Shenmue Dojo

I bought my original Dreamcast almost the day it launched in the US. I played a lot of Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, some Crazy Taxi, but somehow, Shenmue passed by, with me completely oblivious to it for a long time. Over the years though, I kept hearing about this amazing game, but never made the effort to locate a copy, and eventually, I gave my Dreamcast and games away to my little sister so she could play with Chao to her heart's content. I always felt uncertain of this decision.

Today, I went on a trip to an amazing used game shop in a nearby town and decided to pick up a new Dreamcast for myself as one of my purchases. I needed to choose a game though. I went through the options in the case before me. Sonic Adventure? I could get that anywhere. D2? It was missing discs and the clerk thankfully remembered that ("I keep telling them not to put this out!"). Then I saw that they had a copy of Shenmue 1. Sold.

The copy was in pretty bad shape. The case was falling apart, the discs were badly scratched, and it didn't have the main manual (just the passport one). I also overpaid for it, but the clerk resurfaced the discs, I ordered a new quad CD case online, and now all I need for completeness is the manual. Still, I now own Shenmue.

As I am about to play this masterpiece for the first time, I decided to keep a journal of my progress and experiences for you all to enjoy. I appreciate any advice you might have on making this the best possible experience it can be, as well as comments on my progress. I hope you all enjoy this record as much as I hope I will enjoy playing this game.

Welcome, dude! Looking forward to reading the entries of your journal

As for advice... Hmm... Honestly, just take the game at your leisure. Never feel the need to progress the story if you're simply enjoying the experience; the sights and sounds, etc. Never feel afraid to explore and/or let your curiosity and intrigue guide you. Also, be sure to train your moves every now and then. It'll help quite a bit, but certainly isn't essential.

In other words, do whatever the fuck you want and have a great time

Cool.

I 2nd the take your time sentiment, Shenmue games are not something that should be rushed.

Other then that, make sure to talk to NPCs like 3 times, especially the more important NPCs, talking only once doesn't always give you all the info or whatnot you may need.

Zoltor wrote:Other then that, make sure to talk to NPCs like 3 times, especially the more important NPCs, talking only once doesn't always give you all the info or whatnot you may need.

Yeah, this, too. Unlike pretty much every game out there, each and every one of Shenmue's characters has a unique, meaningful background and backstory - from a taxi driver who is having relationship problems, all the way to bar hosts living a double life - so engaging in conversation with even the most unremarkable NPC might yield some interesting information about what's going on in their life and their approach to things.

August 8, 2016

I just finished my first session of Shenmue. Here are my initial thoughts.

After an exciting intro, I quickly discovered that unraveling the mystery of my father's murder would not be an easy one. I quickly found myself wandering around my neighborhood, getting used to the controls. One of my neighbors found an orphaned kitten and, not knowing how the menus worked, accidentally chose to give it tofu instead of the obvious fish. Oh well, lesson learned. I did learn that the kitten's mother was killed by a speeding black car...not unlike the one Lan Di, my father's killer, and his thugs were driving...

I asked some neighbors about the men and their car, and although I got a lead on someone who saw the car, I couldn't find them before nightfall. I headed home for the night, feeling very unsure of myself.

I spent the remainder of the evening exploring my home, and just as I was starting to get frustrated, I found something very interesting in father's study. A letter addressed to myself, giving some advice on life. It definitely seems like he knew what was coming.

I decided I would not get much done at night, so I called it a night. I went to bed and saved my game.

I am quite impressed by how atmospheric the game is. It's a very unconventional game, with a leisurely pace, but also quite charming. Even just walking around my home, I found a cutscene where Ryo saw an old tree that reminded him of happier days, training with his dad as a child. While walking around town, I bought a few capsule toys from a vending machine. My first one was a weight. Ryo's unimpressed reaction mirrored my own. Luckily, trying again yielded better results, earning me figurines of Sarah from Virtua Fighter and Amy Rose from Sonic. I decided to not spend any more money for now.

So far, I am pleasantly pleased with the game. I will definitely be playing more in the near future.

this is exactly the right spirit and approach to have in order to appreciate Shenmue, well done.

Arjak wrote: So far, I am pleasantly pleased with the game. I will definitely be playing more in the near future.

