Lightning Count
Member
No, I know the game well enough, if you get stuck I will help out. Sure would others help as well, I am sure.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
I need to play the Shenmue games - what are my options?
- Thread starter bananafactory
- Start date
No, I know the game well enough, if you get stuck I will help out. Sure would others help as well, I am sure.
Go play 2, it's the better of the two IMO.
OP, if you are going to go the Dreamcast route, you should get a VGA converter. It makes a HUGE difference. It went from a really blurry visual experience to a crisp one, where the colors are vibrant and I was in awe of how the game still looked good despite its age.
www.racketboy.com is where I bought mine, and it works well.
www.racketboy.com is where I bought mine, and it works well.
andrerobot
Member
I mean, the game is subtitled right? Does it prompt you to do stuff in Japanese?
btw, thanks for the help
www.racketboy.com/store said:
bananafactory
Banned
Gambit 1138
Banned
I have the original shenmue and a dreamcast but the problem is wouldn't Dreamcast games look like shit when hooked up to a modern HD TV?
Honestly they were better off funding a kickstarter for HD ports of the first 2 games first because half the people haven't even had a chance to play that series yet because so few people owned Dreamcasts and Xbox 1's and even among that group many weren't aware of the series.
Honestly they were better off funding a kickstarter for HD ports of the first 2 games first because half the people haven't even had a chance to play that series yet because so few people owned Dreamcasts and Xbox 1's and even among that group many weren't aware of the series.
Are you using a VGA box? If not, buy a VGA box. Solved.
edit: Shenmue + VGA box looks almost as good as a 480p Wii game, the Dreamcast was a pretty amazing piece of tech.
Don't really see any euro copies on eBay. I had a Japanese ps2 and stumbled through some Japanese games but if it's primarily for the story I don't want to do that...
Lightning Count
Member
I mean, the game is subtitled right? Does it prompt you to do stuff in Japanese?
btw, thanks for the help
You could try importing a PAL version which had Japanese voices and English subtitles. But you will need to modify your game save to carry over items from Shenmue I.
Or get the Xbox version, it is backwards compatible with the 360 and has English voices. In this version you start automatically with all the items from Shenmue I.
I mean, the game is subtitled right? Does it prompt you to do stuff in Japanese?
btw, thanks for the help
Ah, didn't realize that store shut down. That's too bad. It was hard to find it, otherwise. There are probably other options. Ebay, or perhaps Amazon.
My Shenmue Video is one of the most viewed on youtube, worth your time imo
https://youtu.be/BaktHNVzKoE
https://youtu.be/BaktHNVzKoE
andrerobot
Member
Oooh shiiit, so I'll consider keeping my PAL Shenmue I copy then.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
Yes. If you play the European version, though, (which has a 60hz mode, so don't worry about PAL), it's Japanese audio with English subs. I would argue that is the best version of the game.
Lightning Count
Member
That makes things easier, I thought you had an NTSC copy of Shenmue I.
Fair warning Shenmue II on DC these days is fairly rare, expect to pay about £50 (about $80 US).
Gambit 1138
Banned
What VGA box's are compatible with hdtv? I remember I bought one once for a PC monitor but found out later it was only compatible with certain monitors and when mine broke I couldn't find another it would work with.
Black Pewter
Member
It would be just bloody incompetent of SEGA to not put out a HD Collection as a stretch goal for this or a backer reward or something. Like, literally fire the CEO if that doesn't happen.
I would play the Xbox version of 2 if I were you. The Dreamcast version of 2 never came out in North America, only in Europe and they'res no english dubbing.
The Spoony Hou
Member
I played Shenmue 1 back when it was new. Recently I got the sequel for Xbox, but I still got to play it. I'm not that crazy about Shenmue lol.
Anyway, In the future I might replay both games on DC, but I'd like to do so with the original dub. Can I play Shenmue1 with jp voices and english text?
Anyway, In the future I might replay both games on DC, but I'd like to do so with the original dub. Can I play Shenmue1 with jp voices and english text?
Depends on what monitor/HDTV you're using. You can use a VGA box + VGA cable to hook up your DC to a monitor/HTDV with a VGA input (pretty common on earlier HDTVs, not very common on modern ones). If your monitor/HDTV only has HDMI (or DVI) inputs, you'll need a VGA to DVI/HDMI converter. Make sure that your TV supports 480p over the input where the DC is plugged in. In both cases, you'll need to use a separate cable for sound.
I bought an original DC VGA box ages ago and a used 3rd party box by a company called "Haier". Both have worked on all HDTV I've tested them on.
edit: from wikipedia, that's the exact description of what your monitor/TV needs to support:
Just a heads up: Shenmue 2 on Xbox 360 requires a genuine microsoft 360 hard drive.
