Let's Play Shenmue [Part 2] | WHERE House No. 8?!
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The day has come: The NOPEvember 2024 ClimEGGS is here! And it coincides with that day! So after wanting to do this since we started streamin, Jack finally gets his wish: It's time to play Shenmue!
Yokosuka, the 29th of November, 1986. Ryo Hazuki returns home, only to find that some mysterious people have come to the family dojo. There, a man referred to as Lan Di fights and grievously wounds Ryo's father, a renowned martial artist. Lan Di takes something called the Dragon Mirror and leaves. Ryo, also injured after trying to intervene, has to watch his father die in his arms.
A few days later, Ryo wakes up and decides to set out and avenge his father.
Thus begins the story of Shenmue, the most expensive video game ever made when it was released for the Dreamcast.
Created by industry legend Yu Suzuki, Shenmue simulates a living, breathing version of 1980's Japan unlike anything else at the time. NPCs have 24 hour schedules - they go home, they go to work, they have lunch, they have relationships. Everything is fully voiced (albeit some of the English dub is of arguable quality) and just about every character has something new to say at every step of the journey.
While the game is mostly an adventure game that has you work your way from clue to clue to try to unravel why your father was killed, there's more to it. Ryo is a martial artist himself, which comes in handy when some people need to be taught a lesson that words don't suffice for. The game borrows its fighting system from the Virtua Fighter series, which it was originally intended to be a spin-off of.
Shenmue is also infamous for popularizing QTEs (Quick Time Events) that have ruined plenty of games since. Shenmue gets them surprisingly right though - and failing some even leads to the story playing out differently. Neat twist!
... or you just ignore it all and spend all day buying capsule toys - stuff for the most OG gacha crowd - or at the local arcade, playing Hang-On or Space Harrier. Or any of the other surprisingly fun mini games.
Shenmue is a cult classic, but playing it 25 years after it came out, it's easy to see how it aged. There's the portrayal of some characters that might feel off by today's standards. The stiff controls also don't help you getting around and it can easily feel like the game punishes you for doing what the game tells you.
A lot of the beauty of the game is hidden in scenes and encounters you might now even know exist, because you followed the story too fast and didn't end up going somewhere unrelated at the right time. Then again, this also gives it some replayability. Five people playing Shenmue at the same time might have five different experiences, all depending on how they play.
So while you should definitely watch our playthrough - because hey, we're awesome - you should also very much play Shenmue yourself when you get the chance. Do it, or Ine-san will be sad.
And nobody wants to make Ine-san sad.