Am I the only Shenmue fan who has...

[Sonoshee]

I play them through once every 1 or 2 years. I've gone through about four Dreamcasts in that time, the lasers are horrible.

Do you play many burned games?

Not at all, all my DC games are legit

[GT-Racer]

Probably you are the only one to play them only once.

[Yama]

I play them through once every 1 or 2 years. I've gone through about four Dreamcasts in that time, the lasers are horrible.

Do you play many burned games?

Not at all, all my DC games are legit

Damn, then that's rough luck. Never had many laser issues, just ports burning from arcade sticks.

[Locke_cole]

back in the day i played them waaaay too much. Havent played in a bit though, currently on a nulldc playthrough

[Sonoshee]

I play them through once every 1 or 2 years. I've gone through about four Dreamcasts in that time, the lasers are horrible.

Do you play many burned games?

Not at all, all my DC games are legit

Damn, then that's rough luck. Never had many laser issues, just ports burning from arcade sticks.

The DC seems to hate me
I've had the 'resetting out of nowhere' issue a few times as well but I recently learned how to fix that. The first time I did it was a success with no resets in 2 weeks and still going strong, so as long as the laser doesn't burn out on my current DC I should be fine

[Supa]

I seem to ALWAYS have issues with Shenmue I, disc 1. Never on any other game. It can be 100% dirt and scratch free, and when I put it in the DC, it'll load and go the SEGA screen with the copyright/trademark info, then bounce right back to the main screen with the four bouncing icons. It'll even show up as a Shenmue disc in the DC CD player.

[shenmue852]

...only played the game(s) once?

Reading about other people's experiences with Shenmue, I see quite a lot of "I'm currently on my 11th playthrough", or "I bring out Shenmue for a spin every christmas".

Shenmue is by far my most powerful gaming experience - a real milestone for me - but in 14 years I have only played it once from start to fi... erm... cave. I loved it so much it actually scared me away from playing it again. Sounds weird as f*ck, I know... but welcome to my world.

Shenmue changed pretty much everything for me when it comes to gaming, and (as cheesy as it may sound) had a pretty big impact on my everyday life as well. As soon as I finished the second game I knew that I didn't want to "trivialize" the experience by repeating it. I knew the magic would never be the same. Most likely still awesome, of course, but never the same.

As the years went by, and the gaming industry moved on with bigger worlds and shinier graphics, I actually became more and more afraid of returning to Shenmue because I knew I would never forgive myself if all those wonderful memories from my time with the game would be tainted by slight disappointment. What if that "magic vibe" just wouldn't be there like the first time? I just couldn't take that risk.

I also knew that when - or if - Shenmue III was released, I had to return to 1 and 2 in preparation for the third, and the longer I could stay away, the more plot details I would forget and hopefully get a few nice surprises the second time around.

Now, with all that said, I did actually play the first game a second time in 2003 to break in my brand new tv, but I didn't touch the second one. "I'm sorry, Ryo... you'll have to stay on this boat for about 14 years now".

I know I'm rambling here, but I guess a potent mix of fear and extreme forward thinking has kept me away all these years. Now, finally, I can sort of see the benefits and I plan to return to 1 and 2 when the planned release date of Shenmue III draws near. Hopefully it won't mess too much with all the fantastic memories I've been guarding for all these years.

I guess I am the only one, right..?

I kind of envy you. The story has a lot of themes and characterization/character development that I picked up on after watching playthroughs many years later. Shenmue II in particular gets into the idea of developing strength, wisdom and courage in an individual's character in order to walk the path of a person's destiny. The first game is about the fleeting nature of life and the inevitability of change and being separated from people and everything that a person has known in life (Shenmue II briefly reflects on this, during farewells with the hong kong characters and when talking about memories and people to Shenhua)

It's a much deeper game than people give it credit for, on a narrative level. Unfortunately, Ryo comes across as robotic, partly because he's intentionally written as a sheltered and immature teenager (who happens to be a martial arts prodigy) and some parts of the story resort to anime tropes at times, mainly during the climactic action sequences, when the plot calls for an emergency (it's the narrative, way the story is told up to that point more than the story itself that makes it great, while there's still a lot of interesting content in the story itself, it's more the world building and characters than the action, which gains a lot of dramatic weight from the characters being developed so extensively)

Because of limitations with the medium and the shitty English dub (I'm fond of the first game's dub, but it failed the game's writing very badly. That stupid sailor meme would've been avoidable if the localization had taken cultural context into account and found a way to convey that everyone Ryo's talking to knows that "sailor" basically means smuggler/gangster and not Popeye or someone out of a Village People music video)

I think a lot of people didn't look past the game's surface, i.e the graphics and the QTE's and the fighting system, rather than what they were doing with them, like making almost all the new moves you learn part of the story, often with something thematically related to the way the move is explained, which connected the mechanics with the story in a unique way.