I found the game at the swap meet and debated between getting an Xbox and a 360. During black friday, I figured $100 for a 360 4gb was less hassle than finding an old xbox for $30. It didn't work when it came, as it required a hard drive. I had no idea where to get a hard drive and almost bought a 3rd party one online. Thankfully I did more research and found that Xbox games don't work on 3rd party hard drives. I ended up getting a $40 used one from Amazon that took an extra month to ship. What a pain.
I found the game at the swap meet and debated between getting an Xbox and a 360. During black friday, I figured $100 for a 360 4gb was less hassle than finding an old xbox for $30. It didn't work when it came, as it required a hard drive. I had no idea where to get a hard drive and almost bought a 3rd party one online. Thankfully I did more research and found that Xbox games don't work on 3rd party hard drives. I ended up getting a $40 used one from Amazon that took an extra month to ship. What a pain.
Alex_Mexico
Member
They need to announce a port for Shemnue 1 and 2. It's ridiculous that the only legit way of playing these is with an OG Xbox and a goddamned Dreamcast.
I'm interested in Shenmue III but I havent played 1 and 2 and I'm NOT hunting these expensive copies on ebay and buying an OG Xbox or Dreamcast to play them. I just wont.
I'm interested in Shenmue III but I havent played 1 and 2 and I'm NOT hunting these expensive copies on ebay and buying an OG Xbox or Dreamcast to play them. I just wont.
JailDesigner
Member
How are you going to emulate them if you don't have the games?
My bet is that they will release I & II on digital stores. This will help sales or this will harm them?
The less headache will be playing the first one on DreamCast and the second one on an OG Xbox or X360.
EDIT: I see a lot of people haven't played these games. I think they are going to get disappointed. This is no 1999
My bet is that they will release I & II on digital stores. This will help sales or this will harm them?
The less headache will be playing the first one on DreamCast and the second one on an OG Xbox or X360.
EDIT: I see a lot of people haven't played these games. I think they are going to get disappointed. This is no 1999
TheOnlyOneHeEverFeared
Member
Surely we'll be getting a HD port at some point?
Yeah, HD remasters would make the series a lot more welcoming to newcomers. Small changes like being able to fast-forward time in SM1, second analog-stick support, saving anywhere, slightly adjusted timings for the QTEs and quicker loading times would make a big difference.
Out_Of_Ammo
Member
Do shenmue I and II still hold up today? I know they were ahead of their time but won't they feel very dated these days? Never played them before but I'm hoping for a HD collection of the first 2.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
This post is going to have a lot of SPOILERS for the first two games. Skip forward if that bothers you because I'd rather not black out the entire post.
Anyway, I can't stress this enough:
Shenmue is a very acquired taste. Normally, it would have been the kind of game that I'd never even bother with had I not been a total Sega fanboy for the entirety of the 90s. Gameplay-wise, I don't think it has that many merits. The combat is fine but not phenomenal, and I don't even think there was an actual "real" fight in the game until disc 2. While the attention to detail in some respects can still be impressive, it kind of clashes with all the silly canned NPC lines and some really bad video game logic (tattoos -> sailors -> etc). The voice acting is a joke. QTEs are no longer a fresh take on in-game cinematics. The most fun part of the game is being able to win a copy of Hang-On in the convenience store raffles and playing it on the Sega Saturn in Ryo's house. And so on and so forth.
But what sticks with me most about the two games is the scope. The ambition was unreal, unfathomable, and impossible not to appreciate once you got a glimpse at what the series was building up to. On the surface, it's a simple revenge story in a mundane world with mundane day-to-day happenings. Help old ladies around the neighborhood. Work a repetitive forklift job for hours per day. Brush off your would-be girlfriend. Practice and grind up your martial arts moves in an empty parking lot while you're waiting on an appointment. Waste the rest of your free time in the arcade. And, rarely, take on a mob boss. In a nutshell, that's all there really is to the "game" of Shenmue.
But that amounts to two whole games of world-building, just so that that world can be shattered when things kick into high gear. Between the opening of Shenmue 1 and the ending of Shenmue 2, the series is book-ended by a prophecy, and it drives home the point that the entire experience up to that point is literally just the prologue. Shenhua, one of the 3 principal characters of the story and much of the promotional art for the first game, isn't actually introduced until the end of the second game, other than some brief, voiceless appearances in a couple of Ryo's dreams. You don't find out what Shenmue actually is until the end of the second game. And while much of the games are about immersing yourself in arguably boring realism, there are just a small few, subdued hints early on that the villain is after an otherworldly power when Master Chen drops some information about the mirrors. Not to mention Shenmue 2's bad ending.
