Shenmue Dojo

BlueMue wrote:

Wuying wrote:Xbox had better graphics and sound

Graphics are still debateable. I'm not going to repeat yet again what I wrote here earlier about that.
Sound is a definite nope. They messed up some of the music.

They didin't mess up the sound that bad, in fact they actually remixed it, compare South Carmain Quarter Dc version to South Carmain Quarter xbox version alongside the Ziming cutscene with fangmei music compared to xbox with Dc. Its remixed and different.

Well yeah it's not too bad but it sure puts the Xbox version behind the Dreamcast version in terms of sound.

Just listen to this:

And then this:

Still the best example about music is this. That track isn't even in the Xbox version.
They decided to use the Shenhua flashback music again there for absolutely unintelligible reasons.

There would be more to compare here but there are no fitting videos of the Xbox music.

I believe LanDC said on Facebook that he was once again recording the Shenmue 2 music. We now have much better techniques to do this.

I agree, there are a lot of music differences in Shenmue IIx, but I don't dislike the tracks due to their errors. I liked them before, and I also like the DC ones that are the originals. Check out the Shenmue II and IIx Ending themes, the scene right before the credits. Beautiful.

The native Xbox version is the worst version to play if you want to enjoy this game. The 360 does a bit better emulation it with a bit of an improvement on the visuals if using a HDMI connection, but replaying it now on the original Xbox with my composite connection on a 50" LCD is awful. Especially since i am playing it after just finishing it on the Dreamcast with a VGA box and HDMI upscaler. This Xbox version is actually one of the worst gaming experience ive had in a good while.

Why specifically? I've never played the DC version, but I've never found anything I disliked about IIx, other than the bloom is a bit too much at times.

The version differences may be negligible but if I was to stick to one, the Dreamcast version is the winner. The artistic integrity was compromised in Shenmue2x as mentioned before. Textures were modified for no apparent reason and a lot of the signs/billboards removed. That gave Hong Kong a cleaner look, but anyone who has been really there knows it is all about endless visual pollution. Also mentioned before was the music that is played out differently. It affected the mood in key scenes like the one BlueMue showed. Though a minor issue, I'll rather stick with the original vision. And at last, the japanese dub is superior without a doubt, though I love the English version for the humor. But quality aside, I don't believe it was intentional as the Japanese version didn't match it. So again, I stick with the intended vision.

I'm mixed on the Xbox version. I love the camera and photo album thing, but the motion blur and bloom lighting are fucking awful and take me out of the game. The 360 version luckily has no such bullshit.

sand4fish wrote: The version differences may be negligible but if I was to stick to one, the Dreamcast version is the winner. The artistic integrity was compromised in Shenmue2x as mentioned before. Textures were modified for no apparent reason and a lot of the signs/billboards removed. That gave Hong Kong a cleaner look, but anyone who has been really there knows it is all about endless visual pollution. Also mentioned before was the music that is played out differently. It affected the mood in key scenes like the one BlueMue showed. Though a minor issue, I'll rather stick with the original vision. And at last, the japanese dub is superior without a doubt, though I love the English version for the humor. But quality aside, I don't believe it was intentional as the Japanese version didn't match it. So again, I stick with the intended vision.

Why do you like the Japanese track more than the English dub?

Whenever I play the game, there's a strong Japanese drama vibe going on with Shenmue's story. It is very pronounced specially in the first game with the scenes between Ryo and Nozomi. In the English version the atmosphere between them seems so miserable, as if both were very depressed. So quality aside from the cast again, something definitely is lost in translation here because I don't get the same feeling playing the Japanese version. On another note, Shenmue 2's english dub would make more sense than the Japanese one as Hong Kong people are more likely to speak in English than Japanese. But when I compared both versions on occasional times, the English cast seems too goofy aside from the main characters. Japanese dub are just known to do better job with games, at that time anyway. If you were to ask me now if I'd prefer the MGS 5 English cast or the Japanese one, I would pick the English one.

Not only that, but Shenmue 1 dub is fantastic by virtue of its hilarity. Komine and the sailors delivery particularly. YOU LYING?!?! DON'T FORGET TO SAY GOODBYE! WAYYYYYYYY UNCOOL (Ryo sounds like such a geek here hahahaha). Game is the funniest unintentionally hilarious game of all time for me. It adds to the martial arts movie cheese and makes it feel authentic to the experience, being a big fan of wuxia film.

Now compare to Shenmue II. Shenmue II dub really doesn't have hilarious VO like the original game. Outside of maybe Xiuying's voice I'd even just say it's flat out terrible. It doesn't have the same weight or emotion of the original Japanese vo, but it doesn't have the charm and comedy of the first games dub either. It's just there, and it fucking sucks.

sand4fish wrote: Whenever I play the game, there's a strong Japanese drama vibe going on with Shenmue's story. It is very pronounced specially in the first game with the scenes between Ryo and Nozomi. In the English version the atmosphere between them seems so miserable, as if both were very depressed. So quality aside from the cast again, something definitely is lost in translation here because I don't get the same feeling playing the Japanese version. On another note, Shenmue 2's english dub would make more sense than the Japanese one as Hong Kong people are more likely to speak in English than Japanese. But when I compared both versions on occasional times, the English cast seems too goofy aside from the main characters. Japanese dub are just known to do better job with games, at that time anyway. If you were to ask me now if I'd prefer the MGS 5 English cast or the Japanese one, I would pick the English one.

Okay, realism is a nonissue to pick apart here. If you are so much of a stickler that one of your complaints is that the people would be more likely to speak English than Japanese, then you probably should just not play Shenmue II past the Dou Niu fight, because realism lies out the window once you get to know Shenhua and step inside that cave.

