Random Shenmue Thoughts

[johnvivant]

Reflective floor, the Shenmue way: Flipped room underneath a semi-translucent floor texture. Brilliant!

wonder why more games don't do this? its a great idea. a lot better than the pixelated mess most games offer.

[Zoltor]

Reflective floor, the Shenmue way: Flipped room underneath a semi-translucent floor texture. Brilliant!

That's the logical way to do such, most effective, accurate, and yes even fastest way to get such a effect, more games should do it that way.

[Yokosuka]

Isn't the only way to do so ?

[BlueMue]

Games nowadays have real time reflections and even though they have been refined a lot over the years they still tend to have detail and lower resolution. The method that Shenmue uses, also for actual mirrors, might be oldschool but it gives a flawless reflection.

[Yokosuka]

Games nowadays have real time reflections and even though they have been refined a lot over the years they still tend to have detail and lower resolution. The method that Shenmue uses, also for actual mirrors, might be oldschool but it gives a flawless reflection.

Hopefully this sort of brilliance does not need R&D for Shenmue III. May the chance be with us.

[Amir]

Spent the past 2 evenings blitzing through Disc 3 of Shenmue II, still so many moments that take my breath away (goddamn, that Counter Elbow Assault against Dou Niu). One thing I was surprised by though was how much easier I found the fights now than when I was a kid. I haven't really played many fighting games and I'm still pretty mediocre at titles like Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter but I defeated almost all the fighters on my first go this time round, including Baihu and Dou Niu (I failed the Chunyan QTE the first time because the controller registered a diagonal :/ ). Maybe it's because I was trying to mix it up a bit more as a kid? I still tried to do that this time as well but it's really easy to spam Elbow Assault and throw in a few Oblique Slams and Diagonal Wipes, with the occasional Machine-gun Fist.

In a way, it's making me look forward to the enhanced fighting system planned for Shenmue III, with the Skill Tree, Battle QTEs, etc. Only thing I'm not looking forward to is getting move scrolls from Lucky Hit boards, thank God there were only 2 Kickstarter backers for that, hopefully it means we'll have less of them Gave up on the Lucky Hit Move Scroll board in Kowloon after about 10 minutes.

[Sonoshee]

Some Shenmue articles/reviews I scanned in from my various Dreamcast magazines:

Official Dreamcast Magazine - Special Pre-publication Issue 1999
http://i.imgur.com/nYB1lo3.jpg

Official Dreamcast Magazine - Issue 14
http://imgur.com/a/nxO75

Official Dreamcast Magazine Vol.16
http://imgur.com/a/aTYux

Unofficial Dreamcast Magazine Vol.16
http://imgur.com/a/86AuJ

[ShenGCH]

Some Shenmue articles/reviews I scanned in from my various Dreamcast magazines:

Official Dreamcast Magazine - Special Pre-publication Issue 1999
http://i.imgur.com/nYB1lo3.jpg

Official Dreamcast Magazine - Issue 14
http://imgur.com/a/nxO75

Official Dreamcast Magazine Vol.16
http://imgur.com/a/aTYux

Unofficial Dreamcast Magazine Vol.16
http://imgur.com/a/86AuJ

"The Shenmue experience feels as if it is happening to you and you only."

This, 100%.

[Giorgio]

People telling Shenmue fans that are blinded by nostalgia. I guess those people are blinded by stupidness. Also, those people consume the thoughts of others, without making their own. They can't think for themselves. They are so shallow and narrow-minded (and mind-numbed), who of course cannot understand and feel the APPEAL Shenmue has on the fans. When something is deep and requires you to philosophize on it, you cannot expect airheads to give it the green light.

Furthermore, the term "nostalgia" is their cliche explanation on why fans love a game, who the former cannot appreciate in the slightest. Personally, I love Shenmue not because of nostalgia, but because it's the only interactive audiovisual experience that touches my symbolic heart. It lets you feel human in a virtua reality space. It evokes emotions on you, which are of empathetic and uplifting nature.

Additionally, it's a portal to another cultures (and history, geography, mythology, wisdom etc), those of Japan and China, and lets you learn and experience that interactively, without you actually visiting those places. I can feel free, in a open world, to explore the sights and inspect the minute crafted details, without being forced or chased. Especially, it is a play-space/story-world of teaching morality/ethos. Finally, the mundane/everyday and familiar/ordinary are elements that you can really identify with in your life.

[sand4fish]

^ You have no idea how many times I was called on having bad taste for picking Shenmue as my favorite game. This forum has been literally the only place I openly expressed my love for the series without being criticized at all lol.

[Ziming]

phpBB [video]

[Amir]

Completed Shenmue II for first time since probably 2007, if not even earlier, either my 5th or 6th time. Still gives me chills.

But for the first time, when I saw "The story goes on...", I could not help but smile.

Will we see the castle wall remains in Bailu? Oxen? Horses? Will the village children marvel at the sight at this strange man from the East? Will we visit the locations on the scrolls in Shenhua's home? What will it be like to gaze upon a Shenmue tree made in Unreal Engine 4?

[Yokosuka]

Completed the disc 4 too some hours ago on nullDC.

And I spent ten minutes in the two stonepit tunnels just for enjoying them. I played Unreal Tournament 4 Beta with ultra settings few days ago and I'm still shocked by the magnificence I've just seen : the texture, the false reflection, the dynamic lightning, the surface complexity, the art direction, the architect's touch.
I didn't know it was ever possible to come back in the second tunnel and I understand why AM2 skipped it to put a cutscene instead, way too much ram. The Dreamcast was really pushed to its limits. I wonder how many guys and time were spent just for modelling this !

[Amir]

Completed the disc 4 too some hours ago on nullDC.

And I spent ten minutes in the two stonepit tunnels just for enjoying them. I played Unreal Tournament 4 Beta with ultra settings few days ago and I'm still shocked by the magnificence I've just seen : the texture, the false reflection, the dynamic lightning, the surface complexity, the art direction, the architect's touch.
I didn't know it was ever possible to come back in the second tunnel and I understand why AM2 skipped it to put a cutscene instead, way too much ram. The Dreamcast was really pushed to its limits. I wonder how many guys and time were spent just for modelling this !

Yeah, my Dreamcast was really struggling with a lot of areas on Disc 4, what with the fire lighting sources and relatively complex geometry. A shame we won't see Magic Maze reached for Shenmue III, I'd love to explore an expansive Baisha.

[Peter]

Getting close to that time of year where I may fire up Shenmue, for the first time on NullDC