get a version with 2 discs, one loader for codebreaker, and the codebreaker. This loader is strange, I tried to burn it from multiple sources multiple times, but it is a pain for my console to boot it somedays. Anyway, the game runs fine on my lcd monitor, but surely some aliasing, in fonts mainly, is best suited to be on a crt. Trees and vegetation looks more natural on crt too, vga is too crispy for them.

Sometimes I run it with that 16x9 hack, good but not perfect, it really stress the console, more frequent slowdowns and I suppose that a bit of overheating occurred. It even triggered the first time my Dreamcast suffered that random shutdown due to psu contacts (i suppose).

It is wonderful see the differences in the game, all the ambience from the first, and how the second one really increases the pace of events.
I tried to complete more of the journal, and get more collectibles, but not get obsessed for it. But it is bad that i forgot to unlock the hang on arcade, I guess it was when I played with headphones off, I must have missed the audio cue while running the hallway.

And the 4th disc, oh my! It really feels like other game, don't know if it is the pace, or something different on the engine. Make me think that Shenmue 2 is the game that tops Dreamcast hardware for sure. Maybe AM2 could pull some tricks upon their sleeves in other games, programming other effects and stuff (for example, imho, Soul Calibur is the prettiest fighting game on the system, but doa2 uses more advanced effects), but regarding only brute force it is marvelous how the game runs!

My intention was to complete the game and not wait too long for shenmue 3. Well, s3 is delayed... but what is one year comparing to sixteen?

Anyway, just have a safefile starting on guilin, and a complete safefile, just for the fights. I have something to play, and now the wait is shorter too!
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strider16
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Joined: June 2015
Favorite title: Shenmue II
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