Shenmue Dojo

So there's a topic like this for Shenmue and since it's specifically for the first game, why not have one for the second? Shenmue II improved in a lot of aspects but is there something that still bugs you? Or something you consider worse?

- Making Tiger Gate Kung Fu absolutely pointless
This always annoyed me. They have this neat looking martial arts school in Kowloon. It is somewhat out of the way and it would be a great reward if you'd get something when you stumble across it. But no. Not only are there no moves to buy or learn, there isn't even remotely anything that the master there has to say. He tells Ryo to go away, when he has no question and he doesn't even know about the street fighters.

This is such a wasted opportunity to have something happen there. I know it greatly enhances the believability of the world when not everything has a meaning or has to be visited but come on, Shenmue is a martial arts story and there are so many useless stores to fulfill this role.

- Emptiness of Beverly Hills Wharf
This area feels really empty compared to the others. There's really not much point here other than finding Ren and fighting the Heavens. This wouldn't be so bad if it was smaller. The size of this area is actually pretty good but everything looks too much alike and there is nothing to do other than the Wild Man street fight.

I know this is a gang territory but there are enough casual NPCs in this area. I wouldn't know anything unique to put there but the place could at least be filled with a lot of gambling stands and maybe more street fights. This would definately make sense if you consider that you have to make money when you are around this area.

- No free training
I guess this doesn't need any further explanation. They should've at least give the option to spar with Jianmin as long as you want and have someone to fill this role in Kowloon, wich brings me to that Kung Fu school again...

The Ghost Hall Building plank QTEs; specifically, the differences between those and the ones in the Yellow Head Building, and how the latter ones nullify the former. The Ghost Hall is building is where we are first introduced to the plank QTEs, and they are infamous both for their difficulty and the severe penalty for failure; if you fail just one of the QTE inputs, Ryo falls and you're forced to start right from the ground floor. (Then there's the ridiculousness of the cutscene that occurs after you've failed in which Ryo stares up at the planks and says something like, "I'd better be careful not to fall." Why on earth would they play this cutscene only after you've failed the QTE and not the very first time you enter the building? It just seems so incorrect.)

So, later on, in the Yellow Head Building, you're faced with some more planks, only this time if you fail you simply start from the beginning of that particular plank, as opposed to having to start the entire floor over again, despite it being much later on in the game, by which time players should be expected to know the penalty for failing; a penalty that no longer applies. The Ghost Hall Building planks were there to beat the mechanic into the player, and yet they completely do away with it later on in the game.

Unless I'm missing the point, it's just silly and confusing.

1.) Not including the boat chapter
2.) No items to examine... except a single cup at the Come Over Guest House..
3.) Not getting a hot coffee mini game with Joy.
4.) No free training
5.) Less magic weather effects
6.) Weird ass 1st person fighting @ the Beverly Hills Warf
7.) No shop keeper in the single store in Languishan
8.) Not letting the crag day music play out properly.
9.) THAT IT ENDED!!!!!!!!

SMDzero wrote: 1.) Not including the boat chapter

Wouldn't that be a shenmue 1 blunder seeing that shenmue 1 has 3 discs while shenmue 2 has 4?

SMDzero wrote: 2.) No items to examine... except a single cup at the Come Over Guest House..

What do you mean? Shenmue II is definately lacking something to match the Hazuki house but Huang's Room, Yuanda Zhu's office and Shenhua's house have lots of items to examine too.

SMDzero wrote: 5.) Less magic weather effects

To be fair, one cannot expect it to snow in Hong Kong but I agree that the rain looks a bit weak in comparison.

ShenGCH wrote:The Ghost Hall is building is where we are first introduced to the plank QTEs, and they are infamous both for their difficulty and the severe penalty for failure; if you fail just one of the QTE inputs, Ryo falls and you're forced to start right from the ground floor. (Then there's the ridiculousness of the cutscene that occurs after you've failed in which Ryo stares up at the planks and says something like, "I'd better be careful not to fall." Why on earth would they play this cutscene only after you've failed the QTE and not the very first time you enter the building? It just seems so incorrect.)

Is that actually what happens? After my first time through the game, I stopped doing the entire thing and just climb up to the 6th(?) floor via the Thousand White Bldg and cross into Ghost Hall. I was pretty sure you get a cutscene normally when you enter from the bottom, and by skipping entering from the bottom that cutscene just gets deferred to when you fall.

When I played the game last in 2014, I just ended up skipping that part altogether and used the map glitch to go through the barriers so I wouldn't need to do the plank QTE's anymore.