The Project Berkley preview contains clips from an early build of the game, presumably when it was still on Saturn. The majority of the scenes in it cover events that happen after the first two games that were released, and it has people using Dragonball Z superpowers and shit. It's probably kind of jarring to watch this video if you're familiar with the actual games but not the outside material. The mind reels at how things are supposed to build up to this. Shenhua demonstrates a hint of supernatural powers at the very end of Shenmue 2, and even that little bit is kind of a shocker. Up until this point, the two games are just a simple kung-fu adventure in the real world.
So yeah, slow burn. But the level of detail in the world coupled with the hints of what was to come just made the whole experience compelling in a manner that few if any other games are. You wanted to find out what was happening next because the consequences and stakes seemed immeasurable.
The worst thing about Shenmue III being a real thing now is that they have to live up to a decade and a half of anticipation, heh.
Anyway, I can't stress this enough:
Shenmue is a very acquired taste. Normally, it would have been the kind of game that I'd never even bother with had I not been a total Sega fanboy for the entirety of the 90s. Gameplay-wise, I don't think it has that many merits. The combat is fine but not phenomenal, and I don't even think there was an actual "real" fight in the game until disc 2. While the attention to detail in some respects can still be impressive, it kind of clashes with all the silly canned NPC lines and some really bad video game logic (tattoos -> sailors -> etc). The voice acting is a joke. QTEs are no longer a fresh take on in-game cinematics. The most fun part of the game is being able to win a copy of Hang-On in the convenience store raffles and playing it on the Sega Saturn in Ryo's house. And so on and so forth.
But what sticks with me most about the two games is the scope. The ambition was unreal, unfathomable, and impossible not to appreciate once you got a glimpse at what the series was building up to. On the surface, it's a simple revenge story in a mundane world with mundane day-to-day happenings. Help old ladies around the neighborhood. Work a repetitive forklift job for hours per day. Brush off your would-be girlfriend. Practice and grind up your martial arts moves in an empty parking lot while you're waiting on an appointment. Waste the rest of your free time in the arcade. And, rarely, take on a mob boss. In a nutshell, that's all there really is to the "game" of Shenmue.
But that amounts to two whole games of world-building, just so that that world can be shattered when things kick into high gear. Between the opening of Shenmue 1 and the ending of Shenmue 2, the series is book-ended by a prophecy, and it drives home the point that the entire experience up to that point is literally just the prologue. Shenhua, one of the 3 principal characters of the story and much of the promotional art for the first game, isn't actually introduced until the end of the second game, other than some brief, voiceless appearances in a couple of Ryo's dreams. You don't find out what Shenmue actually is until the end of the second game. And while much of the games are about immersing yourself in arguably boring realism, there are just a small few, subdued hints early on that the villain is after an otherworldly power when Master Chen drops some information about the mirrors. Not to mention Shenmue 2's bad ending.
The Project Berkley preview contains clips from an early build of the game, presumably when it was still on Saturn. The majority of the scenes in it cover events that happen after the first two games that were released, and it has people using Dragonball Z superpowers and shit. It's probably kind of jarring to watch this video if you're familiar with the actual games but not the outside material. The mind reels at how things are supposed to build up to this. Shenhua demonstrates a hint of supernatural powers at the very end of Shenmue 2, and even that little bit is kind of a shocker. Up until this point, the two games are just a simple kung-fu adventure in the real world.
So yeah, slow burn. But the level of detail in the world coupled with the hints of what was to come just made the whole experience compelling in a manner that few if any other games are. You wanted to find out what was happening next because the consequences and stakes seemed immeasurable.
The worst thing about Shenmue III being a real thing now is that they have to live up to a decade and a half of anticipation, heh.
Havoc2049
Member
If you own an Xbox 360, there is a way cheaper solution, as the game is backwards compatible. A complete boxed copy of Shenmue II for the Xbox is still fairly cheap on ebay.
The Xbox version of Shenmue II actually has a bunch of enhancements over the DC version. Sega and Microsoft (publisher) brought back the original Dreamcast English dub cast from Shenmue. A camera/photo mode and photo scrap book was added. If you take photos of certain locations and characters, it unlocks manga style side stories on those characters and locations. The DC version also has an unstable frame rate, but the XB version runs at a constant 30 fps. The Xbox version of Shenmue II also added anti-aliasing, upgraded water effects and bloom lighting. The audio in the cuts scenes were also upgraded to Dolby Digital 5.1. The Xbox version also includes Shenmue: The Movie, which covers the events of Shenmue and gets you up to speed on the characters and the story leading up to Shenmue II.
The downside:
Some people prefer the DC version of Shenmue II because they feel the Japanese voice acting is more natural, of a higher quality and keeps you more engaged in the game. The Xbox emulation for Shenmue II on the X360 is really good, but isn't perfect, as shadows in a few spots in the game will pop in and out and the music will cut in and out in a few spots.
In the end, it is up to you. If you want to get into the Dreamcast, then by all means, get an NTSC Dreamcast w/boot disc and play the Shenmue games on that. The Dreamcast is a great classic system with plenty of great games. If you just want to get up to speed on Shenmue though and own an X360, go that route.