I never have an issue with people liking one over the other, it is simply the fact that a lot of people cannot seem to intelligently defend their opinion outside of just being a Japanophile, does that make sense? They jump on the bandwagon and all they can say is "ITS TURRBLE LOL". I articulated this point a few posts back, but feel compelled to bring it back up again.

I openly admit there are some not so good voices in the NPCs, but as you said, the main characters are fine.

The feeling you get with the atmosphere I got when playing the English one. I have never played the Japanese version admittedly, but since hardly anybody here is fluent in the language, how do we know we are not romanticizing the voices in the original? There may be just the same amount of goofiness, if not more. I seem to remember Kiyuu saying that one of the main characters' voices left something to be desired, if I recall correctly.

Himuro wrote: Not only that, but Shenmue 1 dub is fantastic by virtue of its hilarity. Komine and the sailors delivery particularly. YOU LYING?!?! DON'T FORGET TO SAY GOODBYE! WAYYYYYYYY UNCOOL (Ryo sounds like such a geek here hahahaha). Game is the funniest unintentionally hilarious game of all time for me. It adds to the martial arts movie cheese and makes it feel authentic to the experience, being a big fan of wuxia film.

Now compare to Shenmue II. Shenmue II dub really doesn't have hilarious VO like the original game. Outside of maybe Xiuying's voice I'd even just say it's flat out terrible. It doesn't have the same weight or emotion of the original dub, but it doesn't have the charm and comedy of the first games dub either. It's just there, and it fucking sucks.

Komine is the baker, correct? My disc one is not working again (I am cursed), so my memory is fuzzy, but I do agree that the first and last lines you mentioned do sound cheesy. The middle one though, I never had any issue with. I also never had any issue with most of the English voices in either Shenmue I or Shenmue II, and I thoroughly disagree that is just a riot of laughter every time you pop in the game. You'd have to be one pompous and arrogant native speaker to claim that. To compare most of Shenmue's voice acting to something like The Wand Of Gamelon is a bit of a stretch to me, but to each his own, I guess.

I loved the main character's voices in both games. Terry, Lan Di, Chai, Yuan, Xiuying, Ryo, Iwao, Fuku-san, Ren, Guizhang, Zhu...sometimes Dou Niu.

Supa wrote:Komine is the baker, correct? My disc one is not working again (I am cursed), so my memory is fuzzy, but I do agree that the first and last lines you mentioned do sound cheesy. The middle one though, I never had any issue with. I also never had any issue with most of the English voices in either Shenmue I or Shenmue II, and I thoroughly disagree that is just a riot of laughter every time you pop in the game. You'd have to be one pompous and arrogant native speaker to claim that. To compare most of Shenmue's voice acting to something like The Wand Of Gamelon is a bit of a stretch to me, but to each his own, I guess.

I loved the main character's voices in both games. Terry, Lan Di, Chai, Yuan, Xiuying, Ryo, Iwao, Fuku-san, Ren, Guizhang, Zhu...sometimes Dou Niu.

Naw, Shenmue is the funniest game ever. My grasp on language is fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L52OIIZHaKE

What about Chai's voice? It is the epitome hyper over acted kung fu movie cheese.

LAN DI-SAMA?!?! THAT'S MY DREAM!

GYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! as he jumps off a roof in secret.

TELL ME ALL YOU KNOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

Haha Chai is fucking awful. Having that voice in a serious video game story.



Throw in another win for the Japanese VO superiority.

So how do normal rooftop jumping, creepy hunchbacks sound?

Not much of a difference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM0JFm8 ... 4&index=79

Supa wrote: Okay, realism is a nonissue to pick apart here. If you are so much of a stickler that one of your complaints is that the people would be more likely to speak English than Japanese, then you probably should just not play Shenmue II past the Dou Niu fight, because realism lies out the window once you get to know Shenhua and step inside that cave.

I don't have a problem with it. Realism in game to me in fact means only that its world must have internal consistency, and Shenmue got that. As example, if I was playing Shemue 1 & 2 in English all this time and the game takes place now in Thailand, I would expect the people there to speak in English and not in Thai; Unless in Shenmue's world the US colonized most of the Asian countries but not all of them. Anyway, my comment on my previous post only meant to compliment the English cast of Shenmue 2.

Supa wrote:I never have an issue with people liking one over the other, it is simply the fact that a lot of people cannot seem to intelligently defend their opinion outside of just being a Japanophile, does that make sense? They jump on the bandwagon and all they can say is "ITS TURRBLE LOL". I articulated this point a few posts back, but feel compelled to bring it back up again.

I openly admit there are some not so good voices in the NPCs, but as you said, the main characters are fine.

The feeling you get with the atmosphere I got when playing the English one. I have never played the Japanese version admittedly, but since hardly anybody here is fluent in the language, how do we know we are not romanticizing the voices in the original? There may be just the same amount of goofiness, if not more. I seem to remember Kiyuu saying that one of the main characters' voices left something to be desired, if I recall correctly.

Nozomi's Amulet Scene in Japanese:


Nozomi's Amulet Scene in English:


On the intonation and overall level of energy, Nozomi in the Japanese version appears to be more talkative and assertive in general, while in the English one she seems bashful and not very confident. You could even say they are different people. It may seem all subtle but it's there. You can tell specially by the number of "sounds" Nozomi makes on each scene (fewer in the English one) and the enthusiasm in her voice.

Look, I'm not saying one is better than the other, and I applaud the English VO actress effort as she must have had a hard time matching her speech with the "weird" body language of the character (which was intended to behave very Japanese like). So it's just preference.

Overall I got a slightly different experience playing each version. PS. Chai in the English version is perfect IMO. He's the exact counterpart to the Japanese one, same as Ryo.