Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

(Chapters 3-6)

Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby Brosauce » Sat Jun 06, 2015 5:07 pm

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.


You are spot on.
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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby johnvivant » Sun Jun 14, 2015 7:17 am

please can someone confirm to me whether or not the PAL Shenmue 2x definitely plays in 60hz, if pal 60hz is activated in the xbox video options.
thanks
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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby BlueMue » Sun Jun 14, 2015 9:40 am

It definately does. What makes you think it doesn't?
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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby Crimson Ryan » Sun Jun 14, 2015 10:24 am

johnvivant wrote: please can someone confirm to me whether or not the PAL Shenmue 2x definitely plays in 60hz, if pal 60hz is activated in the xbox video options.
thanks

Regardless you should have that option checked. There's a few cutscenes where the audio and video will be out of sync near the end of the game..
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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby johnvivant » Sun Jun 14, 2015 2:36 pm

BlueMue wrote: It definately does. What makes you think it doesn't?


i just wanted to make sure that i was matching the setting on my scaler to the same refresh of the game. i have always had the pal60hz option activated on my xbox, but its annoying that you never really know which games support it and which don't.

shenmue 2x was giving me a lot of interlace line distortion at 60hz and i was wondering whether it was actually only running in 50hz.

its a shame microsoft never officially patched in progressive scan for pal xbox's. i get better image quality from my ps2.

thanks for the confirmation.
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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby Thief » Thu Jun 18, 2015 12:56 am

I've been looking over Shenmue II voices in Japanese recently out of curiosity, and my god, is Fangmei's voice horrible in Japanese. It's almost a deal breaker for me. Although, I do like Xiu Ying's voice slightly better in Japanese... but Fangmei...
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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby Supa » Thu Jun 18, 2015 3:19 pm

sand4fish wrote:
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:
phpBB [video]


Nozomi's Amulet Scene in English:
phpBB [video]


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.



Good points. I think Nozomi's English voice is perfect, she seems to me like a shy girl, and her voice matches that. Ya know, she likes a guy who won't respond to her? I think it matches perfectly.

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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby Sonoshee » Sat Jun 20, 2015 5:45 pm

I couldn't even make it past the Come Over Guest House because of the awful voice "acting".
The Dreamcast version is superior in every way minus the frame rate issues.

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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby Supa » Mon Jun 22, 2015 6:05 pm

Oh come on, it's not THAT bad.

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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby zaneiken » Tue Jun 30, 2015 10:33 pm

I think it's a bit unfair comparing the DC version running through VGA to the Xbox version on composite.
Yes the bloom lighting and the blur filtering is annoying as hell, but playing the Xbox version in 480p over component is still a significant step up from composite and actually looks half decent - not as nice as playing in 720p on Xbox 360, but at least all the shadows are there and the music doesn't cut out.
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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby Three Blades » Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:47 pm

Playing Shenmue in Japanese for the 1st time was like a veil being lifted from my eyes, and there is no way I will ever go back to that god-awful dub.

The Japanese version is a lot more immersive and realistic, in big part because of how the cultures of Yokosuka are represented. I love how all the foreigners talk with the accents of their home countries. This aspect was completely lost in the dub and a lot of the realism was lost. Also, saying that "Shenmue isn't realistic because it has magic" is kind of a stupid thing to bring up, because that has nothing to do with the type of realism that we're discussing in regards to the dub. It's like talking about oranges when we're discussing apples.

When it comes to Shenmue 2, of course, that realistic side isn't really present, since the game is in Japanese, but takes place in China. Still, if you think that the English dub is anywhere NEAR on the same level as the original, you are severely kidding yourself. (Ren sounds like a p*ssy and even Ryo sounds more bored than he did in S1).
I mean, there's nothing wrong with liking the dub, but I'm just being real here.
Last edited by Three Blades on Wed Jul 01, 2015 9:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby Gen » Wed Jul 01, 2015 4:35 am

Supa wrote: Oh come on, it's not THAT bad.


Yes it is.