Ouch. That's not exactly what I would say if I was playing Shenmue for the first time

"In the near future" sounds too far away

You're definitely in the right mindset to play and enjoy this game. I enjoyed reading about your experience, feel free to continue to share.

I hope that your copy of the game doesn't give you any freezing or loading issues. That held me up the first time I attempted to play the game, and I didn't return to it for several months or a year before successfully completing it (life changing stuff!)

Since you're in the US it would seem, I could mail you my spare copy to borrow if you do ever run into significant problems.

Good luck!

Arjak wrote: I bought my original Dreamcast almost the day it launched in the US. I played a lot of Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, some Crazy Taxi, but somehow, Shenmue passed by, with me completely oblivious to it for a long time. Over the years though, I kept hearing about this amazing game, but never made the effort to locate a copy, and eventually, I gave my Dreamcast and games away to my little sister so she could play with Chao to her heart's content. I always felt uncertain of this decision.

Today, I went on a trip to an amazing used game shop in a nearby town and decided to pick up a new Dreamcast for myself as one of my purchases. I needed to choose a game though. I went through the options in the case before me. Sonic Adventure? I could get that anywhere. D2? It was missing discs and the clerk thankfully remembered that ("I keep telling them not to put this out!"). Then I saw that they had a copy of Shenmue 1. Sold.

The copy was in pretty bad shape. The case was falling apart, the discs were badly scratched, and it didn't have the main manual (just the passport one). I also overpaid for it, but the clerk resurfaced the discs, I ordered a new quad CD case online, and now all I need for completeness is the manual. Still, I now own Shenmue.

As I am about to play this masterpiece for the first time, I decided to keep a journal of my progress and experiences for you all to enjoy. I appreciate any advice you might have on making this the best possible experience it can be, as well as comments on my progress. I hope you all enjoy this record as much as I hope I will enjoy playing this game.

your going to need an original xbox for Shenmue II. Other than that play to your hearts content.

August 10, 2016 1:45 pm

I started off my second day with the intent of finding Yamagishi-san to ask him about the car, but life is never clear-cut. I decided to see how Fuku-san was doing, so I went to the dojo. I found him working on a punch called the Pit Blow. His injuries from the other day were still effecting him though, so I decided to work with him a bit on improving his (and my) technique. After a little practice, we managed to get the hang of it.

I quickly realized that I still have much to learn, though. I wasn't paying full attention to my surroundings as I entered town, and something unfortunate happened. Two boys playing soccer kicked the ball at me, and before I could react, it smacked me in the chest, bounced off, and hit a little girl in the face. I was unharmed. The little girl...not so much. I felt very disappointed with myself as I continued down the hill.

Another surprise occurred shortly thereafter. As I looked for Yamagishi-san, I met a nearsighted old woman looking for the Yamagawa residence, but she couldn't read the nameplates. It took a while, but I finally found the place and guided her there. She was quite grateful.

While searching for the Yamagawas, I found the Yamagishi residence as well. Yamagishi-san was very helpful, telling me that Lan Di's car sped off in the direction of the shopping district. As I started there, I noticed a map by the side of the street pointing out all of the homes in the area. Doh!

Asking around, I learned that the local hot dog vendor had a run-in with Lan Di, and after a little more investigation, I decided that my next step should be to get some insight about Chinese people from...a local Chinese restaurant. It was getting late though, so I slowly made my way home.

While I was out, I got a soda from a vending machine...and got lucky! I got a special can that I can redeem for a prize! I also bought a couple capsule toys, which were a super ball and Sonic the Hedgehog.

I think this was a very productive session. I might play more later today.

Skillz wrote:

Arjak wrote: I bought my original Dreamcast almost the day it launched in the US. I played a lot of Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, some Crazy Taxi, but somehow, Shenmue passed by, with me completely oblivious to it for a long time. Over the years though, I kept hearing about this amazing game, but never made the effort to locate a copy, and eventually, I gave my Dreamcast and games away to my little sister so she could play with Chao to her heart's content. I always felt uncertain of this decision.

Today, I went on a trip to an amazing used game shop in a nearby town and decided to pick up a new Dreamcast for myself as one of my purchases. I needed to choose a game though. I went through the options in the case before me. Sonic Adventure? I could get that anywhere. D2? It was missing discs and the clerk thankfully remembered that ("I keep telling them not to put this out!"). Then I saw that they had a copy of Shenmue 1. Sold.