Anyway I probably think too much about this stuff.

[shenmue852]

I seem to ALWAYS have issues with Shenmue I, disc 1. Never on any other game. It can be 100% dirt and scratch free, and when I put it in the DC, it'll load and go the SEGA screen with the copyright/trademark info, then bounce right back to the main screen with the four bouncing icons. It'll even show up as a Shenmue disc in the DC CD player.

Well dreamcasts and those discs are all 15+ years old. Could be either the console or the disc. I've given up trying to re-acquire the DC versions. I have the Xbox version still, but don't want to play it despite all the excitement, I'd rather watch the DC version on Youtube.

I really wish the first 2 games would get upscaled and ported, because from what I've seen the emulator versions are inferior and suffer from glitches. If Yu Suzuki met with that Korean HD remake guy it's a good sign, and merging the 2 potential projects (The Korean guy and a prospective Sega re-release) seems like an absolute no brainer, but it may also just mean that Suzuki's reaching out to the fan community out of mutual appreciation.

I have a Mac so emulation isn't even an option (don't have hd space to install windows and my computer has seen better days anyway)

It kind of astounds me that I haven't actually been able to play Shenmue in a very long time. I guess watching the playthroughs mitigated that over the years, but I'd love to just mess around exploring like it's 2001 again.

[MiTT3NZ]

Played the first way too often. Absolutely killed it. The second though... I've only really completed it a few times. Twice on Dreamcast and once on Xbox. I've started it countless times, but played it in a very fragmented style. Sunk a lot of hours into trying to get the most out of Kowloon (most disappointing chapter, imo), and got to the end of Guilin a few times.

I just hope that when I go back to play em both next time round I won't just give up out of boredom.

[Sonoshee]

Sunk a lot of hours into trying to get the most out of Kowloon (most disappointing chapter, imo)

...Really???

[MiTT3NZ]

I don't mean it's the worst, just the most disappointing. There's so much they could've done with it and is ridiculously short, probably due in part to the needless ability to enter every single room. Don't get me wrong, it was great that you could do it, but was it really necessary?

The area just didn't feel intimidating as it was trying to be, and nowhere near as claustrophobic as it should've been. I could talk all day about just how easy it woulda been to improve the chapter or Shenmue II as a game in general.

[Jibby]

Don't get me wrong, it was great that you could do it, but was it really necessary?

I think Yu Suzuki really wanted to push the whole "open world" thing to a whole new level to show how technologically advanced the game was. There wasn't really a standard formula for open world games back then so I can see why they did it. But yeah, I'd have to agree that looking back on it, it was a tad unnecessary. At least by today's standards.

[Upstairsmuffin]

I find that every playthrough is fresh and exciting with new things to discover. The magic is always alive. I love seeing that first loading screen.
I think I went through a phase of continuously going back to them but I haven't played them in about 5 years now. I've found that that's plenty of time for me to forget a big chunk of the games.

The DC doesn't like me that much either too though, I've had Shenmue I resetting if I play it too long, freezing on loading screens and Shenmue II freezes on the first loading screen of disc 3.

[Peter]

Now that I have NullDC settings to as best as I think it can be (Shenmue 1 - no missing Notebook/ Shenmue 2 - no floating eyeballs or shadow clipping, well as down to a minimum as it can be) I am starting another full playthrough of Shenmue 1 first of all. I've lost count but I'd say I would be in the 20s now.

Shenmue 2 wouldn't have been that high before May of this year, but I did 3 full playbacks back to back working on the Notebook guide so that will put me over the 20 times played mark.

For this Shenmue playthrough on NullDC, I think I will try and go for the 100% complete notebook of the first game. I will start it after I 100% Arkham Knight.

[shenmue852]

Don't get me wrong, it was great that you could do it, but was it really necessary?

I think Yu Suzuki really wanted to push the whole "open world" thing to a whole new level to show how technologically advanced the game was. There wasn't really a standard formula for open world games back then so I can see why they did it. But yeah, I'd have to agree that looking back on it, it was a tad unnecessary. At least by today's standards.

no it's not that they made every room explorable. it's that they put nothing to do in Kowloon except the street fights which you do as part of the plot anyway. Wanchai had a LOT of characters to interact with in various ways. There's no point talking to NPC's in Kowloon except to get directions or initiate a direct transaction (gamble, buy, enter street fight)

Still cool that they put in every room, they just needed some content to go along with the location. and yes, the plot is on rails in Kowloon, you don't actually have that much time to explore once you start following Yuan. But even if you did explore, you'd find nothing except the visuals.