I'd say wait.
With the Shenmue 3 kickstarter blowing up like it is, I bet people at Sega and the kickstarter project are in talks about this issue already. It's not like Shenmue 3 will come out next month or anything, so you have enough time to find out how they will address the lack of easily playable prequels.
With the Shenmue 3 kickstarter blowing up like it is, I bet people at Sega and the kickstarter project are in talks about this issue already. It's not like Shenmue 3 will come out next month or anything, so you have enough time to find out how they will address the lack of easily playable prequels.
SEGA's been putting out a lot of good PC ports of old games recently, and there's definitely a market for Shenmue ports. I would also count on it.
EDIT: Even if the rumour's they're already done are false, they've got enough to gain from putting a small team on porting them that they'll do it.
It's crazy that people need to resort to finding a Dreamcast and / or original Xbox to play these games...
I'd suggest not jumping on this right now... with options that limited, I could see them slipping out some HD ports of the first 2 in a collection approaching the release of the 3rd game.
I'd at least wait to make sure it doesn't happen...
Unless you are worried that many other people will be trying to hunt down those old games and systems and you may miss your chance... that's possible. It can't be that easy to get your hands on those things...
I'd suggest not jumping on this right now... with options that limited, I could see them slipping out some HD ports of the first 2 in a collection approaching the release of the 3rd game.
I'd at least wait to make sure it doesn't happen...
Unless you are worried that many other people will be trying to hunt down those old games and systems and you may miss your chance... that's possible. It can't be that easy to get your hands on those things...
I was pissed a friend I got to start the second one (not finish), just watched a video recap of the first. Its not the way to experience it at all, given how much is predicated on the immersive quality and home feel of the first.
bananafactory
Banned
First of all, as an update - thanks to everyone who provided advice in here
In the end, I decided I want the authentic dreamcast and Shenmue experience, for better or worse
I have ordered a PAL Dreamcast system and a VGA adapter. I am paying a lot for it but will probably end up flipping everything once I'm finished and hopefully get back most of what I paid.
As for the games themselves - I'm still scoping them out and looking for a reasonable price. Is there a benefit to playing both 1 and 2 on the Dreamcast? I thought I read that you can import a save into Shenmue 2
In the end, I decided I want the authentic dreamcast and Shenmue experience, for better or worse
I have ordered a PAL Dreamcast system and a VGA adapter. I am paying a lot for it but will probably end up flipping everything once I'm finished and hopefully get back most of what I paid.
As for the games themselves - I'm still scoping them out and looking for a reasonable price. Is there a benefit to playing both 1 and 2 on the Dreamcast? I thought I read that you can import a save into Shenmue 2
You can transfer saves from 1 to 2 if they are both from the same region, yes.
I played American 1 and PAL 2, so I didn't get to carry my moves and items through.
Stereogatari
Banned
Wait for the Remasters.
Congratulations you are about to embark on the two greatest videogames created of all time.
More importantly you are going to experience it in the best way possible, through the original Dreamcast versions.
DidntKnowJack
Member
I played the first game on my Dreamcast last night and holy hell I forgot how weird the controls were. Even though you have 1 analog stick, you don't use it to move, its more for looking around, like when you're looking through the drawers in your room (while also holding the right trigger). Otherwise its essentially tank controls though you can hold down the left trigger to move forward/run. Very odd, though after about a half hour it became second nature again.
I only say all this because I have a feeling people new to the game are going to have various "wtf is this shit" reactions. Just preparing you.
I don't remember how the Xbox controls were, its been so long and I've got a ways to go before I run through Shenmue 1 again.
I only say all this because I have a feeling people new to the game are going to have various "wtf is this shit" reactions. Just preparing you.
I don't remember how the Xbox controls were, its been so long and I've got a ways to go before I run through Shenmue 1 again.
I've been thinking about this too lately.. I'd like to check these games out but I sure as hell don't want to buy two extra systems. I'll probably try emulating the Dreamcast versions one of these days.
Though I won't be surprised if Sega decides to re-release them soon after seeing how successful the kickstarter has been.
Though I won't be surprised if Sega decides to re-release them soon after seeing how successful the kickstarter has been.
Bl@de
Member
Started it today again and yeah .,, it's the typical "coming back to tank controls" feeling. At first you are disgusted ... After 30min it feels natural. Game still plays great though. No reason to skip it.
inpHilltr8r
Member
Hmm, are the OG XBox games that were b/c on the 360, also b/c on the One? Did they emulate the emulator?
DidntKnowJack
Member
No, you would need a 360 to play Shenmue 2. Though emulation I hear isn't great for that title. Shenmue 1 is only on the Dreamcast, though the Xbox version of 2 comes with a DVD that covers what happened in the first game.