Suzuki's biggest blunders in Shenmue

[Sonoshee]

well there was like a 70% total sales drop between the first and second game with decreases across all regions...

Did anyone even know the second game was out on Dreamcast? I know many people who said they just saw it sat on a shelf in the store one day lol To be honest, Sega's promotion was almost non-existant by that point.

I'm not trying to be difficult, just trying to provoke a decent response on why you felt this way. I could go on about what made Shenmue such a unique title for its time. Without reasoning, your comment did just sound like it was trying to start a war

[south carmain]

well not in America since it didnt come out there on dc. In Europe i don't remember any coverage but then again I didnt remember any marketing for the first game here either (which was to be expected anyway since they didnt even bother translating it from English).

That leaves Japan which I don't know about

[Sonoshee]

I think it not coming out on Dreamcast in the States was most probably the reason for the huge drop. The European release was pretty much out there on shelves without anyone knowing about it either. And the Dreamcast was almost dead by this point in the US and EU. Which like you say leaves Japan - does anybody have the actual figures for the Japanese sales for Shenmue 2? I googled but couldn't find them.

[Sonoshee]

There were never any real sales statistics released for either games only estimates as far as I know. I don't think sega ever released sales data on either game.

[ShenGCH]

I'd say honestly it was having the moves displayed F*CKING SIDEWAYS in Shenmue 1!!!!

What was Suzuki thinking when he felt you should have to crank your damn neck just to read the moves????

This x 1,000

These mightn't count, but the fact there is a mahjong parlour that doesn't feature any kind of mahjong mini-game, and the Slot House rewarding tokens instead of real money. What these two things have in common is the reward for succeeding in either should be money, but, of course, that would severely skew the balance in terms of story and progression. For example, players could simply go all-in, get lucky, and win huge amounts of money, and repeat the process until they're millionaires. (And if they screw up? They can simply reload their save file.) But what does this mean in the long-run? Well, it would completely nullify the fact that Ryo doesn't have enough money to afford an aeroplane ticket to Hong Kong - a pretty big plotline - as money would no longer be an object, effectively wiping out much of what happens on disc three.

It's almost as if the mahjong parlour and the Slot House were originally intended to be fully-fledged establishments where players can make some money, but, in practice, it simply wasn't viable where balance is concerned. Of course, they could have just imposed a limit on how much you can make, but it would have to be pretty low in order to make sense, but it simply wouldn't make sense. There are so many ramifications.

Aside from those, it would have been cool if the shop assistants in the Tomato Mart and Harbour Lounge said, "That'll be [cost of item], please," for each individually price item. That's just a little one, though.

[SMDzero]

I'd say honestly it was having the moves displayed F*CKING SIDEWAYS in Shenmue 1!!!!

What was Suzuki thinking when he felt you should have to crank your damn neck just to read the moves????

This x 1,000

These mightn't count, but the fact there is a mahjong parlour that doesn't feature any kind of mahjong mini-game, and the Slot House rewarding tokens instead of real money. What these two things have in common is the reward for succeeding in either should be money, but, of course, that would severely skew the balance in terms of story and progression. For example, players could simply go all-in, get lucky, and win huge amounts of money, and repeat the process until they're millionaires. (And if they screw up? They can simply reload their save file.) But what does this mean in the long-run? Well, it would completely nullify the fact that Ryo doesn't have enough money to afford an aeroplane ticket to Hong Kong - a pretty big plotline - as money would no longer be an object, effectively wiping out much of what happens on disc three.

It's almost as if the mahjong parlour and the Slot House were originally intended to be fully-fledged establishments where players can make some money, but, in practice, it simply wasn't viable where balance is concerned. Of course, they could have just imposed a limit on how much you can make, but it would have to be pretty low in order to make sense, but it simply wouldn't make sense. There are so many ramifications.

Aside from those, it would have been cool if the shop assistants in the Tomato Mart and Harbour Lounge said, "That'll be [cost of item], please," for each individually price item. That's just a little one, though.

They could have had Ryo win real money in the casino.

After you win over a certain amount of $ gambling, you could get just a cutscene of Ryo leaving the casino where he gets all his money jacked or something.


The funny thing is you say what's the point of tokens? Well what's the point of ANYTHING in a video game? In Shenmue 1 I thought it was lame that the capsule toys had no "use". In Shenmue 2 I thought it was cool that you could sell the toys but then what do you use the money for.. just to buy more toys I guess!

[Mr357]

The fact that you cannot buy multiple items at once in the tomato store gives another awkward result in the game.

Especially...

[ShenGCH]

I'd say honestly it was having the moves displayed F*CKING SIDEWAYS in Shenmue 1!!!!

What was Suzuki thinking when he felt you should have to crank your damn neck just to read the moves????

This x 1,000

These mightn't count, but the fact there is a mahjong parlour that doesn't feature any kind of mahjong mini-game, and the Slot House rewarding tokens instead of real money. What these two things have in common is the reward for succeeding in either should be money, but, of course, that would severely skew the balance in terms of story and progression. For example, players could simply go all-in, get lucky, and win huge amounts of money, and repeat the process until they're millionaires. (And if they screw up? They can simply reload their save file.) But what does this mean in the long-run? Well, it would completely nullify the fact that Ryo doesn't have enough money to afford an aeroplane ticket to Hong Kong - a pretty big plotline - as money would no longer be an object, effectively wiping out much of what happens on disc three.