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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby Sonoshee » Wed Jul 01, 2015 7:39 am

Thief wrote: I've been looking over Shenmue II voices in Japanese recently out of curiosity, and my god, is Fangmei's voice horrible in Japanese. It's almost a deal breaker for me. Although, I do like Xiu Ying's voice slightly better in Japanese... but Fangmei...


Fangmei's Japanese V.O is great! Especially when Ryo "calls" her a cat :P
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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby Master Kyodai » Wed Jul 01, 2015 1:15 pm

I always kept my mouth shut about the Xbox version, but now that Shenmue 3 is confirmed i feel i can finally tell the truth. And i really hate to say anything bad about any Shenmue game, but Shenmue IIx was such a crap.

Sure if you didn't have a dreamcast you had an "OK" conversion of Shenmue II, but since i already had the dreamcast version i was dumb enough to shell out money for that crap. Call me naiive, but i had thought like "Wow, you have the newest Next Gen console, time to see Shenmue 2 as it was meant to be". Hell that was dumb. The Xbox Version was one of the worst ports i have ever seen. Personally i don't even find the voice acting THAT bad (Well it is quite bad compared to the Japanese, but still "average" for a video game, imho).

The worst is that they didn't improve it at all. With the power of the XBox I was expecting high res textures, more detailed models/scenes and jaw dropping effects. Hell yeah my jaw DID drop, but not out of excitement but because i was so terrified. Same low res textures, some dumb glitches like the forgot the glass for some buildings/objects, they misplaced some stuff, deleted loads of signs in the city and resized some textures improperly.

Really - to me the ONLY thing that was improved was the look of the water in the game, kudos for that - but the rest was just handled by monkeys who made small details worse. Ah yeah the added a screenshot mode (Never wanted one) and these fugly filters that made the poor result look even worse. Yeah don't get me started about the music and sound, i was expecting to have exceptional cinema quality dolby surround and i think the only scene where i noticed the surround crap was when lan Di got away with his helicopter.

Seriously - if you didn't have the dreamcast version (both!) you sucked anyways and if you did have them and still bought the xbox version you're just a dumb retard like me. I think i have NEVER been more disappointed with any video game purchase. This port was such a ripoff and personally i always felt it was the nail in the coffin and the reason why Shenmue 3 was truly canceled. Glad I was wrong about the later part. But if you love Shenmue then you better forget there was an Xbox version, it's just embarrasing. As i said - if you only had an Xbox back in the days you got an "OK" conversion, but for real Dreamcast fans like me that version was like spitting in my face.
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Re: Why I Think Shenmue 2x is better

Postby Thief » Wed Jul 01, 2015 1:43 pm

^ eh, a lot of those things I don't find particularly important. I've seen all the differences in texture (with signs and missing glass 'n junk) and it's kind of whatever to me. It doesn't really impact anything if you're not familiar with the other version, and even if you are familiar, I wouldn't really care because... well it's like signs and shit, who cares?

The music and sound sounded fine to me, and the bloom isn't necessarily bad, I think it looks fine. I think the bloom thing is a bit of overreacting from people who are familiar with the original and don't like how it looks "different" more than anything. I'm sure someone can yell at me and tell me Im wrong -- but I thought Shenmue IIx looked fine.

The voice acting is the biggest difference and the only one that matters to me personally -- as it substantially changes the experience. I think the Japanese voice acting is, for the most part, fine, however, it's not all that interesting to me so I just don't care to play the game that way. Some of the actors we're just strange in Shenmue IIx and it genuinely made listening to them/talking to them a really interesting thing to do. Even ignoring the strange elements, some characters in Shenmue II did a pretty great job -- and not just in that strange/alluring shenmue lull kind of way.

As I said earlier, Fang Mei is one of the reasons why I prefer the English voice dub.

phpBB [video]


comparing this video to this video

phpBB [video]


In the Japanese version, Fang Mei sounds very "anime-school-girl" and her voice comes across as completely generic and uninteresting to me. While, in the English version her voice has a very melancholic yet uplifting quality to it. I thought whoever voiced Fang Mei was fantastic.

Shenmue IIx is my favorite game -- it's far from crap, just different from Shenmue II for dreamcast.
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