Initial dislike of Shenmue?

[ShenGCH]

As someone who was well and truly captivated and fascinated by Shenmue very early on the first time I played it - not knowing any different - I thought it would be interesting to see if anyone here initially disliked the game, and for what reason(s), until things started falling into place and you finally warmed to it and (possibly) fell in love with it.

Anyone?

[Axm]

Initially I felt the inside of the house was hard to navigate around. But I got used to it.
Waiting for Charlie still gets to me though and glad they implimented the skip time feature in S2.

[FlagshipFighter]

first time i played shenmue, i also found the controls very hard & stiff (unlike any other game i had played). i remember playing for 10 mins and then deciding to take a break & turned the console off.

funny because now, i would say the controls are what makes shenmue, so good. you dont want fluid, easy controls - you want to force ryo around the game. (i would say sleeping dogs is a good example, as the main character has no "weight")

[Chaos]

Initially I felt the inside of the house was hard to navigate around. But I got used to it.

Pretty much this. I remember the first few minutes annoying me, but never did I dislike the game.

Waiting around never bothered me though. I always use the time to go play games in the arcade all day or something.

[BlueMue]

I don't remember ever having anything against the game. I jumped in, full of expectations and was never let down.
I found it a bit lame that the subtitles were English only but that's really the only negative thing I could've said about the game. Wasn't an issue though. My English was already good enough so I didn't miss anything.

I think it was easier to just like the game when I was just released. I believe among the people who intially didn't like the game there are more that picked the game up years later.

[Chaos]

It helped that I was super excited to play the game when it came out thanks to a demo disc I had from a magazine or something. The trailer it had blew me away. Any problem I had with the controls went away once I started exploring the world.

[Supa]

I didn't hear of it until the DC was dead sadly. My copy was second hand, and my parents bought it for me at a flea market. I didn't have high expectations because I just wasn't sure what to expect, but it absolutely blew me away.

I do agree that the house was hard to navigate, though. And Honestly, I'm still not good at sneaking into the Old Warehouse District. :/

[itsthinking95]

I didn't play the game, or even own a Dreamcast until way after it was commercially relevant. I kept seeing all of these reviews and videos about Shenmue. Seeing all the love people have for Shenmue convinced me to pick up a Dreamcast and the game. I popped in the GD-ROM and the first cutscene started... and I was hooked! The music, the graphics, and the dialogue was stunning!... Then... the game froze on a loading screen. I thought the system was broken so I tried other games, they all worked perfectly fine. The disc didn't look too beat up, but it just wouldn't load Ryo's yard! So overall, I liked the game from the beginning, I just didn't like that it wouldn't work :( Eventually I did get a working copy, and the rest is history!

[Peter]

I was the opposite. After reading about it every month in ODM when there was no Internet in my house, and watching the demo disc over and over until I knew every line, piece of music and scene, it would have been easy for it being my own fault for building it up a bit too much and maybe it not being deserved of the pedestal I had pre installed it on.

But for me it even went beyond the hype. From spending an hour of exploring every nook and cranny of Ryos Room after discovering the drawers and cupboard could be opened and objects picked up, I zoomed in on absolutely everything and even explored the items menu before even stepping outside my own room and being greeted by Ine-San. What other game has achieved that?
I understand the reservations of Shenmue and it's various flaws, but it's a game where I will never ever forget when I bought it, where I bought it and how I sat when I played through every bit of it. People forget their first times of playing games, watching movies etc, and judge it after. I could easily do that, and yes, today it can be clunky, annoying and of course, a bit boring. But back then? Christ I was mesmerised in a way that no other game has since done.

[_StreetSonic_]

No initial dislike for me! LOVED IT from the get go. There were and still are parts I don't enjoy; forklift job and race and waiting around. If there is ever a re-release I hope the race and waiting around are skip-able. The job can stay because I think it is an important part of the experience.

[ShinChuck]

I was the opposite. After reading about it every month in ODM when there was no Internet in my house, and watching the demo disc over and over until I knew every line, piece of music and scene, it would have been easy for it being my own fault for building it up a bit too much and maybe it not being deserved of the pedestal I had pre installed it on.

But for me it even went beyond the hype. From spending an hour of exploring every nook and cranny of Ryos Room after discovering the drawers and cupboard could be opened and objects picked up, I zoomed in on absolutely everything and even explored the items menu before even stepping outside my own room and being greeted by Ine-San. What other game has achieved that?
I understand the reservations of Shenmue and it's various flaws, but it's a game where I will never ever forget when I bought it, where I bought it and how I sat when I played through every bit of it. People forget their first times of playing games, watching movies etc, and judge it after. I could easily do that, and yes, today it can be clunky, annoying and of course, a bit boring. But back then? Christ I was mesmerised in a way that no other game has since done.

I was this as well as well, almost to a T! Multiple times, I gathered friends and family around to watch that ODCM teaser movie, and was just utterly enthralled by the game when it came out.

[sand4fish]

I had an initial dislike for Shenmue, but only for the American voice-over. I thought it was cheesy and awful when I first heard it (and at times depressing... see Nozomi and Ryo's interactions), considering the budget gone for the game. The reason was that I played the Japanese version when it came out, but I didn't finish the game as I didn't know Japanese so I waited for the NA version to come out. And when I played the NA version, I was so disappointed at the voices of the characters (expect Ryo's and a few others). But after all these years, I learned to appreciate the voice-acting as it tend to be hilarious.

[Kenny]

Yeah, I disliked it when I first played it. And even after playing the first couple of games a few times, I still have this overall dislike over certain things about the series, namely the story and the blandness of the characters.

Shenmue II improved that for the most part, but having to play the lead who had the personality of a moldy plank of wood was pretty much a grind. I spent most of my time playing the Arcade portions, which was the thing that made me decide to buy it back after returning it to Gamestop (or EB whichever it was).

Though I did like exploring in Shenmue I, I think it's the best game to do that because of the compactness and homey feeling it emits. Not to mention the realtime weather and soundtrack, it gives you good vibes.

[manuel tripero]

funny because now, i would say the controls are what makes shenmue, so good. you dont want fluid, easy controls - you want to force ryo around the game. (i would say sleeping dogs is a good example, as the main character has no "weight")

I think that tank controls favour shenmue because it's precise for focusing on a object (or when there may be a lot of objects around) and the "turn around your axis" is quite good for closed quarters.

[GoldenLotus]

Nope. I read up about it and knew what I was getting into. Before Shenmue I never played a "cinematic" game. Instantly fell in love with everything about it.