It's almost as if the mahjong parlour and the Slot House were originally intended to be fully-fledged establishments where players can make some money, but, in practice, it simply wasn't viable where balance is concerned. Of course, they could have just imposed a limit on how much you can make, but it would have to be pretty low in order to make sense, but it simply wouldn't make sense. There are so many ramifications.

Aside from those, it would have been cool if the shop assistants in the Tomato Mart and Harbour Lounge said, "That'll be [cost of item], please," for each individually price item. That's just a little one, though.

They could have had Ryo win real money in the casino.

After you win over a certain amount of $ gambling, you could get just a cutscene of Ryo leaving the casino where he gets all his money jacked or something.


The funny thing is you say what's the point of tokens? Well what's the point of ANYTHING in a video game? In Shenmue 1 I thought it was lame that the capsule toys had no "use". In Shenmue 2 I thought it was cool that you could sell the toys but then what do you use the money for.. just to buy more toys I guess!

Unless he's getting jacked by Chai each time, I sincerely doubt Ryo would let anyone who tried stealing from him walk away with their limbs un-instered into their rectums. Plus, there are too many witnesses around that area.

Also, I never said there wasn't a point to tokens - they have their own confined purpose, but the fact it's a slot house, a place where people go to make real money, speaks for itself.

[south carmain]

I'm guessing being unable to gamble real money in the slot house has more to do with monetary gambling being illegal in Japan. As for the Mahjong parlor perhaps it had something to do with it being run by yakuza and Ryo not wanting to bring shame to his family name or something.

[fittersau]

Not making a game good enough to sell enough copies to make a profit.

Too bad almost everyone who had a dreamcast bought this game, the dreamcasts poor sells is what failed shenmue to turn up a profit. If this would've been a ps2 game we would've seen Shenmue 4 way back in the day and would never get to enjoy Shenmue 3 on the ps4 .


SO THANK GOD IT FAILED.

Um.. lol. Not sure if serious.

Personally I loved the Dreamcast, miles ahead of the PS2 in terms of power and development. If it lasted the full distance it would have been as good as some earlier XB360 & PS3 games, which some were awful.

I would have preferred if all the games came out on the Dreamcast or the Dreamcast 2. The momentum and growth that would have followed Shenmue would have vaulted further into gaming history as one of the most amazing games of all time.

But alas, it wasn't to be and many games drew from Suzuki's masterpiece and reused many of his ideas of game design, not just QTE thank you very much gaming press.

[fittersau]

Did anyone even know the second game was out on Dreamcast? I know many people who said they just saw it sat on a shelf in the store one day lol To be honest, Sega's promotion was almost non-existant by that point.

I'm not trying to be difficult, just trying to provoke a decent response on why you felt this way. I could go on about what made Shenmue such a unique title for its time. Without reasoning, your comment did just sound like it was trying to start a war

Yep, as soon as I finished Shemue 1 I began looking for Shemue 2, but it wasn't out and I had to wait. Needless to say I booked in my purchase before pre-ordering was a thing!

[RyoHazuki84]

Though it isn't Suzuki's fault, it was Moore's decision to port Shenmue 2 to the XBox instead of release it to the Dreamcast as originally intended. I think the decision ruined all interest and hype and momentum. By the time the game came to the US, it was all gone and most hardcore fans imported the Japanese and/or European releases. I think the US Dreamcast release could have made more of an effective impact.

Overall, the first of SEGA's screw ups was firing Stolar who made the Dreamcast launch a success, and I think he could have found a way to keep the Dreamcast alive with the momentum he created. So must of Shenmue's and Dreamcast's failures are on the account of SEGA's stupid decision practices.

But in terms of technical issues, it would have been nice to change Ryo's clothes, have him eat something at the noodle shop, bring back the bicycle and the likes.

[SMDzero]

I personally feel that Sega KNEW on 9/9/99 that Dreamcast would be their last system.

That's why they fired Bernie Stolar and replaced him with that schmuck Peter Moore the day before Dreamcast dropped.

[Testament]

Don't post something that is intrinsically a part of the experience (like having to wait in Shenmue 1 or any kind of QTEs, etc)

I'd say honestly it was having the moves displayed F*CKING SIDEWAYS in Shenmue 1!!!!

What was Suzuki thinking when he felt you should have to crank your damn neck just to read the moves????

Well, this is only a problem in the non-Japanese versions. Japanese can, and often is, written vertically.

[Verderame]

-Dpad-based tank controls
-Camera is bad-ish during some fights
-No dialogue choice option, the game just forces on you the "hot topic" of the moment
-You have to scroll back to the beginning all the notebook pages everytime you need to read the telephone numbers you need
-The forkilft just blocks itself everytime it bumps something, very annoying during races
-Almost all the food you can buy is useless

This is what comes to my mind right now, i think it's pretty easy to nitpick lots of these typical "raw" 90/early 2000ish game design choices, because games have improved a lot from the "quality of life" point of view nowadays.