BlueMue wrote:To be fair, one cannot expect it to snow in Hong Kong but I agree that the rain looks a bit weak in comparison.

According to Puri_Puri (the guy who holds the Shenmue II speedrun record), if it's a rainy day when you get to the part where you chase Ren or his buddies from Pigeon Park, Ren can be seen running with an open umbrella in hand. I've never gotten it to work though.

BlueMue wrote:

SMDzero wrote: 2.) No items to examine... except a single cup at the Come Over Guest House..

What do you mean? Shenmue II is definately lacking something to match the Hazuki house but Huang's Room, Yuanda Zhu's office and Shenhua's house have lots of items to examine too.

SMDzero wrote: 5.) Less magic weather effects

To be fair, one cannot expect it to snow in Hong Kong but I agree that the rain looks a bit weak in comparison.

I mean completely useless items to examine just for the hell of it that Shenmue had loads of (pointy polygonal orange anyone?) Every item in Shenmue 2 (except for that single cup always had some sort of puzzle angle to it).

They also could have added superior weather effects if not more of them (like enhanced rain effects that featured in MGS2 that same year).

I always viewed the Hazuki house like the Lara Croft's manor of Shenmue. A symbolic and marvelous hub that can be compared with nothing else in Shenmue but I admit that the lack of telephone disappointed me a bit at the time. No food system to follow the Chawan sign often irritated me too.

Shenmue 2 is so close to perfection, there's not much you can call a blunder, and the couple things you can, was clearly not Yu's fault(He was basically forced to push it out, due to Sega folding sigh, if he didn't, Shenmue 2 would've never hit shelves).

There's really only 2 problems, if you ignore the fact he has designed both games, using arcade game design techniques(which can been seen as a good thing, as well as negative, since it has gave us so much to talk about for over 16 years)

Well anyway there's 2 blunders, only one of which can be considered Yu's doing.

The crate moving job, It's got to be the dumbest implementation of QTEs, in the history of QTEs, It's so stupid, you can't even think about it, without almost dying of laughter.

For those wondering, the issue that Isn't Yu's fault, is the forced first person perspective during fights in the Beverly Hills alleyway segments.

Camera turning issues were common back then with 3D games, but with how skillful Yu Suzuki is, I'm sure he could've fixed it, if he wasn't forced to rush it out the door.

Mr357 wrote:According to Puri_Puri (the guy who holds the Shenmue II speedrun record), if it's a rainy day when you get to the part where you chase Ren or his buddies from Pigeon Park, Ren can be seen running with an open umbrella in hand. I've never gotten it to work though.

That sounds hillarious. I guess it must've been a glitch. I don't know if Ren is ever meant to hold an umbrella.

SMDzero wrote:I mean completely useless items to examine just for the hell of it that Shenmue had loads of (pointy polygonal orange anyone?) Every item in Shenmue 2 (except for that single cup always had some sort of puzzle angle to it).

Well, if you think it through all the way you could say the Hazuki house is based around a puzzle aswell.
You have to find the Phoenix Mirror so you search the house and you have to find the flashlight and key there.

But then again it has a lot of useful but story irrelevant items too. Shenmue II has two places with capsule toys and a flyer that go into the inventory to compare them.

BlueMue wrote:

Mr357 wrote:According to Puri_Puri (the guy who holds the Shenmue II speedrun record), if it's a rainy day when you get to the part where you chase Ren or his buddies from Pigeon Park, Ren can be seen running with an open umbrella in hand. I've never gotten it to work though.

That sounds hillarious. I guess it must've been a glitch. I don't know if Ren is ever meant to hold an umbrella.

SMDzero wrote:I mean completely useless items to examine just for the hell of it that Shenmue had loads of (pointy polygonal orange anyone?) Every item in Shenmue 2 (except for that single cup always had some sort of puzzle angle to it).

Well, if you think it through all the way you could say the Hazuki house is based around a puzzle aswell.
You have to find the Phoenix Mirror so you search the house and you have to find the flashlight and key there.

But then again it has a lot of useful but story irrelevant items too. Shenmue II has two places with capsule toys and a flyer that go into the inventory to compare them.

Yea, as far as interactivity with the environment goes, Shenmue 1, and Shenmue 2 have the exact same amount pretty much(hell, if anything, Shenmue 2 has slightly more, if you count certain optional scenarios), the only difference is, Shenmue 2 is at very least, 10 times bigger then Shenmue 1, so it is a less "percentage" of the game, that has items that can be interacted with.

If there was a random item generator, for placing obtainable items inside all those rooms in the highrise buildings, that would've been more then enough to shut people up about such.

