Shenmue Dojo

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. Everyone likes to think that they want to return to the bygone, halcyon days when all this were fields (they weren’t) and life was good (it wasn’t, you were just too young/stupid/ignorant), but the fact is that returning to most nostalgic loves rarely works out well. We hate ourselves for downloading Game Room.

Some works however survive unscathed, and seem to get better with age. Super Mario Bros 3, for example. Sensible Soccer. And yes, Shenmue II, despite its flaws.

Flaws like the shoddy camera, and Ryo controlling like he’s recently suffered a spinal injury, and the dialogue (and dub in the Xbox version) being generally poor. But even these flaws can’t stop Shenmue II being great: any game that cuts you loose in Hong Kong and Kowloon to peruse at your leisure, to wrap yourself in all of the incidental details, to marvel at the architecture and get lost in an amazing adventure (in the purest sense of the word) is obviously brilliant.

It’s a great game that many on Team X360 play every year, akin to watching Indiana Jones at Christmas: warm and fuzzies all round, dusting off books and getting into underground pit-fighting rings. Beautiful.

But do we need a sequel? The answer for many is, obviously, yes, but aren’t they worried that it’ll all go a bit The Godfather Part III? Granted, that was transparently a cash-in, a money grab, and Shenmue III was always planned as a sweeping, multi-part epic. However, can Yu Suzuki possibly deliver a sequel that has been building, unfurling in people’s minds since 2001? Can even his talents produce something that could come close to matching expectations?

We’d wager not, if only because there’s a certain romantic appeal to Sega strangling the series before it played out, of a lost chapter that we’d have to imagine ourselves from the few crumbs of info available. Making another instalment that will probably run counter to these unrealistic dreams rarely works out well.

Just ask George Lucas.

Let's Get Sweaty wrote: Well they do have an audience, like aspiring young critic Mavin here.

KiBa wrote: There are so many anti-Shenmue blasphemers, like this guy:

I think we need an Inquisition.

Let's Get Sweaty wrote: It always frustrates me when people say Shenmue III shouldn't be made in case it doesn't live up to the originals. I mean, Christ. Are these same people afraid to cross the road? We'd never get anything done if we just played it safe to preserve the unchallenged and unproven image of how it "could" have gone in our minds. Shenmue itself would never have been made, for a start. Yu Suzuki would be talking about this epic open world adventure that "would" have captured the imaginations of gamers around the world, and we'd be saying, "Yeah, sure. Suppose you're going to tell us it would have been better than Crash Bandicoot 17? (Hope they don't make a Crash 18... Leave the memories alone!)"

Ryudo wrote: Fuck Xbox mag. No one reads console mags anymore and dying off so they write whit like this to get attention.

Why Shenmue III is a bad idea

Who Really Cares? wrote:

Ryudo wrote: Fuck Xbox mag. No one reads console mags anymore and dying off so they write whit like this to get attention.

This article was actually posted March last year and 2 mags/newspapers still sell well over here.