JAPANFAN wrote:Some people'll say Ico, but eh, I don't really see it... If you want to play a game that's almost exactly like Shenmue, check out Shadow of Destiny for the PlayStation 2. ;)
Well, if you're thinking of me, JF, because of that thread I started on the Sony forum, that was highly misunderstood. All I meant was that
Ico was one of the few games which animated every second of movement - in fact the motion animation was actually
better than Shenmue's, but didn't have the fantastic on-the-fly cinematic camera. And of course it's just a puzzle game with some fighting. There's no immersion - in fact I've only got about a third of the way through and gone on to other, more engaging games (
Silent Hill 2 & 3 if you must know).
Based on a recommendation on this very forum, I sought out and bought
Shadow of Destiny (which is
Shadow of Memories in the UK). It does indeed have some of the features which made
Shenmue so good - basically a realistic looking contemporary town, with the added twist of seeing the same town as it was 20, 100 and 400 years ago.
BUT the town in which the character lives, teems with a population of about eight. They've got this strange idea (common to games developers I've noticed) that it's "realler" if when you want to talk to an NPC, you cut to the character looking straight into the camera, whereas it should look more like a movie, the way
Shenmue does it. There are also unnecessary restrictions to freedom. For instance there's a church that, Shenmue-like, has nothing to do with the plot. But not only can you only visit it in two of the four time frames, but in one of those it closes very quickly. The same with some of the shops.
The storyline is excellent, though, and the voice acting is absolutely top notch. And there are several different endings you have to find the way to by subtle differences in the way you do things during the game, which adds to replay value. (Thank God, because I completed it in under 5 hours on the day it arrived.)
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2003 6:50 pm