I find it hilarious that people use Xuiying's room as a focus point, in trying to claim that Shenmue 2 has a lot less interaction with items. Ryo is a guest, why the hell, should he be going through someone elses things, let alone a female's personal belongings? I can't fathom Ryo being that kind of person.

Ghost Hall, easily. Then again, the menacing atmosphere wouldn't be the same if you could just waltz up. I don't think you should have able to use the elevator. I think there should have been only two plank qtes and they should have been saved for the final floor to get across to Zhu.

Another thing, but it's a nitpick. I wish you could have been able to ask the guy at man mo martial arts about different martial arts you come across in the Shenmue series. See if he knows anything about Lan Di's style or even Ryo's, or Xiuying's. I think any martial art presented in the game, from Ryo, down to Eileen's, Jiaming's, or the Kung Fu school's style should have had a large dossier to learn more about them. The Man mo Kung fu guy would have been an excellent guide through the games' arts.

Ehhh, I wish you could travel back to Hong Kong while on disc 2 but that's asking for too much.

Zoltor wrote: Shenmue 2 is so close to perfection, there's not much you can call a blunder, and the couple things you can, was clearly not Yu's fault(He was basically forced to push it out, due to Sega folding sigh, if he didn't, Shenmue 2 would've never hit shelves).

There's really only 2 problems, if you ignore the fact he has designed both games, using arcade game design techniques(which can been seen as a good thing, as well as negative, since it has gave us so much to talk about for over 16 years)

Well anyway there's 2 blunders, only one of which can be considered Yu's doing.

The crate moving job, It's got to be the dumbest implementation of QTEs, in the history of QTEs, It's so stupid, you can't even think about it, without almost dying of laughter.

For those wondering, the issue that Isn't Yu's fault, is the forced first person perspective during fights in the Beverly Hills alleyway segments.

Camera turning issues were common back then with 3D games, but with how skillful Yu Suzuki is, I'm sure he could've fixed it, if he wasn't forced to rush it out the door.

Yeah the crate moving was awful.. especially in the Dreamcast version where you're forced to stare at Ryo's ass for the next subtitle to appear over it.

I just thought moving each crate 15 feet was a pointless job too... like digging ditches only to fill them back up again.

Also please elaborate on the limited camera and why it necessitated 1st person fighting in cramped corners. I thought the 1st person fighting was just another example of Suzuki experimenting with something new.

I also do agree that it would have been weird to be able to shift through Xiuyings draws and examine her unmentionables. Could you imagine getting caught? What would Xiuying DO to Ryo? Probably kill him or beat him within an inch of his life.

SMDzero wrote:

Zoltor wrote: Shenmue 2 is so close to perfection, there's not much you can call a blunder, and the couple things you can, was clearly not Yu's fault(He was basically forced to push it out, due to Sega folding sigh, if he didn't, Shenmue 2 would've never hit shelves).

There's really only 2 problems, if you ignore the fact he has designed both games, using arcade game design techniques(which can been seen as a good thing, as well as negative, since it has gave us so much to talk about for over 16 years)

Well anyway there's 2 blunders, only one of which can be considered Yu's doing.

The crate moving job, It's got to be the dumbest implementation of QTEs, in the history of QTEs, It's so stupid, you can't even think about it, without almost dying of laughter.

For those wondering, the issue that Isn't Yu's fault, is the forced first person perspective during fights in the Beverly Hills alleyway segments.

Camera turning issues were common back then with 3D games, but with how skillful Yu Suzuki is, I'm sure he could've fixed it, if he wasn't forced to rush it out the door.

Yeah the crate moving was awful.. especially in the Dreamcast version where you're forced to stare at Ryo's ass for the next subtitle to appear over it.

I just thought moving each crate 15 feet was a pointless job too... like digging ditches only to fill them back up again.

Also please elaborate on the limited camera and why it necessitated 1st person fighting in cramped corners. I thought the 1st person fighting was just another example of Suzuki experimenting with something new.

I also do agree that it would have been weird to be able to shift through Xiuyings draws and examine her unmentionables. Could you imagine getting caught? What would Xiuying DO to Ryo? Probably kill him or beat him within an inch of his life.

Yea, you know It's bad, when you can't do such, without almost dying of laughter, it has to be one of the dumbest events in a game, in the entire history of gaming.

Well back in the late 90s, game developers had a really hard time turning the camera when the MC is too close to a wall. The camera its self, would act like a invisible yet very physical object, so the MC would need to be away from the wall, for the camera to turn.


Lol yea, Xuiying would so beat the living hell out of Ryo.