The copy was in pretty bad shape. The case was falling apart, the discs were badly scratched, and it didn't have the main manual (just the passport one). I also overpaid for it, but the clerk resurfaced the discs, I ordered a new quad CD case online, and now all I need for completeness is the manual. Still, I now own Shenmue.

As I am about to play this masterpiece for the first time, I decided to keep a journal of my progress and experiences for you all to enjoy. I appreciate any advice you might have on making this the best possible experience it can be, as well as comments on my progress. I hope you all enjoy this record as much as I hope I will enjoy playing this game.

your going to need an original xbox for Shenmue II. Other than that play to your hearts content.

No not true, you can get a Pal version of 2, and use like Cheats' n codes to play it on the NA DC, which I advise doing(the XBOX port is butchered, not to mention the XBOX controller sucking, will make QTEs a nightmare).

I was unharmed. The little girl...not so much.

Also, while I agree that there are lots of cool dialogues to find by talking to everyone, there's enough free time in the first game to wander around. Play it at your speed, that's the speed it should be played imo.

shredingskin wrote:

I was unharmed. The little girl...not so much.

That picture made my day.

Zoltor wrote:No not true, you can get a Pal version of 2, and use like Cheats' n codes to play it on the NA DC, which I advise doing(the XBOX port is butchered, not to mention the XBOX controller sucking, will make QTEs a nightmare).

How is the Xbox port butchered?

Also, one thing I forgot to mention in my post was that right before I went to bed, I decided to look around Ryo's room a bit with the zoom feature mapped to the right trigger to see if I could find anything interesting. In doing so, I found a collectable cassette tape in my desk drawer! This game has secrets and surprises everywhere! I wonder if there's a way I can play the tape...

Arjak wrote:

shredingskin wrote:

I was unharmed. The little girl...not so much.

That picture made my day.

Zoltor wrote:No not true, you can get a Pal version of 2, and use like Cheats' n codes to play it on the NA DC, which I advise doing(the XBOX port is butchered, not to mention the XBOX controller sucking, will make QTEs a nightmare).

How is the Xbox port butchered?

Also, one thing I forgot to mention in my post was that right before I went to bed, I decided to look around Ryo's room a bit with the zoom feature mapped to the right trigger to see if I could find anything interesting. In doing so, I found a collectable cassette tape in my desk drawer! This game has secrets and surprises everywhere! I wonder if there's a way I can play the tape...

The music is glitch, and will even outright turn off in certain areas(this is super common in the Golden Quarter), the game has a tendency to crash(this basically only happen when starting up a arcade machine, and in events where had it been the DC version, would reguire a disc change.


Then there's the whole controller thing, just thinking about trying to execute very precise inputs with a XBOX controller, should give anyone nightmares(so yea anyone playing the XBOX version, better be using a 3rd party controller). There's supposedly coding loss as well in the XBOX port with the QTE mechanic, which sure doesn't help matters any(don't know if this is true, but I wouldn't be surprised).

Also if you play the XBOX version of such on a 360, and not the original XBOX, there's also graphic glitches, and setbacks as well as all the stuff listed above, so yea playing the XBOX version should be a last resort kind of thing or to hold you over, just until you can get a Pal copy of the DC version, if you can't afford such atm.

Zoltor wrote:

Arjak wrote:

shredingskin wrote:

I was unharmed. The little girl...not so much.

That picture made my day.

Zoltor wrote:No not true, you can get a Pal version of 2, and use like Cheats' n codes to play it on the NA DC, which I advise doing(the XBOX port is butchered, not to mention the XBOX controller sucking, will make QTEs a nightmare).

How is the Xbox port butchered?

Also, one thing I forgot to mention in my post was that right before I went to bed, I decided to look around Ryo's room a bit with the zoom feature mapped to the right trigger to see if I could find anything interesting. In doing so, I found a collectable cassette tape in my desk drawer! This game has secrets and surprises everywhere! I wonder if there's a way I can play the tape...

The music is glitch, and will even outright turn off in certain areas(this is super common in the Golden Quarter), the game has a tendency to crash(this basically only happen when starting up a arcade machine, and in events where had it been the DC version, would reguire a disc change.

These things happen when you play it on 360. It works perfectly fine on the original xbox and is in no way "butchered". It also runs smoother on xbox with no slowdowns.